“Will you come to my wedding if Zach and I get married again?”
The question hung in the air between them for a seemingly endless minute.
“Why, do you want to remarry him?” he asked.
The Greek salad tasted like the best thing she’d ever eaten in her life, but she put the container down in her lap again. “I’m in love with him. I know we’d be happy together.”
“He can’t offer you what Eugene can.”
She looked into her father’s eyes. “Zach offers me more than I could ever explain to you.”
She heard her father’s phone ringing in his suit pocket. He ignored it. She almost fell off the park bench in astonishment when the call went to voicemail.
“Try me,” he said.
“Dad, Zach has some money of his own, but he doesn’t use it to exclude other people. He enjoys things like playing with his dog in his backyard and going on a picnic or a bike ride. Simple things. He’s getting a job when his NFL career is over, for instance. I’ve spent time with his family. They’re good, hardworking people. If all of Zach’s money went away tomorrow morning, they might have to move to a smaller place, but they would still be happy. He also says he’s forgiven you for the things you did to him and his family ten years ago, which stuns me. I’m not sure I’d be able to do so.” She hauled in a breath. Her father pressed his lips together so hard they formed a bloodless slash in his face. “You and Mom have done everything for me. I don’t want you to think I am ungrateful for all the things and experiences you’ve showered on me, but what Zach offers is something I really want. I love my job, I love New York City, but I want to come home to someone who loves me no matter what I do for a living.”
“What exactly does he offer, besides an inexpensive lifestyle and limited career choices?”
She almost rolled her eyes, but she knew the only way to get through this conversation was to remain calm and focused. “A family. I can be myself with him,” she said.
“Do you think that we don’t love you, too?”
“Dad, it’s not that you, Mom, and Paige mean less to me. It’s—I can live without a lot of other things, but I can’t live without him.”
“You’ll miss New York City. What about this career you value so much? I’m guessing he doesn’t want to leave the Seattle area. If he loves you, maybe he should be willing to relocate.”
“Asking Zach to relocate isn’t going to happen,” she said. “It’s not fair to his family.”
“Why is it fair to your family?”
She flopped back against the bench in frustration. Her impatient, arrogant father was back. He wasn’t asking questions because he wanted her to think about what she was doing. He was bent on undermining her decisions. She needed to get things back on track and focus on what she came here to do: call a truce with him, but tell him she was making her own decisions from now on. He wasn’t going to give Zach or their relationship a chance until she grew the backbone to stand up to him, either.
“I love New York. I thought I’d live here the rest of my life. I value my career, but I can work somewhere else,” Cameron said.
“Not a national broadcasting job. Not in Seattle,” her dad said.
She let out the breath she was holding and gulped another.
“Dad, it’s not a concern right now.”
“It should be—”
She cut him off, just the way he’d cut her off a thousand times over the years. “I just resigned my job with PSN. I’m now at FOX Sports. They’re happy to allow me to tape my show in Seattle—I have it in writing already.”
He stared at her in amazement.
“Your agent did this?”
“No, I did it. I’d appreciate it if you would keep that confidential until the official announcement next week. In the meantime, I’m not sure what I can say to you to help you understand why I made the decisions I did, but I am sticking with them. I hope you’ll respect them.”
He took another bite of his gyro.
Trying to explain to her father why she would choose to marry a man who thought a fun Friday night was hanging out with his grandma and sisters in Seattle’s suburbs instead of New York City’s glittering, frenetic social scene was like attempting to explain a smart phone to someone who’d never seen a computer before. It wasn’t part of his frame of reference.
“Dad, I have another question.”
His phone rang again. He flinched a little.
“Go ahead and answer it,” she told him.
He pulled the phone out of his pocket, hit the button, and said, “Ondine.” He listened for a few minutes. “Okay. Tell him I’ll meet with him at his convenience, but not this afternoon. I’ll be in tomorrow morning.”
Cameron hoped he wasn’t blowing off the Fed or someone in the current Presidential administration for lunch in the park with her. It was entirely possible.
He hung up and stuck the phone back into his pocket.
She watched children running and playing on the grass, people strolling or jogging on the path in front of them, and felt the humidity of a New York summer afternoon. She would miss this and so much more when she moved away. She couldn’t stand thinking about the rest of her life without Zach, though.
“We got off on the wrong foot a long time ago. Could we talk about that a little?” she said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Cameron. Maybe you should explain.” Her father polished off his gyro and reached for his untouched container of Greek salad. She handed him another fork while she made the extra effort to think of something to say that might make him understand how she felt.
“I didn’t spend a lot of time with you growing up.”
“I was home at dinner every night. I made sure you, your sister, and your mother were provided for. Are we starting this again?”
“Dad, I’m not saying that you weren’t a good provider. I know you’ve worked very hard to make sure we had everything we needed over the years. I told you I’m thankful for all the things you and Mom have done for me. I wish we’d spent more time together, though.” She sipped her iced tea. “You might have known I was a lot more interested in sports broadcasting than art and antiquities if you talked to me about the things I enjoyed doing when I was in school, for instance. The nanny was still escorting Paige and me to lacrosse and basketball until we were old enough to take a cab there ourselves, for instance.”
