Quentin pointed at him. “Exactly.”
“Yeah, good call.”
As Mrs. Riley gently got her son’s attention and the two began talking in low tones, Jessica leaned toward Quentin. “So like, I didn’t want to ask Chris because I didn’t want to freak him out, but is there a difference in pay from round one to round two? Like, what happens if he’s not drafted in the first round?”
“Yeah, there’s a huge difference, but it’s really only a matter of being filthy rich or filthy stinking rich.”
“So we should probably hire a financial planner?”
Quentin jerked his head back to get a clearer look at her. “Uh, yeah. God love that boy, but he doesn’t know the first thing about money. He’d probably try to give it all to you, and nobody wants to be in the position of turning down millions of dollars each year.”
Jessica nearly choked on the ice water she sipped from stemmed glassware. “Wait, millions?”
“Girl, you really didn’t look up any of this?”
“I’ve been busy. Besides, it’s not my business.”
“If you and Riley are gonna settle down soon, it is.”
“Well.” She didn’t continue. There wasn’t anything else to say. Yet, at least. She’d figure out how her life with Chris might look once the draft was over.
“So if he doesn’t get picked in the first round,” Quentin continued, “we’ll all be back here tomorrow for the second round.”
“Oh god, that sounds awful.”
“Oh yeah,” said Quentin. “Let’s just hope it doesn’t happen.” He narrowed his eyes at her calculatingly. “Or maybe … pray it doesn’t happen?”
“Yeah, I’m not bringing God into this.”
“I mean, I wouldn’t blame you if you did. And never a better time than when the future of the man you love hangs in the balance.”
Shitballs. Was Quentin trying to make her nauseated? “Chris would kill me if he found out, though.”
“Then don’t tell him.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Yeah? Not telling the other person is a good idea? That couldn’t possibly blow up in my face later on?”
Quentin deflated. “You have a point, I guess.”
Jessica immediately regretted bringing it up. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re right.”
The lights dimmed and quiet murmuring washed over the crowd.
And then the fanfare started with lights and music. An announcer’s voice booming over it all left Jessica confused for a split second, wondering why God was welcoming everyone to the National Football League draft before she realized the booming voice was, in fact, external.
The New England Patriots were first up after the opening, and Jess sat back while Chris, Quentin, Rex, and Coach Brown each mouthed the name of the shoo-in, who was apparently announced the week prior.
As each team’s time expired and a new pick was selected, cameramen circled the tables like sharks, getting reactions from each prospect. Chris managed to play it cool for the first fifteen picks. But as it switched to Detroit for the sixteenth’s pick, his composure started to melt away. She couldn’t blame him. In less than an hour, they’d make it to the twenty-fourth pick from the Texans and the twenty-fifth pick from the Cowboys. Would he spend the next four years in Texas, or would he have to wait until the next day, and possibly be scooped up by another team in need of a rookie quarterback?
Butterflies began dive-bombing her stomach in earnest when the Miami Dolphins first-round pick and eighteenth overall pick, Hammer Grossburger, stood onstage, grinning like a dumb idiot and holding up a turquoise jersey with Grossburger across the back. The Eagles were up next, and then it was only four more picks until Jessica could start to answer some of the what-ifs swirling in her head.
The massive screens on stage changed from Dolphins logos to Eagles.
The phone in the middle of Jessica’s table rang.
Everyone turned to it. Chris stared at it like it was a pissed-off rattlesnake. Then his attention darted back and forth between the phone and the on-stage screens where EAGLES was still prominently displayed above a ticking clock.
Cameramen scrambled over to focus on the table. Surrounded on all sides, she struggled to hide her horror and confusion. But she was sure the cameras picked up on it anyway—it was like the things were specially built to catch every glint of horror and confusion.
“You gonna get that?” Coach Brown said finally, nodding.
Chris started breathing again once Rex gruffed, “Game face, Riley.”
On the fifth ring, Chris reached forward and answered.
As he held the receiver to his face, nodding along to the person on the other end, the crease between his brows disappeared and laugh lines formed at the outer edges of his eyes. Then the muscle in his jaw relaxed and the corners of his mouth ticked up.
