17. Jamie
Chapter 17
Jamie
I texted Chaz a few times a day even though he never responded. While I couldn’t begin to imagine what he was going through, I hated that he shut himself off from everyone who cared for him.
Kel over at Scone Haven had raised more than enough money to help with the burial. Dad’s secretary, Babs, had set up meals for Chaz, making food one less thing he had to think about or plan for the coming days.
A local cleaning service had offered their services free of charge for the next couple of months too. Knowing Chaz, he’d decline that offer since he didn’t like nosy people all up in his space.
Apple Acres Farm along with The Market had donated groceries and fresh produce, probably more food than he could eat in a year. The Outdoor Shop had mailed a gift card in the hopes of giving him something to indulge in once he was ready to move on.
And me?
I got in contact with the hospital and made sure that all bills were sent to me. Chaz didn’t have health insurance, and I had more than enough in the bank and investments to cover the costs of her ER visit, tests, surgery, the morgue stay—everything.
Reducing Chaz’s financial difficulties was penance for sinning against his wife but also the only way I found to help him. Honoring his request for space hurt like hell.
The bay doors at the shop no longer stood open during regular business hours, the colder September air requiring a heated interior to work comfortably. But that meant I never caught sight of Chaz while intentionally driving by to check on him from afar.
Friday night, we had an away game and got crushed forty-something to zilch. Regardless of the shutout and losing season, we plugged onward, the kids and Coach Dave able to keep more upbeat than I managed.
My mood dragged over having to be apart from Chaz when he suffered.
Saturday morning’s outlook didn’t pan out any better, dark skies bringing in depressing rain storms that matched my spirits as I sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee and attempting to eat cheesy scrambled eggs because I needed nourishment. Thoughts of Chaz made engaging in normal, necessary activities difficult.
He had finally succeeded in giving Shelly what she’d always wanted, and both his wife and child had been ripped away from him.
Thinking about their intimacy made it even harder to eat or sleep, so I attempted to keep my focus on his heart rather than mine.
Chaz’s loss not only left him without a deserved sense of accomplishment but what had to be gut-wrenching devastation too. I couldn’t imagine his emotional state, and every time I tried, I broke down into tears. Then guilt rose to choke the air from my lungs, and I found myself begging those gods again for their forgiveness.
The wake was set for Tuesday night. Babs informed me when I dropped off Dad’s lunch he’d forgotten. He was out on a call, so I hung out for a little while, having nothing better to do, listening as Babs filled me in on the town’s gossip.
The Hendersons had taken care of the funeral plans and had intended to pay for it as well until Kel had stepped in with his fundraiser. Scone Haven was in need of a new waitress with Shelly gone, and Babs joked that I would look good in an apron.
Smiling, she leaned onto her desk, chin propped in her hand, eyes twinkling with mischief over the receptionist’s counter between us. “Imagine the tips a boy like you would get from all us older ladies around town.”
I chuckled. Babs’s flirting was the only thing that had made me smile in days.
“There’s lots of cougars around here, but I can imagine you’d prefer a woman closer to your own age,” she continued.
Hardly, but I wasn’t in the mood to out myself at the moment since she was definitely fishing. If I told Babs my sexual preference, me being gay would be the talk of the town from now until Christmas if not longer. A few pride flags waved in front of businesses and attached to houses, and no one seemed to care a lesbian couple owned and ran Frenchie’s, so I wasn’t concerned what people would think.
It was simply a private issue that wasn’t anyone’s business but my own.
While I hadn’t heard anyone discuss Dad’s bisexuality, I wasn’t sure if he’d ever shared his truth with anyone but me. His best friend Dexter and Kell were also openly gay and had dated for a short time, or so I’d heard. Who knew with gossip in a small town like ours.
“I’m considering a job down in Berlin,” I offered Babs news to talk about. “Once the football season is over, I’ll need something more permanent with insurance, a 401k—all the good stuff.”
“You were smart to finish your degree in engineering before skipping off to the NFL. Your daddy is proud of you.”
I nodded, glad for myself I’d chosen that route. Otherwise, I’d really be up shit creek without a paddle because my contract money wouldn’t last forever. “Heard from Coach Bernard?”
Her smile widened. “He called just yesterday, high on living his retirement dream.”
I could imagine. Who wouldn’t want to travel across country and relax after being stuck in one place his whole life? “Think he’ll ever come back?”
“He better!” Babs straightened, a glint in her narrowed eyes. “Or I’ll have his hide.”
“Why’s that?” I asked with a smile at her spunk.
“He promised me a ring on Christmas and the rest of his days until death parts us!” She whisper-hollered even though the station was close to empty except for Officers Davidson and Jones on the building’s other side.
I blinked. “Why, Kathy Babs O’Neill. Since when have you and Coach been an item, and how is this not the gossip of the century?” I asked, my voice low too.
She glanced around, checking that the others in the office were busy at their desks before shifting forward, beckoning me closer with a crook of her finger.
I leaned onto the counter with crossed arms, having entirely too much fun when I should have been wallowing in the shit of my current circumstances. Babs was a breath of fresh air.
“I know how good you are at keeping your own secrets, so you won’t spill mine.”
A punch of adrenaline hit me, straightening my spine. “What are you talking about?” I asked, my smile dissolving.
“Oh, please. You think you did a good job hiding who has owned your heart since you were young boys?”
I blinked.
Jesus fucking Christ.
The town gossip had seen and actually kept her mouth shut just like Dad.
