by Elicia Hyder
I covered my face with my hands and cringed.
Jason leaned down and kissed me one more time. He was smiling. “Text me later.”
“I will.”
When he was gone, Sylvia reached over and grabbed my arm. “I like that young man. You should see what he can do about those parking tickets.” Before giving me a chance to respond, she turned toward her son. “Ben, I’ve changed my mind.”
“About what?” he asked.
She pointed out to the track. “I want to spend my money here. On these girls.”
I shot up straight in my seat. “You want to do what?”
“You said this league relies on corporate sponsors, didn’t you?” she asked.
“Well, I did, but —”
“This is helping those young girls more than any ball gown ever could. And look at them. They don’t even have real jerseys.”
“They wouldn’t wear their real jersey’s for a scrimmage,” I said.
Monica had scooted over into Jason’s empty seat. “When I talked to their coach, she said the team is so new they don’t have bout-day jerseys yet.”
She looked at Ben. “Didn’t we do something with jerseys recently?”
“We created the material for the Vikings new jerseys last year,” he said.
“The football team?” Monica asked.
He nodded.
“Wow,” she said.
“We could do roller derby jerseys, couldn’t we?” she asked him.
“I don’t see why not. We’ve done everything from curtains to swimwear.”
Sylvia was watching the track. “Watch them pushing on each other, Ben. See how the Velcro on their pads is sticking to their shirts?”
“Yeah, that’s a problem when we’re playing,” Monica said.
“We could fix that.” Sylvia snapped her fingers over her head. “You should call Leon.”
Ben looked at his watch. “Leon’s gone home for the night. I’ll call him tomorrow.”
“Who’s Leon?” I asked.
“Leon works with the manufacturers that use our fabric. There are a lot of companies out there that make jerseys,” Ben said.
“Grace, can you introduce me to someone in charge when this is over?” Sylvia asked.
My brain was scrambling to keep up. “Sure. I can do that.”
When the scrimmage was over, I didn’t have to introduce them to Jackie. She came to us. And after a five-minute conversation, Sylvia had promised to deliver brand-new jerseys to all the girls by the start of their season.
Kiara doubled over laughing when I told her the story the next day at work. “What’s so funny?” I asked, as I pinned a zipper into the fabric of a dress I was working on.
“You just couldn’t get enough of Sylvia here at the shop. Now she’s in your extracurricular activities as well.”
“Oh, shut up.”
My phone on the table buzzed with a text message. I leaned to look at the screen. It was Clay again. “Good god. What now?”
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Nothing. Except my ex-husband has decided this week that we need to be best friends again. Listen to this: Have you seen my Cowboys jersey?” I put the phone back down. “Why the hell would I know where his stupid jersey is?”
The phone buzzed again.
Clay: Remember, I wore it to the Super Bowl party last year.
I groaned but still didn’t answer.
“Somebody’s jealous,” she said, snipping the silver thread she was stitching with.
“You think so?”
“Definitely. He saw you with his best friend last weekend. There is nothing in this world that will make a man see the error of his ways like seeing his woman with someone else.”
“How do I get him to stop?”
“Give him what he wants.” She laughed and pointed the scissors at me. “If he knows you’ll take the bait, he’ll leave you alone.”
“I won’t give him that satisfaction even to get rid of him.”
“You could change your number.”
The front door bells jingled. Smiling, I got up. “Now that’s an idea.”
Sylvia and Andrew came through the front door. Miss Taylor was on Sylvia’s lap again. I didn’t even bother to sigh or feel irritated. “Hello there. I wasn’t expecting to see you today, Sylvie.”
Sylvia clapped her hands together and laced her fingers. “I have a fabulous idea for you, so I had to come down here and tell you in person.”
Behind me, I heard Kiara come into the room and mumble, “Oh, I have to hear this.”
“Ben talked to Leon this morning about the jerseys. He has a few shops that can make them,” she said.
I crossed my arms. “That’s great news.”
She shook her head. “No, Grace. You should make the jerseys.”
I heard something clang on the counter behind me. It sounded like Kiara dropped a pair of scissors.
“You want me to what?” I asked.
“You should make the jerseys,” she said again.
I gripped my temples. “I heard what you said. I’m just trying to figure out why you think I would want to make jerseys.”
“You told me yourself that you don’t want to make dresses anymore.”
Busted. I had told her that. And that was the truth.
Kiara stepped over beside me. “You look like you need a chair, Grace.”
“I’m fine. Sylvie, making jerseys requires a giant ass printer and a heat press.” I looked around the store. “Not only do I not have either of those things, but I wouldn’t even have anywhere to put them.”
She waved her hand. “Details, details. You could do it, though, if you had the equipment, right?”
“Of course she could do it,” Kiara said.
I glared. I wanted to hit her.
“You went to MacKay, same as me. I know it was a while ago, but sublimation isn’t new. It’s just easier now. You probably took a course on it, just like I did.”
“Sure, I know how to do it, but there are a lot of skills involved that I do not have.”
Kiara frowned. “Like what?”
“Like graphic design. I can’t do that.”
