Getting Lucky (The Portland Pioneers Book 2) (37 page)

Noah decided it was definitely time to change the subject. “What are you and Iz doing for New Year’s?”

“We haven’t decided yet,” Jack said. “I wanted to take her to New York, but well, apparently she isn’t a fan of me trying to buy her affections.” Noah could practically hear Jack rolling his eyes over the phone.

“And this is the woman you’re determined to marry,” Noah teased, glad that they could still have this, even after his earlier confession.

“Absolutely.” Jack paused. “What about you? How are things with you and Maggie? Still good, I assume, since you’re, you know,
you
.”

“A little rocky for a while,” Noah admitted, “mostly because Tabitha
decided to show up for Christmas out of thin air.”

“Oh my god. That must have been. . .interesting.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Noah said wryly. “But things are good now. Better than ever, actually. I told her I loved her.”

If there was ever any doubt in Noah’s mind that Jack was his friend and would probably always
be his friend, Jack’s retort cleared it up once and for all. “Well, shit. Of course you love her. You should have told her immediately, as soon as you knew.”

“You are so whipped.”

“You say it like it’s a bad thing, but it’s
so great,” Jack enthused and Noah couldn’t help but laugh.

“So I’m assuming that you asked Izzy to move in appropriately, without calling her stupid this time around.”

“Yeah. And she is, like next month. Finally.” Jack said this so fervently, if Noah hadn’t known better, he would have believed Izzy hadn’t been spending every waking minute at Jack’s house as it was.

“Just before Spring Training starts,” Noah said, and realized just as he said it that he wouldn’t be flying down to Sarasota again this year. It was going to take some time to get his head adjusted to the fact that he no longer had baseball to structure his life.

“Without you, without Izzy, road trips are going to blow,” Jack said mournfully.

“Technically, you didn’t have her last time.”

“Oh, I had
her, if you catch my drift, just you know, not technically.”

“So all that very manly pining was a figment of my imagination, then?” Noah asked innocently.

“I never
pined,” Jack insisted while Noah only laughed.

Jack started talking about the “small redecoration” that Izzy was talking about starting before she moved into his house, and Noah drifted off, following the animation of Jack’s voice but not really his words. He was halfway to having his eyes closed, even though the sunset was nearly spectacular, when he heard footsteps behind him and turned to see Maggie approaching.

“Hey, man, Maggie’s here. I gotta run,” Noah said when Jack paused briefly in his long explanation of how they were going to change the master bath.

“Fine, ditch me for your new girl.” Jack laughed. “See if I care.”

“Hey, none of that,” Noah chided. “And seriously. . .don’t be a stranger. I think Bryce is going to put together some kind of dinner while I’m up in Portland.”

“Sounds good,” Jack said, clicking off, and Noah didn’t quite like the implication of that knowing tone in Jack’s voice, but then Maggie was there, hugging him and she smelled like oatmeal cookies and he forgot everything but how much he’d missed her this afternoon. How much he’d needed
her and he hadn’t even realized.

“I have some big news,” he told her as she settled down on the half-finished deck next to him.

“Oh?” she asked.

“Pretty monumental news, I guess you could say.” Noah took a deep breath. “I just talked to my agent. Told him that I’m thinking about retiring.”

Maggie’s eyes grew huge. “Retiring?” she squeaked out. “This
year?”

He nodded.

“But. . .but . . .” She seemed a bit lost for words and he realized then that maybe he should have been confiding her a little more about how he was feeling. How much he’d hated that a fastball he took to the head five months ago was dictating his entire life.

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while I guess,” he admitted. “I can’t seem to pass the concussion protocol and I couldn’t help but wonder if I even wanted to.”

“If you don’t want to play, you shouldn’t,” Maggie said gently, wrapping his forearm with her hands and resting her head on his shoulder. “You know I support you no matter what. Whatever you want to do.”

