by Jen Doyle
What he’d never really considered, though, was that they were his family. Jack’s parents had told him time and again they’d never accept him as such, and for too long Jack had believed them. It was hard to trust what you felt inside when you were constantly told otherwise. But maybe Jack had gravitated toward Nate for a reason. He never quite understood it, hanging around on the periphery for all of these years, not feeling like an imposter so much as a visitor who would be shown the door when the time came. He’d believed everything done for him as a child had been out of pity or obligation. As Jack had grown older, he’d realized how much they’d risked to help him, but it hadn’t occurred to him that it was love. He guessed he got that now, but it was still a concept that seemed entirely foreign to him.
But did that mean Lola was right about Nate, too? That he might truly be willing to get past this?
Nate had had no earthly reason to open up the door to a man who had betrayed him, no matter what the cause. Not out of obligation and most certainly not because of pity. Yet here Jack was.
Bringing the treadmill to a stop, he only barely managed to say, “Nate. Christ, I...”
He couldn’t quite get it out. What he’d done was unforgiveable no matter why he’d done it or the ultimate result. Even if he did know how to have a conversation like this, words could never truly convey how utterly sorry he was that he hadn’t been strong enough. That what he’d done had affected Nate so monumentally. He rubbed his hand over his face.
Nate, who had begun jumping rope in earnest, let the ropes whir by a few more times before coming to a stop. After a long, hard stare that showed he knew exactly where Jack’s thoughts had gone, he let his gaze drop to the floor. Nate was better with words. He always had been. Hell, he was better at just about everything. But he didn’t seem any more able to start this off than Jack was. It took a full minute before he finally straightened up again. Though he showed no emotion whatsoever, his voice was raw when he said, “Tell me why.”
Leaning back against the wall, Jack swallowed hard. He needed to get through this. He’d thought about how he would handle this moment; about the excuses he could use and the apologies he could make. When it came down to it, though, all he could do was take a deep breath and say, “You blew off Fitz. You sent her call to voicemail and you didn’t call her back.”
To anyone else that might have seemed like an inconsequential thing. Hell, anyone else might have wondered what Jack was even talking about. But Nate knew exactly the moment Jack meant. Given the way his eyes suddenly filled and he turned away abruptly, it had had as much of an impact on Nate as it did on Jack.
Knowing it would never get any easier, Jack said, “I went there to talk. We had a couple of drinks, and then a couple more.” He clenched his fists as he ground the words out. “I swear to you I never—”
Nate’s hand came up, a clear Do not say another fucking word. So Jack shut his mouth and waited it out through the long moment of silence, working harder than he ever had at anything else before just to maintain his composure.
Then Nate turned back to him and said, “Okay.”
If Jack had had any breath left, he might have sputtered. He honestly didn’t know what to say.
“Okay?” Jack had done what he’d done and that was all Nate had to say? “That’s it?” Not that Jack wanted to be hit again; he just wanted to make sure he hadn’t missed something.
“Why?” Nate snapped. “You want me to say thank you for fucking Courtney?”
“Jesus, no,” Jack could barely process what was happening. He sat up straight. “You’re really going to let it go?”
“Yeah. I really am. I want this shit behind us. I want my life back.” Nate pulled his cap off and ran his hand through his hair. “All of it.”
It took a few seconds for Jack to realize that meant him. Jack’s chest felt like it was about to blow open. Unconditional. Was this what that felt like? He jumped to his feet, needing to expend some of this energy.
Nate seemed amused at Jack’s complete inability to handle this.
Well, what the fuck? He’d never expected Nate to just say “okay.” “Shit.”
A smile broke over Nate’s face as he started jumping rope again. “Jesus, Ox. Get to work. We’ve still got a shitload of records to break.”
* * *
Two hours later, their workouts were almost done when an alert went off on Nate’s phone. Looking down, he hit a button and said, “So the part I hadn’t quite gotten to was that we’re having a thing this afternoon.”
