The Second Floor | We're all Fine Here (63.18)

[mragland]

5.07.2063 – Richmond upon Thames, Greater London

It was late. Grant lay on the sofa in his still under-furnished living room, balancing a laptop on his stomach. The lights were as low as his mood, and the smell of takeout curry still hung in the air. He had just finished watching the Monarchs drop the second game of the Moscow series. Connor Hetherington coughed up 3 runs in the 8th (it apparently took two home runs without recording an out for him to get the hook) and that was all she wrote.

Now he waited for his weekly video call with Jenny. These weren't going super well. She was still mad about his sudden job change and relocation (understandably), and her application for a transfer to the London office wasn't exactly being expedited, so they had no real timetable for when the household would be whole again. Anger that she would otherwise be directing at the State Department, she tended to instead focus on Grant, the ultimate cause of this upheaval and irritation.

“Hey,” she said flatly when the call began, not looking up from something she was reading.

“Hey, Jen,” said Grant, trying to muster some positive energy as he looked at the top of her head. Brown hair, ponytail, white scrunchy thing.

She looked up at the camera. “Sorry your team lost,” she said, and then furrowed her brow. “You don't look so great, my dude.”

“It's not been a good start to the season. Haven't been sleeping real well.”

“What's the trouble?”

“Well, we're currently buried in the standings, eight games out of first place already just thirty-four games in. Our prize center field acquisition is suddenly made of porcelain. Our prize DH acquisition has forgotten how to hit. Last season's MVP is languishing in AAA, and I don't have a clue what's the problem with him. Our bullpen is flaming bag of dogshit, and I'm afraid that I know exactly what the problem is there. But, really, other than that, it's all just ducky.”

Jenny snickered. “Didn't you say that running a baseball club was an exercise in crisis management? Well, you got your crisis. Manage it.”

“But it's haaard,” said Grant in a mock keening whine.

“Suck it up, buttercup,” said Jenny. Was that a chuckle he heard?

“The words of encouragement that get me through the day,” said Grant.

“Think of it as a restoration of karmic balance. You don't have anybody in the office you can unburden yourself to?”

“Not really,” said Grant, sitting up now. “I'm kinda the boss, you know.”

“Lucky me,” said Jenny. Then she cleared her throat. “I'm gonna change the subject now.”

“Please do,” said Grant.

She looked over at another screen. “The kids are all set to fly back to their dad's at the end of June. They'll be there through August. Assuming nothing's happened with my transfer, I'll be coming up to London on July seventh. I'll be able to stay for a couple of weeks. You know, the kids are coming around on this whole London thing. They're excited to see some games.”

“Hey, that's great,” said Grant, his face brightening. Stacey and Jack, 12 and 10, had expressed no interest in baseball, or really anything their stepdad did, before. “I've got a pretty nice box, being the GM and all.”

“Oh, no, not Monarchs games,” said Jenny. “Richmond. They've talked Rodney into buying them a bunch of Greyhounds gear.”

Grant chuckled to himself. “Yeah. I believe they call them matches in soccer, by the way.” Grant put the laptop down on a box in front of the sofa labeled 'books, fiction.' “You can just make out the tops of their stadium lights from the living room window,” he said turning his head in that direction. The lights were off and it was nighttime, so you couldn't see anything at the moment. “We might be able to work out some sort of ticket exchange. They're pretty friendly over there.”

“That'd be great, Grant.”

“Jenny, we can make this work.”

“I'm beginning to believe you. It's just too bad that Athens job didn't come open. Could've saved us a lot of trouble.”