Chapter 33

Brock was preparing his fishing gear on Saturday morning the next time he heard from his two 'fuck bunnies'.

He had shared texts with them the past couple of days, Meredith saying she missed him already and that her blood work was fine and Randi telling him that the mark on Meredith's arm was certainly not a needle mark but instead looked like a scratch and a bruise, possible from the same hand that caused the one on her breast if she was sleeping in her usual position.

Brock considered it for a moment and accepted it.

"Are you heading to the ocean yet?" Meredith asked.

"In about 20 minutes," Brock said. "I was going to put the stuff in the car and call you. I'm not sure I'll get reception and I wanted to tell you that I love you guys."

"Uh, sure you do," he heard Randi say. He realized he was on the speaker.

"What does that mean?" he asked.

"I see you were out with some hottie last night," Meredith said. Brock could tell she was stifling a giggle. "There are a dozen pictures of you dancing with some floozy."

"I was out with Tara last night," Brock replied. "I don't think I danced with anyone but her. No, I'm sure I didn't."

"That's what we said," Randi told him. She didn't even bother to try to hide her laughter. "Speculation is rife that you and, this is a direct quote, 'uber-hottie Tara Wyatt are renewing acquaintances'."

"Randi and I decided that meant you were fucking her," Meredith said.

"Christ on a cracker," Brock said. "I didn't even see anyone taking our picture. It's not like we were touching or anything."

"There's a picture of you two holding hands," Randi said. "It looks like quite the romantic setting. The story I'm reading says that, again I'm quoting here, 'a romantic candlelit dinner was followed by a night of close dancing at an upscale nightclub and perhaps later.' Close dancing?"

"I told Randi that also meant you were fucking her," Meredith interjected.

"You didn't fuck her did you, Brock?" Randi asked.

"Of course not!" Brock said angrily.

"Hey, I'm playing," Randi said.

"This is such total bullshit," Brock said. "Now I've got to call Zack in Arizona and tell him it's false. It's no wonder a relationship in Hollywood can't last more than 25 minutes."

"Tara's dating Zack?" Randi asked. "When did this happen?"

"It hasn't happened but she would like for it to," Brock replied. "Listen, I'll call you back. I need to catch Zack before he comes up and rips my head off."

Zack was staying in a rented house with three other players. All the players knew of Tara Wyatt and they also knew she and Zack talked on the phone once every other day or so.

"It's not true," Brock said when Zack answered the phone.

He heard his friend laugh.

"That's the second time I've heard that this morning," he said. "What's that old saying: 'Methinks they do protest too much'? Seriously, though. I knew it wasn't true. You'd never do that to me and I don't think you'd do it to Meredith even after the crap she pulled. But thanks for calling. I've taken a bit of razzing from my roomies but no one else would even guess that Tara knows me."

"I'm glad you didn't take it seriously," Brock said.

"Hey, let me ask you something," Zack said. "Is she, well, you think she would go out with me? I mean, I thought it was funny. Hell, she's miles out of my league. I just always figured we were getting to be buds. You know, like she is with you."

"Well, we both called you first thing," Brock pointed out. "Maybe you should draw your own conclusions from that."

"Damn," Zack said. "You know, after hearing that I probably wouldn't mind if you danced close last night."

"Dude, if I danced close with Tara last night, she would not be calling you this morning," Brock replied. "Seriously, though, she knows they're shutting you down soon. Plan a nice night for her. She's going to be busy for a couple of weeks. You can work around that, though. But Duff, she's a sweet girl and I am really fond of her."

"I won't do anything dumb, I swear," Zack replied. "Like I said, she's a mile out of my league. I'd be an idiot to do something to push her away."

"You've talked to her," Brock told him. "Does she act like she thinks she's a mile out of your league?"

"Nah," Zack said. "That's what I mean. We talk like we're friends. We talk like you and I talk."

"You're getting to know one another," Brock told him. "And she's found she likes the man she's gotten to know."

"Well, shit," Zack said in his Texas drawl.

Brock closed his second call to Meredith and Randi as he turned on the road where Sam lived. The girls seemed to have put any underlying issues to rest or at least found a way to be together without arguing. Since it had only been a week, Brock figured it would take them more time to put things completely right – if they ever were.

