Power Play (8 page)

“Oh, well, um. Did you still want to help me come up with a marketing plan?”

We'd already kissed—twice according to his records. We'd spent the afternoon together spilling some major personal stories. Yet I could barely get words out over the phone. I thought in-person interactions were supposed to be scarier than when you could hide behind a phone or a computer.

“I'd love to help you. If you can answer one trivia question.”

“Okay.”

“How old were you when we first kissed?”

Great, a trick question. He knew I didn't remember that. But how could I have forgotten kissing Landon? I still felt the ghost of his lips from the unexpected kiss at the concert.

“Nineteen.” It wouldn't be the correct answer, but it was the best answer I had. The only kiss I remembered.

“Wrong.”

“Just tell me, Landon. You know I don't remember and you keep dangling it over my head. How old was I?”

“Your kiss turned me into the majestic creature I am today, Gaby. I can't believe you don't remember.”

“Well hello, Mr. Modest.”

“One year my parents dressed Jay and me up for Halloween and paraded us around Eastern Market. I was a frog.”

Landon's pause told me I should rack my brain for an obscure memory of seeing him dressed as a frog. We had to have been kids. When had he been a frog?

“You're killing me, Gaby!”

“I can't help it. I barely remember my own Halloween costumes, how am I supposed to remember a random kid on Halloween at the market?”

“Random kid. Thanks.”

“Just tell me.”

“Halloween nineteen ninety-nine. You were some kind of Disney princess. I was a frog. Our parents told us that you had to kiss me so I'd turn into a prince.”

“Oh my gosh.” I still had no memory of it. But back then, I probably thought kissing him would give me cooties.

“It worked. Just took a few years.”

“That is hilarious. So freaking hilarious.”

“It's more hilarious that you don't remember. I'm offended, actually.”

“Well, now that the kiss mystery is solved. Let's plan some marketing.” I couldn't believe Landon remembered kissing me on Halloween when he was seven years old. “Okay, so I thought we could—”

“Talking on the phone is stupid. It would be so much easier if you just came over to my place. We could put a plan together and make out, maybe create a mock ad.”

The phone slipped out of my hand, bounced off my shin and onto the floor.
Shit!
I grabbed it and brought it back to my ear. “Excuse me? What did you say?”

“Put a plan together and make up a mock ad. What did you think I said?”

Maybe he hadn't said “make out.” Maybe I thought I heard him say “make out.”

“I, never mind.”

“What did you hope you heard me say?”

“Nothing. Stop.”

“You're so easy to embarrass.”

“I'm not coming over and we will not make out tonight. Can you just help me, please?”

“We're on the fast track, Gaby.”

“What does that mean?”

“I really like you. Just in case I didn't make that clear at the concert.”

A response caught in my throat. No way Landon Taylor could be that into me. So soon. Or was it soon? Should I be counting the fact that we've known each other our entire lives?

“Your silence makes me wonder if you didn't realize just how much,” Landon said.

“I was checking my room for cameras. There may be some kind of reality show filming that I don't know about.
True Tales from the Twilight Zone.
”

That comment made Landon laugh. I waited until he'd regained his composure before speaking again.

“It's kinda weird, right? This sudden interest? I feel like I'm the dog at a dogfight party,” I said.

“What the fuck is that?”

It would be absolutely embarrassing to tell him I'd read about it. Of course I had because I'm the epitome of dorky book girl. He knew it, I didn't have to add fuel to the fire.

“Never mind.”

“Fill the dumb jock in.”

“You're not dumb. And being a jock, I'm actually surprised you don't know.”

“Just tell me.”

“It's a party where a guy has to bring the ugliest girl he can find, but he can't tell her. There's a vote and whoever has the ugliest girl wins money or something. It's terrible. It's—”

I should have kept sorting my laundry. Phone calls are not my forte. Opening my mouth in general is not my forte.

“Well, I can't say I don't know guys who would do something like that, because I know a ton of idiots. But I'd just be wasting my money if I brought you, because you'd be the hottest girl there.”

“I don't know about that, but I certainly wouldn't be the ugliest.” I'd never had self-esteem issues with my looks. My brown hair doesn't shine like that of models in shampoo ads, and my eyes are a dull brown, rather than rich and chocolaty, but I'm not bad looking. I'm cute. Petite. The everyman. Woman. Girl. Whatever.

“What gave you that dogfight-party idea?”

“Why the heck would you start talking to me out of the blue?”

“I guess I never really had a reason to. Not until I stood there as your dad had a heart attack. It gave me a reason to talk to you. And reason to stay. A really horrible reason. But a reason.”

