Free My Front Page Scandal by Carrie Alexander Page B

bad luck for me.”
    Rick added blueberry syrup to the cakes. “You’re being one helluva downer.” He guffawed. “Aren’t you here to cheer me up over the heartbreak of my wife yanking me from the lineup?”
    David peered from below the lid of his baseball hat. A man whose infant marriage was breaking up shouldn’t sound so upbeat. Two nights ago it had been another story, when they’d hunkered down in Flaherty’s and David had listened to Rick’s lament over the way Emily had brushed her hair and rubbed his bad shoulder with mint-scented liniment and put cute little love notes among his jockstraps when he went away on road trips.
    “What’s got you so happy?”
    “I talked to Em this morning. She agreed to counseling.”
    “Hunh.” The Rick David used to know would have scoffed at marital counseling; now he was the one to push for it. Something strange happened to a guy once he put a ring on a woman’s finger.
    The waitress plunked down David’s breakfast and he dug in. Maybe there was more to life than hitting baseballs and chasing broads. He hadn’t expected quitting the team would leave him so rudderless. Even the down-home comforts of the farm hadn’t been enough to hold him for long. Learning of Rick’s misery over his separation had been a good excuse to come back to Boston and try to right a wrong. Unfortunately, the paparazzi chase had been just as good a reminder of why he’d left.
    “So what really happened the other night after you left me at Flaherty’s?” Rick asked.
    “Got chased by photographers.” David salted the greasy hash browns. “Crashed my bike. Met a girl.”
    “There was a girl?”
    “She took me to the hospital.” The caffeine had blown a hole through the static in his brain. “An angel of mercy with a body made for sin.” He gestured with his fork. “You should have seen her.”
    “That’s all I’d need, for Em to hear I was out partying with the likes of you.”
    “Then she still hates me?”
    “She never hated you. She only thought you were a bad influence.”
    “She’s probably right.”
    “No.” Rick stroked his square chin, which bristled with a week-old beard. The first thing a man did when he lost a woman or a job was quit shaving. “She never accepted that I was already just like you, even before we met.”
    In David’s opinion, Rick and Emily had always been an unlikely couple. He’d been flattered that a classy woman like her would be interested in him, and she’d been caught up in the glamor and excitement of dating a celebrity athlete. Their adjustment to married life had been bumpy.
    “You mean a dumb jock?”
    “Anyone’d feel dumb around Em’s friends. One of them asked me if I’d ever read Henry James. Gah. And did I tell you she took me to the ballet? The friggin’ ballet. She said I’d like it if I tried it, but after two hours of tutus all I could think was what kind of pretzel a ballerina would be in the sack. After, when Em asked what I thought, and I told her flexible joints made me hot, she said—”
    “Wait. You don’t tell your wife that.”
    “I s’pose not. Except she said to be honest. And then she looked at me with this sad face, and made a tch-tch sound, like I was such a damned disappointment to her…” Rick sighed. He stared at the soggy remnants on his plate. “So tell me about the girl.”
    “We spent the night together.”
    Rick hooted. “Score!”
    “It wasn’t like that.” At least, he hadn’t thought it was until she’d vanished on him. David tested his own stubble. “We had dinner at Vicenzi’s, then we drove all around the city.” He sliced a piece of ham into ribbons. “We talked a lot.”
    “No action?”
    “Some.”
    “Details, man.”
    “Not with this one.”
    Rick reared back, his knuckles bulging as he gripped the steel edge of the counter. He was a big man, stocky and muscular. A real presence. He’d won sixteen games the past season and had been briefly touted for the CyYoung