by Jen Doyle
Jack looked down at her, unable to wipe the smile off his face. “Every aspect of that statement is true.”
He was really tired of having to hide his feelings for her from the kids. Not that he didn’t understand it—he did and he agreed completely. He loved her. As much as he was capable of, at least. But he loved Nate, too, and look what he’d done there. He hoped to God he wouldn’t screw this up and that he wouldn’t hurt her or her boys—they’d been through too much already and for a man far better than him. His track record was a big fat zero at the moment. Odds were he’d crash and burn and she was smart enough to know that.
But damn he wanted to kiss her.
“And you,” she said, narrowing her eyes and pointing at Nate even as her lips curved up into a smile. “I can’t believe you went along with it.”
As the kids ran ahead, Nate said to Lola, “Jules told me what Si said about his Christmas list. He just looked so damn happy. You know?”
Lola’s lip trembled as she looked over at her otherwise carefree son, and it made Jack want to hold her all over again. He’d never been a fan of Santa himself. It was hard to feel the spirit of the season when you were eight and your parents decided you were too young to appreciate St. Moritz so it would be better to leave you home with the help before opening up your savings bonds in the comfort of your own home. As far as Jack was concerned, Santa sucked. He hadn’t needed a PR team to tell him to keep that sentiment to himself—but he’d been really glad he hadn’t known Silas felt the same way. Because if he had, he’d have caved the other night in the bar, no question.
I don’t understand why you like me so much, kid, but you just write up the list of things you’d like and, short of bringing your dad back, I will give you Every. Damn. Thing. you ask for.
He still wasn’t sure how Lola felt about the trip to Chicago. Once again, he had overstepped. He was trying—he truly was—but he just couldn’t get that part right. At the moment though, it didn’t seem to matter. She didn’t even seem angry. Just sad.
Damn it. He’d give her everything on her list, too.
To be honest, Jack hadn’t really considered what it would mean to promise Silas a trip two weeks before Christmas. It appeared he wasn’t the only one who wanted to do something for Silas and Lola, though, because there had been no lack of people stepping in. Her parents were taking care of the younger boys, with Jules and her daughter helping. Jules said that since she’d be down two kids for the weekend, what with Matty and Geo both going on the trip, it was only fair. Plus she’d wrangled a weekend for her, Emily and various other female members of the clan on a date to be named later. Deke told Lola he’d handle the extra coverage at the bar, and Fitz decided that her Christmas present to Lola and Dorie would be a spa day. Wash had even volunteered to host the puppy. All systems go.
“He is happy,” Lola said, her eyes filling with tears as she watched her son. “I will love you both for the rest of my days for giving him this.” Then she reached down for her bag and walked to the plane.
“This is all you, Ox.” Nate jammed his hands in his pockets. “I’ve known Silas his whole life and it never occurred to me to do something like this.” Then he smiled. “But I am more than happy to take the credit. I am totally Matty and Geo’s favorite uncle right now.”
“Which you are no doubt lording over Deke at the moment,” Jack said, laughing.
“Hell, yes, I am,” Nate said. “He gets my sister and my niece and nephews? Talk about a freaking party foul.”
Jack grabbed his own bag and Silas’s much smaller one. He wished he could say his intentions were pure. Yes, he had wanted to make Silas happy, but it had killed him to have to say no to dinner with Lola and the kids every night. He understood why. It didn’t mean he had to like it, though. And the plane was the only thing that had come to mind. The downside was that he wasn’t exactly thrilled with Lola seeing his place. It was the exact opposite of her home; cold and sterile as opposed to the warmth and love she brought to everything she touched. But Silas would like it, so Jack could deal.
They walked over to where the pilots stood waiting. As one of them took his bag, Jack registered the double take and was reminded that being in Inspiration was like being in a bubble. Once Nate gave the okay, no one here really seemed to think twice about Jack being around. But Chicago wouldn’t be like that, and Jack would do well to remember it. To the rest of the world he was still Jack Oxford, Asshole Extraordinaire, and appearing anywhere with Nate was sure to garner attention. He wanted to keep Lola and Silas away from that kind of craziness.