Then he laughed. He actually laughed.
Jessica turned to Quentin. “Do teams call ahead? Like, could the Cowboys just be calling to let him know he’s still their pick?”
Quentin patted her knee and frowned sympathetically. “No,” he said curtly. “No one does that.”
“So that’s the Philadelphia Eagles?” She almost couldn’t believe she was saying it. She still didn’t know much about football, but NFL 101 was that Eagles were the opposite of Cowboys. She’d known that since she was a child. Even God had shown a distaste for the Eagles. But where was He now? Where the hell was her father when she actually needed him? She hadn’t heard from him once since she’d arrived in Chicago, and, sure, that had been a huge relief … until about thirty seconds ago.
There better be a goddamn tsunami happening somewhere. God? God?!
No answer.
She leaned over to Quentin again. “And you said he can’t refuse an offer and wait for a better one?”
Quentin pressed his lips together tightly and shook his head while staring at Chris, who was now joking around on the phone. Was he hamming it up for the cameras, or was he genuinely enjoying himself amid this nightmarish turn of events?
“On the plus side,” Quentin said, speaking into Jessica’s ear, “you’re now dating a millionaire.”
Chris hung up the phone and stood from his chair, the cameras hardly allowing him an inch to maneuver. Mrs. Riley stood as well, and he hugged her first, just like Jessica had coached him to.
Mrs. Riley was ecstatic. She didn’t seem to mind that her son was moving across the country.
What’s wrong with her?!
Then Chris turned to Jessica, and when their eyes met, she didn’t have the heart to be sad. Well, no, she did, but she didn’t have the heart to let Chris know, so she forced an awkward smile and let him wrap her up in his arms.
“We’ll figure it out,” he whispered into her ear before pulling back and giving her a quick kiss on the lips. Then he did the familiar handshake hug thing with Quentin before shaking hands with both of his former coaches and heading out of the dining area to go backstage and prepare for his big reveal.
Jessica watched him go, camera bulbs flashing, Chris looking like the superstar she always knew he was, and all she wanted to do was run after him. But she kept ass in chair, eventually turning back around to the others.
No more cameras remained pointed at their table. Chris had taken those with him to the exit before they’d turned back and began circling other tables with undrafted players.
Jessica was alone.
When Chris appeared onstage a few minutes later, holding a forest green jersey with RILEY freshly ironed onto the back, two sexy and nameless women standing on either side of him in evening gowns Jessica knew she couldn’t pull off even if one of her miracles was looking good in evening gowns, she struggled to keep air moving in and out of her lungs.
After almost a year of worrying about and scraping together money, amassing piles of credit card and personal debt, her money problems were now completely solved. Poof. Just like that. Chris wouldn’t take no for an answer when it came to paying off her debts,
and it was likely he wouldn’t stop there, either. She should be happy. Thrilled, even. This was it.
So why did she sort of want to throw up the fancy mashed potatoes and overcooked steak she’d consumed a half-hour ago?
Because you have a brand new problem now. A worse one. One money can’t fix.
Chris waved to her. She waved back, blinking away fresh tears.
I’m such a fucking idiot.
In the beginning, Jessica had been so sure. When she’d dropped out of college, moved to Austin, started on this crazy path toward opening a bakery. Did she have doubts? Duh. But something about it had felt right at a gut level, so much so that she stuck it out through every setback. She rarely stuck out anything. The fact that she managed to persevere had to mean something. It had to mean she was on the right path.
And maybe she was. But Chris was on another path, which had run parallel for so long she’s confused the two as one.
Now they diverged. This was the moment. She could feel that, too.
As he strutted off stage, holding his Eagles jersey high like a banner, she had the urge to scramble through the underbrush between trails to emerge by his side. But could she desert her own path for his?
Wait. Who are you, Jimmy Dean? What is all this horseshit about paths? Maybe there is no path. Or if there is, it’s one God chose, not me. And screw that.
On the screens above the stage, EAGLES changed to TITANS and a phone rang at a table to her left.
I don’t have to play that game. If there are no paths, Chris and I aren’t on separate ones!
Checkmate, God. Deal with it.