“A better reason than seeing each other every week for nineteen years and never having more than a casual conversation?”

“Yeah, I think helping save your dad's life is a better reason.”

“I don't get it. You're a hockey player. People cheer for you in the stands. They go crazy when your name is announced.”

“It's not real, Gaby. They cheer for the hockey player, the fictional character they've given a status to in their heads. They want the superhero. And I'll give them the show while I'm wearing my uniform or at a Pilots event. But off the ice I'm just Landon. And I'm twenty-one. And I've spent my whole life around guys. I'm not good at talking to chicks.”

That gave me something to think about. It's easy to think all hockey players are caught up in the superstar lifestyle. But the everyday Detroiter probably couldn't pick a Pilots player out of a crowd.

“Never really thought of it that way. I guess I've had you on that superhero pedestal since you got drafted into the OHL.”

“You've got a pedestal of your own, Gaby. My friends and I have called you the hot Italian princess for years.”

Instead of letting his comment sink in, I brushed it off with humor. Because it was pretty funny. “That makes me sound like a spicy sausage.”

“Hot Italian sausage.” Landon laughed. “Now I'm hungry.”

“Oh my gosh, please don't make a comment about eating hot Italian sausages.”

“You really do have a dirty mind, Gabriella. I'm gonna have to hack into your e-reader and see what you've got in there.”

“I told you I don't read stuff like that.”

“Bull.”

“Back to the marketing plan,” I said. Subject closed.

Thankfully, Landon let me off the hook, because he wanted to talk about marketing for 313 as well. He seemed really eager to help bring more business to the store, even though it didn't benefit him at all.

How often does that happen? Someone doing something out of the good of their heart for no compensation?

But Landon grew up in the Taylor family. And since I knew their background, I imagined it probably happened a lot.

“Were you the last one here last night, Gabriella?” Papa asked.

“No. Joey locked up. Why?”

Papa shook his head, dismissing me as he walked to the back, still looking at a scrap of printer paper in his hands. The door to the office slammed.

“I'm gonna tell Mom!” I yelled toward the door. Papa probably couldn't hear me, but I said it anyway. And I
would
tell Mom. He wasn't supposed to be at 313 until his cardiologist gave him the all clear. How could he recover if he kept his stress level at a ten?

Pissed and stressed were not the ideal moods for Papa to be in before I presented my idea for a marketing campaign. But it was now or never. As the newest and least known store, 313 needed customers if we wanted to keep it running. I didn't have a complete advertisement with photos and slogans to show Papa, but I'd printed a rough draft of it as well as an outline of the marketing plan Landon and I created together.

We'd fleshed out the details on the phone the previous night. After memorizing the information Landon passed to me from the Pilots sales team, I could recite the statistics about advertising with them like it was the Pledge of Allegiance. For the first time in years, maybe in my entire life, I felt confident. I'd prepared for any logical business questions Papa had for me. I was ready.

I bounced on my toes all morning, waiting to pounce on Papa when he emerged from the office again. But he never came out. My confidence declined with each passing minute.

When Landon walked into the store at lunchtime, it was like the sun burst through a cloud of gloom. His eyes lit up and he grinned when he saw me. I ran around the counter and vaulted myself into his arms, unable to contain my excitement.

“Hey, Gabriella,” he said, then pulled me in for a hug.

“Hey.” I squeezed him tight before leaning back. I skimmed my palms over the sides of his face and hair before cupping the back of his head. The intimacy felt bizarre. But after spending yesterday together, then having our strategizing phone call, I felt like we'd known each other forever. We'd bonded.

Landon kissed my forehead. “You're beautiful.”

“You are, too.” I winked at him.

“So I finally cornered Luke and he said he'd teach you how to use your camera.”

“Are you kidding?” I pushed back. “That's awesome.”

“Can you meet him next week?”

“Yes. I can meet whenever he's available. Just let me know so I can change around my schedule here if I need to.”

“Did you get in touch with the advertising people?”

“What advertising people?” Papa's voice rumbled behind me. He'd finally emerged from the office.

I tried to step back, but Landon embraced me once more before he let me go. Though I enjoyed it, the hug had contradictory results, giving me a burst of confidence but simultaneously diminishing my professionalism in front of Papa.

“We came up with an awesome advertising idea to talk to you about.” I spun out of Landon's arms and took a step toward my father.

“Advertising for what?”

“For the store.”

“What store are you talking about, Gabriella?” The exasperation in his voice told me he wasn't interested, or even amused.

“This store. Three-one-three.”

