Chapter 11
Mallorie Jade
Ihaven’t seen Hayes in three weeks—not since he dropped me off at my front door without so much as a goodbye after we visited Langston’s grave.
There was hurt in his eyes when he found out I had been back to visit Langston without telling him, but in all fairness—not even my parents knew about that. Throughout the years I’ve been gone, I would drive back on the days when it felt like my heart would actually break from my sadness. Sitting at Langston’s grave, I would talk to him like he was still here and wait for his answers like he could still give them—but mostly, I would apologize for all the things I hid from him that contributed to his death. It’s a weight I carry on my shoulders every day.
My reluctance to see my brother had nothing to do with going to see him and everything to do with standing there in front of him with Hayes by my side. It was different than facing Langston on my own. With Hayes, that weight became crushing because we had to face the truths we hid for so long.
But even though Hayes and I can never be the same people we were before Langston died, I do feel bad that I hurt him. It’s the cycle we keep following, but I don’t want to anymore. I’m tired of hurting him, even if I am still angry at him. So it’s best to avoid each other, at least as much as possible, in a small town with only one grocery store.
I’ve managed it for three weeks, but as I walk into the board meeting, my luck runs out because there he is, sitting beside Lily, looking so dashing it hurts.
Hayes and Lily notice me at the same time. He blinks, slowly taking me in and ignoring Lily as she slips her hand into the crook of his elbow. Smug satisfaction grips my chest. He’s looking at me while sitting next to her.
It’s wrong of me to feel that way, and truthfully, if it were any other guy, I would feel sorry for Lily. But the way she spoke like she already had me pegged during the interview causes any amount of sympathy I might have had for her to melt away.
Her eyes are on me, too, as I draw closer, and there’s hate there that goes so deep it causes me to grit my teeth. She called me earlier this week to let me know the board meeting was tonight. From how she made it sound, my attendance was mandatory, but now that I’m here, I wonder if it was so that she could stake her claim on Hayes.
Not that I have any claim on him, but apparently, she thinks I’m the competition if this territorial show is any indication. She may not be dating him yet, but she obviously wants to be.
“Lily. Hayes,” I say as a way of greeting.
There’s only one seat left in the small meeting room, and unfortunately, it’s beside Hayes. As I slip into the chair, I’m careful to scoot it as far away from him as possible, but in the end, it’s only a matter of inches that separate our arms, both lying on top of the armrests.
Once I’m settled, Hayes leans in, the movement dislodging Lily’s hand from his arm. She crosses her arms with a huff, and I have to fight the urge to smirk—until I get a whiff of Hayes’s cologne as he leans closer. Then I have to hold my breath. That smell—leather and spice—makes it hard to think past the man sitting beside me.
“What are you doing here?” He asks.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
His gaze is calculating as he lets his eyes roam over my face, studying me as if he can see past all my defenses to the darkest part of me—as if we are the only two people in this room. My breath hitches under the power of that stare, making me want to spill all my hurts into his hands to hold. His upper lip curls up, revealing a row of straight white teeth. He pulls a breath in to say something when a gavel hits the table, calling the meeting to attention.
Heat burns my face as embarrassment floods in. The room is silent, and several faces peer back at us.
How long had we sat there staring at each other while others looked on?
The clock on the wall shows that seconds have passed, but in my mind, it felt like minutes—long enough to feed the gossip for days after we leave here.
I don’t look at Hayes again as I sit back in my chair and place more distance between us. Beside Hayes, Lily’s face is red, and the glare she gives me when Hayes isn’t watching makes me nervous for my job—though, based on what happens next, Lily is not my only concern.
A man’s voice from the head of the table rumbles, calling the meeting to order.
“We have several things on the agenda tonight, so I propose we start the meeting. All in favor, say aye.”
A chorus of ayes follows. The meeting begins, and I lean forward in my chair, still wondering why I’m here. From my understanding, potential employees do not usually attend the board meetings. So why, then, am I here?
It doesn’t take long for my question to be answered.
The man who called the meeting speaks again as the discussion of next school year’s finances is summed up.
“Our next order of business is the potential hiring of Mallorie Jade Harrison for the position of high school nurse.” The man’s voice is bored as he leads the meeting, and I keep my eyes on him, waiting for the surprise that I know is coming—because that’s what life brings me: surprises. They are never good surprises, though, so I ready myself for the same to happen here. I keep my eyes on the man who looks familiar now that I’m studying him. He’s a large man, filling out the chair he sits in and his head towering over the others near him, even sitting down. His arms are thick, like those of an athlete who works out regularly. But even as my eyes narrow, I still can’t place him. “There have been several voices of concern about hiring Mallorie Jade as the new nurse, and while this is not typically how we do things, because of the continuous generosity of the Harrison family to this school, we have decided to give her a chance to explain to the board why she is a good fit for this position.”
Ice forms in my veins as his eyes find mine. I’m going to strangle Lily. She knew why I was invited here, yet she didn’t give me a chance to prepare. I came in here blind because she views me as a threat in her relationship with Hayes—a relationship that doesn’t even exist, according to him. Beside me, Hayes’s hand slips under the table and rests on my leg, comforting me.
Did he know this was going to happen? Is that why he’s here? Why didn’t he warn me if he did?
My eyes find him, and there’s surprise in the steel gray of his irises, along with something else—something that looks a lot like an emotion that would be dangerous for the both of us.
Looking past him, I narrow my eyes at Lily, letting all my anger burn through my stare. Her teeth slide together when she looks down at Hayes’s hand on my leg.
