Chapter Thirty-Three
Big Lacrosse
Rod
Gusting winds rock the house just slightly that night as I watch Jordan’s eyelids flutter in her sleep.
After my worst episodes of depression, usually building up to what my therapist called a ‘breakthrough’ – exhausting hours of numbness and, eventually, a cry I’d let myself have – I would be out like a light that night.
I think Jordan is the same way. I was a little bit worried, because obviously not everyone is the same, but she’s like me.
She was asleep within five minutes of her head hitting the pillow.
I should probably get some sleep, too, what with my big meeting tomorrow, but it’s the least of my worries at the moment. A part of me has become fiercely protective over the course of the past day, and I can’t fall asleep until that part knows Jordan is safe and sound.
Only once her breathing becomes even, and the fluttering of her eyelids calms, do I exhale, and with my arm around her, finally succumb to sleep.
‘We truly understand your concerns, Mr Wilson. It’s just that the numbers speak for themselves.’
I suppress the urge to tug at my tie, which feels as if it’s choking me with every word the committee delivers.
I’m not surprised at the resistance I’ve got from Carl Maxwell, the president of the Massachusetts College Lacrosse Association.
I know the numbers well enough. I don’t need anyone to spell it out for me.
‘Your programme isn’t quite looking like …
payoff in terms of college lacrosse potential,’ says Carl’s right-hand man, VP Kyle Wozniak.
‘What we have to take into account is whether those kids go on to the tri-town team and actually convert the camp training into goals and points, and I’m afraid that’s still below the threshold for what we consider Division I-ready. ’
‘They’re in middle school,’ I forge on. I like to think I’ve never been a temperamental guy, but these dudes test me. ‘They have more than enough time to improve before they so much as touch college turf.’
‘I appreciate your advocacy for the kids,’ Carl puts in.
He’s a greying blond, wears a pinstriped suit that’s probably worth more than my minivan.
He’s got a gold wedding ring on his finger, and an equally gold chain around his neck.
He was in one of the most prestigious frats at Massachusetts State University, and I’m pretty sure his son is rushing this fall.
‘But Rodney, you gotta see it from where I stand. Boston’s an old camp.
They’ve been producing D1 athletes since before you ever applied to Mass State. We have solid evidence that they work.’
‘So we don’t … work?’ My voice is sharper than I intend it to be. My patience is waning. These are children. We’re not seriously here treating them like investments instead of kids who deserve to have some fun doing what they love.
‘That’s not necessarily what I mean to say,’ amends Carl.
The slightest quaver in his voice tells me I’ve started to crack him.
‘But numbers are extremely accurate. We can look at how Boston’s kids performed in middle school and almost definitely predict what they go on to do in college.
Hell, in the pro league. And your kids are just …
well, they’re not quite where we want them to be, Rod.
Funding is a problem. You know the state gives us a very limited amount of grant money.
We’ve got to funnel that through to where we can make it back. ’
‘My kids aren’t making enough money for you.
’ I sum up the bottom line a little crassly, but accurately.
I can tell because it makes the guys around the table gulp and tug at their collars.
‘Great,’ I deadpan. ‘You know how much the community’s already put into this?
Donated? This town wants to see their kids happy.
They’ll put it on the line, no matter what.
But when it’s not enough, that’s where you should come in.
We shouldn’t be preparing six-year-olds to put on their game faces and go to war against other six-year-olds over money.
All I’m asking is to take that edge off. Let them play for the sake of playing.’
‘Mr Wilson, that cross-camp game is really the only instance where we can see you go toe-to-toe with a camp that is producing D1 players. It helps us to see if … you know, if that mentality is working,’ Kyle points out a little too eagerly.
‘It is. Trust me,’ I insist. Fine, it might be the teacher in me.
But this is what I’ve chosen to do, damn it.
It’s what I want with my life. I like to play, but I’m not in it to whip balls at ninety miles an hour for the rest of my days.
I want to be something for these children.
‘I see promising young athletes in every kid that comes to camp. They might not have the same calibre of coaching or technology as Boston. But they’re just as hungry to reach the top, and they have just as much potential.