“We don't need advertising for this store.” Papa shook his head.

“Papa, we hardly have any business in here. I know you see the reports.”

“Yes, Gabriella, I do see the reports. And I've been running a business for over twenty years. We don't need advertising.”

Undeterred, I pressed on. Why not? I'd already pissed him off. Might as well state my case. “You've been running a well-known business. You never had to advertise. This store is different.” I continued talking as I rummaged through my purse for the incomplete mock-up ad I'd created. “No one realizes this store is related to Bertucci Produce, but with this ad—”

“We don't need to advertise. And I don't want to hear another word about it.”

“Mr. Bertucci, Gabriella knows this store in and out,” Landon interjected. “She knows what it needs to be successful.”

“Who are you to talk to me about success?” Papa's eyes narrowed on Landon.

I pressed a hand to Landon's chest. “Landon, it's okay. Just let me handle this.”

“I know you need customers. Look at this place.” Landon ignored me, gesturing around the empty store. “And Gab—”

“You should mind your own business, son.”

“Papa!”

“Maybe if you spent more time analyzing your hockey skills instead of my store, you might be playing in the NHL right now!” Papa yelled at Landon before storming back to the office.

Landon stood completely still, staring at the door my father had slammed behind him.

“Landon, I'm so sorry.”

“I'll call you later,” he said without looking at me. Then he spun around and walked out.

Papa was overbearing and opinionated, and had never been one to keep his overbearing opinions to himself. After eighteen years, I'd gotten used to it, but Landon didn't deserve Papa's wrath. Especially about the store, that was my headache.

The two most important men in my life were irritated with each other. With me. And though it contradicted everything I'd just stood up for, I was glad 313 Artisans had no customers.

Because they would have seen me standing in the middle of the store crying.

Photography had always been a passion of mine. Ever since I was a kid, I'd grab my parents' pocket-sized camera or cellphone and snap away. I can't pretend I had talent or understood depth or saturation or anything technical or artistic. Even now, I just point my smartphone and press the little white square on the screen to capture an image. If I didn't like it, I deleted it. If I thought it needed enhancements, I sent it through one of the numerous photo apps I had downloaded on my phone. And if I really wanted to impress myself and others, I edited the pictures on my laptop using photo-editing software.

So when I received a digital SLR camera, complete with two additional lenses and a beautiful leather case, as my graduation present from my parents, it floored me. I hadn't realized that my parents thought of my photos as anything other than a teenage girl's way to express herself in a digital world.

I loved the camera. It was my baby. But I didn't know how to work it. I could remove the lens cap and press the button to take a picture. And I could press the playback button to see the photos I'd taken, but I didn't know how to work it from a photographer's standpoint. And reading the manual was way too complicated when it all sounds like a foreign language. Aperture Priority. Shutter Priority. F-stop.
WTF?

“A person who doesn't understand how the aperture works shouldn't even have this kind of camera,” Luke Daniels said. “If you want to point and shoot, use your cellphone.”

Okaaaay.

When Landon offered to hook me up with Luke for a few camera lessons, I didn't realize the friend he had in mind was Luke Daniels, one of his teammates on the Detroit Pilots.

Correction: Luke Daniels wasn't just a teammate. He was the captain of the Pilots. The face of the team. And rightfully so.

Luke was five foot eleven, 197 pounds of defined muscle. Despite being twenty-four, he had the smooth skin of a teenager who couldn't grow facial hair yet. But he made up for this with shoulder-length locks the color of coffee with a touch of milk. His voice had a sexy gruff scratchiness to it, as if his summer job consisted of swallowing knives as a sideshow freak. He barely smiled. And he was bossy.

Which may explain why he'd been the Pilots' captain for the last two years.

And why I'd already inched a few feet toward my car when we'd been at it only five minutes. He scared the crap out of me.

“Um. Do you hate me?”

“What?” Luke asked, his voice deep and loud. Though I liked it, I kept expecting him to cough and shake the scratch out.

“You're, like, yelling at me, and I don't know why.” I also don't know why I turned Valley Girl when I confronted him. Did throwing a “like” in make me seem more vulnerable than bitchy?

“I'm not yelling!” he yelled. Then he caught himself and lowered his voice to an acceptable conversational decibel. “I've been around the lug heads too much this week. Sorry, Gaby.”

“No problem.”

Landon mentioned how much the team's current four-game losing streak ticked off Rich Vincent, the Pilots' coach. In his foul mood, he'd instituted a week of mandatory events. Which must've been his way of getting the guys to bond. Lunches, dinners, and movie nights together. Maybe even painting one another's toenails. I didn't have a clue how big, bad hockey players bonded.

