Mike shoved the phone back at me. “Compelling, but my decision is final. We’ll do everything we can to help the young men who are living there find other accommodations, but as of the first of the year, Pot of Gold Milwaukee will be no longer.”
His phone rang and he waved me toward the door. I’d been dismissed without the opportunity to tell him what a worthless pile of shit he was. I punched at the call button on the elevator, needing to get out of there before I lost my fucking mind.
Chapter 25
I pushed harder than I had since the end of the baseball season during our morning workout. I’d finally been cleared for full activity and I was determined to work my ass off so no one thought I’d lost my touch over the winter. Plus, it gave me something to think about other than Bryce’s ominous meeting in Portland.
“Hey, you wanna take it easy?” Eric hollered across the empty gym. The weights clattered back to the stack as when I let go. Sweat poured down my face and I was out of breath. Okay, so maybe I was pushing a bit harder than I should. “You still have two months before you report, no sense trying to make everything up in one week.”
I scowled at him, pissed because he was right. But I couldn’t help myself, I felt like I had something to prove to everyone. I needed to get out there and show them that the last game of the season was a fluke, that I wasn’t bound to be the fuck up I felt like at the end of that game.
I yanked my towel off the end of the rack and wiped my brow. I wanted to jump on the elliptical for a while, but when I stood, my entire body felt like rubber. “I’m going to hit the shower. I’m starving.”
The ping of a new text message coming in echoed off the tile walls in the locker room as I showered. I quickly finished rinsing off and dried my head and arms as I rushed across the room. It was just now eight thirty on the west coast, so Bryce was in his meeting. Cam and Jason were out of town on some romantic getaway, so I doubted it was them. My parents could barely work their cell phones and refused to text anyone. The list of who it could be quickly dwindled. I reached up to the top shelf of my locker, feeling around for the phone. It was Cody.
Is it true?
I quickly texted back asking him to clarify what he was talking about. Since he was the only person who’d contacted me, it didn’t make sense that it could be about baseball or even my attack, but other than those two things, I couldn’t think of any reason for his vague message. I had barely pulled on my boxer briefs when my phone started ringing.
“Hey Cody, what’s going on?” I answered.
“I just got out of the fucking guidance office,” he informed me. I could practically see him fisting his hands through his hair the way he did when he was pissed off. “They got a call this morning from some asshole saying that I am going to be looking for a new place to stay and wanted to know if the school had the resources to help me find something.”
“Whoa, slow down,” I interrupted, knowing that otherwise he wouldn’t stop talking until he got everything out. “What do you mean you need a new place to stay? Who called them?”
I rushed to finish getting dressed and walked out to the gym barefoot. Eric was much more level-headed than I was during stressful times and I wanted him to help me work through whatever was going on.
“They said they were from Pot of Gold, but that didn’t make sense,” Cody continued. He was right, it didn’t. I knew Bryce was worried about why he was being called back to Portland, but he hadn’t mentioned anything about them shutting down. And I couldn’t imagine anyone would be so heartless as to do it during the holidays.
Eric stopped the treadmill and joined me at the edge of the room. I stopped Cody again long enough to catch Eric up on what was happening. I could have dropped to my knees and kissed his feet when he took the phone away from me.
“Hey Cody, it’s Eric,” he said so Cody would know he was no longer talking to me. “Before you freak out, I’m going to call and talk to Bryce. He’ll know if the phone call was legit or if someone’s trying to fuck with you.”
Eric handed me his phone so I could try Bryce while he tried to calm Cody. The call went directly to voicemail, so I left him a message to call me as soon as his meeting was over.
“Yeah, we can come and get you if that’s what you want but didn’t you have some big exam this afternoon?” I grew impatient as Eric waited for Cody to finish rambling. “Okay, well no matter what’s going on, it’s not going to do you any good to miss that. Do your best to make it through and if you really can’t focus, talk to your counselor and teachers and have them call me… Don’t mention it… Okay, good luck on your test. If we don’t hear from you before the end of the day, why don’t you plan on us picking you up after school?”
Eric ended the call, and we swapped phones. He stormed into the locker room, punching one of the metal locker doors on his way through the room. I considered reminding him that he didn’t want to fuck up his hand, but stopped myself. Right now, that’d be pouring salt in the wound since I knew he still wasn’t as fine with quitting baseball as he tried to make it seem.
“I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but I’m going to find out,” Eric seethed as he snatched his shower kit out of his bag. “I had a bad fucking feeling when Bryce got that phone call. And so help me, if I find out he knew about this and didn’t tell us, I’ll jump on a plane and fly out there to personally kick his ass.”
I grabbed Eric before he could step under the spray of water and turned him to face me. “Do you honestly believe he’d have kept something like this from us?”
“No,” Eric conceded. “But he’s not even out of that meeting and we’re hearing shit from Cody. That’s fucked up.”
“Yeah, it is.” Somehow, I’d become the voice of reason. That was something I was fairly certain no one who’d met me would believe. “But we don’t even know if it’s true or not. For all we know, someone could be trying to mess with Cody’s mind. It’s not exactly a huge secret that he’s been living there, and we all know that kids can be assholes.”
Eric shook his head. “The timing is too perfect. As much as I’d love to believe your little Miss Sunshine logic, I can’t. There’s no way anyone else knows there’s some huge meeting happening right now that had Bryce worried before he left yesterday.”
Shit. He had a valid point. Now I was worried about what we’d find out when Bryce called us back. Eric stepped into the shower and I leaned against the wall, openly watching him as he cleaned up. If we were at home, I’d have offered to help him but we couldn’t be that reckless in a public locker room. It’d already draw attention that I was standing there talking to him while he showered, but that could be played off easily enough. Athletes learned early on that modesty would get you nowhere good in a hurry.
“So what are we going to do?” I asked. If it was my house, there would be no question that we’d go to the center and get Cody’s shit to move him out of there. But it wasn’t, no matter how much Eric claimed otherwise. It was his name on the deed and I still remembered how unenthused he’d been when I’d invited Cam to move in while he’d been out in Seattle.
“First, we’ll get something to eat. Then, we’ll wait for Bryce to call us back. Once we know what’s going on, we’ll all sit down and decide what happens next,” he told me. He smirked as he turned off the water and I knew I’d been busted ogling him. “And just so you have a heads up, I’m going to have a meeting this afternoon, so you’ll probably have to go pick up Cody at the school. Find out if there’s anything you can do so you’re his official contact. It may not be an issue since he’s eighteen, but double check. But make sure you ask him before you do anything. I don’t want him thinking we’re trying to step in and take charge of his life.”