“It’s called outsourcing, Grace,” Sylvia said with an eyeroll. “You can hire people to do that part of it.”
“Can I buy more time too?” I walked to the back and returned with our order book. I thumbed through the pages, counting the first twenty or so. “I’ve already got a backlog of dress orders that will keep me busy from now until spring.”
Sylvia, possibly sensing I was going into panic mode, held up her hands. “Just think about it. Don’t give me an answer right now. We’ll talk again next week.”
I sucked in a deep breath and nodded.
She reached for me, and I took her hand. She squeezed my fingers. “Sometimes, Grace, the fastest way to get to where you want to go looks like a blind jump off a cliff.”
On Wednesday, Jason came to practice and watched the first part of my scrimmage before he had to go to work. Then I told him that weekend all about Sylvia’s idea. I also ran it past my parents, Monica, and my big brother—the current best entrepreneur I knew.
Everyone was interested in the idea, at the very least. Garrett jumped all over it and started spouting off ways I could grow the business that I hadn’t yet agreed to take on. After five minutes, he had me redressing the entire NFL lineup and creating band T-shirts for Maroon 5.
My follow-up lunch with Sylvia was scheduled for the following week. I promised her an answer by then.
Saturday was Monica’s concert. Jason and I dressed up for the formal evening. He wore a black suit; I wore a dress I bought at the mall the day before (don’t tell anyone). We had a delicious steak-and-crab-cake dinner at J. Alexander’s downtown, and then he drove us to the Symphony Center.
The building was beautiful inside and out, like a wedding cake come to life and stuffed with the city’s most beautiful people. Our seats were excellent. So wa
s the wine.
It was the perfect evening…until I returned from the bathroom before the start of the show and found him holding the cell phone I’d left on my chair.
He looked guilty as hell when he looked up and saw me.
“What are you doing?” I asked, sitting back down beside him.
“I wasn’t snooping.” He handed it to me. “I was just trying to silence your ringer because you kept getting text messages and it was beeping.”
My heart withered with the words text messages. “Were they from Clay?” As I asked I looked at screen.
Yes—holy shit—they were.
Clay: Have you thought about us meeting up?
Clay: Ginny is on call Thursday night.
Clay: Doesn’t Jason still work 3rds?
Clay: Grace?
My insides twisted into knots. “This is not what it looks like.” I swiped my screen open just as the house lights went down. “Read this.”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to.”
I pushed the phone into his hands. “Please, read it.”
“I don’t want to,” he said again.
Just then, the haunting sound of a piano began to play the single notes of the opening to “The Little Drummer Boy.”
“He’s been texting me all week. I haven’t responded to any of them,” I whispered. “Please look.”
With a huff, he took the phone and scrolled through the messages. Clay had sent a handful of messages that week that I truly hadn’t responded to. None of them had been as bold as these. I wanted to crawl in my seat and die.
Jason finally turned off the screen and handed me the phone. “It’s fine,” he whispered over the soloist who had begun to sing the melody.
But it wasn’t fine. I could feel it in my bones.
Nineteen
Jason and I barely talked about the text messages again. On our drive home he’d asked if I wanted him to deal with Clay. I’d said no. That was the end of it. Or, at least, I hoped that was the end of it.
Clay didn’t text me again. Perhaps he’d gotten the message—pun intended.
The following week turned out pretty great, starting with roller derby practice on Wednesday. At our final scrimmage until the New Year, I helped my team win by forty-two points. Even Maven and Medusa were clapping for me when I finished the final jam.
And at work, I busted my ass to finish up all the last of the orders marked “would love to have in time for Christmas.” With Mom, Margaret, and Carla all working from home and me working at the store, we finished every single one by Friday. All twenty-nine orders had been completed in just shy of a month. That was some kind of record for me.
Kiara was in New York. She sent me pictures every day from her trip.
Also on Friday, I drove to Sylvia’s fully prepared to turn down the job of making junior roller derby jerseys. I’d already said as much in an email to Ben that morning when he’d suggested we could rent machines until I knew for sure if it was something I might consider doing long-term.
When I pulled up at the Sinclair home for lunch, Sylvia wasn’t there. Marie was embarrassed that no one had called me. Sylvia had gone to the hospital for another iron infusion. “It was a last-minute sort of thing,” she’d said. Because the doctor wanted to get the treatment in before the holiday.
She wanted to know if we could reschedule. I told her to have Sylvia call me on Monday.
Christmas Eve marked the fourth Saturday in a row that I woke up with Jason in my bed. He’d made a standing arrangement with his aunt to take care of his mom so he could spend the morning with me.
The alarm on my phone went off at nine. I switched it off, and he rolled over, curling his arm around me to prevent me from getting up. I gently scraped my nails down his forearm. “You have to let me go. We discussed this already.”
He shook his head, his face buried in the pillow. His arm didn’t budge.
I rolled toward him instead and scratched my nails across his back. “I promised Monica we’d skate today since tomorrow’s Christmas.”
He finally turned his face toward me. “But we’ll see her tonight.”
“I know, but we have to skate. It’s our thing. We keep each other accountable.”