“So, you’re mad because we didn’t ‘hang out.’ Is that it?” To say she was surprised to see her dad making air quotes was an understatement. She had to smile.
“You say you don’t want me to leave, but I don’t get to spend a lot of time with you, and you don’t understand why I might want something else in life besides what you and Mom wanted for me. If we spent more time together, we might get to know each other a little better. That’s what I’d really like. I might not be living in the same place, but I could visit, you could visit me, and we could at least try. I also want you to get to know Zach. Please.” She let out a breath. “Maybe you’d have more in common with him than you might think.”
Her dad slung one arm around the back of the bench. They were each lost in their own thoughts.
He cleared his throat. “I heard there’s a food truck here that specializes in toasted cheese sandwiches. Maybe we should go and find it next time you visit,” he said.
There was an instantaneous lump in her throat. She nodded.
They cleaned up the remainders of their lunch and dropped the trash into a nearby can.
“There are food trucks in Seattle, too, Dad.”
“Good,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-Five
* * *
AFTER BUYING HIM a microbrew—or four—at the dumpy bar across the freeway from the Sharks practice facility, Logan filled Zach in on Cameron’s whereabouts: Cameron had been in New York for the past forty-eight hours, and she was due back tonight. The forty-eight hours she’d been gone felt like forty-eight months to Zach. He’d gotten on
e text from her since she left, too: TRUST ME. This time, he would. He wasn’t giving up. He loved her, he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, and he was going to do whatever it took to make that happen. If groveling over the argument they had the other day was involved, so be it. He might even beg.
Hell, who was he kidding? He’d beg. He’d plead. He’d kiss her breathless and promise her the world. He was in love with her. The next time he saw her, he’d say so. If he wasn’t still in camp, he would have been on the first flight out to her.
Zach had to have something to do while he waited for her. If the groveling and begging worked and she forgave him, he would propose. He had no idea when and where he was going to ask Cameron to marry him, but he knew he was going to, and he wanted to be prepared. To that end, he’d spent two hours at a local jeweler’s yesterday picking out a ring. The jeweler somehow managed to discover Cameron’s ring size. He’d delivered the finished ring to Zach half an hour ago. The seven-carat diamond ring was now burning a hole in Zach’s shorts pocket.
Adding to Zach’s stress, three of his teammates had invited themselves into his dorm room for a chit-chat on what they believed was his impending proposal. He needed to make sure she accepted his apology before he proposed, but he wasn’t sharing that with the knuckleheads. He felt like he was at one of Whitney’s middle school slumber parties. There was no nail polish, makeup tips, or Flamin’ Hot Cheetos here, though. And he was fairly sure the middle school girls his little sister invited over back in the day weren’t quite as entranced with the F-word as a method of self-expression.
“You fucked up, Anderson. Women want romance and magic. You should have asked her at sunrise. You had a whole lake all to yourself out there. She’s not going to be impressed if you get down on one knee in the cafeteria or something,” Derrick told him.
The team had picked up a defensive end cap casualty, Julian Jones, who was flopped out in Zach’s desk chair and watching the proceedings with a half-smile on his face.
“I’ve seen how that girl looks at you,” Julian said. “She doesn’t have a reason to say no, dawg.”
Zach rubbed a hand across his face. “I asked her at sunrise last time. I have to come up with something better this time,” he said. “Everything I can think of someone else has already done, and I’m not hiring a flash mob, either.”
“Did you call her dad already to ask for his blessing? Women love that,” Drew said.
That would have to wait, considering Cameron was probably still pissed over his last conversation with her dad.
Zach’s dorm room door banged against the wall as the Sharks’ starting secondary invited themselves in.
“Heard you got a delivery from Alvin Goldfarb Jewelers, guy,” Conroy said.
“Does she need another security guard? You buy a ring for that girl, it better have as many carats as possible. Lemme see it.” Antoine stretched out a hand for the box.
“I bought a ring for my wife there last year. Nice people. I still had money when I was done, too,” Jasha said. He slapped Zach on the back. “I got myself a little somethin-somethin before I walked outta there.” He displayed a Rolex on his wrist.
Terrell stared at the other three men. “You’re wack. How you going to ask her, Z?”
Zach shook his head. “I have no idea. I’ve been thinking about it for days now. I—I still don’t know.”
“You could always take her to dinner, order champagne, and ask the server to put the ring in her dessert,” Drew said. His comments were met with a cacophony of laughter and jeering.
“Everyone does that.”
“Fuckin’ boring.”
“Remember McKenna? He asked HIS wife after the Super Bowl. How you gonna top something like that?”
“She doesn’t really eat dessert,” Zach said. “Then again, she does like brownies.”
He saw a mysterious little smile playing around Derrick’s lips and a few looks between some of his teammates. They were up to something, and it had better not involve anyone getting duct taped to the goal posts or thrown into the locker room showers and covered with shaving cream.
“If you assholes think there’s a better way to ask, maybe you’d better tell him quick,” Drew retorted.