Jack put down the weights he’d been working with. “A thing?”
Nate shrugged sheepishly. “I thought it might be fun to have everyone over, christen the field.”
Jack had to work at not sounding so obviously hopeful. “Everyone?”
As Nate shut down the gym’s lights, he smiled. “Yep. Her, too.”
Great. It would probably be better if he weren’t quite so obvious about it. Jack rolled his shoulders as he stood up, trying to summon his inner Iceman out of sheer protection.
By the time they got down to the field house, Wash and Jason were already there, waiting outside in Wash’s truck. From this vantage point, they could see Deke’s truck pulling into the academy complex off the main road, with a smaller car behind it that Jack recognized as Dorie’s. Fitz had ridden over with Dorie, so there was a bit of a crowd when Nate finally pushed open the doors, kid-in-a-candy-store look on his face. “Ready?”
Even with his recent epiphany, Jack trailed behind as the others followed in after Nate. Dorie hung back a little, too, smiling as Jack looked down when she sniffled. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “The whole Dream Team thing gets to me every once in a while.”
That’s right. There they were, the Iowa Dream, missing only Cal Sparks, who was still in Afghanistan, if Jack remembered correctly. Even Fitz, though obviously not on the original high school boys’ basketball team, was clearly part of the core group.
For once, though, rather than feeling completely outside of it, Jack was happy to witness it. “Kind of a long way since that tornado, huh?” he asked. As in the tornado that tore their town apart fifteen years before. Their basketball team had risen directly out of the debris.
“Guys!” Nate said, gesturing at Jack and Dorie. “Come on.” He brought them all out to the middle of what seemed a typical open gym—with Astroturf—for what was clearly about to be a show.
“Wait for us!” a kid called out, and Jack turned—maybe a little too quickly—to see one of Nate’s nephews fly through the door, followed immediately by Silas and two older kids. Behind them was Jules, Nate’s mom and, finally, Lola. Each woman carried a four-year-old on her hip.
“Okay,” Nate said, once the kids had all been settled down. “Everyone ready?” He nodded to Deke, who, with a smile, raised his arm and pointed a remote at a spot toward right field, as Nate said, “Welcome to The Show.”
There was the sound of jets flying overhead—just like on Opening Day. And then, as lights began to come on one spotlight at a time, Harry Caray’s voice could be heard, shouting, “It could be, it might be... It is—a home run!” That faded into recordings of Red Barber, Vin Scully and Bob Uecker, just to name a few, as more lights came on, highlighting that it wasn’t just your typical indoor practice facility, but instead a mini stadium, bleachers included.
No, not just an indoor stadium. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jack muttered as banks of lights came up first in center field, and its reproduction of the scoreboard at the old Comiskey Park, then in right field...
“Is that real ivy?” Wash asked.
“Gifted by the Wrigley grounds crew,” Nate answered, his smile so wide it could be heard in his voice.
But it wasn’t just Chicago that was represented, as was evident when the lights came on in left field. “Oh, my God,” Dorie gasped as a
smaller version of Fenway’s Green Monster, complete with a reproduction Coke bottle towering over it, got top billing.
Whether you were a baseball fan or not, standing here amidst these iconic sights and listening to the familiar sounds, it was such a visceral thing that—
“It’s not just me, right?” Lola said from next to him, briskly wiping a tear from her eye. “This is pretty freaking amazing.”
He wanted desperately to hold her. To put his arms around her and settle his chin on her shoulder and just let the magic overwhelm them. He settled for a quick duck of his head and an even quicker brush of his lips against her hair while he briefly took hold of her hand. His eyes caught hers. “Yeah,” he said, gruffly. “It kind of is.”
Lola grabbed his hand. She couldn’t help it. He touched her—and she clamped on.
It hurt to do so, but after a few seconds, she forced herself to let go.
She stood rooted to this spot, though, standing only a whisper away, just in case she needed to touch him again.
