Prologue
Sinclair
It’s a gray evening, not one of those picturesque sunsets that paint the sky like some kind of expensive canvas.
The sky is a muted purple, leaning toward mauve, with not a cloud in the sky. No one would sit on their back porch and think just how grand life is on a night like tonight. These dusk hours are not ones that lovers would huddle closer together under, gazing on in wonder at how perfect their connection must be to garner a sky such as this.
It’s just as well, since this night symbolizes both pain and accomplishment for me. Because while the earth’s ceiling above me is clear, it’s not celebratory.
Between the fingers on my right hand, I juggle the chip back and forth. It’s a trick a magician in Vegas taught me years ago, and I used to use it on women to make bottle caps disappear right before I told them I was “skilled with my hands.” Cheesy fucking pickup line, but it worked about seven times out of ten.
The chip is small, just a piece of plastic that really means nothing at all. But it also means everything.
One year sober.
Who would have thought I could get here?
Certainly not me. There were so many times I almost broke, so many times I literally had a bottle in my hands, ready to chug. Ready to feel the flight of freedom, ready to do the one thing I was always good at, being the life of the party.
Then I’d get a glimpse of the scar on my skull, in the mirror, or when I closed the screen on my cell phone and my reflection stared back in the blackness. The scar that goes from the base at the back of my neck all the way up and over to my right temple. The puckered line of skin where hair no longer grows.
And I stopped. If I ever took another drink of alcohol, I’d be digging my own grave. It was a miracle as it was that I was even alive. So many times, I should have died. That final time, I was basically on the steps of hell, because Lord knew heaven was not the place I was headed.
The chair beneath me is a plush patio number, picked out by some designer who’d come in and outfitted my mansion on the outskirts of Packton, Pennsylvania, in a bachelor scheme that was both tasteful and functional. That’s what money did; took care of things you didn’t want to take care of and put a nice pretty bow on them to boot.
I’d taken advantage of that my entire life, and it had nearly put me in the ground. Speeding ticket? Money took care of it. A hotel suite destroyed? Money took care of it. Didn’t pass a class in school? Money took care of it.
The quintessential trust fund baby, I’m the black sheep of my family. Sure, they still love me, and they’ve been here for me throughout the test of this year. But I can feel their growing anxiety about my next steps. For years, they’ve pushed me into jobs, projects, anything to get me passionate about something.
As one of the heirs to the Packton fortune, money built up over generations of owning our family’s professional baseball team, the Pistons, there is a level of expectation. One I’ve skirted for years, while my brother, cousins, and other relatives have taken up the cause. They all work for the machine, in some way or another. I’ve had my hand in just about every department possible, and none of them have stuck. That’s the other thing about growing up with bottomless pockets; it makes you lazy.
Plus, it’s easy to be slotted as the disappointment when your older brother is the goddamn savior. Walker is the first professional baseball player to play for a team his family owns, and he’s fucking good at it. I’ve always fallen to second fiddle, so why not embrace it?
But I can feel my time coming. Even I’m growing tired of my indecision and lack of drive.
That is no more evident than my father showing up in my backyard, his imposing presence announcing itself before his voice does.
“To what do I owe the pleasure, Dad?” I say, and I hear his sharp intake of breath.
“You have the hearing of a bat.” He’s shaking his head in mild disbelief as I turn.
An animal sheathed in black who haunted through the night? Sounds like the very definition of me before I put down the bottle.
Dad sits down next to me and eyes the chip I’m still flitting back and forth through my fingers.
“One year. I’m so proud of you, son.”
Before the accident, I’m not sure I ever heard him say those words. “Thanks.”
My response is short, but I truly mean it. My father and I have always had a strained relationship, mostly over my inability to focus or care about anything. As the owner of the Packton Pistons, serious is Dad’s middle name. Or maybe he has two, dedicated being the other.
But when you wake up, after two weeks in a coma, to your grown father crying at your bedside, it shifts things. I’ve never seen the man so scared in my life, and I knew then that I had to change. It wasn’t even so much for me, but so I never had to watch my father break down like that.
We sit before my massive backyard, full of a bachelor’s wildest dreams. There is an in-ground infinity pool with a hot tub attached. There are some nights I’ve fit ten people in that hot tub. A half-pipe sits on a dirt track a little farther back, and that is next to the regulation-sized basketball and volleyball courts. The setup behind where Dad and I sit is even more impressive, with a built-in grill, wood-fired pizza oven, full wet bar, and fire pit.
I used to throw epic parties every night of the week. But in the last year, I’ve barely had a single soul over to my place. It seems empty and enormous, and I’ve been thinking about selling it. I’m beginning to hear my own thoughts echoing off the wall, and it spooks me even more than having to go the rest of my life without a drop of alcohol.
“I’ve given you time, Sinclair.” I don’t think my father has ever called me by a nickname in my entire life. “But your healing grace period is over. It’s time to work, to really hold something down.”
I’ve known this was coming, and surprisingly, I’m not annoyed by it. In the past, I’ve bitched and moaned over my father demanding I get a job. Shirking responsibility has been my number one priority.
Maybe I’m bored. Maybe I’m just tired of being alone. Maybe I’m finally growing up.
But I find myself unable to disagree, and even more, I don’t want to fight him on this.
I simply nod.
“I’m sending you to spring training.” He stands, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “Everything will be arranged. They’ll be expecting you on the family plane on Sunday.”
Ah, the sweet luxury of money at it again. I was being given a job, handed it really, and wouldn’t have to lift a finger in the moving process. I even got to take the private jet down to the Pistons southern facilities.
But he was right. It was time. And if nothing else, at least I wouldn’t be a recluse, wasting away in this house any longer.
1
Frankie
Sand sprays at my heels, stinging as it makes contact with my skin, but that only propels my feet to move faster.
Sweat coats me, not moving on my skin but congealing in a layer that is so typical of my home state that I don’t even notice it anymore. I’m a Florida girl, through and through, and tying my hair up while fanning my face is second nature.