Zach felt the phone in his pocket vibrate. I’M DOWNSTAIRS, Cameron texted. WANT TO GO FOR A WALK WITH ME?
His heart skipped a beat and then sped up. He couldn’t stop the grin that spread over his face. He couldn’t wait to see her again.
“She’s back,” he said. “I’ve gotta bounce.”
“Huddle up,” Derrick barked. Eight men formed a circle and threw their arms around each other’s shoulders.
“She’s going to say yes no matter what,” Conroy said. “That girl’s in love with you.”
“Tell her you love her. Tell her you can’t live without her. Get down on one knee,” Drew said.
“Go get your ass engaged,” Derrick said. “We’ll see you later.”
All Zach had to do now was get downstairs, find the love of his life, and ask her to marry him. Again.
THE SHARKS’ LOBBY was dark. The team’s employees had gone home for the night, so it was the perfect place to get a few minutes alone with Zach. Cameron rooted through her gigantic handbag for the little plastic container of Tic Tacs she knew was in there. She should have brushed her teeth, combed her hair, and freshened up her makeup before she saw Zach again. He’d made it clear he didn’t care about that stuff, but all she could think about for the past five and a half hours was how much she wanted to see him again, and she wanted to be at her best when that happened. No matter how irritated with him she’d been when she left Seattle, she couldn’t stay mad. She couldn’t wait to be in his arms again.
She shook the entire bag, heard the tell-tale rattling of the breath mints, and redoubled her efforts.
Cameron heard heavy footsteps on the staircase, and Zach appeared seconds later. She dropped her bag on the lobby couch, ran up to him, and threw her arms around him. He picked her up off the floor and swung her around in response.
“I missed you so much,” she said, covering his face with kisses. She couldn’t get him close enough, either.
“I missed you, too.” He squeezed her so tightly it took her breath away. “How did it go?”
“It went really well. I have stuff to tell you, but right now, all I want is you,” she said.
“I want you, too.” He tugged her over to the lobby couch, and sat down next to her. “I need to talk to you.” He cradled her cheek in one of his hands and looked into her eyes. “I really fucked up, darlin’. I’m sorry. I should never have told your dad what I did, and I didn’t think that he’d actually call the big boss, either—”
“I was a little upset about it at the time, but the more I thought about it, I couldn’t stay mad at you. You’re not my dad, and I know you didn’t do it to hurt me,” she said. “I was afraid you thought I couldn’t handle it on my own.”
He was shaking his head before she finished speaking. “No. No. Not at all. I—I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, but it was wrong. I thought I could help, but it was a stupid thing to do. I won’t do it again.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “Please tell me you’ll forgive me.”
She relished the feeling of his warmth against hers, his scent, and the puffs of his breath against her cheek. “Right after you forgive me for not even telling you where I was going and not talking to you for two days,” she murmured.
“You sent me a text.”
“It wasn’t enough. I had to go fix it all, and I couldn’t do it from here.” She sat up and looked into his eyes. “I have some news. Would you like the good news or the bad news first?”
“We’ll face it together, darlin’.” He reached out to pull her close. “What’s the bad news?”
“I fired Laurie.”
“That’s the bad news?” She saw his huge grin. “Really?”
“Oh, there’s more.” She took a deep breath. “You’ll have
to get used to having me around more often, Zach Anderson. I quit my job at PSN. I took a job with FOX Sports instead. They agreed to let me work from Seattle.”
“What? Really? You’re moving here?”
“Of course I’m moving here. I can’t leave you here all alone, can I?” she teased.
He pulled her up off the couch and twirled her around in his arms, over and over. His mouth covered hers, and she slid her fingers into his hair. His tongue slipped into her mouth. She could never describe how he tasted to anyone else, but she craved him, and that taste, more than anything else she’d ever known. He lowered her feet to the floor again, but she didn’t let go. In a little less than twenty-four hours, they could be alone. She couldn’t wait.
She had to be back in New York in three days. She’d be back in Seattle as soon as she wrapped up some details and moved out of her apartment. In the meantime, she was enjoying as much of him as she could possibly get.
“Won’t you miss New York City?”
“I can live without New York,” she told him. “I can’t live without you.”
“There’s nobody in the training room right now,” he whispered into her ear. He leaned his forehead against hers again. She let out a laugh.
“Sounds romantic. Maybe I can tie you to a training table with some gauze strips or something.”
“There’s a hot tub in there.”
“It’s more like a cold tub, isn’t it?”
His smile flashed in the dimness of the Sharks’ lobby. “We’d warm it up in a hurry, darlin’.”
Zach tugged on her hand again. “Let’s go. I want to show you something.”
They exited the building, and Zach made a sharp right onto the path that ran alongside the practice field.
“Where are we going?”
“Let’s dip our toes in the lake and look at the stars,” he said.
The Sharks owned a dock on their lakefront property. It was convenient when the ownership wanted to fly a coveted free agent player in via seaplane to see the facility, or when one or more of the players wanted to show up at practice by boat in the summertime. It was a perfect summer night: cloudless, warm enough to be comfortable, and the stars were already brilliant in a dark periwinkle sky.
Catching Cameron: A Love and Football Novel Page 27