Sam was waiting outside his garage with a big smile on his face when Brock pulled in. It took him only a few minutes to stow his gear and they were ready to set sail for five days of fishing, beer drinking and bullshitting. J.C. planned to meet them on Monday. He had agreed to a promotional visit on the Saturday and wouldn't be able to get to the West Coast until late Sunday.

"Original fishing rules?" Brock asked. "No talk of any female we presently know. No talk of business or finances or pending court cases."

From the outset of their long-ago fishing trips, Sam and Brock had agreed to a fairly simple set of rules. They would not talk about Sam's divorce or Brock's girlfriend. They wouldn't talk about Sam's job (because Brock didn't have one at the time) or where they planned to spend their money. Sam never broached the subject of what was going on with Brock's myriad civil cases, not that it would matter this time.

"Sounds fine to me," Sam said. "Once we get on the boat."

Since it would almost an hour before they reached the marina, Brock thought Sam's caveat sounded ominous. He was proven right a few seconds later.

"What's really going on with Meredith and Randi?" he asked.

Brock shrugged slightly because he was driving through freeway traffic.

"Randi is still a little pissed off about how Meredith handled her departure," Brock said. "It created some difficulties for her schedule-wise. Meredith agreed to handle the things that Darla normally would handle. Then she disappeared for days with only a few minute's notice."

"I understand all that," Sam said. "I was talking on a more personal level."

"They sounded like their friendship survived," Brock told him. "I talked to both of them this morning. They seemed to be in good spirits – or at least they found a common goal and worked together on it."

"I talked to Meredith for a while this morning," Sam related. "Apparently she called me while you were calling Zack Duffy to explain things. She wanted to make sure I would give you crap about Tara for the next week. I didn't bother to explain our rules."

"Well, there you have it," Brock said.

Sam stared out the windshield for a moment.

"I've spent all week trying to come up with a way to work this into conversation or to find a diplomatic way of asking what I want to know," he said eventually. "I can see that it won't work that way. So I guess I'll just have to ask. Are you dating Randi, too?"

"I'm not sure," Brock answered. It was as honest as he could possibly be.

"That's a strange answer," Sam said pointedly.

"I know it is and I'm sorry," Brock said. "If you had asked me a week ago, I would have had a better one. I didn't consider myself to be dating Randi a week ago. Now, well, I don't know if I am or not."

"But you sleep with her?" Sam posed.

"I have," Brock admitted.

"And you sleep with Meredith?" Sam asked.

"I have," Brock answered.

"But you don't think you're dating Randi," Sam said as he turned to look out the passenger window. "Are you still dating Meredith?"

"I think so," Brock told him. "Sam, look, I don't know what's going on. Do you remember a few years ago before everything completely fell apart?"

"It was the last time I think I was really happy," Sam said dryly. "So I have a vague recollection."

"Meredith said she couldn't be my girlfriend because of the other girls," Brock said anyway. "Now I'm not sure I can be Meredith's boyfriend because of another girl."

"So you're in love with Randi," Sam said. Brock could hear anger in the man's voice. He doubted his next statement would help anything.

"No, Sam, I'm not," Brock told him. "Meredith is."

Sam turned to face Brock, his head tilted questioningly.

"Since the Emmy Awards, Randi has only been in my bed one time without Meredith there, too," Brock continued. "Until this week, Meredith had only been in my bed twice without Randi there. I would hasten to point out that I was not the one who invited Randi to join us. In fact, I told Meredith that I would prefer it if she and I spent more time alone. She has other ideas. She told me she didn't want to have to choose between Randi and me. For now, I'm not willing to force that choice."

"I'm not sure I like this," Sam said.

"I'm not sure I like it either," Brock admitted. "Randi is a good person. I love her in her own way. But I'm pretty sure, given time, I would have fallen in love with your daughter many years ago and probably never would have let her go. It didn't work out that way and some of the bitterness I still felt kept us from getting close once I came back out here. During that time, I think Meredith and Randi developed a close friendship. I'm sure that it was probably because it gave Meredith a way to be close to me without subjecting herself to my anger over the fact she didn't contact me for so long."

"As time passed, I think Meredith realized that she has some attraction to females. Or, perhaps, she has always had that attraction. I don't know and she doesn't like to talk about it. At this point, I wonder if Meredith is more attracted to Randi than she is to me but she stays with me because she thinks she should. I simply have no answer to the question, Sam. I am not trying to avoid it because you're Merie's father, it's because I don't know the answer myself."

