Chapter 8
eight
Ainsley
T ap, tap, tap.
I bounce the pencil against the table over and over.
Tap, tap, tap.
Come on, ideas. I need you. Come to me.
Tap, tap, tap.
I stare at the screen, willing the words to magically appear, but they don’t. How the hell am I going to write a story about Lachlan and where he is now when he won’t let me interview him? I could write about what I do know, leaving out any freaking commentary from him. Which will be a boring and absolutely basic story. I could always make it more about the Ultimate Frisbee players who once were deemed the top athletes of their time. That way it could kind of be a much broader article, even though that’s totally not what my boss sent me here for.
Ugh.
I’m so going to fail.
My email pings, and I’ve never been happier to stop staring at a blank screen. Only when I see it’s from my boss, I no longer feel relief, because today I need to send him my top six angles.
I don’t even have one, so this is going to be a shit show.
Ainsley,
I will be traveling this week and I need your storyline proposals by four.
The clock says it’s two, so ... I’m screwed.
“More coffee?” Hazel asks, coming around the partition.
“Sure. Maybe coffee will perk my brain up,” I say, holding out my cup.
She gives me a refill and then puts the pot on the counter. “Everything okay?”
“I just have two hours before I need to submit something that sounds Pulitzer winning about heroic former athletes or Frisbee.”
She lets out a soft laugh. “That doesn’t seem all that difficult.”
I drop my head on the table. “It’s impossible.”
“It can’t be that bad!” Hazel says with some gusto. “Come on, tell me what you have so far.”
I lift my head just enough to see her face. “I have nothing.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
Hazel pulls the seat out across from me. “Okay, this isn’t the end of the world. You have two hours. I’ve seen writers pull things out of their ass in minutes. What usually gets your brain working?”
“Talking it out,” I admit. I’m so much better when I can think aloud, which is why I love writing in my office. Caroline is an amazing sounding board and always helps me work through the wormholes in my brain.
“Then let’s hear it.” Hazel lifts both hands.
It’s great that she wants to help, but I don’t even have a jump-off point. “I can’t give you anything because I have nothing.”
Nothing except replaying that moment when he held me against the wall. When I was an idiot and thought that maybe he was feeling the same thing I was. Once again, I’m a freaking dumbass.
“Okay, so what’s rattling around in your head? Is it the fire at the cabin that has you messed up?”
“I wish,” I confess under my breath.
Hazel’s eyes widen. “Something else?”
“Someone else, more like.”
While I don’t know Hazel, I like her a lot. She’s incredibly sweet, and I hope that at the end of this, we can remain friends.
“I thought that might be the case,” she says with a smile as she leans back. “Lachlan is a great guy.”
“He’s also my brother’s best friend and has always seen me as a little twerp who he had to be nice to.”
She shifts forward. “But that’s not the case, is it?”
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“Do you like him?”
What a loaded question. “I’ve always loved him. Not in the way that I feel now, but Lachlan will never see me that way. He’s basically told me so in a hundred different ways.”
Like how he never should’ve kissed me. How he was sorry.
God, that was the worst.
To be told they were sorry they kissed you.
I wasn’t sorry. I was ... shattered.
“Can you use that to write about?”
“Use what?”
“Your feelings. Look, I think the best stories come from what we know, right? You don’t know sports, but you know Lachlan. You know what that time in his life was like, and you can understand what it must’ve been to see his football career go up in smoke. It’s clear you care about him.”
“I do, but I don’t think he wants me to talk about that. He refuses to even discuss it. However, the other guys seem all for it.”
Hazel purses her lips. “Could you have the guys focus on what they miss?”
I think about that for a second and write it down. “I could try to have them talk about the brotherhood they experienced, teamwork, and how it shaped them into who they are now.”
She nods. “Yes, I mean, that has definitely guided them into their daily lives, right?”
“With Lachlan being a fireman—definitely. Killian is a business owner, so surely he has experience with building a team. Miles has to rally an entire faculty and he served in the military, which I know a lot about. The only one I don’t know about is Everett.”