If you funded us, we’d be able to cultivate that properly. ’
The quiet around the table is deafening. Even Carl doesn’t try to pacify me. After a couple of moments, I decide to take that as my leave. I can’t sit through this shit-wagon any longer. I tuck my documents into my camp binder and stand, straighten my jacket and tie.
‘Thanks for your consideration,’ I say, clipped. A couple of guys give me weak nods. I march right out the door and to my car.
The drive home from Boston, where, of course, the Mass Lax office is located, gives me plenty of time to think on it all.
Forty minutes’ worth of time, which still feels too short.
Sitting in that meeting room felt way too much like sitting with Dad after a high-school match.
I would think I’d played perfectly, but he’d have a notepad with every goal, every connection, plus every time I’d fumbled the ball.
I tried to tell myself it was from a place of wanting me to do better and better, wanting me to be successful.
To be the best version of myself. But that kind of thing becomes insurmountably crushing pretty quickly.
It’s why I sometimes wish I’d gotten drafted somewhere farther from home, and it’s definitely why I refuse to put that weight on my campers.
I’m still in my own head when I pull up to the driveway, gravel crunching beneath the tyres, and head inside through the garage. I push the door open, and the hinges creak as I shove it with my shoulder.
‘Home!’ I call. I’m sure the only ones here are the dogs and possibly Jordan. I dropped Tali off at karate camp before I headed to the meeting, and I’m glad I did. She’s not a fan of my ‘angry money face’.
I enter the living room, and then come up on the adjoining kitchen, prepared for two very hungry, very insistent dogs.
The dogs, however, are happily draped across the love seat in the living room, somehow not pissing each other off by being in one another’s space.
And in the kitchen, I find long, deeply tanned legs taut with muscle, a thick, messy knot of black curls, and the vivid blue of the oversized New Haven Woodchucks lacrosse T-shirt, WILSON across the back.
How do I burn this image into my brain so I can hold onto it for the rest of eternity?
Jordan turns away from the salad she’s working on, and she shoots me a smile so warm that I can almost forget about the epic ass-kicking I experienced in the meeting this morning. ‘How was your date with Big Lacrosse?’
I toss my keys on the counter and collapse on one of the chairs at the island.
I want to sit here and take this in. The way she looks in my jersey.
In my home. ‘What I expected. He’s not giving in anytime soon,’ I reply.
‘They want money and, according to Maxwell, they’re not getting enough from our kids.
Or at least they don’t “project” getting enough. ’
Jordan frowns. ‘Well, they’re screwing the pooch, then, because you can’t “project” the life experiences this sort of thing will give your campers.’
‘That’s exactly what I told them. No change.’
She rounds the island with two bowls in one hand and the salad in the other, and sits down next to me. ‘That’s their loss, sweet Rodney.’ She serves me a good helping with the tongs, and then reaches over to push a cup of croutons my way. ‘Eat your feelings.’
‘Eating my feelings with health food is pretty interesting,’ I tease her with a ridiculous glance at the salad.
But I grab a fork and get ready to oblige.
I’ll probably feel better once I’ve eaten, fend off some of my traumatic Big Lacrosse flashbacks.
Except it’s not Big Lacrosse I’m thinking about when my eyes inevitably drift over to Jordan and scan her body, mentally mapping the curves hidden by the baggy T-shirt. ‘What are you wearing under that, Jor?’
Timing near perfect, the dogs choose that moment to start barking as if to say, GROSS, Dad!
They scamper down the hall and up the stairs, either to find something else to fall asleep on or tear to shreds.
Jordan chuckles as she watches them go. ‘You’d like to know.
’ She smirks my way before taking a fork for herself. Too late. My curiosity is piqued.
‘I think this would be a much healthier way for me to distract myself from my feelings of animosity, you know.’
Jordan practically throws her head back with a laugh. ‘Jeez. I made you a salad, Rod!’
‘The salad – ’ I slide my bowl away before hopping off my stool – ‘can wait.’
