by Mindy Klasky
But beneath all that, there was a flicker of something darker, something sadder. Jamie was afraid. He couldn’t say if she feared him, or feared change, or feared something that was entirely unrelated to him. But the expression on her face made him hate himself for ever walking away from her in the first place. He never should have made her doubt him. Never should have let her be afraid to trust him.
He forced a casual wave as he watched the woman he was supposed to have married leave with their daughter. And he tried to figure out if there was any way he could ever rebuild Jamie’s faith.
CHAPTER 5
Getting home from the ballpark, Nick locked his front door behind him and palmed on the overhead light in the foyer. God, this place was a pit. He’d furnished it with rent-to-buy furniture when he’d first arrived in Raleigh, figuring he’d upgrade as soon as life calmed down, as soon as he wasn’t being driven crazy by all the details of learning how to play for another baseball team. He’d settled up with the rental company around year three, probably paid them three times what the crap was worth. And he still hadn’t gotten around to buying better things.
He told himself he liked living this way. He didn’t have to worry if he spilled food, didn’t care if he knocked over a glass or two. But Jesus, the place looked grim.
He headed toward the kitchen and whatever frozen dinner he had in the freezer. When he turned on the light the bulb blew, and he was left blinking in the dim aftermath. Swearing, he pulled open the cabinet beneath the sink. In the faint glow from the foyer, he found an empty corrugated paper sleeve that had once held lightbulbs. He crumpled it and reached for another. A third. What the hell was he doing, collecting the damned things?
And just like that, something broke inside him, as sudden as the filament popping in the dead kitchen bulb.
He pulled out his phone and punched a button.
“Nicholas Durban! How’s it hanging?” Jeremy Epson could make a recipe for Girl Scout cookies sound filthy.
Nick skipped the usual jokes, all the bullshit about hitting the ball out of the park and all the women who couldn’t get enough of him. “I’m calling about Luxury Motors.”
“These things take time, my man.”
“That’s what you said six months ago. If the endorsement deal isn’t going to happen—”
“Who said it isn’t going to happen? I’m working for you, day and night. Night and day.”
Nick consciously relaxed his hand where his phone was cutting into his palm. Ep had floated the endorsement deal at the beginning of the season. He’d folded the idea into their big plans for the year, said that Nick had the presence now, the popular support of fans.
At first, Nick had brushed off the concept. What the hell did he have to say about a car dealership? Why did he care about some university booster who was pulling in money hand over fist from all the loyal alumni in the Research Triangle?
But the more he thought about it, the more he wanted the deal. It was a sign that he was somebody. That he’d reached a certain level in the game. In his life.
“Ep, this is your job. If you can’t get them to shit or get off the pot—”
“Easy, Tiger. I followed up with them a month ago. But you’re right, it’s time to check back again. I’ll call over there tomorrow.”
“And call me back. Before noon.”
Epson laughed. “I never thought you’d be one of those guys.”
“What guys?” Nick asked, suddenly glad Epson’s face wasn’t within striking distance of his fist.
“One of those guys who goes nuts in the off season. What do you think, Nick? Want me to make some calls? See if we can get you lined up to play down in Puerto Rico for a couple of months?”
“I’m not looking for a beach vacation. I want the endorsement deal you mentioned back in April.”
“All right, all right. I’ll make some calls. When have I ever steered you wrong?”
When you told me to walk away from Jamie! The thought was there, so loud Nick almost shouted it. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized why he’d actually called his agent. He hadn’t made the conscious connection—he wanted to chew out Ep for bad advice seven years ago, and he was willing to pick a fight about more recent failings tonight.
Maybe he would have been better off if things hadn’t gone well at the park. But he’d connected with Olivia. The kid was funny, and smart too. Jamie was doing a great job with her.
That reality set up a dull ache around his heart. They were good together, Jamie and Olivia. They’d built a life that worked.
There would have been room for him in that life if he’d played things differently back in college. If he’d taken Jamie out to California, they would have found their balance, the two of them, so that when Olivia came along they could shift together, make room for her together.
Great. And if he’d played Pop Warner instead of Little League, maybe he’d be getting his brains bashed out on some pro football team. If the doctors hadn’t been able to fix his labrum tear second year in, he’d be coaching baseball in some podunk college town. If, if, if…
He rubbed his hand over his face, holding a deep breath until his pulse began to slow. “Right, Ep,” he finally said. “Get back to me. Soon.”
He didn’t bother with niceties before he hung up. He could practically hear Ep mouthing off to whoever was with him in New York. “That guy needs to get laid.” That would be Ep, pure and simple—master of the cliché. The guy could still deliver a deal, though. At least he always had in the past. Nick just had to be patient for a while longer.
He tossed his phone onto the counter and opened up his refrigerator. The light was bright enough to make him squint. By the time his eyes adjusted, he could see there wasn’t anything edible in there—nothing that wasn’t a science fair project.
Shit. He’d order a pizza with extra olives, even though he’d be thirsty for a day after.
But first, he needed some distraction. Something to remind him of the future he could build, instead of the past he could never change. He grabbed a sleeve of Saltine crackers from the pantry and slouched toward the living room. His computer waited on the dinged-up coffee table. He flipped it open and called up the TrueLove website. Maybe Shygirl6 could help him forget all the crap.