Hazel immediately stiffens. “He’s an idiot. Just leave him in that box.”
I smile. “I think they’re all idiots.”
“I would agree. Especially if Lachlan fails to see how amazing you are.”
If only it were that simple. “Lachlan has his reasons.”
“Do you know what they are?” Hazel asks.
“Nope.” Although I’m assuming something with the loss of his mother.
“Then we’ll put him in the idiot box too.”
I lift my coffee cup and cheers to that. “To the idiots who drive us bonkers.”
Hazel grabs the coffeepot and lifts it in solidarity. “And to the women who are slowly learning their lesson.”
“ Slowly is definitely the word of the day there.”
We spend the next hour drinking coffee, and she lets me bounce my ideas around, interjecting when she sees a flaw or another angle to consider.
I fire off my email just in time to Mr. Krispen, and then I head off for another thrilling Ultimate Frisbee practice.
I have the green light on three of the six. Whichever of those feels the best, Mr. Krispen wants me to run with it.
He’s hoping that the article will be more personal interest than sport, but he wants a really good stronghold on sports in general.
Which, you know, is so not my thing.
His parting line in the email still has me rattled.
Ainsley,
All of these are good, but these three are the best options from what I can see. The story will be more full circle if we can focus on how they started playing sports and ended the same way. So I want sports involved in this no matter what. You know the stakes, if you nail this assignment, we’ll be able to open new doors for you. I like that you’re turning this into a bigger story than just one guy.
Good luck and I have faith in you.
Mr. K
I read it again, waiting for the words to scramble themselves to say: You’re a dumbass. Good luck with the sportsball .
But they don’t.
I glance back up at the field, seeing the guys coming off laughing and pushing each other around.
Practice was exactly like the last, a bunch of older men trying to throw a Frisbee, missing a lot, and then blaming the other. However, I really wouldn’t even know if they were missing or if that’s supposed to be what happened.
There’s no clear offense or defense. It’s just one ... fense.
They run back and forth, and sometimes they’re flicking? Throwing? Airing it out? Then suddenly they’re batting it to the ground and whooping.
I watched about twenty videos online to see if I could figure out the sport, but ... these guys don’t seem to be following those rules.
“Did you enjoy practice?” Everett asks as they’re grabbing water and toweling their faces.
“I did. It was ... thrilling.”
He snorts a laugh. “Embarrassing is the word we all used.”
“Hey!” Miles jumps in. “I had that rather spectacular catch.”
I grin. “I did notice that.”
“Do you have questions about the sport?” Miles asks.
“Is it a sport?” I figure we might as well start with the one most people will ask.
Killian tries to hide his smile. “It’s something.”
I turn to him. He’s the oldest of the bunch and has a dusting of silver mixing with his dark-brown hair at the temples. When I did my research on him, he was destined for great things in football. They said he had one of the best hands the sport had ever seen. He could catch a ball no matter where it was placed on the field and was drafted, but then never played and left after one season.
“Why do you play, Killian? I know you’re a successful businessman and you don’t live in Ember Falls full-time, but you never miss practice or a game.”
Killian pulls his duffel bag onto his shoulder. “For fun. For friendship, and because there’s nothing I love more than kicking a bunch of college kids’ asses who roll onto the field thinking we’re an easy win.”
“You guys have won?” I ask with obvious surprise. Not that I know much about this sport, but it doesn’t seem to me that they’re any good.
Miles laughs and clasps Killian’s shoulder. “We’re undefeated.”
Well, this just keeps getting worse. “There are teams worse than this?”
Oh, Lord. I’m never going to be able to sell this story as a legitimate sport angle if this is the best the league has.
It’s fine. It’s fine. I’ll just stage photos if I have to.
“Believe it or not, yes,” Killian confirms.
“Awesome, I can’t wait to see it all come together in a game because ... you know, this must just be different.”