By the time he got onto the plane, the boys had taken off their jackets and were running around as excited as, well, kids getting their first ride on a fancy private jet. Dorie and Fitz were there, too, keeping Lola mostly calm as she seemed not so much awed, but petrified the kids were going to break something.
“Mom!” Silas shouted. “We have to take pictures to show A, B and C.”
Jack ran his hand through his hair and attempted to look elsewhere, but he wasn’t fast enough to escape Lola’s glare. She then turned to Silas. “Please call them by their actual names.”
Already in trouble, Jack couldn’t help himself. “That’s right, Si. One, Two and Three. Don’t forget it.” Then he held his fist up for Silas to happily bump it. It earned him another glare, but it was worth it. Settling into one of the seats, Jack tried not to be too obvious about how much he liked to look at her. Especially when she was in total mom mode, with her eyes never straying too far from Silas and Matty, the occasional glance at Geo thrown in.
Jack Oxford falling for a woman with four kids. Who’d have thought?
But he was also paying close attention to how hard it had been for Nate to reconnect with his nephews and niece. Living a life where you traveled constantly for over half of the year wasn’t overly conducive to building strong family connections. There was a reason he and Lola needed to tread cautiously.
As if he was someone who should even be thinking in those terms.
He finally had to pull his baseball cap over his eyes and put some dark sunglasses on—make it look like he was taking a nap—so that he wouldn’t get caught staring at her. He already considered Lola his—that was something he’d come to terms with. But not until seeing her with her arm around Silas as he kind of jammed himself between her seat and the window did he realize he thought of Silas that way, too.
With the flight just barely over an hour, they were landing almost as soon as they took off. “You’re sure about this?” Lola asked Nate as she watched the boys follow the flight attendant down the metal stairs leading to the tarmac. “I’m fine if I don’t do any shopping. Or I can cancel the—”
“You’re not cancelling anything,” Fitz said, putting her jacket on and then her gloves. “Nate and Jack can handle three boys at a ballpark.” Then she held up her hand. “No arguments. Plus, Dorie is apparently queen of bargain shopping.”
“I am,” Dorie said, grinning as she headed down the stairs after the kids.
Dorie zipped up her coat and pulled a hat on before following Fitz out.
Lola turned to Nate, clearly her next target, but he just shook his head. “I don’t mess with those two. Put them both together?” He shook his head. “See you at dinner, Lo.” He bent down and kissed her on the cheek. “Have fun.” Then he left, too, leaving Jack and Lola alone.
“A spa day,” she said, turned to Jack, a bewildered look on her face. “I don’t even know what that means.”
Knowing no one could see them from down below, he took her in his arms—finally—and pulled her against him as he ran his hand down her back. “It means you get to lie there with your eyes closed while someone else does all the work.”
Relaxing into him, she laid her head on his chest. “That sounds so wrong.”
“The only wrong thing about it,” he said, “is th
at you’ll be lying there naked with someone’s hands rubbing all over you and that someone isn’t me.”
She laughed, but she still wasn’t totally happy. “I should be with Silas today.”
“Silas will be fine,” Jack said.
Looking up at him, her eyes searched his. “Will he be?”
It was clear she wasn’t just asking about today.
“No,” she said, shaking her head and stepping back before he could even say a word. “I’m sorry. I told myself I wouldn’t worry about any of that today. He’s spending the day with his hero plus his Uncle Nate. He deserves every bit of happiness he can get this weekend. We’ll deal with the rest when we have to.”
It took a few seconds for Jack to realize she was staring up at him. He was still a little stuck on the word hero. “Lola, I’m not—”
“You are,” she said, stretching up to brush his lips with a kiss. “And I plan to properly thank you for all of this at some point in the near future. But for now I’ll just leave you with this.”