Wash shouting, “How about we play some ball?” broke the spell.
Well, it broke that spell. The magic of this place Nate had built—and somehow kept a secret from everyone, Dorie included—was simply too strong. This was a group that knew how to have a good time. Most of them had known each other since childhood, if not all the way back to birth, and they’d seen each other through thick and painfully thin. But she’d never seen these men so giddy. One of them—she wasn’t about to say which one—may have actually giggled.
“Can we play, too?” Silas’s best friend, Matty, asked.
Jules pulled her son close. “I think maybe this is more for Uncle Nate and his friends.”
“Are you kidding? Everyone plays,” Nate said. He turned to Matty. “We’ve got to put Ox through some paces, so how about he and I are team captains, and I get first pick: you.” In one swoop, he reached for Matty and swung him up onto his shoulders.
Talk about a disaster waiting to happen. It had been clear from the start Jack wasn’t comfortable with the kids. Yes, he’d been amazing when they were all sick, but that was a crisis situation. Lola couldn’t imagine he’d be on board with this. Just as she started to step in with an alternate plan that she would somehow come up with in 0.3 seconds, Jack said, “I’m in.” And showing that he did know a thing or two about kids, he said, “I’ve got Silas.”
The look on Silas’s face nearly had Lola crying again. She ignored Jules’s wide-eyed, holy-shit-he-did-not-just-pick-your-kid grin.
Nate picked Jules’s son, Geo, next, because although he was eleven, he would hate to be picked last, and Jack went for... No.
“One, Two and Three,” he said, pointing at the triplets. “You’re with me.”
“But...” Lola sputtered as the boys ran to him, squealing. “They can’t...”
“Sure they can. Watch this.” He looked down at Silas, who nodded and whispered to the boys before counting out loud, “One...” He picked up Emmet. “Two...” Jack picked up James. “Three!”
Luke yelled out, “McIntire Totem!” as Silas held Emmet so he was practically standing on Luke’s shoulders. Jack then held James over Emmet as if, yes, they were a totem pole.
“You can’t... They never...” It took Lola forty-five minutes to get them from the house to the car. How had he possibly gotten them to do that?
“What?” Jack said, misinterpreting. “Put ’em like that, and they equal one player.” He looked down at them. “Right guys?”
As one, they all nodded solemnly.
With Lola still mostly speechless, now Jack sounded uncomfortable as he added, “Well, you slept until nine thirty and the puking was done by six. We had to do something all morning.”
He was clearly thinking he’d done something wrong. She brought her hands up to her mouth and shook her head.
Jules’s arm went around her shoulder. “She’s good,” Jules told him. “Who’ve you got next, Nate?”
Although his gaze did linger on her for another few moments, Jack finally turned away, picking Deke in a surprisingly strategic defensive move. Lola turned into Jules’s shoulder. “I can’t fall for him,” she whispered, trying to keep from trembling at the sudden dizziness.
“I know, Hon,” Jules said, squeezing tight. “But I’m too busy trying to pretend I’m not concentrating on his ass to help you out.”
By the time all was said and done, Lola found herself on Nate’s team. Without her kids. “But...”
“We’re okay, Mom.” Silas rolled his eyes as he followed Jack onto the field—Jack, who had “One,” as he called James, on his shoulders, with “Two” and “Three” clinging to his back.
“Wait,” Lola said, as they walked past. “Si, take them out to Uncle Deke.” She waited for the boys to head out of hearing range before saying, “Are you sure you want to take them all?” even though she was pretty sure that wasn’t really what she wanted to say.
He stared at her for a minute. “The only thing I’m sure of right now is that I want my tongue on your skin.”
Oh. Suddenly wanting nothing more than that exact thing, Lola took a step back. “You can’t do that.”
“You know that. I know that,” Jack said, “and there’s a whole part of me that just doesn’t care.” He took his own step back. “So I’m going to go out there and play ball and pretend I’m not loving the hell out of this particular moment in time so we can hopefully just move on when I leave here in a couple of months.”