“I’m trying to admire your commitment to this, but it’s so warm under these covers,” he said with a weak smile.
“I’m waiting for you to break out in a sleepy rendition of ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside.’”
He groaned. “It is cold outside.”
I nuzzled my nose against his neck. “Then you’ll have your work cut out warming me up when I get back.”
“What time are we going over there tonight?” he asked.
“Not sure. I’ll find out from her this morning.”
“Can you also find out if her kid is going to call me New Clay all night? If so, I was thinking of wearing my name badge.”
I dropped my face onto his pillow and whined.
He laughed.
I propped my head up on my arm. “About him…are we OK?”
“Yeah, we’re OK. Is he still bothering you?”
“No. I haven’t heard from him since last weekend.”
“That’s good.”
I snuggled against him. “You know what else is good?”
He smiled and rubbed his leg against mine. “I can think of a few things.”
“This is very good. I like waking up with you here. Can’t we do it again tomorrow? You’re not supposed to work tomorrow.”
He moaned and turned away from me, removing his arm and freeing me to lay across his smooth, muscled back.
I rested my chin on his shoulder and spoke into his ear. “Don’t you want to wake up with me on Christmas Day?”
“You know I do, but I promised Jones I’d cover his shift.” He rolled over underneath me and put his arm behind his head. “He has kids, and it’s his little boy’s first Christmas.”
My hand slid below the covers. “But it’s our first Christmas.”
He squirmed and pulled my arm back up to his chest. “Stop trying to tempt me, woman.”
“You’re such a good guy.”
“I know. It sucks sometimes.”
I traced my finger along his collarbone. “You could still sleep over and go into work from here.”
“I’d have to be up by four in the morning. You and I both know if I sleep over, neither one of us are going to sleep before two a.m.”
We both laughed.
“I’ll go home after dinner at Monica’s. You can go to your parents’ house and wake up there on Christmas Day. Then I’ll stop by when my shift ends before I go home to see Mom.”
I sighed heavily. “OK. Do we have plans for New Year’s Eve?”
“I was thinking about having a few of the guys over. Why? What did you have in mind?”
“Olivia is having a party at her restaurant. All my friends are going.”
“We can do that.” His smile turned wicked. “Depending on what it’s worth to you…”
I giggled. “I guess that depends on what you want.”
With a laugh, he pulled the covers up over our heads. “I want you to be very late for skating.”
We had a wonderful Christmas Eve with Monica and Derek and the girls. Derek and Jason got along famously—something I could have never said about Derek and Clay—and Ariana called Jason by his actual name all night long. Monica had assured me during skating that she’d told Ariana there would be no Santa Claus if she called Jason “New Clay” one more time.
After dinner, Jason drove me home to get my car, and following a very long Christmas kiss goodbye, I drove to my parents’ house alone. Garrett and the girls were already there. Hope lugged my bag up to my room and informed me that she, Gabby, and I were having a sleepover.
Before bed, we watched A Christmas Story and ate microwaved popcorn. Mom made hot chocolate—the safe, powdered kind from packets—and Garrett spiked ours and Dad’s with salted caramel whiskey.
Hope fel
l asleep on my lap.
Garrett made Gabby, a nonbeliever, put out cookies for Santa.
Dad and Mom kissed under the mistletoe in the den.
Even though Jason wasn’t there, and it was my first Christmas as a divorcée, my heart was full. And it was happy.
An elbow to my ribcage woke me up at six-thirty the next morning. As the ham in the “Aunt Grace Sandwich,” I’d been kicked, elbowed, and rolled on all throughout the night by Hope. I finally gave up on sleep and reached across Gabby for my phone on the nightstand.
A text message was waiting from Jason. Merry Christmas, beautiful.
I texted him back. Merry Christmas, Jason. Wish you were here.
Jason: Why are you awake so early?
Me: I shared a bed with my nieces. The younger of them is training to be a ninja when she’s older, I think.
Jason: Rough night? LOL
Me: To say the least. How’s work?
Jason: Wild. Christmas makes people nuts. I miss you.
My heart fluttered.
Me: I miss you too.
Jason: See you in a few hours?
Me: Yes! What time do you get off?
Jason: Around two.
Me: Can’t wait.
Jason: Me either.
Then Hope slung her arm across my face. I managed to snap a selfie and send it to him.
There was no going back to sleep after that. I climbed carefully over Hope and tiptoed out of the room. After brushing my teeth, I went downstairs and heard the familiar flutter of a sewing machine.
I found Mom at work in her sewing room. She was finishing the hem of a Sophia dress for me. Her foot came off the pedal when she saw me.
“What are you doing up so early?” she asked.
I crossed my arms. “Why are you working on Christmas?”
She smiled and slipped off her bifocals. “Old habits.” She put her glasses down. “Want to have some coffee together before the rest of the crew is awake?”
“I’d love to.”
She followed me back to the kitchen, and I made two cups of coffee with their single-cup machine. I handed her the first one while the second brewed.
“Why are you awake?” she asked as she accepted it.
“Hope. Garrett should really sign her up for martial arts. The kid has one hell of a butterfly kick.”