She took his face in her hands and brought his head down to hers, as she backed him up into the wall. She plastered herself against him, putting pressure in all the right places, not pulling away until he was two seconds away from ravishing her in the plane while everyone waited. Not good. Not fucking good at all.
He reached down for his own jacket and followed her down the stairs. Nate had arranged for two cars, one a stretch Humvee limo, something the boys were as excited about as they had been about the plane. To Nate she said, “You do realize we’ll never hear the end of this, right? I suggest you never play poker with my child again.”
Nate laughed. “Someday Dorie and I will have kids and we’re going to need babysitters. I’m racking up as many points as possible. Now say good-bye so we can get ourselves over to the stadium before the boys tear up the inside of the car.”
Jack had to admit, he was glad to have the boys with them because it kept his mind from wandering. The last time he’d seen Sam was the day he’d crawled in with his tail between his legs. It seemed so long ago now, but it had actually been less than two months. Being back in the stadium Jack still didn’t have a right to play in brought it all back, and he was already on edge.
Nate had a new assistant, Alexis something, whom Jack vaguely remembered from when Nate proposed to Dorie at Fenway Park in the spring. But he’d kept as much distance as possible that day, so he hadn’t really met her.
“Someone Tweeted the two of you were at Midway so we’re starting to get some calls,” she said. “We managed to clear the stadium for the afternoon, but you’re going to need to be careful when you leave here if you have any hopes of keeping this under wraps. And Sam’s making noise about a press conference.”
“Are you kidding me?” Nate muttered. Then he snapped, “No press conference, for Christ’s sake.”
Alexis smiled, not at all cowed. “I think that’s a message better coming directly from you.” She turned to the boys. “So, guys, Nate and Ice... I mean, Ox, have to go see Sam Price. Do you know who that is?”
“He’s the owner of the Watchmen,” Matty said. “He’s their boss.”
Well, he was Nate’s boss, not Jack’s, although Jack wasn’t about to highlight that fact. Especially since he was counting on that statement to be true very soon. He just wasn’t out of the woods yet.
“Close enough,” Alexis said, smiling. “So my job is to take you guys to get some gear while they’re at their meeting. What do you think?”
Matty and Geo were fine with that. Silas, however, grabbed Jack’s hand. “But I want to stay with you.”
Jack wanted to stay with Silas, too. A hell of a lot more than he wanted to meet with Sam. He crouched down to get closer to Silas, adept enough at the whole publicity game to know that Alexis had just put herself between them and the doors to outside. Jack had no doubt it was to protect Silas, not him. He pulled his hand away, ruffling Silas’s hair in hopes the boy wouldn’t notice he was creating some distance.
But Jack hadn’t fooled anyone—the look on Silas’s face clearly showed his hurt, although he tried to cover it up by folding his arms across his chest and looking down at the floor.
Goddamn it.
Jack had handled the hisses and boos of the past year. He’d had everything thrown at him from baseballs he’d signed to full cups of beer—which seemed like a total waste of money to Jack, but who was he to question the haters? Having Silas look at him like that, though, he couldn’t take it. And, honestly, this might get him in trouble with Lola all over again, but she was raising a kid who was smarter than the average seven-year-old, as far as Jack was concerned. Except for the part about considering Jack his hero, but no one was perfect.
Getting closer again, but not too close, Jack said, “You know there are a lot of people out there who don’t like me, right?”
Cocking his head to the side as he looked at Jack, Silas said, “Because you hurt my Uncle Nate?”
Jesus. Kids really did tell it like it was. “Yep, exactly because of that. And sometimes they yell things I know your mom doesn’t want you to hear.”
“I watch YouTube,” Silas said. “I know all the words.”
Jack knew he wasn’t supposed to smile at that response, but, hell, it took a lot of work “I know you do. But I’ll get in a lot of trouble with your mom if I let you near anyone like that, and I really don’t want to spend the rest of the night in time-out.” In more ways than one, but since that involved one of the words he didn’t want Silas to hear, he was just going to leave it at that.
