“You have to admit, she’s pretty fucking cool,” Gabby countered. “For all her prissy ways, she doesn’t blink when the shit hits the fan. She just deals.” My sister grinned, and the corners of her wide eyes crinkled. “When I was little and my friends would come to play at our house, the first time they met Mom, they’d almost always ask why she talked that way. When I was in third grade, one girl who was doing a group project with me came over to work on it one day, and she swore Mom was some kind of royalty.”
“She’s got class and style.” I sat up a little to reach for the beer Gabby had poured for me. “Even if she is going to drive me crazy with the whole find a girlfriend nag.”
“Did she happen to mention Gammy and Gramps’ party?” Gabby inquired.
I groaned. “Yeah, she did, and she says I have to bring a date. Who the fuck am I going to take? You can’t just ask any random woman to go as your plus-one for a big family party. Women read something more into that kind of invitation and assume the guy wants to get serious.”
“Couldn’t you ask one of your teammates to set you up?” Gabby tilted her head, watching me thoughtfully. “Maybe one of them has a sister or something. That way, you could explain what you need and that it’s a one-time deal. Nothing more.”
“No way.” I shuddered. “You don’t date the sisters of your fellow players. It’s not cool.”
“Exactly.” Gabby stabbed her finger into her leg, making a point. “That’s why it makes sense.”
“Yeah, no.” I shook my head.
“And there’s nobody else? You don’t have a friend who’d be willing to come as a favor?”
Instantly, Sarah’s face popped into my mind. I thought of our conversation at Leo and Quinn’s wedding, and of how easy it had been to talk with her—again. I tried very hard not to remember that walking with her on the beach, her arm linked through mine, had felt somehow . . . right. And holding her in my arms when we’d danced just before I’d left the party? It had been both heaven and hell. Heaven, because she fit perfectly against me, as though she’d been made to sway along with me on the dance floor forever. Hell, because no matter how good and right she felt, I knew nothing could ever come of it.
“Nope.” I bit off the word quickly, realizing that my sister was studying me suspiciously.
“Are you sure? You were thinking of someone just now. I could tell.”
I scowled at her. “I was thinking that it’s fucking annoying to be told that I have to come up with a date.”
“Hmmm.” Gabby wasn’t convinced, but after a moment, her expression softened. “You know, you could always ask Lilly.”
“No fucking way. No way in hell.” I jabbed my finger at my sister. “And don’t you dare say anything to Mom about that. It’s a stupid idea. God, Gabby. I’m just now able—” My mouth clamped shut. “I don’t want to talk about it. Or her.”
“Gideon, you really should talk about her. Or even better, talk to her.” Gabby got up, skirting the steamer trunk as she perched on the arm of my chair, resting one hand on my shoulder. “Lilly’s doing so well now. It would be good for both of you to talk.”
“I’m not going through that again.” I wasn’t going to be persuaded into some kind of lame reconciliation attempt. “It took us both too long to do the right thing and end our relationship. I’m not jonesing to jump back in now.”
“I don’t think she wants that either, and I’m not suggesting it,” my sister returned. “But talking doesn’t mean you have to go back to the way you were before. It just means—you know. Closure.”
I groaned. “Are you serious? You’re using psycho-shit babble on me now? I don’t need closure, Gabby. I just need to be left alone. I’m over Lilly. I’m sorry for how everything went down between us, but there’s nothing left to say.”
“What if she wanted to talk to you?” My sister raised one eyebrow. “What if Lilly said that she needed that for her own peace?”
I didn’t know how to answer that one. “Did she say that to you?”
Gabby nodded. “She asked me if I thought you might be open to a meeting. Lunch, or dinner or something.”
“Jesus, Gabs.” I rubbed my jaw. “I don’t know.” For over two years, I had tried to shut out of my head both Lilly and the memory of what we’d had together. The idea of ripping the scab off that wound didn’t excite me.
“Think about it,” Gabby urged me. “And not just for Lilly. Think about it for your own sake.”
