~ Chapter Three ~

"Did you know he was Bob Carter's kid?"  Kevin stabbed his fork in the air with each syllable of the Yankee first baseman's name, ignoring the salad in front of him.  At first, Kevin had disliked Nick because of his attitude, but now it was about to become deeper than that. 

"Yes."  Brian said calmly, arranging his french fries on his plate.

"Why does everyone know that except me?"  Kevin said in confusion.  No one else seemed to be surprised with this news and it wasn't like Kevin wasn't aware of the goings on in baseball.  How had he missed the arrival of Bob Carter's kid in the big leagues?

"Well..."  Brian inspected the slices of potato, and finally picked one.  "I think everyone else is pretty aware that the reason Nick was traded over here is that Nick and Bob were having some... professional difficulties and Rubenstein was fed up with it.  So he got rid of the problem."

"Yeah?"  Kevin didn't care about that. "Bri , do you know what this means?"

"Rubenstein is a jerk."   Brian smiled angelically around his french fry.  "He traded off the best hitter his team had in five years because his dad had been with the organization for twenty years."

"Think about it, Brian."  Kevin snapped.  "That kid never had to work for anything he's got right now.  He got his draft position because of his Dad, he was a Yankee because of his Dad..."

"And now he's not a Yankee because of his Dad."  Brian finished.  "Kevin.  He won Rookie of the Year.  It's not like he's can't play.  Give the kid a chance."

"You're missing the point here."  Kevin leaned forward, his elbow narrowly missing his salad plate.  "It's his attitude, Bri."  

"Well..."  Brian selected another french fry, turning it over to make sure it was perfect, not committing to Kevin's statement one way or the other.

"What?"  Kevin smacked it out of Brian's hand.  "What are you DOING?  Quit playing with your food!"

"Hey!"  Brian picked it up off the table.  "Now you ruined it.  And that was a good one!"

"What makes a good french fry?"  Kevin wondered.

Brian thought about it.  "Grease, I guess."  He shrugged.  "But, Kevin, to be honest, I don't notice that much of an attitude."

Kevin's eyebrows rose. "Oh?  Maybe because he's nice to you?  Have you ever noticed that, Brian?  Everyone is nice to you." 

Kevin knew he wasn't making a point here, he was just complaining now.  He knew perfectly well the reason people were nice to Brian was he was nice to them in the first place.  It was one of Brian's more annoying personality traits, right after playing with his food, and right before his tendency to leave the volume of his radio just loud enough that you could hear the drums and nothing else.

"You're not nice to me."  Brian smirked.  "You ruined my dinner, remember?"

"Never mind."  Kevin stared back down at his salad.  "I'm not going to discuss it anymore.  It only serves to stress me out."

"Kevin."  Brian said through his french fry.

"What?"  Kevin glanced up.  "Don't talk with your mouth full."

"Try being nice."

~*~

Nick scrunched down a little lower on the wicker couch.  The sun had just finished setting and the lights surrounding the hotel patio had turned on.  The fluorescent bulbs gave off the same glow as the light standards in any ballpark.  Nick had spent a good part of his life under that bright blue-white light.

"Hey.  Y'all waiting for someone?"  Someone rested a hand on his shoulder.

Nick twisted around to see Brian.  "No."  He almost hoped Brian would hang around for a while.  Most of the players on the Mariners seemed nice enough, with a few exceptions, but Brian was the only one who came across as being genuinely friendly towards him.

"No date?"  Brian circled around and sat down on the other side of Nick. 

"Nope."  Nick didn't bother to elaborate.  To get a date would mean finding a girl, and that meant socializing.  Nick didn't feel like socializing.  He felt like hating the world.

"Me either."  Brian ran his hand through his blond curly hair as a big smile spread across his face.  "Nick, let's just face it.  We're losers."

"Speak for yourself!"  Nick was mildly offended.  Since when did some guy he hardly knew get to sit down and start insulting him?

"I mean, I saw Howie in the hallway."  Brian jerked his thumb back at the hotel.  "He's got a date.  If Howie's got a date, what are we doing sitting here?"

Nick shrugged.  He knew what he was doing.  He was still hating the entire world, and that included all single females.  He intended to keep it up for a while too.  However, Brian didn't seem the type that would be very good at hating things, so Nick wasn't even going to offer.

"Y'all don't have a girlfriend, do you?"  Brian said after a while, pausing in his methodical gum chewing.

"No."  Nick wasn't going to elaborate on that one either, but his mouth didn't seem to realize that.  "We broke up."  What had possessed him to say that?  Chelsea wasn't something he really wanted to think about right then, much less get involved in a conversation about.

"With that singer?"  Brian said incredulously.  "Chelsea whats-her-name?"

Nick started getting suspicious.  If Brian knew that he had been going out with Chelsea Powers, then why had he bothered to ask the question?  "Powers."

"Yeah.  Chelsea Powers."  Brian nodded.  "Like, everyone was so sure the two of you were going to get married.  And you broke up over you getting traded?"

"How did you know that?"  Nick was surprised.  How could Brian possibly know why he and Chelsea had stopped seeing each other?

Brian shrugged his shoulders.  "They all do.  They don't like it when you end up with another team.  They don't like it that you're on the road three months out of the year.  They don't like it that you have to go to the ballpark every evening.  The list goes on and on."

Nick didn't answer.  The truth be told, his relationship with Chelsea had never been on the level that the media - and Chelsea - portrayed it to be.  And now that he was out of the way, so to speak, Chelsea had wasted no time in calling it quits and hooking up with someone else.  She had her career and image to think of, and that had always been the most important item on her agenda anyway.  Nick had known that all long, it was always there in the back of his mind, but he had chose to ignore that fact until the very end.

"Do you play golf?"  Brian asked suddenly. 

"In theory."  Nick was glad for the change of subject.  He didn't like sitting and thinking about his life.  It never ceased to confuse him, when it wasn't depressing him.

Brian laughed.  "Okay!  Y'all busy after the game tomorrow?"

Nick thought about it.  He knew he wasn't busy, he was just weighing his options.  Either he could sit on the patio and hate the world some more, or he could go play golf with Brian and probably get his butt kicked.  People assumed that if you were good at baseball, you would be good at golf.  They were wrong and Nick was living proof of that.

"Yo, Nick."  Brian prompted.