“Because they have no work, Gretchen. They’re losing their homes because they can’t pay their mortgages or rent. If you rent a room in your home to somebody you know and then they can’t pay, are you going to be able to evict them?”
“I just need a little more income coming in, and I think that would be the easiest way to do it. If I move into the room next to Gram’s and rent my room, it has its own bathroom and everything. No kitchen, obviously, but you know how Gram loves to cook. Maybe there could be an extra charge to eat with us and not worry about kitchen privileges.”
“I’ll be honest, Gretchen. It makes me nervous. Especially if you just get random strangers answering an ad. I can’t decide if I’m more worried about you renting to a friend who can’t pay you or renting to a total stranger.”
“I’m just thinking about it right now. I can only do it if Gram thinks it’s okay, and if I know you or the chief can warn us about any red flags. I’m not going to have somebody potentially dangerous in the house with her. But it’s not something I’m planning to do tomorrow or anything.”
“We can talk about it again, and we’ll do up an income projection and a pros and cons list to make Jen happy, and see if the risk and inconvenience is really worth it.”
“Thanks. Now let’s circle back to Chase and that kiss.”
“I’m always circling back to Chase,” Kelly said in a quiet voice. “I can’t believe he did that.”
“I thought it was sweet. And very romantic, like a scene out of a movie.”
“And that’s bad.”
“It is?”
Kelly sighed and gave her friend a really? look. “Of course it’s bad.”
“Oh, were you two not doing the fun sex thing anymore?”
“We were doing the fun sex thing earlier today, as a matter of fact. But we weren’t doing the flaunting our fun sex in front of Stewart Mills thing at all. Or we weren’t supposed to be.”
“So you haven’t taken your relationship to the next level? Like the actual calling it a relationship level?”
“No, and that was never the plan. You know that.”
Gretchen leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “I assumed your original plan would go down in flames. I mean, it’s obvious you guys like each other. You’re always looking for each other and laughing together. And there’s the fun sex thing. Why not call it what it is?”
“Because it can’t be that.” She’d been annoyed with Chase since the kiss, but now it gave way to a sense of loss. “Yeah, it’s been great and we’ve had a great time, but it was temporary. He got to leave his life in New Jersey behind for a while, and even I’ve been out of routine with this whole Eagles Fest thing. It’s like a vacation fling that can’t be sustained back in the real world.”
“You don’t sound like somebody having a fun vacation fling. You sound like somebody who’s trying to convince herself that’s all she’s having but doesn’t really believe it.”
“I’m going to miss him,” Kelly admitted. Saying it out loud was both a relief and torture. It made his leaving seem even more immediate.
“I hate to state the obvious here, but you could always just . . . have a relationship. So he has to go back to New Jersey for a while. You keep in touch. Call, text, video chat. Maybe meet in the middle at a nice hotel once in a while for the fun sex thing, until you figure out what and where the future is.”
“I’m not taking a chance on an unsettled guy again, and he doesn’t even know what he wants. Been there, done that, paid the lawyer fees.” Kelly shook her head. “It’s better to part ways now, before we get all emotionally wrapped up in each other.”
“I hate to say it, but I think you’re too late.”
Kelly shook her head but didn’t waste any more breath denying it. At some point, yeah, her emotions had seeped in, and she cared more about Chase than one probably cared about a random vacation fling.
But that didn’t mean she could just lay out her emotions for everybody to see. She’d been a mess after the divorce, and her friends and family had seen it. She never wanted to be smothered in that much pity and helpfulness ever again. Her time with Chase was coming to an end, and she was going to accept that with dry eyes and her head held high.
—
“You don’t look like a man who’s celebrating,” Alex said, pointing a slice of pizza in Chase’s direction.
They’d lost the game, so he was a little confused as to what Alex meant by that. “What, exactly, are we celebrating?”
“It’s over. All we have to do now is get paraded around town on a float and then we’re free to go.”
Sam nodded. “I, for one, am celebrating the fact that I never have to play football again. I’m too old for that shit.”
Chase laughed. “I can’t argue with that.”
“It looked like Chase might have more of a reason to celebrate than some other guys,” Briscoe said, raising his eyebrows as if to emphasize the point.
Chase groaned and bit into his pizza. He knew where this was going, and it was nowhere he particularly wanted to go.
“I don’t think it was exactly a secret,” Alex said.
“No,” Briscoe admitted. “But it seemed like they were trying to pretend it was.”
“It wasn’t a secret,” Chase said. “It wasn’t anybody else’s business, either.”
“Has Coach said anything about it?” Alex asked. “You were always one of his favorites, but she’s his only kid. And a daughter at that.”
“He didn’t say much, until tonight when I pretty much forced him into acknowledging what was going on by kissing her in front of the entire town.”
“And what did he say?”
“I can sum up his thoughts on the matter as the sooner I leave town, the better.”
Sam winced. “Ouch.”
“Yeah.”
“What family thinks is important, but it’s what Kelly wants that really matters,” Briscoe said, probably pulling from all the wisdom that came with being a married man.