~~~
Jamie sat at her kitchen table, computer open, notebook at her right hand. She’d dropped Olivia at school an hour before, and it was time to settle down to work.
She could check TrueLove first.
But she forbid herself from going to the website. Not after she’d stayed up until two in the morning chatting with RoadWarrior. He’d started their conversation by finally revealing something about his personal life. He’d had a crappy day at the office. He’d been recommended for a promotion over six months ago, but now his boss was dragging his feet actually making the change happen. Jamie had pressed him for more details, but he’d insisted his job was boring, that he had far more interesting things to talk about.
And he had been interesting. She couldn’t deny that. He’d been interesting as he congratulated her for working through her own “job-related” disaster, for her vaguely described decision to let Nick meet Olivia. He’d been intriguing as he suggested that a back rub would be an appropriate reward. He’d been downright fascinating as he walked through what he would do for, step by step, by way of positive conditioning, to prime her for marking great decisions in the future. She’d finally closed her bedroom door and slipped her fingers into her panties, resorting to typing with one unsteady hand.
She shook her head. No. No TrueLove this morning. She had work to do.
First things first—the task Jamie most despised. She set her jaw and sat up straight in her chair, clenching her belly muscles tight as if she were about to attempt a wild trapeze leap. Her fingers were heavy as lead as she typed in the user name and password for her bank account.
The figures were as grim as she’d feared. Even with skimping, with dinners of hot dogs and ramen and
not a single evening out, she was looking at a maximum of one month of operating funds. One month of paying Robert before she had to let go of his near-miraculous skills with a makeup brush, with his anticipating her photographic needs before she’d even thought of them herself. One month of rent and electricity and water.
After that, she’d be reduced to the one thing she’d vowed never to do. She’d have to reach out to her parents, to ask them for a loan. That, of course, would bring the inevitable pleas for her to return north, to settle in Connecticut, to bring Olivia back to the grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins who loved her.
Supportive family should have been a comfort to Jamie. Instead, the very thought was a goad. She was going to succeed on her own terms. She had to.
A tiny voice whispered at the back of her mind: Let Nick pay child support. But she couldn’t do that. She wouldn’t do that. Dunning Nick because of Olivia would be admitting that he had a right to be involved in her life, a right to be present, day after day after day.
And Jamie couldn’t do that when she didn’t trust him to stick around. She couldn’t lean on him financially, rely on him monetarily, when she didn’t trust him to stay there for her. The last thing she wanted was a long, drawn-out court battle when he decided to walk away.
Better to stand on her own two feet. The way she’d done for the past seven years. The way she’d do, somehow, going forward.
Logging out of her sorry bank account, she opened up her email. There, at the top of her inbox, was some good news. Anna Benson’s assistant had finally worked some magic, corralling the rest of the Rockets’ team for the calendar shoot. Jamie couldn’t imagine what strings the woman had pulled, but the schedule was structured so that everyone was covered by next Friday. The eight days would be intense, but they’d be worth it. Not only could Jamie submit her invoice then, but she’d finally be able to add the calendar photos to her portfolio. She forwarded the schedule to Robert, along with some notes about lighting and camera angles.
Despite her fatigue from staying up way past her bedtime and her concern about the ominous numbers from her bank, Jamie felt light-hearted for the first time in weeks. Things were coming together. Sure, her career was building more slowly than she’d hoped. And she still wasn’t thrilled with the idea of Nick spending more time with Olivia. She wished she had more friends in Raleigh, that she didn’t have to lean on Ashley for so much. But she could see a future when all those problems would be resolved. She could imagine a time when she’d be happy with her friends, her family, and her career.
When she’d be happy with RoadWarrior.
Her fingers itched to open TrueLove, but she told herself to wait. She still had work to do. Besides, what were the chances that an admitted workaholic was online, waiting to chat with her in the middle of a Thursday morning?
Firming up her resolve, Jamie reviewed the names in her notebook. She’d drawn up the list of potential clients before she’d ever come back to Raleigh. She’d spent hours poring over newspaper articles about Raleigh society, adding to the knowledge she’d gleaned when she’d lived there during college.
Now it was time to follow up on that legwork. It was time to set up some face-to-face meetings.
First up: Gwendolyn Chalmers, president of the Garden Society. The woman seemed to attend every charity gala in the city; she was regularly featured in the gossip pages of the paper, wearing stunning designer clothing. Jamie had lied to Robert a couple of weeks ago, saying that she’d talked with Ms. Chalmers about shooting the centerpieces at the Society’s annual awards lunch. It was time to convert that lie to a truth.
Jamie read over her sales pitch multiple times, making sure that her words were professional, that she’d made her work alluring. She attached a link to her website, inviting Ms. Chalmers to look at some of the industrial shoots Ashley had landed for her. Sure, a plate of scrambled eggs and toast wasn’t as appealing as a full display of flowers, but it was something. Jamie crossed her fingers and hit Send.
