Page 50 of The Devil In Denim
“Do you think my dad made the right decision?” she blurted out.
He looked confused. “Pardon?”
“Selling you the Saints, was it the right thing to do?”
“I’m hardly in the position to give you an unbiased answer. I wanted to buy the team.”
“Pretend for a moment. Put yourself outside the situation. He’s gotten through tough spots before and he had an up-and-coming employee to start helping out. Would you have sold if you’d been him?” She held her breath, fighting the urge to squirm. Why had she asked this question? Was she so desperate for approval? And what would happen if Alex didn’t give it to her?
“The up-and-comer is you, I take it?”
“Yep.”
Alex tapped the table a couple of times with his hands. A little drumroll to build her anticipation … at least that’s what her mind insisted on calling it.
“You’re sure you want to hear the answer?”
No. She bit down the response. Suck it up, Jameson. “Yes. Don’t worry. I’m not going to cry.”
“I’m not worried about you crying. I’m worried about the way you can swing a baseball bat,” he said with a half shrug.
“Is that a joke?”
He paused, then gave her the other half of the shrug. “Not entirely.”
“You think I’d smash up your office if I got mad enough?”
“People do some crazy shit when they’re mad.” He offered a smile.
“I’m not the smash-up-the-office type. I’m Saint Maggie, remember?”
“I remember.” He paused, and she waited for him to say something about the fact that she hadn’t been so saintly on Saturday night. To bring up the kissing. But he didn’t. “Even saints can be pushed too far.”
What did that mean? “Just tell me.”
He tapped his fingers again. “Okay. Then yes. Yes. I think he made the right decision.”
“You’d have done the same thing?”
A nod.
“Why?”
“To get out of an unredeemable situation. He didn’t have the money to pull the Saints out of their hole without jeopardizing everything else he’d built. Which would be dumb.”
“Dumb?”
“Baseball’s not as important as his family’s security. Or all the other people he employs elsewhere.”
Neither was she apparently. “What about the people he employs here?”
“Well, he was handing them over to someone who did have the money. Who could make sure that they stayed employed rather than having them lose everything or being forced to sell when they were in an even worse position in a few months.”
“What if there was something he hadn’t tried?”
“From what I understand, he’d tried. He’d done all the things I would’ve done.”
“Maybe neither of you can think far enough outside the box.”