“Maybe.” I gave her just that much. “But not now. I can’t afford to give up any of my headspace when the new season is about to begin.”
Gabby nibbled the side of her lip. “Okay,” she said after a few moments. “That’s fair. I won’t push the issue—right now. But once this season is behind us, we’re going to revisit it. Promise me?”
“Fine.” I drew a cross over my heart. “But keep in mind that I’m going to be pretty busy with all the press and publicity that happens when a team wins the big game.”
“Greaaaat. Because I’ve never heard that before in this family. Or from you, since your rookie year.” Gabby yawned dramatically. “Tell you what, big brother. If you do manage to nail that win, I promise I won’t nag you about talking to Lilly for at least a month.”
“Sounds like a plan.” I gave her a gentle shove off the arm of my chair. “Hey, I’m hungry. Let’s go get some food. Is that Thai place down the block still there?”
“Ah . . .” My sister’s eyes flitted away. “Can I get a raincheck? Early this morning, I hit my stride with a project, and if I leave right now, I’m afraid the muse might skedaddle.”
“Sure.” I stood up and stuffed my hands into the pockets of my jeans. I totally respected an artist’s process, and Gabby was never anything less than honest with me, but still, I had a weird feeling that she wasn’t telling me everything. “You okay, fog face?”
“Me?” She spread one hand over her chest and gave me wide eyes. “Of course, I am.”
“You’d tell me if something was up, right?” Being the big brother gave me the right to bust her balls, but in my book, it also made me responsible for her well-being.
“Never, and you know why? Because you’re such a loser, loser.” She winked at me and gave me a punch on the arm. “I’m fine, Gideon. I’m doing what I always wanted to do, I live in a kick-ass place, I have a ton of friends, and my family is totally awesome, except for the overbearing older brother who thinks he can use concern for my state of mind to distract me from his own sorry life.”
“Okay, fine.” I grabbed her in a headlock and knuckled the top of her head until she squirmed away, shooting me the bird as she glowered. “You’re going to come down and see a game or two this season, right?”
“That depends. Are you going to let us stay at your new house?”
My wince was involuntary, but Gabby didn’t miss it. She popped her hands on her hips and gave me a hard stare that was eerily like the one our mother had shot my way earlier.
“It’s not that I don’t want you to see it, it’s just . . .” I shrugged. “It’s mine, and I’m being selfish. I don’t want to hear Mom’s critique of the furniture or the yard. I love my place, and I’m not going to change it.”
“We would never ask you to change it.” Gabby’s voice softened. “But we don’t like being shut out. So invite us over, and we’ll bring barbecue take-out, break in your new table, and we’ll wait until we’re all in the car on our way to the airport to talk about what we don’t like. Fair?”
I chuckled. “Yeah, okay. That’s fair.. You let me know when you’re coming, and I’ll even change the sheets on the guest beds.”
“You’re too good to us. Now go. I need to make art happen.”
She shooed me away after a fierce hug and a smacking kiss on my cheek. Jogging down the stairs, I left the cool shadiness of her building and stepped into the heat of a New York City summer afternoon.
Even though the Thai restaurant had been my idea, now that I was out on the str
eet alone, it didn’t excite me. In New York, unlike in Richmond, I could go pretty much anywhere without being recognized, but I didn’t love eating alone in a restaurant . . . which was kind of screwed up when I considered it. I ate all of my meals alone at Peaceful Meadows, and I loved it.
Still, the thought of sitting at a table for two with just myself for company felt more than a little pathetic. So instead of heading for Thai Blossom, I just began walking down the street. I didn't have a destination in mind or any plans for where I wanted to go. My mother and father expected me home to eat dinner with them, but that was hours away. I'd already gotten in a decent workout before I’d come across town to visit Gabby. I didn't have any friends in the city, at least none who I’d consider calling up for a visit.
It occurred to me fleetingly that any other guy in my position—in the city for a quick visit before the season began, with time on his hands—would message one of his buddies to meet him for a beer at their favorite bar. But I couldn’t come up with a single person I’d want to call for that kind of hang out.
