Faith didn’t know how to respond to such a kind act. How did she go about thanking someone for something like that? It wasn’t just the time he’d spent working on the video and setting up the accounts. It was doing it for her when he knew she couldn’t do it for herself, yet needed it so badly. It was his ability to think ten steps ahead of her and anticipate her needs, then fill them while she was still struggling moment to moment. It was the sheer fact that he’d not only listened to her, but he’d heard her and then taken that next step and actually made something happen for her.
She wished Taylor wasn’t with him. Faith wanted to leave here right now and find him. Beyond wrapping him in a bear hug and kissing him until he couldn’t breathe, she didn’t know what she’d do to thank him. Because she already gave herself over to him completely on a nightly basis and would continue to do so until he returned to his real world.
“That’s an awful deep look of concentration.”
The male voice startled her out of her thoughts. Dwayne strolled beneath the arena’s cover, hands in his pockets, a big grin on his face. Faith’s mind shifted gears. “Hey, there.” She turned to face him. “That’s the biggest smile I’ve seen on your face in a while.”
“Grant’s had that effect on a lot of people in town.” He came up beside Faith and slipped up onto the table next to her. She loved the way no one even thought to question her father’s craftsmanship. “You should see the effect he’s had on the boys. He’s given that whole team an infusion of pure energy. They’re working twice as hard and having twice as much fun doing it. I’m really glad you and Grant became friends. You’re both orphans in a way. Both such good people. I love it when good things happen to good people.”
He sighed happily and looked around. “Where is that boy? He told me he had to move practice until this afternoon because he was helping you set up.”
“He was going to, but something else came up that he needed to take care of.”
Dwayne nodded. “Well, I’m glad he got home even if he did have to deal with his family while he was here. That didn’t turn out all bad. And it gave him a break from all that baloney he lives with.”
Faith shook her head confused. She couldn’t tell if Dwayne was talking about his family here or… “Baloney.” She smiled, remembering how her dad loved that phrase. “That reminds me of Dad.”
“Yeah. I miss that man. We knew what baloney was. These young men, they haven’t figured it out yet.”
“And that would be…?” she asked.
“All the smoke and mirrors around him up there in DC. All the ESPN interviews, the newspaper articles, Sports Illustrated features. Money, power, and women—they’re the three common denominators in the downfalls of all great men. In Grant’s case, power comes in two forms—money and fame. He’s already got more money than he’ll ever spend in his lifetime, and I always see him with a different woman on his arm at all those events he attends for the team to please charities, sponsors, owners, and managers. And each of those women is just as rich, beautiful, and powerful as Grant.”
Dwayne waved it away like he was swatting a fly. “It’s all baloney. It’s not real. And when it all disappears…well…if that’s all you had, you’re left with nothing. At least nothing substantial.”
Faith was still trying to absorb all Dwayne had just told her about Grant in the span of two minutes. It opened up a whole new perspective on both the man and his life back in DC.
Her excitement had been relegated to a corner, and her heart dropped a little lower in her chest.
“Ah,” she said, as if it all made sense now, when in fact, the more she learned, the less she understood. “That baloney.”
Dwayne chuckled and patted her knee. “What can I help you with, darlin’?”
“Uh…” Faith refocused and looked around. “Actually, nothing. I’m done with all the big stuff. Now I’m just wandering around double-checking things.”
Dwayne gave her a long sweet hug. “Your daddy’d be proud of his little girl.”
Unfortunately, Faith seriously doubted it. “Thanks, Dwayne.”
Grant had taken pages and pages of notes from his hour-long talk with Taylor. A talk he’d realized within the first ten minutes would take weeks, maybe months, to adequately flesh out and understand.
“So, you can see here”—Taylor pointed to one of the several spreadsheets she’d brought over—“I have several revenue streams that I monitor at all times. That way, I can tell where I need to either concentrate or cut, change, whatever.”
They were sitting at a small desk in the basement that Faith used as an office, and he’d been cooped up there long before Taylor had come by, trying to figure out a better way of running the store so Faith could make a livable wage. And he’d realized a couple of important things.
The first was that if she wasn’t ready to give up something as intangible as judging an ice-carving contest, she sure as hell wouldn’t be ready to do what Grant really thought she ought to do, which was get rid of the store and do something she really loved. The second was, if she couldn’t do the first, she sure wouldn’t be open to the complexity of trying to continue a relationship with Grant.
The only bright spot was Taylor and this niche she’d carved out in what seemed to be a market that wasn’t only thriving, but growing.
Grant shook his head, still staring at the numbers on her spreadsheet. “Don’t take this wrong, Taylor, but, if I’m understanding this right, you make a shitload of money for talking about really stupid-ass shit.”
To Grant’s relief, Taylor laughed.
“That doesn’t bother me because you’re not my target audience,” she told him. “And my target audience finds pushing a three-inch disc of vulcanized rubber around an ice rink with a stick while brawling with a bunch of other guys some really stupid-ass shit.”
Grant grinned. “Good point.”
“If you use this as a template, you could, in theory, simply change the topics and have Faith film how-to segments the same way.” She leaned back. “For example, instead of a post about how to design your planner for maximum efficiency, Faith would create a post about how to design your garage workbench for maximum efficiency. And instead of posting links to all the pens, papers, stickers, and stamps I used in the process, she would do what you did with her Christmas lights video—ingenious and incredibly sweet, by the way—and link to all the wood, screws, nails, glue, tools, and paint she used to complete the process.”