I’m hoping this isn’t it and they’re saving it all for the big game. Otherwise, this story is dead in the water, and I need to scrap the sport angle completely. Which is the one that Mr. Krispen underlined and bolded.
Even when I explained the sport was Ultimate Frisbee.
So I need to play up how great they still are, even though they’re all in their thirties.
I turn to Lachlan. “Do you guys play often?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, how often?”
“Biweekly.”
Doesn’t give me a ton of time to write about the games. My story is due by the end of the month, which gives me three and a half weeks, and I really need it to run in the next issue.
“That’s good, and you practice twice a week?” I ask.
“Yes.”
His one-word answers are grating on my nerves. However, I just brighten my smile more because, while he might be a grumpy bear, I do not have to be.
“I see. Can you tell me what drew you to the sport of Ultimate Frisbee?” I ask, knowing a one-word answer is not going to suffice here and maybe I can get something .
“No.”
I huff. “Really?”
“Really.”
The urge to stomp my foot on his grows, but I tamp it down and turn to Everett. “What about you?”
Everett launches into a story about how after he graduated from college and entered the draft, he realized it wasn’t what he wanted to do anymore. He played through broken bones, concussions, and a never-ending stream of pain. “I just knew that I wanted more than a career cut short from an injury.”
“So you turned to healing animals,” I say with a smile.
“I did, and Ember Falls is where I spent a lot of time growing up, so I came back and met this fool at a town meeting.” He grips Lachlan’s shoulder. “Instant best friends.”
“Oh? I can imagine you were drawn to his sunny personality.”
Lachlan rolls his eyes. “I’m pleasant to most people.”
I scoff. “Lachlan West, I’ve known you since you were eleven, and I’ve never heard a single person describe you that way.”
His eyes narrow and he leans in. “Maybe it’s only the people you talk to.”
“Yes, maybe it’s that,” I concede with sarcasm dripping on every word. I give my attention back to Everett. “How did the Frisbee thing come to fruition?”
“Well, there weren’t enough of us for a baseball team. Then we thought about flag football, and then we heard about a couple of colleges in Virginia that were starting a Frisbee league, and we thought it would be fun.”
I nod, writing all this down. “Was it more of a joke then?”
“No. Considering our injury lists, we figured it was no contact and should be easy, especially since there weren’t going to be a ton of teams.”
“I see,” I say, taking notes. “Sounds like it would be difficult to get a spot since you’re not an actual college.”
“Difficult, not so much, but we had to do certain things to get into the league.”
Now my interest is piqued. “Oh, like what?”
Lachlan steps in. “All right, Lois Lane, let’s go. We have to get Rose before her babysitter files a missing person report.”
I roll my eyes. “Yes, I’m sure your practice has never gone over five minutes.”
He grabs his bag. “See you guys later.”
“Bye, Lach! Don’t forget to stretch or you might not be able to walk tomorrow,” Everett taunts as he’s heading to the truck. Then he leans into me. “He went pretty balls to the wall. I’m going to suspect it was to impress someone.”
I laugh softly. “Lachlan never works to impress me. If anything, he tries to pretend I don’t exist.”
My eyes move to where he’s going, hating that it’s always been that way. We dance like this, where there are some days that I swear he wants me, that he sees me, but then he shoves me away so hard, locking every door I could ever think to open. For four years he went on with living his life, trying to reach out only once in the beginning.
I know it was me who ran away, but I ... I don’t know. I was young, stupid, horrified, and then I was too embarrassed to go to him. A part of me wanted him to chase me.
Which is even stupider. But it hurt so much more than I think I ever allowed myself to admit.
To love someone who doesn’t even acknowledge your existence is devastating, but I learned to just live in the pain. To remember that Lachlan never wanted me. That it was a mistake and the best way to not make them is to learn from them.
Everett waits until I turn back to him. “Well, it’s a good thing he became a fireman, because his acting skills suck. The man clearly has feelings for you.”
I smile and shake my head. “No, he doesn’t.”
He laughs softly. “Sure he doesn’t.”
He may want me, but he doesn’t love me the way I love him.