For the first time in longer than I could remember, I was at loose ends, with no pressing responsibilities, nothing looming on today’s schedule, and no one who expected me to be anywhere, at least for the rest of the day. Tomorrow morning, I would board a flight back south, and when I landed in Richmond, I'd begin the official process of gearing up for the new season. But that was tomorrow, and this was today, and today didn't have any obligations or expectations.
I wasn't sure if it was the idea of expectations or just that my mind had the freedom to wander for the first time in a while, but Sarah's face flashed in front of me again, just as it had back in Gabby's loft. I couldn't explain why, and I didn't want to try. When I thought of Sarah—and it happened more than I cared to admit—I always reasoned with myself that my attraction to her was in the very fact that we didn't know each other so well. We’d met casually, and then we’d spent time together twice.
And yet, it wasn't exaggerating to say that I'd shared with this virtual stranger some of my most intimate secrets. Maybe that was why she held such allure, simply because she'd really seen me and had liked me anyway.
I thought of what she’d said on the beach the night of Leo and Quinn's wedding. When she'd accused me of having unfair expectations of her, my knee-jerk reaction had been to deny it. But the more I’d thought about it, the more I realized that she was right: I had loaded on Sarah all of the baggage that had come with other women in my experience. I'd assumed that she was like them, when she'd never given me any reason to think so. Sarah had been nothing but honest, open and kind from the first time I’d laid eyes on her at that party.
Almost of its own accord, my hand went to my back pocket where my cell phone was tucked. I remembered the teasing glint in Sarah's eyes as she had typed her phone number into my contacts list. The next day, as I'd been checking out of the hotel to head back to Richmond after the wedding, I'd given in to temptation and scrolled through that list, just to see if she’d given herself some kind of crazy title in my phone. But no, her name was there in its regular form. I'd stared at the number a long time, thinking to myself that if I were smart, I’d delete it since I never planned to use it anyway. But instead, I'd closed up the application and put away my phone before I could do anything I might regret.
Now I pulled up her entry again, and I studied her name for a long moment. If I texted her now, I wondered if she'd answer me. She'd been in San Francisco for several months by this time, and it was not unlikely that she might be in a relationship. It would not be unusual at all, because Sarah Jenkins was a beautiful woman, and any guy would be lucky to call her his girlfriend.
I stopped at the corner with a crowd of people while we waited for the traffic light to change. As I stood there, still brooding over the screen of my phone, my thumb touched her name briefly, just enough to bring up the options to either text her or call her. I could call her, I thought. It was midafternoon here, which meant that in California, it was just about lunchtime. I wondered if she would answer. Of course, she would have no way of knowing that it was me calling her, since she didn’t have my number. Maybe she’d just let it go to voicemail. Maybe I should text her first, and see if she was available and actually wanted to talk to me—
"Shit." I turned off my phone and shoved it savagely back into my pocket. I wasn't that guy. I wasn't the guy who mooned over a girl, the kind who lost his mind over whether or not she would answer if he called. Right now, I was doing what I'd sworn I'd never do, what I’d promised myself would never happen after Lilly. I was dangerously close to letting a woman distract me from the number one love in my life, and that was football.
The light changed, and I moved across the street with the rest of the herd. I wondered how it was possible, when I never was lonely by myself on the farm, to feel so utterly alone in a crowd of people.
7
Sarah
“Hi, Kara. Do you have a minute? I’d just like you to go over the schedule for the fundraiser and let me know if it looks good to you.”
Kara Crocker glanced up from her computer and smiled at me. "Absolutely," she answered brightly. “Let me take a look."
I handed my boss the sheaf of papers and then dropped into the comfortable chair across the desk from her. Kara’s office was warm and welcoming. I never had to worry about her being annoyed if I happened to stick my head in for a quick word. When she and her husband proclaimed that they had a perpetually open-door policy, they meant it.
Not that the offices that Kara and Allan occupied weren't swank, though. The furnishings, carpets and curtains might have been unassuming, but I also knew they were top of the line, the best quality available. Kara’s desk was an antique that her husband had found for her at a shop in Chinatown.
