Page 21 of The Sweetest Return

Television wasn’t a bad opportunity. That was what made the decision irritating. The money didn’t matter much, but they wanted my football brain and not just my face. I liked breaking down film. Liked talking ball with people who understood why an offensive lineman turning his hips two inches too soon could fuck up an entire play.

But sitting under studio lights every Sunday while twenty-two-year-old backs did what my body no longer could?

I still couldn’t decide whether that sounded like healing or punishment.

My businesses had given me somewhere to put all the energy football left behind. The guaranteed money helped. So did Pops.

Jones Landscaping started with one truck, three lawn mowers, and my mother doing invoices at the kitchen table after work. By the time I got drafted, Pops had crews across Allegheny County and enough contracts that I finally understood why he had spent my childhood leaving before sunrise and coming home after dark.

He never acted like money impressed him by itself.

Owning something did. Building it did. Creating enough from it that somebody besides you could eat did.

When football ended, I followed the model I knew.

I bought controlling interest in my first dealership, then a second and third. My name got people through the doors; good operations kept them buying cars. North & Vine came next. I put up capital, partnered with people who knew restaurants better than I did, learned the numbers, and stayed out of the kitchen unless Chef invited me past the line.

Pops was hardest.

“You ain’t buying your way into something I built,” he told me when I wanted to invest in his company.

So I worked my way in instead.

Eventually Jones Landscaping became Jones Outdoor, expanding into commercial grounds management, municipal contracts, and larger development work.

All three businesses made money.

A lot of it.

Popularity opened doors. I still had to know what the fuck to do once I walked through them.

Over the past year, I had gotten good at that.

Maybe too good.

Football had once demanded almost every part of me, and somehow I had responded to losing it by building three things capable of doing the same.

Tina came through the cabin again.

“Anything before we land?”

I lifted the cranberry tonic. “I’m good.”

“You sure?”

Her smile made it clear she wasn’t asking about the drink this time.

I smiled back because she was pretty and harmless and I wasn’t rude.

“I’m sure.”

She finally gave up.

The engines changed pitch a few minutes later, and Pittsburgh began appearing beneath the clouds, river first, then bridges, downtown rising beyond them until the city settled into view.

Home.

My phone vibrated again.