The breath swooshed out of Lola’s lungs.
“You on board with that?” he asked, walking backward.
She nodded. But, “Oh, damn,” she whispered to herself, 100% sure it was already too late.
Chapter Twenty
“February twentieth? You want to stay from now until February twentieth? That’s almost three months.”
Jack resettled the phone against his ear. Three months. Three weeks ago, he would have said he’d be crowned King of the World before spending a minute longer than necessary in Inspiration. Now he was willingly signing up for three whole months, smack-dab in the middle of town. Because time was short and he wanted to spend as much of it with Lola as he could. “Yes, Mrs. Lansing. If the room’s available.”
“Oh, yes,” she assured him. “I don’t think I have anyone booked until the Senior Swingers come down for Valentine’s Day, and they don’t mind sharing.”
Senior Swingers?
He sure hoped that was a senior citizen baseball league.
“Great. Maybe I’ll rent out all the rooms.”
“Oh, no, Mr. Oxford,” Mrs. Lansing said, laughing nervously. “That’s so much money. I mean even for just the one room, it will be, oh...”
He was pretty sure he could hear her actually tapping the keys of a calculator over the phone. Jack was not going to pull the twenty-two million crap. He couldn’t believe he’d said that to Lola. He didn’t generally go around talking about how much money he had, or that he had even more invested, or that he could probably buy every available house in Inspiration off the interest of his investment accounts.
Which, come to think of it...
“Okay, Mr. Oxford. Here we go. Oh, my.” She paused, clearly surprised. “Now please don’t be too concerned about the amount. I’m sure we can work out something if we need to. But it comes to just over seven thousand dollars from now through February twentieth.”
“Seven thousand?” he exclaimed, entirely unable to help himself. “For three months?” He looked around his current suite and laughed. He was probably going to pay that much in cancellation fees.
She misunderstood his reaction, hurriedly adding, “But meals are included, and even though I’m putting you in the upstairs suite I’m giving you my Queen room rate.”
“Sorry.” He’d forgotten this woman was
probably the sweetest woman on the face of the earth. “I actually think that’s very reasonable. And charge me the full rate for the room. I promise you I won’t be shocked.”
“Oh,” she exhaled. “But Mr. Oxford—”
“Please, Mrs. Lansing.” Then he pulled out the big guns. “Lola will be very angry with me if I don’t pay my fair share. And I don’t know about you, but I do not want Lola McIntire angry at me.”
Mrs. Lansing laughed. “You sure do know our Lola. Why, I could tell you stories...”
“Could you now?” he murmured. He could tell some stories himself, he thought, running his tongue over the cut on his lip. It would have healed by now, but she kept nipping at it.
Suddenly antsy, he pushed his breakfast plate aside, went over to the closet to get his suitcase, and started throwing his clothes in the bag. By the time he was fully packed, he knew all about the time Lola had taken on the entire administration at school, Board of Education included, to demand that they use fresh vegetables in the school lunch and make them taste good. At the age of eleven. And about how she’d brought traffic to a complete standstill when she was fifteen by staging a sit-in at the town’s main intersection because the City Council had threatened to cut the school’s funding, thereby severely curtailing the entire arts and music program.
He hated to interrupt, but it was already eight-thirty and he was supposed to be at Nate’s soon. Used to curfew requirements during the season, he did think to ask, “I may have a few late nights. Is that okay?”
After the baseball game and dinner at Nate’s that night, Jack had managed to talk Lola into letting him come home with her and the kids. She wouldn’t let him help put the kids to bed and refused to let him into her bedroom again, the first of which shouldn’t have bothered him and the second of which hadn’t bothered him nearly enough. She had, however, agreed to his proposition to “make out like teenagers on the couch,” which, incidentally, meant very different things to her than it did to him. She’d been much more advanced at that age than he was.