“Spill your secrets, Babs. You have my word I won’t say shit to anyone.” That was the only admission to her assumption she would ever get from me.
“Coach and I were an item long before he married his wife.”
“Are you shitting me?” I asked, failing to keep my voice down.
“Shh!” She glanced around the building again. “It’s a terrible secret, but yes. He pissed me off way back when, I dumped him, and he snagged hold of Rose Gibbons, got her pregnant, and had to marry her so her daddy wouldn’t take a shotgun to his balls.”
Well, goddamn.
“I won’t lie and say that he and I didn’t flirt on occasion during the years they were married. I’m no saint, and neither is he,” she continued, “but we didn’t fall into bed together until after she passed in March.”
I stared. Babs had always been known for her wildness, in her late sixties and single her whole life, but Jesus. “You mean you loved him and waited for him to be free again?”
“Bet your last dime, I did,” she whispered. “And I won’t admit to being sorry about rumpling his bedsheets before Rose’s body was cold in its grave either.”
“Babs!” I snorted a laugh, amused rather than repulsed by her frank, almost morbid admission.
She shrugged. “Life is short, Jamie, and when you love someone and are willing to set aside a few years for them, why drag out the loneliness once you finally have a chance to be happy?”
A few years. More like forty if not more for her. The fact I couldn’t be patient for a couple of months but pushed Chaz to have an affair brought back that shit feeling inside me again.
“Why didn’t you retire along with him and go see the southwest together?” I asked, needing to change my thought patterns.
“Pfft. I love the man, but being stuck in a tiny camper for months on end?” Grimacing, she shook her head.
“As if marriage after he returns is going to be any different!” I joked.
“I’m kidding,” she said, still smiling. “I would have loved to go with him, but there’s no way I could just up and leave last minute like he wanted with winter fast approaching. I also wasn’t going to ask him to hold off until I trained someone even though I had every right to.”
“You’re a good woman, Babs.”
She lifted and dropped a shoulder as though not sure she agreed.
“I’ll see you Tuesday night?” I asked even though I expected the whole town would attend Shelly’s wake at the only funeral home in town.
“I’ll be there,” she promised, her eyes filling with tenderness. “Now, go take care of that boy of yours.”
Shit, she sounded like Dad.
“I can’t until he’s ready,” I said, my chest heavy.
Babs reached over the counter and patted my arm. “It won’t be nearly as long as I sat twiddling my thumbs—I can promise you that.”
I sure as fuck hoped not, but for Chaz?
Yeah. I’d told him I would wait forever, and I’d meant it.
But fuck, walking into the funeral home on Tuesday night after football practice and catching sight of him in a new suit and tie, hair slicked back, hazel eyes just as empty on his pale face as the last I’d seen him at the hospital on Wednesday?
Every part of my being yearned to pull him close and hold him. Whisper that I was his whenever he was ready to move on.
But I paid my respects first to the closed casket, my throat thick as I chose to remember some of the good times Shelly and I had shared while with Chaz. She’d been an upbeat, sunshiny soul once in our teenage years, always attempting to make our best friend smile when he’d gotten down in the dumps. She’d been an unbelievable caretaker to her mother before they’d had to hospitalize her, never once complained or bitched about the dementia that had slowly made her mom forget who she was—or at least, that was what Dad had told me. Who knew what went on behind closed doors though.
The scent of roses, her favorite flower, lay thick in the air, suffocating and taking me back to her and Chaz’s wedding day. White petals had decorated every surface that afternoon, their sweet scent overpowering, burning my nose and etching in my memory the moment my best friend had said I do to someone other than me.
I stared at Shelly’s casket, humiliation rising up over my bitterness and resentment in the prior weeks, the wish to have her husband all to myself. My throat ached over my selfishness, and I offered up a prayer for her soul, begging forgiveness once more.
Blowing out an audible exhale and not feeling the slightest bit better about my shame, I finally turned my attention on the two-person receiving line.
Chaz, dressed all in black, waited for me, hands clasped in front of him, Shelly’s mom in a wheelchair to his right.
“Chaz,” I said, moving to stand in front of him, hand extended.
He clasped my palm, and we both leaned in for a bro-hug, the stiff material of suit coats between us uncomfortable and unwanted. I breathed him into my lungs, the underlying scent of his shop, and my eyes stung.
Swallowing hard, I stepped back, clasping his shoulder while retaining my hold on his hand. “I’m sorry for your loss.” I offered the proper condolences although they seemed meaningless. “For both of them,” I tacked on quietly in case he hadn’t told anyone about the pregnancy.
A muscle ticked in his jaw, and he nodded. “Thanks for coming.”
He’d given me nothing more than the same greeting as everyone else, and although his lack of enthusiasm over seeing and touching me stung, I reminded myself he grieved and probably didn’t yet have space in his heart for more.
This time, I would be patient and not push no matter my longing to ease his suffering.
People in line behind me made me release my hold and move on when I’d rather have stood by his side offering my support.
I knelt in front of Shelly’s mom, but her gray eyes were vacant. She didn’t recognize me, nor did she acknowledge the condolences I spoke over losing her only child. Standing, I nodded at the nurse seated slightly behind her before making my way to the second row of chairs facing forward.
Even though I couldn’t stand beside Chaz, I planned to sit there until the last person paid their respects. And if he still wasn’t ready to talk, then I would continue to wait, same as Babs had for the love of her life.
Chaz was worth it. Always had been, but I’d been too blind, and now we both paid the price.