Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Jeremy
“ H ey Jeremy, can I get your signoff on these new jerseys?”
I look up from my desk and see Asher leaning against my office doorway, holding a file folder.
I met the former Renegades quarterback and love of Julie Parker’s life last year before the start of his final season in the NFL. A couple of months ago, after he retired from professional football, he started working for Kids Play, the foundation I started soon after my own retirement from professional hockey. His official title is program director, but he really runs the sports camps the foundation recently started.
In addition to funding equipment for kids who want to play sports but whose families can’t afford the high costs, the foundation has always paid for kids to attend outside sports camps and clinics. A couple of years ago, I had an idea for the foundation to run its own sports camps, and the idea kind of took on a life of its own. We now have fully functioning and wildly popular year-round boys and girls football and hockey camps, and professional sports teams all over the city are pouring fundraising dollars into the foundation to help support them.
I should be over the moon that my idea took off and has been so successful. I should be thrilled that kids all over the city are playing the sports they love without cost being a barrier to entry, which was the whole reason why I started the foundation more than a decade ago.
But I’m neither of those things.
Instead, I find myself vaguely dissatisfied at best, and apathetic at worst, about the entire operation. I come into work and sit at my desk, staring at paperwork I have no interest in doing. I talk to donors and can’t muster up the excitement required to get them to open their wallets. I walk the halls of the foundation I built with none of the excitement that pushed me to build it in the first place. I don’t know where that excitement went, but I sure as hell can’t feel it anymore.
I sigh, pushing the paperwork aside. “Sure, come in.”
Asher drops into one of the chairs in front of my desk and tosses the folder at me. I open it and glance at the picture of the jerseys he apparently needs my opinion on. The hockey jerseys. I flip the folder closed.
“They look fine to me,” I say, handing the folder back to him. “Just go ahead and place the order.”
He takes it, looking at me quizzically.
“That’s it?”
“Did you need an opinion on the color scheme or something?”
He smirks at me. “With your fashion sense? Definitely not. I just figured you might have a stronger opinion on the jerseys the kids on your hockey teams are going to wear.”
I probably should. But I don’t.
“Nah, I trust you. Whatever you think is best.”
“Good enough. Do you have time for some more shop talk?”
“Why not? You saved me from paperwork hell, and I have no burning desire to go back there.”
Asher grimaces. “Better you than me. That’s why you’re the big boss and I am but a mere employee.”
“Ash, you run four year-round sports camps for kids, have plans for at least six more, and control a multi-million-dollar annual budget. You’re not a mere anything.”
“Still hate paperwork though.”
“You and me both. So, what’s up?”
“The hockey teams are going to need a coach in the new year.”
“Where’s John going?” The current coach of the foundation’s hockey teams is a buddy of mine from Juniors. He never played in the NHL—went straight to coaching instead—and he was my first call when I decided to start the camps.
“His wife got a big promotion or something, and it involves relocating out west, so he’s moving in January. He’s sticking around through the fall, and we’re on break anyway for the last two weeks of December, but we should start thinking about his replacement now so we’re ready to go in January. I can start looking but figured I would talk to you first. Anyone come to mind?”
Me .
The thought is sudden and shocking, and for a minute, the idea of being back in the game, even in this small way, makes me feel so light I’m practically buoyant. But then I remember the very real reason coaching is out of the question for me, and I crash back to earth so abruptly it’s like I feel the impact, despite never having left my chair.
“I’ll think about it,” I say quickly, my voice a little thick. I clear my throat, hoping he didn’t notice, except of course he did because he is eyeing me a little strangely.
“You okay, Jer?”
“Yeah, I’m good.”
So good. So completely good except for the fact that I can barely even think about playing the game that used to be my salvation without freaking out. So…yeah. Everything is fine. Totally normal and fine.
Asher is a smart guy and obviously knows I’m lying, but luckily for me he’s also an intuitive guy and seems to understand not to push the issue. Instead, he kicks back in his chair, stretching his legs out in front of him.
“Go right ahead and make yourself comfortable,” I say dryly, mostly because that’s what he expects me to say. In actuality, I like the company.
Asher and I hit it off right away when we met last year. He was the first real friend I made, probably ever, who wasn’t either connected to my hockey life or someone Ben brought into my world. For some reason, I don’t have the same kind of insecurities around his friendship that I do with almost everyone else I’m close to. I don’t always wonder in the back of my mind whether he’s going to walk away. His friendship makes me feel at ease, and I’m stupidly grateful for it.
Except the shit-eating grin he’s currently aiming in my direction tells me there’s an eighty percent chance I’m not going to be grateful for this conversation.
“Can I help you?”
“So, you went running with Emma last week, huh?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “How do you know?”
“Uh, I’m married to one of the fearsome foursome. How do you think I know?”
“She told you?”
“Did you hear me say I’m married to Julie? That means I know everything she knows, dude. That’s how it works.”
I super don’t think that’s how it works—especially when the woman he’s married to is the fiercely independent and sometimes scary as fuck Julie Parker—but I don’t say anything. Because if he knows about the run, that means Emma told Julie, which means she’s talking about me, and I find I don’t hate that one single bit.
I shrug, playing it cool, mostly because I want to know what Emma told Julie, so I need Asher to tell me what he knows. And yes, I know I’m a thirty-seven-year-old man who currently sounds like a middle schooler waiting for the girl he likes to pass him a note in study hall. I’m not proud.
“Yeah, I ran into her on the Frick Park trails and we ended up running a couple miles together. It was nice.”