Next on her list was the Coburn Gallery. Jamie had first discovered the avant-garde site when she was in college. She couldn’t count the number of hours that she’d spent immersed in their shows. Each gallery opening was announced with a fashionable cocktail party, and Jamie couldn’t imagine anyone better than herself to capture the events for posterity.
Another email then, full of appropriate references to past shows. Once again, she linked to her website, this time pointing the gallery owner toward her moody portraits of bands.
Three more names were on her list—a private school just a couple of blocks from the house, a wine and cheese shop in one of the trendier areas of downtown, a fitness studio Ashley had mentioned just the other day. Jamie worried that she might be scattering seeds on dry soil; she had no idea if any of these opportunities would take root. But she was certain that if she didn’t do something, she would fail.
With the last of her messages sent, Jamie finally gave in to the nagging whisper at the back of her brain. She logged in to TrueLove. She actually closed her eyes as the website loaded. She filled her lungs with a steadying breath. She swallowed hard and opened her eyes and—
Nothing. No message in her inbox.
Well, what had she expected? She’d talked to RoadWarrior until the wee hours of the morning. The man had to get work done some time.
She logged off with quick, efficient keystrokes. She could check the site again after dinner, she told herself sternly. After Olivia was safely in bed. And not one minute before.
~~~
Nick tucked his towel around his waist and padded out to the living room. He’d finished his run well after dark, and he’d stayed in the shower until the water started to run cold. His entire day had been off-balance, starting with waking up at a quarter to noon. That’s what he got for spending half the night online with Shygirl6.
Not that she’d been so shy last night… He felt a little wicked. It had all started innocently enough, with his teasing about that mysterious favorite body part. He’d told her he could guess her secret in five tries. She’d risen to the challenge, saying she could narrow in on his own favorite. And she was the one who proposed the penalty for wrong guesses—a description of what, exactly, each of them would do with the poor, maligned incorrect parts.
He’d been surprised by her imagination.
Hell, he’d been hard by the time he made his first guess—the lobes of her ears. Just describing the way he’d tease them with his teeth, nibbling enough to let her know he meant business, then soothing with the pull of his lips… He’d known damn well what he was doing, and his cock had twitched in full approval.
He just hadn’t expected her to be so…creative in making her own guesses. So descriptive as she admitted defeat. And while he’d never admit the truth to another living soul, he’d lied to her. She could have named every bone in his body, every muscle group, every last tendon and ligament, and he would have denied it was on his list.
He’d just wanted to keep the game going.
Opening his computer, he wasted a minute to discover that Epson hadn’t sent him email. The guy hadn’t called either. Nick couldn’t say if that was truly bad news—who knew how long it really took for an endorsement deal to fall into place?
Now, after a night of online play with Shygirl6, it seemed a little ridiculous to have gotten pissed with Ep the way he had. Yeah, the guy hadn’t landed the endorsement…yet. But he really did have Nick’s best interest in mind. Even if Epson had ruined Nick’s relationship with Jamie, that old career advice had made sense, in a twisted, practical way.
The last few weeks had been hell on him, losing sleep worrying about Jamie, questioning everything he’d said or done over the past seven years. If he’d been just starting out in the Majors, just figuring out his way around professional baseball, while he was trying to make that relationship work? He probably would have crashed and burned, just like Ep said.
Just thinking about Jamie made Nick feel guilty about
leading on Shygirl6.
That was ridiculous. Jamie was in his past. Sure, a part of him would always love her. But he’d screwed up their relationship beyond redemption. The most he could hope for was a civil interaction with the woman whose heart he’d broken, with the mother of his daughter.
And he honestly did like Shygirl6, what he knew about her anyway. He liked the Girl Next Door thing she had going on, the way she seemed to surprise herself with some of the things she posted. He liked the way she talked about her work, the marketing proposals that clearly meant a lot to her. He liked the way she mentioned her daughter—not often, not making the kid the center of their conversation, but enough to make it clear that her child was important to her. And he liked the way she got him horny as a teenager, with a few well-chosen words and a bit of strategic timing. Speaking of which…
He logged in to TrueLove and typed the message he’d been thinking every step of his run. “Hey. I want to meet in person. I know it’s short notice, but any chance you’re free for dinner tomorrow night?”
He hit Send before he could turn chickenshit.
The online heart pulsed three times. His phone matched the animation with a triple buzz, loud against the kitchen counter where he’d tossed it after getting in. “Where did you have in mind?”
She was online right that minute. So much for taking his time, for easing into this conversation. Shit. But after last night, it was pretty much time to go for broke. If they didn’t meet now, they’d just talk themselves out of ever meeting in person. Stay online fuck-buddies. Just what he wanted. Yeah, right.
He typed, “How about Artie’s?”
“The steakhouse?”
“Yep. 7:00, if you can get a sitter.”
“I’ll figure out something.”
“I’m sure you will,” he typed. “You’ve proven you can be very creative.”
He wondered if she was blushing. In fact, he wondered what she actually looked like. Despite writing scores of messages that sounded like revved up porno fantasies, they hadn’t even described themselves to each other. She could be a blonde Amazon, six feet tall in stiletto heels, makeup slashed across hard lips, with cheekbones that could cut his palms.