Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Maggie
Jack
I miss your face
Is there any possibility of seeing you before Friday?
I smile at the text message, pausing in the middle of choosing a clip from one of Brock’s videos to read it a few times before standing from my chair and stretching, trying to figure out how to respond.
I miss you too
It’s true. We talked again on Sunday evening, and we texted a little yesterday, but I guess that’s not enough for Jack. Does him kissing me have anything to do with that?
Probably.
If seeing him before Friday means more of that …
Well, I have no objection. I low-key hate that he kissed me and then left so soon afterward. I would’ve liked more kissing. I haven’t been kissed like that in …
Too long, at any rate.
It feels good to be desired, even if I’m not sure anything with a childless younger man—and a professional hockey player no less—could ever work out long term.
But this was never intended to be long term.
It’s a way to repair his reputation with the public, and since I feel some sense of responsibility for the hit he took, this allows me to make that up to him.
Plus, I get to go out, have fun with another adult, and remember that I’m a whole entire person of my own apart from being a mother or Kyle’s (now ex) wife.
For so long I’ve been reduced to merely my roles, and even since the divorce, I’ve thrown everything I have into making sure Liam feels good and safe and loved that I’ve neglected to figure out—or remember—who I am apart from that. Being with Jack has let me do that, and it’s felt amazing.
Add in the kissing?
Even if it doesn’t last more than a few months, I’ll be sure to enjoy the whole entire ride.
I know he said this could continue past the summer, I’m just not sure how that would work.
With school and Jack’s schedule … it just sounds like a lot.
And for a guy like Jack who hasn’t ever seemed to want to be tied down—I finally Googled him, went through years of press clippings, and have never seen him attached to anyone specific before me —deciding to take on me and all my baggage for more than a few months seems like a ridiculous flight of fancy.
Sure, he might not’ve been scared off when I laid everything out for him, but it’s not like he saw this happening at that point either.
Right now it’s just an intellectual exercise for him.
Eventually, the reality will hit, and at that point, he’ll decide it’s too much for him.
Which is fine. Even if it makes me sad to think about.
Lunch? If not today, maybe tomorrow?
Smiling, I tap my fingers on the side of my phone, glancing at the time. I have too much to do today to take a long lunch—and I’m not silly enough to think that lunch with Jack won’t be longer than normal—so …
Tomorrow
Let me know the time and the place and I’ll be there
“Mag-pie!” Brock calls from my door, erasing the smile from my face. I hate when he tries to give me nicknames.
“Maggie,” I correct automatically, but he ignores me like always.
He drapes himself against the door frame, leaning into my little office. “When were you gonna tell me that you and Jack Bouchard are a thing? Is that why he agreed to do my show? Did you put in a good word for me?”
I jerk my head back, offended by the implication that I would try to convince anyone to do Brock’s show, especially Jack, and especially after what Brock did to him. “Uh, no. I had nothing to do with that. I hadn’t met Jack before he came in for his interview with you.”
Brock’s eyebrows lift, and he crosses his arms, letting out a low whistle and leering at me. “Good for you, Mags. I didn’t know you had that kind of game in you.”
“Gross.” The word is out of my mouth before I can stop myself, but rather than being offended by my disgust, Brock laughs raucously.
Pointing at me, he straightens from the door frame.
“I can’t wait to see what kind of inside scoops you’ll get for me with that kind of connection. Have you met any of his teammates?”
“Uh, no?” Inside scoops? What?
He brushes that aside with a careless wave of his hand.
“It’s the off-season, so they’re probably all off doing whatever.
Once things start up again, though, I’m sure you’ll meet the other WAGs.
” He claps his hands like a giddy little kid.
“This’ll be amazing. Good job, Maggie!” He backs out of the doorway, calling out, “Find me a good assistant, and I’ll give you a raise! ”
Rolling my eyes, I call back, “I’ve found you at least five! Call one of them back and offer them the job!”
“No dudes and no uggos!” he yells back, and part of me wonders what would happen if I contacted an employment attorney. Could I file a case against him even though he’s not discriminating against me?
Even if I did, would my word alone be enough for a case to go anywhere?