Sam must have thought the same thing, because he gave him a dark look. “I know you’re doing the ’til-death-do-you-part thing, Briscoe, but not all sex ends in happily ever after. Sometimes it’s just sex.”
Briscoe shrugged, not intimidated by Sam at all. “And sometimes it’s not.”
Chase didn’t tell them Kelly wasn’t looking for happily ever after, either. At least not with him. Briscoe had family in town, and Chase didn’t want any more gossip going around about Kelly than already was. He’d rather everybody think he was the dumb schmuck who had a shot with her and blew it than have them hold their ridiculous double standards regarding sex against her.
They’d barely finished the pizza when Briscoe was summoned back to his parents’ to help wrangle kids while his wife started packing for their trip home. They were hitting the road early in the morning, so he said his good-byes with a lot of handshakes and backslaps, and then it was just Chase, Sam and Alex.
“So what’s next for you guys?” he asked them, and they both shrugged.
“I’m heading back to my glamorous life in Texas,” Sam told them, holding up his soda glass as if he were making a toast.
“How the hell did you end up as an oil-field electrician, anyway?” Chase asked.
He shrugged. “I just drove around the country, doing whatever jobs they were hiring for. Ended up in Texas and I like it there. Worked on a ranch when I first got there, but then I found out I don’t like cows very much. So I decided to get some education and bump my paychecks up a bit. That’s it. How ’bout you, Murph? What’s next?”
Alex shook his head, staring into his beer mug. “I’m not sure. I’ll head home and do some research. Catch up on the world news and brainstorm a new story to tell. Then try to sell it.”
“You don’t get assigned stories to take pictures for?”
Chase asked.
“Sometimes publications contact me to ask me to do a story, but I’m freelance, so I can do what moves me. It’s getting tough, though. We used to give the world the photographs that illustrated news around the world. Now people on the street are using their phones to upload pictures to social media while the news is still breaking.”
“That sucks.” Sam covered a yawn, but it spread until they were all yawning. “So you looking for a new line of work?”
“No.” Alex was definitely starting to slump in his chair, and Chase knew they weren’t much better off, no matter how much he wanted to put off going back to Coach’s house. “I don’t know how to do anything else, for one thing. And the photos I like to take aren’t necessarily breaking news, anyway. I like to use the camera to tell stories, and those stories don’t always have splashy headlines. They’re more than a quick flash in the social media pan and sometimes in-depth is still as important as immediate.”
Chase wasn’t sure he totally grasped what Alex did, although Mrs. McDonnell had showed him a scrapbook that had some of his pictures, but he knew Murph was good at it. He’d even won some awards. And he traveled a lot.
“You ever think about a wife and kids?” Chase asked him. “Settling down, I mean.”
Alex shook his head. “I had a wife once, actually. She didn’t like my lifestyle and, when I wouldn’t give up my career, she left me. I’ve learned it’s easier not to have a wife than it is to keep one happy.”
Sam nodded. “What about you, Sanders? What’s next on your agenda?”
Not a wife, that was for sure. “I’m heading back to New Jersey. I’ve got some jobs lined up, and I need to find a new apartment that’s substantially cheaper than the last one I had. Downsizing all the way around, I guess.”
Sam gave him a solemn look. “At least you’ve still got your truck.”
That made Chase laugh. “You’ve gotta get out of Texas more, my friend.”
He shrugged. “It’s a nice truck.”
Chase remembered the way Kelly had teased him about gelding his truck and took a swallow of beer. That was probably one of his favorite things about her. She made him laugh, and he liked that even more than he liked her legs.
“We’re heading out about six o’clock Monday morning,” Alex said, “because dumb-ass over here wanted a morning flight. When are you leaving?”
“Not at six in the morning,” Chase said, and they all laughed. “I haven’t really thought about it.”
He should think about it soon, though. It was time to go, and no amount of dragging his feet would make it any less painful. Getting up and on the road first thing in the morning would be like ripping a bandage off—it still hurt, but it faded faster.
“The parade’s at ten tomorrow,” he said, “which kind of kills it as a travel day. Maybe Monday morning.”
But if the parade started at ten and everything was over by noon, maybe he’d head out then. He could drive until he got tired and then find a cheap motel somewhere to spend the night. If he stayed, he might try to see Kelly, and he wasn’t sure that was a good idea.
Maybe things were best left the way they were. They’d had fun. He’d made it awkward, and now it felt as if there was a distance between them. It seemed like a natural segue to the very real and substantial distance about to be between them.
He’d do the parade, say his good-byes and then hit the road. And, no matter how much he might want to, he wouldn’t look back.
—
Kelly stared at her ceiling, feeling the lack of Chase beside her in an almost physical way. It had been a long day and, though she couldn’t say she was in the mood for sex, she wouldn’t mind nodding off wrapped in his arms.
Her mom had called her shortly after she got home, wanting to thank her again for all the work she’d put into Eagles Fest on Coach’s behalf. During the conversation, she’d casually mentioned that Chase had gone out with the guys to celebrate their parts in the successful fund-raising, so Kelly didn’t bother reaching out to him. And she didn’t hear from him.