“It’s not that I don’t
want
to play. But I also want to stay here. I want to figure things out between us. I want to remodel this house.” Once the words were out of his mouth, Noah was reminded of how right
they felt, how concrete and real. He’d let Jack throw his certainty a little, which wasn’t too much of a surprise. There was a reason they were such close friends.

“I like that. A lot,” Maggie said, her voice muffled in his shirt. “I don’t like the thought of you going away.”

He couldn’t help but smile a little at that. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

She shrugged. “It’s your job. It wouldn’t change the way I feel about you, or the way you feel about me, or us
even. But you being away would make things harder.”

His arm tightened around her. “If I do end up playing, I’ll miss you too.”

“But that’s not why you’re considering retirement, right? I mean, I don’t want to be the reason you give up your career.”

“Maggie,” Noah said gently, lifting her chin up with his fingers until he was staring right into her blue eyes, “I can’t play baseball anymore. That much is clear. I knew it, deep down, when I came here in November and it was pretty much eating me up inside. Any reason that I’m mostly sane now is because I’m happy here, and I’m happy with you. If I was back in Portland, I would probably still be retiring. Or at least waiting the whole season out and then
retiring. Except that I’d be miserable as fuck.”

Noah loved the spark of love and confidence in her eyes as he reassured her. He wanted her to always be sure of him, and never, ever have to doubt. Kind of the way that Izzy had always known Jack loved her, even though he hadn’t said the words for all those months.

“Was that Jack on the phone just now?” Maggie asked softly, nuzzling back into his shoulder.

“Yeah, I had to call him up and tell him.”

“That must have been hard.”

Trust Maggie to know and to understand. “It was awful,” Noah admitted.

“Was he mad?”

“Mad. . .not exactly. More like he didn’t understand,” Noah said.

“You said he loves baseball, that he practically lives for it,” Maggie pointed out. “How could he understand? He thinks you’re giving up without having fully explored your options.”

“Is that what you
think?” Noah asked because he definitely agreed with her about Jack, but it wasn’t the thought of Jack judging him that bothered him. It was the thought that Maggie
might.

“Of course not,” Maggie said, pinching his arm and gazing up at him fondly. “You wouldn’t have made this decision lightly. You thought it through. And he’ll understand eventually, if he is as good a friend as you say he is. He’s just seeing it from only his side right now. You’ve got to give him some time to adjust.”

“Thank you,” Noah said after a minute, stroking her head. “
Thank you
.”

“For what?”

“For being you,” Noah said simply.

They were quiet for a minute, just watching the sun as it finished disappearing into the far horizon. “I have some interesting news too,” Maggie spoke up. “I talked to Cal today, and he admitted to me that he’s been emailing Tabitha. That he told her you were still in town and we were involved.”

Noah laughed. “I figured that out some time ago, sweetheart.”

“No, it’s so much
worse
. They’ve been emailing since I went to culinary school in San Francisco. That was seven
years ago.”

And that was something Noah was
not
expecting Maggie to say. “Seven years?” he questioned, nearly dumbfounded. “They’ve been secretly emailing each other for
seven
years?”

“Yep,” Maggie said smugly.

“God, he must have it bad,” Noah said. “That poor man.”

“I think it may be mutual,” Maggie said.

“Did she leave?” Noah asked. “I know she said she was planning to.”

“Yeah, this morning,” Maggie said, annoyance creeping into her tone. “Practically crept away without saying goodbye, I might add. So much for wanting to strengthen our deep sisterly bond.”

“Tabitha is. . .well. . .Tabitha is Tabitha,” Noah said. “She’s just built a little different.”

“Sometimes,” Maggie questioned, “I wonder if that’s really true, or just what she wants us to think.”

Noah had wondered the same thing on more than one occasion. “Well, let’s hope for Calvin’s sake that it’s the latter.”

“Oh, Cal is screwed,” Maggie said sympathetically. “Absolutely screwed. I mean,
seven
years.”

