Page 9 of Hometown Hottie

Ryan glanced between us again, sighing as he shook his head. “Well, at least now I know you still don’t care about your bike as much as you should. Anyway, are you ever going to tell me why you’re really home? You both were living the dream, and you’re telling me you just left it all behind for life in Silver Springs?”

“We did.” I dropped my elbows on my knees and shrugged. “We’re too old to be taking hits now, man. If I kept going for just one more season, I’d have the knees of an eighty-year-old.”

Ryan scoffed. “We’re not that old.”

“Maybe you’re not.” Vance snorted. “We’ve been in the NFL for a decade, Ry. That’s a decade of putting our bodies on the line day, after day, after day. Eventually, it starts leaving a mark. Well, I already reached leaving a mark about five years ago. By the end of last season, my body was warning me to take it easy.”

“Same,” I agreed. “It was just a matter of time before pushing so hard would lead to a permanent injury. A career-ending injury. I just figured, what was the point of success if I wouldn’t be healthy enough to enjoy it? I figured it was time to make space for the new kids on the block. The boys with the golden arms who are in their early twenties and who still have strong bones.”

“Fair enough.” Ryan paused, then let out a soft burst of laughter. “God, I can’t believe we’re those guys now. The old guys. Yesterday, you were the new kid with the golden arm.”

“Feels that way.” I smirked at him. “Sometimes, it feels like it happened overnight, this whole becoming a veteran thing. One day, we were fresh out of the draft, and the next, we were fresh over the hill, in football years. It’s insane.”

“Yeah, it really is,” Vance said, then inhaled deeply and cracked a smile. “Is that your mom’s famous mac and cheese I smell? Man, it really is the good old days in here.”

“Life was a lot simpler back then,” I said. “There are worse things than being back in the good old days.”

Ryan grimaced when I said it. It was just a flash and then it was gone, but that flash made it clear that he was still a little bit bitter about everything that had happened back then. Probably a little of it had to do with his sister and me, but I had a feeling it was more about everything else than it was about that.

The guy had been just as good a football player as Vance and me—if not better. All those dreams we’d dreamed growing up, he’d dreamed with us. He’d put in the same hours we had. Kept to the same rigid training schedules and diets.

But when the time had come, he’d rejected a scholarship at a big school to go into the trades. While Vance and I had gone to play football as planned, Ryan had stayed behind to work for his family. I still didn’t understand it.

It had come out of nowhere back then, and even though we’d lost touch at times and resumed it at others, I still didn’t know what had really happened. If it was still hurting him, though, I wasn’t about to push. Not yet.

“So you’ve still got your bike,” I said. “I’m willing to bet you have a few new stories about her.”

Sufficiently distracted, Ryan grinned and launched into a few colorful descriptions of trips he’d taken over the years.

They stayed for a couple hours and we shot the breeze, and when they left, I went to hunt down my mom in the kitchen. Weird as it might be to be home, having her so close after so long was a definite benefit.

Her jet-black hair was now shot through with streaks of silver, and crow’s feet were etched into the skin around her eyes. It was clear every time I looked at her how much time had really passed. How many years had gone by when I’d barely gotten to spend any time at all with her.

“Did you get to visit the bakery?” she asked as she sat down at the breakfast bar with me, wearing her standard jeans and a white blouse with puffy sleeves. “Oh, no. Wait. Nova wasn’t open, was she? I’m so sorry I forgot to tell you, honey. Please tell me I didn’t waste your time by sending you to a closed store.”

“You could never waste my time, Mom,” I said without a word of a lie. “I went by there, but most of the baskets in the windows were empty. They seemed pretty sold out.”

“She always is,” Mom said fondly, her eyes crinkling in a smile. She glanced at the empty pastry box next to the garbage bin. “Nova’s place is wonderfully popular around here. She changed our lives the day she opened it. She bakes with the town’s recipes but without us having to make it all ourselves. It’s been a real game-changer.”

I listened with interest, trying to hide the intensity of it behind going to get myself some water. “That’s great. I’m happy if it’s going well with the Murphys.”

Mom smiled sadly when I glanced at her over my shoulder. “I never said that, but at least her businesses are doing well.”

“So what else has she been up to all these years?” I asked off-handedly, knowing that my mom knew the answers I was craving.

She knew everything about everyone. Not because she was a gossip but because people loved talking to her. A pillar of the community, salt of the earth type of woman who always just wanted to help.

“That’s what she’s been up to,” Mom said. “Since she got home from college, anyway. Armed with a degree in Agriculture from Oklahoma State University, she came back to twist George’s arm to let her open a bakery on the ranch.”

A faraway look crept into Mom’s eyes, her mouth twisting in sympathy. “He and Mara sure got lucky with those kids, both sticking around just when they needed help most.”

My insides were burning about curiosity to find out more. Ryan and Nova were both proud people. Too proud to ask for help and too stubborn to accept it even if they needed it, but damn.

It didn’t sound like life had been kind to them while I’d been gone. I just didn’t know yet what all it had thrown at them or how they had made it through.