“I don’t want that, either.” Silas looked down at the floor again, the tip of his shoe moving in a figure eight.
“Good,” Jack answered. “We’re on the same page. I’m going to stick as close as I can to you guys, but I might try to make it seem like I’m just with you because you’re Nate’s friend. Okay?”
Silas shrugged. “I guess.”
“But first Nate and I need to go talk to Sam.”
Silas’s eyes went a little wide. “Is Mr. Price going to yell at you?”
“Maybe. But I’m not really too worried about that.” And, to his surprise, as he crouched here, talking to Silas, he realized he wasn’t, really. Not anymore. “Right now my bigger concern is that there are people out there who don’t just not like me, but they want to hurt me back. I don’t want you too close to me if that happens. So if you see me move away from you, that’s why. Okay?”
For a few moments there, Jack expected Silas to say, no, it absolutely wasn’t okay. And Jack had no idea what he’d do after that. But then Silas said, “Okay. As long as you get to stay.”
Jack sucked in a deep breath. “That is my plan.” Just not in the long-term.
It was enough for Silas to give in and go with Matty and Geo, both of whom looked like they’d just been handed the keys to the candy store. Jack watched them until they were gone. Then he realized Nate was staring. “What?”
Nate just looked at him for another few seconds before taking his baseball cap off and running his hand through his hair. “Huh.”
“Huh, what?”
But Nate wouldn’t say. And now Jack was on edge again.
He was glad they rode up in the elevator with one of Sam’s assistants because it meant Nate had someone else to talk to while Jack tried not to lose his shit. He loosened his collar a little, although it had felt perfectly fine before.
For some reason, Jack was more nervous now than he was the last time he’d seen Sam. Last time, he’d been so desperate, dropped by his team and manager in one week and with no prospects on the horizon, proverbial doors being slammed in his face left and right. When Sam had taken his call, Jack had been so stunned he hadn’t thought about why, he’d just gone and made his Hail Mary pass.
He was so close now—he could practically feel
the ball in his hand, the way time stood still as forty thousand people waited for his pitch. To get this far only to fail... Jesus, to have to face Silas and tell him that no, he wasn’t a member of the Watchmen, wasn’t something he could bear.
The assistant led them in, still chatting as Nate went through the door, clasping Jack’s shoulder along the way. It helped keep his stomach from rolling over yet another time. He forced himself to step inside, clearing his throat as he watched Nate move forward to greet Sam. Being Nate Hawkins—or, rather, being Nate Hawkins after the season he’d just had and knowing this next would be his last—Nate didn’t treat Sam like his boss. Instead, standing here in the owner’s office of the stadium already being called the House That Nate Built, he gave Sam a hug and a slap on the back and said, “You meddling bastard.”
Sam didn’t deny it. Instead he laughed and pulled out a box of cigars, offering one to Nate and then Jack. Not quite in the mood, Jack took it nevertheless, sitting down next to Nate in one of the chairs across from Sam.
“So,” Sam said, taking a look at the two of them together and then swiveling his chair to look out over the field below. After a few moments he turned back to face them. To Jack he said, “I hear things are going well down in Inspiration.”
“Better than expected,” Jack cautiously answered.
Nodding, Sam didn’t even bother looking at Nate. “I have no doubt if you’re back with Nate, your fire will be back, so I’m not worried about that.”
“Okay,” Jack answered, his heart sinking a bit. It had been too much to hope Sam would just offer him a deal right now, but, well, he had hope for that.
“I’m not going to string you along, Ox,” Sam said. “I want you on the Watchmen. Hawk and Ox back together again after that clusterfuck of last year? Can you imagine how many tickets we’d sell?”
Jack didn’t give a damn about the number of tickets. He just wanted to play ball. Not the correct answer, however. “I’d expect quite a bit.”
“Damn right we would. Hell. I’m tempted to give you an offer as good as you got with the Sox—probably better—just on the basis of that alone.”