“Okay, so look.” Luke pointed to a tiny wheel with pictures and letters printed on it at the top of my camera. “The camera is built with these presets already. You can use these and your pictures will turn out fine.” He turned the dial a few times. “Portrait, night, action.”

I nodded as he told me what each icon stood for. I'd read that far in my manual.

“But if you want awesome pictures you use the manual settings. Photography is the manipulation of light. That's where aperture and f-stop come in. They're really similar. Aperture is the opening in the lens which allows the amount of light to come through. The f-stop is the term used for the different size aperture. There's no specific guide or cheat sheet. I can't tell you to use f/22 for this kind of pictures or f/8 for another kind of picture. So many factors go into it. Shutter speed, lens, subject, weather.”

Luke stopped talking to glance at me. My eyes must have glazed over, because he smiled before he continued. “I know it's overwhelming, Gaby, but this is the fun part. This is where you get to experiment.”

“What's the difference in the numbers? What do f/22 and f/8 mean?” I really wanted to grasp the concepts. I needed to be good at this if I wanted quality photos for our advertisements without paying out my nose for a professional.

“A smaller aperture will have a larger f-stop number. The opposite is also true, a larger aperture will have a smaller f-stop number.”

“Where do I change it if I want to experiment?”

“Right here.” Luke flipped the camera toward us to show me the lens from the top. “These are the settings. Just turn slowly to get to the next setting.”

“Can you demonstrate? I think I'll get it once I start seeing what you're talking about. It's hard for me to grasp the concepts without seeing an example. And I'm not sure how all of this will help me yet.”

“Good idea.” He jogged backward a few steps and lifted the viewfinder to his eye, pointing the camera at my face.

A burning feeling rushed to my cheeks when I heard the
click
of his picture taking. Though I brought my hand up to cover my nervous smile, he kept clicking away.

“I thought you'd be demonstrating on scenery or trees or something.”

Luke laughed. “Using a subject is easier for me to explain what I need to. You can flitter off to take pictures of flowers and waterfalls later.”

“Waterfalls? In Detroit? Maybe the arc of the water cascading from a firefighters' hose onto a burning building.”

“Sadly, that would be an amazing picture.”

I nodded in agreement. A hollow feeling pinched my stomach from how close to home it hit.

“So, you know how I said photography is the manipulation of light?” No rest for the tortured soul on Luke's watch.

“Yes. And aperture is the opening in the lens that allows the amount of light to come through.”

Luke smiled. “Right. Check this out.” He pressed a button and an image appeared on the playback screen. Then he held out the camera and showed me the picture.

It was beautiful, even with plain old me as the subject. He'd captured an intensity in my brown eyes and a shy smile hidden under the sprawl of my fingers covering my face. The couple sitting on a bench behind me were there, but they weren't in focus, just a blur of peach instead of individual faces. I was the focus of the picture.

“How did you get that aura-type glow?” I asked, referring to the brightness around me.

“Either you're a saint”—Luke winked—”or I manipulated the light.”

That made me burst out laughing. And the clicks of the camera started again.

“Dude! I'm no saint, and I will make like an angry celebrity and smack that camera out of your hand if you take one more picture of me.”

The camera clicked again. I held up my hand and took a step forward.

Luke shrugged. “It's your camera. I'm betting you won't bust it.”

I stomped toward him and grabbed the camera out of his hand, turning it on him and snapping a few pictures of my own. Maybe my shots would turn out magical if I didn't touch any of the settings he'd used.

When I turned on the screen for playback mode, the images were just regular old pictures. No ethereal glow. No sharpness. No bright eyes or bushy tails.

“You're a rookie. Try it again.” Luke glanced at the sky and moved behind me. “Don't want the sun directly behind me. That'll mess with your light.”

I took at least a hundred more shots, listening as Luke directed me where to move the f-stop and how to set the ISO speed. He was great at explaining what to do, then showing me things to look for in the photo with each change I made to the settings. Though I'd begun my training by taking numerous shots of him, I'd also captured strangers, trees, buildings, even the intimidating, oversized tiger statue at one of the entrances to Comerica Park, the baseball field where the Detroit Tigers play home games.

“Hungry?” Luke asked. Without waiting for my answer, he started walking away and slipped into a local bar and grill, located at the end of the street where we'd been taking photos. I followed him inside.

“Hey, Lukey!” a guy behind the long bar called out as Luke took a seat.

