AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Calm down, I think she’s a friend who’s having trouble with her family. But she might be a girlfriend,” Thomas admitted sheepishly. “I don’t want to pry. But Carly says she’ll know as soon as she sees them together. Same as she did with you and Brenda, Galen.”
Galen ignored that blatant attempt to pry. Brenda was busy with her book, which she didn’t want anyone to know about. He also had no intention of talking about their sex-saturated nights at his house.
Best not to say much about her at all.
Thomas changed the subject. “How was the season, Billy? Not just the stats, but the inside shit.”
Billy shrugged his wide shoulders. “It’s over. Kinda want to forget about it.”
Galen exchanged a glance with Thomas, and he knew they were thinking the same thing. Something was going on that Billy wasn’t ready to talk about.
“Injuries?”
“Nothing major. You’d know if I did.”
“Trade rumors?”
“Not rumors, but my agent’s worried,” he said reluctantly. “He thinks they want to trade me to the Rays. Tampa Bay,” he added when Galen looked blank. Galen paid almost no attention to sports, other than baseball when Billy was playing. Otherwise, he tended to zone out and forget what the hell everyone was doing.
“And?” Thomas prodded. “You into that or not?”
“It’s really far. It’s hard enough to see the boys during the season when I’m here in Minnesota. I don’t want to think about it.” Gloomily, he reeled his line in.
“They have warm water fishing down there.” Galen tried to find silver linings to cheer him up. “Swamps. Alligators. Manatees.” And there he reached the end of his knowledge about Florida. Ask him anything about Minnesota, and he’d be able to answer. Other states, not so much. Maybe he was a little too rooted to this place.
“Disney World,” added Thomas. “The boys would love that. White sand beaches. Lots of sun.”
Galen shuddered. Lying on a beach with nothing to do but stare up at the sun and hope you didn’t burn sounded nightmarish to him.
Billy groaned. “Can we please change the subject? Galen. You’re up.”
“Up to what?”
“That’s the question.”
“Nothing. I’m up to nothing.” He said it so quickly that his two brothers both did a double-take. A double double-take, in other words.
“That’s fucking bullshit. You cut your hair and shaved your beard. I’d call that something.”
“Okay, yeah. I finally did the deed. Beard’s growing out. I don’t know how you raw-skins do it. My skin was crying.” He rubbed his jaw, wincing at the memory. By now his beard was an inch thick, even more lush and black than before. Brenda loved it. She said it added an extra element of tactile sensuality—or something like that. She had the big words and she wasn’t afraid to use them.
“Raw-skins?” Billy snorted. “You make it sound so nasty.”
“It was for me. Never doing that again.”
“Why not? You looked pretty good without the beard.” The first time Thomas had seen him without the beard, he’d almost walked right past him. “A little like…him.”
They all knew who he was talking about. They always got cryptic when they talked about their father.
“Is that why you didn’t like it?” Bill looked at him curiously. “I look more like him than you do.”
“I’m just not used to it,” Galen muttered. A fish was tugging on his line, so he paused the conversation and reeled it in. The Northern Pike went right into the cooler, still twisting and arcing.
They all focused on fishing for a moment, quietly twitching their lines, watching the few remaining winter birds cruise overhead. A rising breeze turned the surface choppy and made the boat rock back and forth.
Then Billy spoke. “Since we’re on the topic of Dad…”
The atmosphere changed instantly, as if Billy had set off a grenade in the boat. From his tone of voice, he had something important to say. Galen braced himself.