And then what would I do? Much as Brock annoys me, there aren’t exactly a lot of sports talk shows looking for a social media manager in the area. And Kyle effectively burned all the bridges for me to transition to any other kind of media here.
Gritting my teeth against the unfairness of the entire situation, I sit back down and get back to work, focusing on that until it’s time to leave and get Liam. He’s the reason I’m doing all this, after all.
And tomorrow, I have lunch with Jack to look forward to.
As I drive to pick up Liam from the camp he’s attending this week, I can’t help mulling over all the things that have been happening lately.
It took me a bit to understand the significance of Brock talking to me about Jack, but it finally occurred to me that the reason he knows is because pictures of us have been showing up.
Going to the baseball game was the tipping point, I think.
I’m not sure why it was that—maybe because it was more public?
We weren’t exactly hiding away before that, but it wasn’t anything so crowded and nothing else that’s actively televised.
I guess I should’ve thought about it before, too.
I’ve seen plenty of coverage of sporting events where they highlight the presence of other athletes attending the games—football players at basketball games, basketball players at soccer games, so a hockey player attending a baseball game would definitely merit some attention.
And while Jack Bouchard might not be a mega star like some athletes, he’s definitely well-known enough that people would notice he’s there.
That was the goal, though, right? For people to see us together?
I just didn’t think Brock would care, for some reason.
I’m the social media manager, after all.
And while he does highlight some sports gossip, it’s not usually the who’s dating who variety—unless it’s some big pop star dating a famous quarterback or something equally noteworthy.
Any athlete dating a normie isn’t noteworthy enough for him.
Unless that normie is me, I guess.
No raise for me, then, because I’m not doing anything that Brock suggested today.
I’ll keep scheduling interviews with possible assistants based on resumes and qualifications rather than gender or looks, and no way in hell am I using my connection to Jack to feed Brock insider information about the Emeralds or hockey.
Not that I really think he’d give me a raise anyway. Taking Brock’s off-the-cuff remarks too seriously is a recipe for disappointment.
I pull up to the front of the pick-up line, and Liam comes bounding out of the cluster of kids, backpack bouncing on his skinny frame, yanking open the rear passenger door and climbing in.
“Hey, dude!” I pause, waiting for him to settle into his booster seat and buckle himself in.
That booster seat is still an occasional source of contention.
A lot of his friends have outgrown theirs, but Liam’s always been a little on the small side, so he’s not quite tall enough yet.
Every month or so, he’ll ask me to measure him to see if he’s grown enough.
Or after he’s spent time with his dad. Apparently his dad doesn’t make him sit in a booster seat.
That was a fun conversation to navigate because I didn’t want to outright say, “Your dad’s breaking the law by not having you in a booster seat,” even if that’s the case.
Finally I settled on, “I can’t control what your dad does.
But you being in a booster seat makes you safer if we get in an accident, and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if you got hurt because I didn’t do something I know makes you safer. ”
He was annoyed, but that seemed to do the trick. Now he just knows he needs to be four foot nine in order to get rid of his booster seat. I have a feeling we’ll have a booster seat burning party once he’s finally outgrown it.
Once he’s buckled, he turns to me, all smiles. “Wanna see what I made today?”
“I’d love to!”
Leaning down, he pulls his backpack off the floor and starts rummaging through it while I pull forward enough that the next person in line can pick up their kid.
“Look!” He brandishes something in the space between the front seats, and I glance at it, gathering a quick impression of a colorful clay object. This camp has an arts focus.
“Wow! That’s so cool!”
He launches into a detailed explanation of every aspect of making the thing—and fortunately lets me know it’s an axolotl but he decided he wanted to make it multicolored instead of realistic.
I always see pink axolotls on stickers but I got him a blue plush one for his Easter basket, so I have no idea what color they actually are.
Maybe there are multicolored ones. He also tells me how much the teacher helped him.
“I was having a really hard time making the eyes look how I wanted,” he confesses, “so Miss Sarah did those for me. But I did the rest all by myself!”
“Hey, I’d probably need Miss Sarah to help me with the eyes too. I think you did awesome.”