The bartender's weathered face and yellow-white beard made him look years older than his actual age, but the squint of happiness in the lines around his eyes showed his excitement at Luke's presence.

“Hey, Clancy. How's it going? How's Althea?” Luke asked.

Clancy reached over the bar and shook Luke's hand. “She good. Hasn't been in the hospital recently, so we thanking the good Lord on that.”

I slid onto the barstool next to Luke and set my camera bag on the floor at my feet, hooking the strap around my knee.

“That's good to hear. This is my friend, Gaby. Gaby, this is Clancy, president of my fan club.” Luke winked at Clancy as he introduced me.

“Fan club!” Clancy shook his head as he answered, but his lips held a huge grin. “Nice to meet you, Gaby. What can I get you?”

“Nice to meet you, too. Just a water would be great. Thanks.”

While Clancy filled a glass of water, Luke handed me a menu. I looked it over while Luke and Clancy resumed their conversation.

“How's business been?”

“You know it's crazy for baseball. And football rolls right behind it. Pilots games help out, too.”

“Well, with this place down the road from Robinson, it's easy for people to congregate here to talk about how awesome I'm doing.”

“You crack me up, Luke. You got yourself a Canadian Eddie Murphy here, miss,” Clancy said, then walked toward the other end of the bar. His head darted back and forth in search of something. He returned with a bottle of Bloody Mary mix, judging by the thick red-orange liquid dotted with tiny flecks of black pepper and who knows what other spices. Clancy poured vodka and the mix into a pint glass. He finished it off by dropping in a dill pickle spear and a blue sword toothpick packed with three green olives, then placed the drink in front of Luke.

“Thanks, Clancy.” Luke looked up and smiled before Clancy moved down the bar to serve another customer.

Luke took a sip of his Bloody Mary and turned to me. “Let's take a look at how you did today.”

Suddenly nervous, I reached down and pulled the bag into my lap slowly. I took the camera from the bag and held it out to Luke. He tried to take it, but my grasp tightened.

“Let it go, Elsa.”

Startled by his children's movie reference, my grip slipped and Luke grabbed the camera. He zipped through my photos, stopping only to point out things I should be looking for or how I'd improved from frame to frame.

“You're getting it.” He nodded as he pressed the forward button and advanced through the shots.

“Thanks,” I said, proud of myself. It was a quick lesson and I knew I'd have to take thousands of more shots to truly understand when I needed to use certain settings, but it felt good to get the why of what I was doing, rather than just pointing, shooting, and hoping it came out good enough to edit later.

“And you can always edit what you don't want—or even what you do want.”

“Yeah, I'm good at the editing part. I've been doing that for a long time.”

“Do you use software or just phone apps?”

“I use Lightroom.”

“That's a good one. Laptop?” Luke flipped the switch to turn my camera off and handed it to me.

“Yep.” I placed the camera in my bag and zipped it up.

“Make sure you bring it to Landon's when you guys work on the ad. I doubt he has that on his computer. I doubt he's used a computer since high school.”

“Not very tech savvy?”

“You'd think he was by the way he tweets. That guy's thumbs are glued to his phone. Instagram addict.”

“Landon is on Instagram?” How had I not known that?

“And Twitter. I wonder when he sleeps with all the fucking notifications I get.”

“I didn't realize he was even on those sites. He doesn't use his real name, does he?”

“What's up with you and Landon?” Luke changed the subject quickly, like he'd made some kind of mistake telling me about Landon's social media accounts.

“We're friends.”

“Not what he says.”

“Oh.” I lowered my eyes to my camera bag as I set it gently on the floor at my feet. Unwilling to let the big, bad captain of the Pilots see my disappointment.

“Don't turn rejected-girl on me,” he warned. “I meant the kid has it bad for you.”

“No he doesn't.”

“Do you think I give photography lessons to anyone, Gaby? I'm a busy guy.”

I almost laughed, but I realized quickly he was serious about being a busy guy. I mean, I knew he was a busy guy and that his time is important, but it's still funny when a guy actually tells someone he's busy. Like he has to drive home his importance.

“Do you drive a Dodge Stratus?”

“What?”

“
Saturday Night Live
?” I asked.

Blank eyes stared back at me.

“Will Ferrell?”

His blank eyes and slight tilt of his head seemed to question my sanity.

“Nothing.” I shook my head, laughing as I thought about the old
Saturday Night Live
skit in which Will Ferrell tries to make his family realize his importance by yelling, “I drive a Dodge Stratus!”

“Photography is obviously your passion. I just figured you liked to teach people about it.”

“Because I seem like the warm, fuzzy teacher type?”