Playing all through college, I racked up enough points on the field to get professional scouts looking at me. I even signed a professional contract to play five years with the NFL. I fucking did that. On my own. With no help whatsoever.
Then I fucking blew it with that damn injury.
I walked through the only place I’d really called home as a kid. The house looked pristine. Not like it had been virtually abandoned for over three years. It made me wonder how often Anton had the place cleaned. Or if he’d had someone renting it out or something while he was in the nursing home. Seeing it kept up gave me some hope that maybe someone had come into the old man’s life before he died. But the cleanliness only served as a contrast to the dead town around it, and my anger flourished again. Did no one care for their shit around this fucking place? Anton cared for his shit. Obviously. Could no one take a cue from one of the pillars of the community?
Because that’s what Anton was.
A strong pillar in our town, even when he moved in as an outsider.
I wandered around the house, taking it all in. Before I knew it, I was standing in front of a familiar door. The door to the room Anton had showed me to on that first night. I pushed it open and took a look around. Such a small room. With nothing but a bed that still had the same damn sheets on it I used to sleep on. Small specks of dust floated around, but I could still smell the cleanliness. That lemon smell that came with every clean small town home, tainted with the faintest odor of bleach. Even now, I felt comfortable within the walls of this room. Safe and protected from the big, bad world outside. I couldn’t help comparing it to my new life.
This room was smaller than my bathrooms.
Certainly smaller than my closets.
I sat on the edge of the bed and closed my eyes. I remembered telling Anton the day I bought the vineyard. He was absolutely stunned. The concussion I’d suffered on the football field during my last year of playing professionally took me out for good. The doctor said that another hard whack could make me a vegetable for the rest of my fucking life. So I took half of my saved millions and invested it into a rundown, beat-up vineyard in Napa Valley. I got that place for a steal, too. I sold off all their product for half price to raise some capital up front to breathe life back into the place, and now I was making a solid two billion a year from it.
Billions more than I ever could’ve made playing professional football.
So much had changed in my life since I left Anton’s house over a decade ago. College. Football. The injury. The money. All of it, bringing me to this exact point in time. Staring at the four walls that took me in when I had nowhere else to go.
Being there without him felt wrong.
“What the fuck,” I said with a groan.
I put my head in my hands as the headache overtook my vision.
Headaches. I got them sometimes. Courtesy of my concussion. We won that game, thanks to the moves I pulled on that field. But they were moves that ended my career. Sometimes I missed it. I’d get into the gym and work out my frustrations until I was pouring buckets of sweat off my body. I loved the physical activity. I loved the hitting. It helped with my anger. My aggression. The hatred I still had for my father. I made working out and practicing my life when I played professionally, but now sometimes it felt like my damn headaches ruled my world.
Laying on the dusty bed, I shielded my eyes from the light.
So much had changed, and I didn’t know if I liked it. My changes had been in a positive direction, but I’d hoped my small town would’ve changed at least a little bit, too. At least kept up with the times enough to aid in its own survival. But on the contrary, it seemed everyone in the damn place was content to drown in their traditions rather than rising above their comfort level and keeping the place afloat.
It made me angry.
It angered me that they talked about tradition without upholding any sort of standard to it. It angered me how they preached about family, but were willing to watch the other drown. It pissed me off that people talked about hard work, but that same work was only hard if you never made any money for it. People looked at my bank accounts and thought I was getting a free ride. Like my billions had been bestowed upon me from some damn tree in my backyard. They had no idea the hours I sunk into that vineyard. The hours I sunk into the gym. Into training. The injuries I dealt with and the migraines I suffered through out of passion for the sport of football. They didn’t know the risky business deals I made and the countless nights I spent learning about wine, crafting flavors, planting and growing grapes, and harvesting them at just the right time.
Countless hours of sleep lost to bring myself to this point.
Being home was a stark reminder of everything I never wanted to be in my life. That was the source of my anger. It made me sick to my stomach that Anton’s death had brought me back. That his funeral and his estate had brought me back.
Because it meant I was alone.
Now I was officially completely alone.
Chapter 2
Michelle
“Are you familiar with pivot tables?”
“With what?” I asked.
“It says in your resume you have experience with Excel. We frequently use pivot tables. Have you used them before?”
What the hell was a pivot table?
“Um, a couple of times. Though the more I use something, the better I become at it.”