I wasn’t lying. I’ll have to concern myself with it all again tomorrow, but for now, she takes it all away. She unties her hair, letting it cascade down over her shoulders in waves before taking my hand in hers and slipping the hair tie onto my wrist.
Damn, is she breathtaking.
I pull her close to me, and she kisses me long and hard. Her legs wrap around my torso from where she sits on the stool. She guides my touch below the fabric of the shirt.
If my mind had been anywhere else, it sure isn’t now. The rush of blood to my lower region demands special attention. It’s not so much that she’s wearing my jersey. It’s the fact that she’s wearing my jersey.
We move to the couch. We can’t get enough of one another.
I undo the buttons to my shirt and peel it off, my belt and slacks not far behind, and eventually, Jordan tosses my jersey aside.
I have access to every inch of her bare skin, and it’s unreal.
The meticulous work of an omnipotent sculptor, from the tattoos to that scar to the smile lines by her eyes.
I almost pause for a moment just to take her in.
‘What?’ she breathes, a grin playing at her lips.
‘Just you.’
I kiss her again, and again. The throw hanging over the back of the couch slides down, and I pull it over the both of us.
I could worship this woman day and night, and it wouldn’t be enough to express the way she dulls the hurt. The way she’s opened the doors to my heart and taught me to trust.
‘What if I asked you to put on my jersey and let me draw you like one of my French girls?’
I nearly double over in hysterics until I realize I can’t really do that with Jordan’s head on my chest. It’s a hell of a task lying down, but I’m wheezing my way through laughter.
Jordan is the very proud owner of the world’s most chaotic pillow talk.
‘Please,’ I manage to choke out, ‘never change.’
She props her chin up on my chest, with her arms in front of her, so that all I can see are her eyes.
Almond-shaped, rimmed in thick eyelashes that fan out so effortlessly I still can’t believe they’re real.
Dark chocolate irises with flecks of a paler brown.
Her eyebrows furrow, and she rolls the most beautiful eyes I’ve seen in my life. ‘Answer the question, Romeo-oh-Romeo.’
‘I’d jump off a bridge if you told me to. With bells on.’
Jordan jerks back in surprise, her hands flat against my chest, eyes wide. ‘If I told you to jump off a bridge, I would hope you’d call 9-1-1 and run far and fast from me.’
‘I would do whatever you told me to.’ I take her face in my hands, sweep a stray strand of hair from her cheek. ‘Just say the word.’
She swats at my hand, giving one of the hot-pink hairbands on my wrist a snap with a laugh. ‘Don’t go jumping off any bridges. Please.’
I nod, and she smiles, propping her chin back up on my chest. She traces the shape of a heart, right above the spot where I would think my actual heart lies. ‘Can I tell you something?’
‘Is it about one of your French girls?’
‘Stop it!’ She buries her face in her hands with a barely concealed cackle, before looking back up at me.
‘Listen. From my first kiss, first date, first time, everything … it was always to forget. So I fell into this cycle of hook-ups and hopping from one bad date to another, away games, frat parties, all of that.’ She sighs, and her fingers trace that same heart shape, over and over.
‘I never let myself get this close to someone. I learned I could forget about all the shit I was responsible for. But with you … it doesn’t feel like forgetting. When I’m with you, I get to remember.’
I’m overwhelmed by her words, but it doesn’t feel constricting. It feels like a warm embrace, the likes of which I’ve never experienced before. ‘Remember what?’
She lifts her head and presses a gentle kiss to my chest, as light as the petals of a flower. ‘Baby, I remember what it feels like to be alive.’
Jordan shifts against me, her cheek pressed to my heart, and her eyes slowly flutter closed, listening to each beat, maybe.
But she couldn’t be more right. I wrap an arm around her, and I feel her back rise and fall with each breath.
My thumb brushes her just-slightly-freckled shoulder through her veil of curly black hair.
To be alive. To feel so free when she’s near me, and even when she’s not, to hear her voice in my head, to see something that reminds me of her, and to see her face, her beautiful eyes, wherever I go.
To take in the excitement in Tali’s voice when she talks about riding with Jordan, to know that my daughter will have a strong woman to look up to.
Being alive. It feels like heaven.