Now, unable to sleep and with nothing better to do, Kelly replayed the night over and over in her mind, wishing she’d handled it differently. He’d been hurt by the way she’d laughed off their relationship. She could see that now, but she wasn’t sure exactly what it meant.
The possibility that his emotions had gotten tangled up in their fling like hers had was terrifying. Her putting on a fake smile and waving good-bye to him was one thing. If he offered her more, it would be so hard to walk away. But not walking away would be messy and hard, and she wasn’t sure she was strong enough for that. The thoughts ran like circles through her mind, frustrating her and not bringing any clear answers.
Only when the annoying tone of her alarm clock woke her did Kelly realize she’d finally slept. Not long or well, judging by how groggy she felt, but she got out of bed and walked across the room to flip the switch on the clock. It was the only way she kept from hitting the snooze button multiple times every morning.
Parade day meant all hands on deck for the police department, which was all three of them. The chief always led the parade in the marked SUV Kelly usually drove, signaling the start with a blast of the sirens. Dylan would walk back and forth along the parade route, ensuring nobody got out of hand or strayed too far off the sidewalk. She was on traffic duty this year, which was her least favorite.
Because the Stewart Mills parade route included the short stretch of the state road that ran through town, it had to be closed off for the duration of the parade. She’d park Dylan’s sedan across one end with a sign explaining the brief closure, and then she’d stand at the other end with wooden barricades and another sign. Then she’d spend the entire parade listening to horns honk and people yell about how they had to be somewhere important.
Kelly showered and put on her uniform before braiding her hair, and then looked at herself in the mirror. She looked like crap. Her skin was pale and there were shadows under her eyes. And besides looking tired, she looked really unhappy.
Why was she doing this to herself? She was making herself miserable trying to fend off the possibility that she could end up miserable.
She was in love with Chase Sanders. That was the bottom line. It wasn’t an emotional tangle. It wasn’t slightly messy. It was the L-word. She loved him.
Bracing her hands on the cool vanity top, she closed her eyes and tried to get her head on straight. Chase liked her. He liked spending time with her and making her laugh. He’d been hurt when she carelessly laughed off whatever was between them as a fling.
If there was a possibility he loved her, she had to take the chance. So what if it was messy and hard while they sorted out how to make a future together? If they were meant to be, they’d get through it.
And if he didn’t feel the same way, that would hurt. But either way, letting Chase go was going to hurt. At least if he knew what he was walking away from, she’d never have to ask herself what if?
Her mind made up, Kelly opened her eyes and took a deep breath. She even managed to smile at her reflection. After the parade was over and things had died down a little, she’d manage to find a quiet place to talk to Chase, and she’d tell him things had changed. She knew he had to go, at least for a little while, but she wanted him to come back to her.
19
Chase could only describe the parade’s staging area in the school parking lot as utter pandemonium. He wasn’t sure who would be watching the parade since it looked like most of the town’s population was actually in it. All of the band members seemed to be tuning their instruments with no rhyme or reason. There were antique tractors jockeying for position, and a horse that really didn’t seem to like people very much.
He could barely think straight, and he couldn’t imagine how the chaos was going to exit the parking lot in an orderly line in exactly fourteen minutes, according to the
person running around yelling a countdown like it was a nuclear launch.
When he spotted Deck in the crowd, he made his way over. “Is it always like this?”
“Sometimes it’s worse. Trust me.”
“Where are we supposed to be?”
“Toward the back, on the big float. The kids will be in pickups behind us. Cheryl’s going to drive the wrecker up front so I can have my moment of glory, as she put it.”
“Who’s got the trophy?”
“Gretchen has it in her truck. Once we’re all on board and it’s time to take off, she’ll hand it up so we can wave it around. Don’t forget to smile.”
“Yeah.” Because smiling was just what he wanted to do today, when he’d be leaving Stewart Mills—and Kelly—in a few hours.
He’d already put his bags in his truck, telling the McDonnells he wanted to be home early the next day to help his sister out with something. He was pretty sure they both saw through the excuse, but neither called him on it. He’d find them after the parade and say a proper good-bye, though, because he couldn’t just disappear on them after they’d opened their home to him.
“Hey!” Jen ran up to them, looking frazzled. “You guys need to be on the float. We have to make sure the chairs all fit without any being too close to the edges.”
Chase did as he was told and made his way to the float. He stopped short when he saw it, and then smiled. Their championship banner had been taken down from the gym and was strung on what looked like clothesline above the chairs. Blue, white and gold balloons and streamers were attached to every possible surface of the trailer, as well as tied to the mirrors and antenna of Gretchen’s truck.
“That must be our ride,” Sam said, stepping up beside him. “Jesus, there can’t be a streamer left anywhere in the county.”
“They certainly know how to make a float.” He looked sideways at his old friend. “Does this feel as weird to you as it does to me?”
“Being celebrated as a hero by a town I’ve barely thought about in fourteen years because I came back, ate spaghetti and played a half-assed game of football?” Sam nodded. “It’s a little weird.”
Under the Lights Page 21