They had explained to me early in my tenure with them that when they had come up with the idea of establishing a chain of restaurants named after their late son—restaurants that would fund the nonprofit organization also inspired by Gunner—they'd made the decision to only have one set of offices to deal with both the business and the charity. Thus, they did all of their work on the second floor of the Gunner Crocker Building, while the restaurant operations were centered on the first floor, and I worked on the third floor with the nonprofit executives.
"Well, this looks great." Kara picked up a pen and scribbled something in a margin. "Let's maybe give the League Commissioner about…" She cast her eyes upwards, thinking. "Let's say about eight minutes for his speech. He's got a tendency to be a little long-winded, but if we let him know up front that we have a tight timetable, he'll respect that."
"That's a good idea. I'll make sure that I mention that when I send him all of the details this week."
"Yes, please do that. I don't have to remind you to put it in subtle terms, right?" Kara winked at me, and I laughed.
"I'm pretty sure that that's in my job description—saying stuff people don't really want to hear in a way that makes them want to hear it."
"And you're darn good at it," Kara returned. She picked up the pile of papers and tapped the bottom of them on the blotter of her desk, gazing at me over the top of the pages.
“You know, you could have sent this to me as an email attachment. Not that I'm complaining," she rushed to assure me. "I'm just saying that if you need to get out of your office every now and again, you don't have to look for an excuse. We encourage long afternoon walks to stimulate creativity."
I crossed my legs and leaned back in the chair. “I didn't so much need the walk as I wanted to have a word with you," I admitted. "But if you're busy…"
"Not a bit." Kara pushed back a little from her desk and hugged one leg up to her chest, wrapping her arm around it. It was one of those endearing habits of my new boss, and her openness and spontaneity were two of the reasons I so enjoyed what I was doing now. Working for the Crockers had been an eye-opening experience, reminding me that there was a world beyond the bullshit and posturing that I'd
come to accept as the norm in Washington, DC.
"Um, well . . ." I began. "I just wanted you to know that I'm going out with Kent tonight."
Kara's eyebrows rose. "Oh, are you now?" She grinned at me, a wicked sparkle in her eyes. "Well, I hope that you have a wonderful time. And if everything works out, don't forget that I'm a very good godmother. I'm extremely generous, and if you name the kiddo after me, I'm liable to be downright indulgent."
I rolled my eyes. "I'm not anywhere near there yet. I mean, I appreciate that you set us up—"
"I didn't set you up." Kara shook her head. "I merely pointed out to both of you, individually, how wonderful the other one was. I might have also told Kent that you were single and could use someone to help you find your social footing in a new city. I'm not a busybody matchmaker, no matter what my husband might try to insinuate."
"Okay okay." I threw up my hands. "So you didn't set us up, but you strongly suggested that we would be a good match."
Kara considered that for a moment and then nodded. "I can live with that phrasing." She shifted in her seat, tugging at the hem of her pants and twisting the edge of the fabric around her finger. "Are you having jitters? Or second thoughts? Because you know, you don't have to go out with Kent. I'm not putting any pressure on you. At least, I hope I didn't. I just want you to be happy here, and not only because we absolutely love the job that you're doing. I want you to be happy here because I like you, Sarah, and I enjoy having you as part of our company. People who I like, people who I consider friends . . . I want them to be happy. I happen to think that finding the person you're meant to be with for the rest of your life is a good step toward that happiness."
"I don't feel pressured at all. If I did, I wouldn't have said yes. I think you know by now that I'm not a pushover, and I don't let anybody run my life." I paused. "I'm not sure that I believe that my happiness depends on finding the person I’m meant to be with for the rest of my life, but I wouldn't mind making a new friend in the city. I guess I just came down to see you because…" I lifted one shoulder. "It's been a long time since I've been out on a date, and I hope that I don't screw it up. I don't have any girlfriends in the city yet. I just need somebody to say that it's going to be all right, to tell me that I still can totally rock a first date."
Sway (Keeping Score Book 6) Page 12