Five days away from everyone and everything seemed to be exactly what Brock needed. He found his cell phone did work but with agreement from J.C. and Sam, he turned it off anyway. Sam figured he could check it once or twice and pretend to be in port when if he really needed to call someone.

J.C. was having a blast. Brock tried to apologize to J.C. for the media's reaction to him skipping his Game 1 start in the playoffs but J.C. wouldn't allow it.

"I'm a person," he said. "I make my own decisions. I was available to start Game 1. I was available to start Game 5. The team chose not to use me. That's their decision and I respect that. I talked it over with Tommy Grace, the manager. He told me it wasn't a matter of punishing me or the team. He said it was more a matter of giving me an extra day to get my head on straight. They thought we could win Game 5 and that would let me pitch three times in the ALCS if necessary. I accept that he has told me the truth.

"What happened to you really bothered me, Brock. It really bothered a lot of people and most of the guys in Cleveland know you. It made a lot of us take a look at just how vulnerable we really are. I was ready for Game 1 but I probably pitched better on Tuesday than I would have on Monday. I'm not worried about that crap and I don't want you to apologize for anything."

Brock smiled and nodded. Then he went back to checking his lines.

By the time the boat made dock on Wednesday, Brock felt pretty good about a lot of things that had been troubling him. He had come to realize that he missed Randi as much as he missed Meredith. But he didn't miss either of them more than he missed Jennifer, who was still in Atlanta until after Thanksgiving. He didn't miss either of them more than he missed Chastity, which surprised him. He had spoken to Chastity rarely in the past few months. The few days she spent in Los Angeles had been spent with him hospitalized or recuperating.

He figured he should give her a call once he returned home. After all, she was supposed to be getting everyone tickets for her team's game against Norway in less than a month.

He waited until nine p.m. in Miami before he called. He figured he would catch her after practice and before she went to sleep.

It was several rings before she picked up. She sounded a little flustered.

"Hey," Brock said. "I can call back if you're busy."

"No," Chastity said. "I was just getting out of the shower. Julie said it was you calling and I didn't want to miss you."

"You could have called me back," Brock pointed out. "I am doing absolutely nothing. Well, that's not true. I just got back from five days of fishing."

"I heard all about your fishing expedition," Chastity said with a laugh. "Tia has talked to J.C. every day for the past few months and she went through withdrawal when he was out of contact for a few days."

"Oh, sorry," Brock said.

"Don't worry about it," Chastity replied. "It made her appreciate him a little more. I told her it's easy to forget you have something good until it's gone but some lessons are better learned than heard."

"I guess," Brock said. "Are things still a go for next month?"

"Yep," Chastity replied. "I just need to know how many tickets. We're allowed four each but I can probably get 40 if you want them. A lot of players don't use theirs, although it's a lot easier to fly their families over to watch now that we're getting paid."

"I'll bet," Brock said.

"By the way, I've never gotten a bill from your accountant," Chastity said.

"For what?" Brock wondered.

"For flying me across the country when things fell to crap," Chastity listed. "For flying half the team home when they couldn't afford it. For paying for studio time to get our message out. For feeding me and housing me for a week. I'm sure there's more by that's what I have at the top of my head."

"The soccer federation offered to reimburse us for airfare," Brock replied. "We told them to make a similar donation to your team and send us proof. I wouldn't have asked for anything back from them but Al convinced me to play it that way. So I went along with it. They sent us a document saying the total of $23,148 had been added to the team's insurance and retirement fund. The studio time was donated. It cost me absolutely nothing. Feeding and housing you are part and parcel to being your friend. I would do it anytime you needed it or even if you just asked. I believe you would offer me the same. So the sum total of your debt to me is zero."

"Thanks, Brock," Chastity said earnestly. "I, well... , I'm glad we're still friends."

"Me, too," Brock replied. "So, how is the team looking?"

"Really good," Chastity said. "The new coach made only a few changes. He picked a couple of new reserves who fit our style better. That's helped us. I think the biggest change is the attitude. We're all happy to be playing. We no longer feel like indentured servants. We have time to see our family and friends. Louisa's husband is flying down with the kids for Thanksgiving. After we play Norway, we're off until after Christmas. We get 10 days to relax. That would never have happened under the previous regime. Of course, that's our last extended time off until after we bring home the Cup. But we all agree that is the best way to handle things."