The conviction jammed a stopper into her tear ducts. She would hold tight to it for as long as she could, even though she knew there was no such thing as checkmate when it came to dear old Dad. But she couldn’t stand the thought of letting Him win.
However … while she hadn’t learned much about chess during her foray in tenth grade, she had learned one thing: the opponent can’t win if you flip the whole damn board.
End of Book 5
Keep reading for a free treat from the author.
Acknowledgments
Thanks be to the Collective Task Force, the Sumus Omnes Porcos Facebook group, my beta readers, my fucking incredible editor, and my husband, who will laugh at literally any stupid idea I run by him.
Okay, I did this thing …
From H. Claire:
I started writing this one back in April (five months ago). I made it about thirty pages in and was like, “HOLY MOLEY this is crap.”
After a few days spent mulling over a career change, I realized what was going on.
I didn’t know this story well enough because I didn’t understand Railed to the Cross.
I knew I would include excerpts, and what was inside Jimmy’s memoirs would inform this plot, so until I knew what the hell Jimmy had in his book, I couldn’t keep pushing forward and hope for Book 5 to be anything other than boring nonsense.
I spent about a week reading memoirs of all kinds. And when I say a week, I mean it. A full week. I was at a cabin in the middle of Nowhere, Texas, and read non-stop. Some of the memoirs were interesting, and some were so very horrifying (rhymes with Frate Again).
Y’all. I read Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Jesus as the man (O’Reilly, not Jesus) was in the news for being a complete creep. That’s fucking dedication. (It’s actually an engrossing read if you get past the whole “this is an historical and totally unbiased account based on … the Bible” claim.)
I read a little bit about personality disorders, too, but I usually do that. Reading about psychopaths is my favorite.
Finally, once I came up for air and had a whole hell of a lot of notes, I was ready to move forward; I was ready to write Railed to the Cross.
So I spent one of the weirdest months of my life writing it in its entirety. Even God doesn’t want to go inside Jimmy Dean’s head, yet there I was. And it was a mindfuck I don’t wish to relive.
However, once Jimmy’s book was complete, writing It is Risen was a breeze. I scrapped the thirty pages from before and started fresh, and it was fun as hell. Almost worth that month of mornings spent locked away in my office, pretending to be a cult leader, emerging for lunch in a daze and telling my husband in subdued tones, “I think this might be the greatest thing I’ve ever written.” Then adding, “And I’m giving it away for free. What’s wrong with my brain?”
There is no conclusive answer to the latter question. But yes, I’m giving away the full manuscript of Railed to the Cross for free. Mostly because if I posted it on Amazon and someone bought it out of context, that could be disastrous, but also because you’ve read five books of this series, and that blows my mind. So I thought a gift was in order.
Granted, thrusting Railed to the Cross on people might be considered an act of mental abuse. Verdict is still out on that, but I’ll let you decide for yourself.
Click here to get your copy of Railed to the Cross.
See you at the end of Book 6.
-H. Claire
About the Author
H. CLAIRE TAYLOR has lived in Austin since the eighties (it's her hometown) and hasn't yet found a compelling reason to move away.
After being a Very Good Student™ of creative writing at Texas State University, she worked an assortment of unfulfilling jobs until her inner tortured artist could recover from four soul-crushing years of academia, at which point she held her nose and jumped into the muddy waters of writing comedy full time.
Now she shares a home with her husband and two black-and-white mutts and suffers from an unhealthy dependency on Post-It Notes that she can quit whenever she wants. Really. When she’s not working on her novels, she’s blogging and recording her comedy podcast, Something Nice to Say.
Casually stalk her:
www.hclairetaylor.com
[email protected]
Also by H. Claire Taylor
The Jessica Christ Series
The Beginning (Book 1)
A Great Gulf (short story)
And It Was Good (Book 2)
It’s a Miracle! (Book 3)
Nu Alpha Omega (Book 4)
* * *
Kilhaven Police (w/Brock Bloodworth)
Shift Work (Book 1)
* * *
The Fraud
Wimbledon, Kentucky
A Single’s Guide to Texas Roadways
It is Risen Page 30