The Comeback of Roy Walker. Stephanie Doyle

me guess, you couldn’t stay away from the game,” Lane said. “Is that it? The limelight. The rush. The glory. The fans, not that you had many of those. Had to have all that back?”

      “No,” Roy said stiffly. “What I said was true. I need a job. And this is all I know how to do.”

      It was the tone in his voice that stopped her. She knew Roy Walker. He was arrogant and smug on his worst days. A colossal ass on his best. He personified confidence and never let anyone forget that he knew to the dollar what his ability to throw a baseball was worth.

      Now he stood in front of her with his head down. She didn’t think she had ever seen him so...defeated. And she’d seen him after losing an NLCS game that, had he won, would have sent him to the World Series.

      He was Roy Walker, for heaven’s sake. A future first-ballot Hall of Famer. She wanted to slap him if for no other reason than to take that expression off his face.

      “How can you need a job? What happened to all your money?”

      He shook his head. “I lost it.”

      “Millions? Tens of millions?”

      “Eighty million to be exact. I have the house I bought my father, which he still lives in, and a town house in Society Hill in Philadelphia that’s up for sale. Other than that, it’s gone.”

      Lane had a thousand questions about how that could happen, but quickly snapped her jaw shut. She wasn’t supposed to care about that.

      She wasn’t supposed to care about anything when it came to Roy.

      She hated Roy Walker.

      “You seriously thought I would help you make this comeback?”

      He smiled then, not his normal smile. Not the smile that said he knew more about everything than anyone else in the room. Not the smile that suggested he had secrets she might want to uncover.

      No, this smile was completely self-deprecating and it didn’t fit on his mouth.

      “Hell, no, I didn’t think you would help. I told them they were crazy to even ask, but Duff said—”

      “I said she’s my daughter and if she knows it’s important to me, she’ll do it.” Duff leaned back in his chair, his eyes closed. As if he’d been napping during the tense confrontation unfolding in front of him.

      “Why in the hell do you care about Roy Walker, Duff? You know what he did to me.”

      “Yeah, and I told you I’m grateful to him for it. You were hanging on to that loser with two hands and it didn’t look like you were ever letting go. He was dragging you down, sweetie, like an anchor in an ocean.”

      “I was trying to save my marriage, which is what you always told us to do.”

      “Except you married the wrong guy!” Duff snapped. “When you marry the wrong guy, you walk away. Roy here forced you to do that. So, for that, he gets my help. However, my help will take him only so far. If he’s going to make it all the way, he needs more.”

      Instinctively, her therapist brain started clicking in. Lane narrowed her gaze on Roy again. “How long has it been since you threw? I mean, before coming here?”

      “Five years. The game in San Diego was the last time I picked up a ball.”

      Lane knew that game. It was officially the last game she’d ever watched. He’d pitched a no-hitter. She’d been in a bar near the hospital where she had just gotten hired. She was eating a hamburger and drinking a beer and doing everything she could not to look at the television screens filled with a bunch of different baseball games when suddenly they had turned all the TVs to the sports network covering one game in particular.

      After all, it wasn’t every day a pitching legend, during the last game of his historic career, didn’t give up a single hit. Against her will, she’d been as captivated as everyone around her, waiting as he threw each pitch, as he racked up each out, as batter after batter went down in a frustrated huff. Until the ninth inning, when the noise from the crowd at the stadium was so loud, she couldn’t imagine what someone standing on the mound in the center of it all might be hearing.

      Three up, three down. Game over. His teammates had come in from the field, but no one charged him or lifted him off his feet as was typical with such an accomplishment. The catcher simply swatted him on the ass and handed Roy the ball. A few chin nods in his direction and that was it.

      Because everyone knew his teammates didn’t like him. It had been almost hard to watch as the television commentators tried to explain to the national audience why the team’s celebration was so tepid. The best they said about Roy was that he was a loner. The worst they said was that he’d been known to be a cancer in the clubhouse, despite his great talent.

      Lane swallowed the emotion the memory of that day caused her. In truth, she never really understood why she had left the bar to go home and cry her eyes out.

      Letting that puzzle go, she focused on the present.

      “How hard are you throwing now?”

      “I’ve got my fastball up to about eighty-eight.”

      “How does the arm feel?”

      “Hurts like hell.”

      “And your shoulder?” Back in the day when he sought out her therapy services it had always been his shoulder that had bothered him. Sometimes the neck, too.

      “Stiff.”

      Lane nodded. “You rush that arm too fast and you’ll tear something.”

      “That’s what I told him. That’s why he needs you,” Duff said.

      Lane looked at her father and remembered what this was really all about. She was here to make sure her father was okay. Roy was nothing but a sideshow. A particularly attention-grabbing sideshow.

      Lane turned to Roy. “If I do this, it doesn’t mean I forgive you for what you did. You would be nothing but a body to me.”

      “Damn it, girl,” Duff said. “How many times do I have to tell you you should be indebted to him, not angry with him?”

      “You’re wrong, Duff,” Roy said. “You weren’t there. What I did was crappy and I know it. I never got the chance to say it then. I don’t know if you ever got my letter—”

      “I tore it up and threw it out without opening it.”

      Which in hindsight, made her feel like a spiteful, immature girl. Setting her up had been wrong. There was no refuting that. She’d thought they were friends and by manipulating her into that position, he’d hurt her. Some of Danny’s teammates actually had been laughing as she had to make her way out the door of Roy’s place that night. That’s when she’d figured out the other guys on the team had known. Everyone had known Danny was cheating on her.

      She had to get tested for STDs because Danny couldn’t remember all the women he’d been with and couldn’t remember if he’d used a condom every time. The humiliation of that, of knowing how little she meant to him, had been crushing.

      She would never be sure why Roy had done it, either. Why he hadn’t just told her the truth rather than let her find out that way. But, at the end of the day, he hadn’t forced Danny to bring that woman to the party. Hadn’t forced Danny to cheat on her for who knew how much of their marriage. That was Danny’s doing.

      Worst of all, even though he’d initiated the kiss, that crazy kiss that had seemingly come out of the blue, she had been the one to respond. That was all on her. Five years ago it had been so easy to block out that part of the night and wallow in the pain and suffering of the divorce.

      Danny cheated on her and Lane left him. That was a much simpler narrative than the truth. A truth she’d never told anyone. She had fallen out of love with Danny and had been struggling to hang on to something even while she was realizing she was attracted to another man. Yes, definitely