“Seven years is a long time,” Noah agreed, thinking that if he’d had even a piece of Maggie for seven years, he’d be so head over heels in love with her that he’d never be able to move on. Maybe Maggie was right. Maybe Cal should actually be pitied a little. Or a lot.

“Do you want dinner?” Maggie asked. “I’m tired. This New Year’s thing is draining it out of me. But I think I finally have the menu finalized.”

“You go on ahead,” he said. “I’ll pick up a pizza.”

She hugged him tighter. “Thank you, you’re absolutely the best.” She stood and stretched her muscles, clearly stiff from working all day.

“I can’t wait until this place is done,” Noah said, “and the soaker tub is installed on the deck. It’s going to be so nice to lie out here and watch the sun set with you.”

Maggie smiled wide. “You’re the best.”

“I think you just love me for my soaker tub and my white and navy kitchen tiles.”

“Don’t forget the professional grade Sub-Zero appliances,” Maggie said with a grin. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “See you at home, dear.”

Noah leaned back in the booth, crossed his arms and stared steadily at the man across from him. His breakfast lay nearly untouched in front of him, even though it was Maggie’s famous french toast and if she happened to emerge from the kitchen and catch him letting it grow cold, she wouldn’t be very happy. But right now, Noah figured, Maggie getting her feelings hurt over breakfast was minor in comparison to the situation in front of him.

Because he’d been watching for a few days now, ever since Tabitha had fled Sand Point early one morning, and now Noah was certain. Cal was definitely pouting and he was first class at it.

“I thought you called me because you wanted breakfast,” Cal mumbled, staring at his own plate of eggs and hash browns. He’d eaten his bacon first off, which meant things were bad, but not dire—then he’d merely pushed the rest around the plate for the last ten minutes.

“I’m not the one who’s practically curled in the fetal position,” Noah pointed out. “You know, we could talk about it.”

“With you?” Cal scoffed. “Sure, because that wouldn’t be weird at all.”

Noah shrugged. “It’s only weird if you make it weird.”

“Is that your personal motto or something? Because lots of people think it’s plenty weird that you ended up with Maggie.”

It was a low blow, and Noah was definitely not happy that Cal had said it, but the misery was so clearly etched on his face that it was hard to blame the guy. All Noah had to do was remember the year he’d had after Tabitha flirted with anything possessing a dick and then left him. And he hadn’t even pined after her for
seven
fucking years.

“And?” Noah asked, his voice steady and calm. He wasn’t going to let Cal piss him off so that
both
of them were pissed off. That wasn’t what this was about at all.

“I mean. . .” Cal stuttered, clearly not expecting Noah’s non-reaction, “you know. . .it
is
kinda weird.”

“It’s only weird if you make it weird,” Noah repeated.

Cal’s eyes remained glued to his plate. “I guess Maggie told you.”

“Maggie and I tell each other a lot of things.” Noah picked up his fork and cut into his french toast. “I think it would be pretty hard to be close to someone for a long time, like say,
seven
years, and then have them up and leave like you mean nothing. Not even a goodbye.”

“Yeah, well . . .” Cal trailed off uncomfortably.

“I really think you should talk about it,” Noah said. “It’s not good to hold stuff in. Unhealthy, if you want my opinion.”

“I don’t,” Cal snapped. “I definitely didn’t ask for it. Or for your pity either. I knew exactly what I was getting into—I went in with my eyes open. And still. . .
still
.”

Noah shoved half a slice of french toast into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “Man, you are fucked.”

Cal buried his face in his hands and groaned.

“Okay, let’s change the subject,” Noah said, trying to muster up a carefree grin. It was hard, though, because he did
pity Cal. “Any new developments on the house? Did the schedule get pushed back again?”

Cal shot him a half-hearted glare. “Don’t you think I would have emailed you a revised schedule if it had?”

“I don’t really read your emails. I figure if it was important you’d just tell me.”