“Nice? That’s all you’re going to give me? The girl I am almost positive you have been tits over ass for the entire time you’ve known her, the one who barely talks to you unless it’s about work, talks to you for the entire length of a run and all you have to say is, nice ?”
“I’m not tits over ass for her,” I mumble.
Except I think maybe, possibly, I am, because without warning a memory of sitting next to Emma on her couch the night of the storm invades my mind. Thinking about her has everything inside me settling, and I have the sudden urge to unload every messy and confusing feeling I’ve ever had for Emma.
“Uh, tell that to your face right now.”
I wonder how much to say. Eight years ago is off-limits—Emma gets to decide whether she wants to share that and with who—but I think I can talk about now without talking about then. It’s worth a shot. I feel a frisson of guilt that I’m about to tell Asher things I’ve never told Ben. But Asher doesn’t have the same history with me and with Emma that Ben does, and that makes him an easier person to talk to.
“My relationship with Emma is…complicated,” I start. Asher just leans forward, his elbows on his knees and his chin propped on his hands, waiting for me to continue.
“I’ve always felt more with her. I don’t know how to explain it, really, except to say I’ve always kind of recognized her. Maybe it’s because we both grew up without parents. I don’t know. But there’s something about her that’s always gotten to me. She’s never been comfortable around me, unless we’re talking about work, so I’ve always made sure there’s a lot of that. More than necessary, probably.”
“I fucking knew it,” Asher exclaims, sitting up straight and pointing at me. “You totally could have hired an accountant to do the camp financials. Probably should have. But you gave it to her so you had an excuse to see her more.”
I grimace a little because, yeah. I did do that. And if I think back, there are a lot of those. Small things I could have either done myself or given to our in-house counsel. Questions I could have easily found the answer to another way. All reasons to be in her orbit. To dial her number. To hear her talk to me in the only way she would.
“Yeah.” I run a hand over my face and lean back in my desk chair.
“But something changed, right? You ran together. You talked to her. I assume she talked to you.”
“She did. I liked it. And later that night when I picked her up during the storm and brought her home, she talked to me some more. Like, really talked to?—”
“Hold on,” Asher interrupts. “Later that night? A storm? I don’t know anything about later that night.”
I toss him a grin, pulling a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch out of my desk drawer and reaching in for a handful.
“Is it possible there are some things Julie knows that you don’t know?”
“Yeah.” Asher lets out a dramatic, long-suffering sigh that has me snickering. “I may be married to her, but my girl is as loyal as they come, and Emma, Hallie, and Molly are her sisters. When it comes to them, she’s a vault. But lucky for me, I have you. So tell me everything. But first, hand over the cereal. If you’re eating second breakfast and it’s the best cereal in the entire world, then I am too.”
“Damn right it is,” I mumble through a mouthful, handing the box over. I’m a fan of all cereal, especially if it’s made for kids and has some kind of cartoon on the box. Cinnamon Toast Crunch is the gold medal of cereals.
“Okay,” Asher says, once he’s settled in with my cereal box in hand. “Now I’m ready to know all the things.”
I tread a little carefully, not wanting to tell him anything about Emma I assume she doesn’t want him to know.
“Emma needed someone to pick her up from downtown last week, and the girls were all away, so she called me. I took her home and ended up staying for a while. It was…nice. Comfortable, I guess. I liked talking to her like that. I’d like to talk to her more.”
“So do that,” Asher says, matter-of-factly. “Talk to her. More. Every chance you get. These girls, man. They are…incredible is the first word that comes to mind. Obviously, Julie is the most incredible.”
“Obviously,” I laugh, appreciating, as always, how gone he is for Jules.
“But the four of them are special. Really and truly amazing, badass women who deserve a man who puts in the time and works for it. They won’t accept any less, and they shouldn’t. So, if Emma is who you want, then put in the time. Be who she deserves.”
Unease curls in my stomach because can I even be who she deserves? Who anyone deserves? I don’t want to go there with Asher though. With anyone.
“I’m not…completely sure I know how to do that,” I say carefully. “How to be who she deserves.”
It’s all I say, but it’s more than I’ve ever said to anyone else, even Ben. I would have expected to feel anxious the first time I put a voice to the darker thoughts in my brain. But I don’t. Instead, I just feel relief.
Asher looks at me with understanding. “Listen, I don’t know the details and you don’t owe those to me or anyone else, but I know you had it rough growing up, and that’s probably why you feel the way you do. I can tell you without a doubt that you do know how to be who she deserves. And if you ever need someone to talk to, you have me.”
“Thanks,” I manage, willing my emotions away, stupidly grateful for this talk and Asher’s friendship.
Asher pushes up from his chair and grabs the folder off my desk.
“I have to get back to work but my best advice? Get in her way. Do things she won’t expect. And make her life easier when you can.” He grins and gets that goofy, lovestruck look on his face that tells me he’s thinking about Julie. “Worked for me. Catch you later, Jer.”
“Later.”
I sit there long after Asher leaves, thinking about what he said. I’m not sure what Emma and I could be. What I want to be. What I’m capable of being to her. For her. But then I think about the night of the storm and how much I liked talking to her on her couch. How much I would like to do more of that.
Get in her way seems as good a place to start as any.
Smiling, I pick up my phone and scroll to my message thread with her.
Me
I didn’t run this morning and was thinking of going tonight. Want to run with me?
Ems
I’d like that.
Does 7 work?
That’s perfect.
Meet you on the trail, Ems.