Clearing my throat, I push my chair back along the tile. The screech of the legs against the floor causes several people to wince, but I keep my face blank. The crowd of men and women, some whom I’ve grown up with and others whom I have not, look back at me. Judgment lies on the faces of the ones who know me, but I square my shoulders, refusing to be intimidated. They do not know me anymore. They didn’t know me to begin with.
“I didn’t know I was to speak tonight, or I would have prepared something a little more eloquent than what I am about to say,” I say, throwing a look toward Lily, who is systematically avoiding my stare. I only let my attention slip to her briefly before I pull it back to the others sitting around the table. The man at the head of the table hasn’t looked away from me. His eyes narrow as I take him in. I know him—I just can’t place where. “Many of you know me—or you think you do. You see, the girl I was before I left here—the girl I was at eighteen, but even then, I never let you see far enough in to see the person I was. Some of you have concerns that I will not be able to perform my job to the standard that you have set. However, I will counter that by saying I do not fit into the box this town has tried to shove me in. I am no longer the young girl who lived in her brother’s shadow. I am a woman who was forced to learn to live outside of it. I understand you were there to witness me stumble as I found who I was, but to many of you, I would challenge you by asking why you were never there to stick out a hand when I fell.”
Papers shuffle as several people squirm in their seats. Looking around this room, I can tell you each person who questioned if I was a good fit for this position. They are the same ones who never cared to help a young girl who was struggling to find herself. I hold their gaze the longest, unafraid of being myself in front of them any longer.
“I am a good fit for this job because I refuse to be the person that many of you weren’t to me. If you were to offer me this position, I would not sit by idly while a kid struggles because I pretend to know them. I understand that the depth of this position is not just dependent upon my knowledge of the medical field. It is also dependent upon my ability to look past the shadows of who we push these kids to be to find who it is they want to be. If you offer me this position, I will not just provide medical care for these kids—I’ll be the person I needed you to be.”
With one last glance around the table, I nod, indicating I have nothing else to say. The only person I don’t look to is Hayes because I can’t let him see how much of that speech was meant for him as much as the others sitting here. There was a time in our lives when I hoped he could be the person who could see through all the armor I put on—and for a while, he did—but eventually, he let me down, too. The day Langston died, Hayes shoved me away. I decided to be that person for myself. I stopped hoping that someone would see me—not Langston’s little sister, not a Harrison—just me.
When none of the board members say anything, I dip my head one last time and say, “I’ll wait for your decision outside.”
Collecting my phone from where it’s lying face down on the table, I turn and walk toward the door. My hand hits the cool, metal knob, ready to turn it, when there’s a screech of another chair being shoved back against the tile. Stopping, I turn my head over my shoulder to see Hayes standing, and he’s looking back at me, those gray irises that have always been my fascination sparkling with mischief.
“If you don’t hire MJ as your school nurse because of unrealistic expectations this town held over an eighteen-year-old girl, I will not accept the head coach position for the football team.” His voice is cold and menacing, and with that bomb dropped into the school board’s lap, Hayes smiles down at Lilly, pats her shoulder, and walks toward me.
I’m frozen by the door, unable to move as shock courses through me for more than one reason.
Six years ago, Hayes walked away from football. I know what it means that he was even thinking about going back, and then for him to offer to give that up so that I can get a job, I wasn’t even sure I wanted in the first place—well, that means even more. A more that I’m not ready to analyze yet.
He reaches my side, and his hand falls to the small of my back. I almost flinch, not to get away from him, but from the way the heat of his skin sears through my shirt, making it hard to breathe.
“Come on, Trouble Maker,” he says with a grin that reveals who the real troublemaker is in this scenario. “Let’s go wait for the decision together.”
This is the only civilized moment Hayes and I have had since I moved back to town almost a month ago, so I don’t say anything as I let him lead me out of the room to await another future I never planned for.
______________________
Hayes keeps his hand on my back until the door closes behind us, and then he pulls it away as if I’m on fire.
It’s fine. I didn’t want him to touch me anyway.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I say, leaning against a wall outside the room to wait.
He shrugs. “Who would I be if I wasn’t jumping in to save one of the Harrison siblings.”
The pain is quick and sharp, but it slices deep. There’s instant regret on his face, but I ignore it. I’m tired—bone-deep tired.
“No one asked you to, Hayes,” I say, stuffing my hands into the pockets of my shorts. I push off the wall, intent on wandering the halls and leaving him behind. I don’t have it in me to fight with him today, but to my annoyance, he follows me.
“I didn’t mean it like that, MJ.”
But I keep walking—away from him, away from the people in that room who presume to know me, away from the guilt that still smothers me over my brother’s death, away from it all.
It’s impossible to outrun the past, though, when it just keeps following you. With every turn I take down the hallways of our childhood, Hayes is right there beside me, remaining quiet after that half-hearted attempt to take back the words he had obviously been dying to say.
And when I can’t take our steps echoing against the empty halls any longer, I stop and spin toward him, catching him off guard as he tries not to run over me.
“Tell me one thing, Hayes Miller, and answer honestly, if not for me than for yourself. Back there—was that for me, or was it because you’re scared of returning to a sport you think you are supposed to hate? Was I your way out?”
The twitch in his jaw is the only answer I need. “That’s what I thought. You used Langston as your excuse to walk away from football the first time—I won’t be your excuse this time. So, despite whatever decision they make about my job, you will not walk away again—or are you a coward?” I ask, challenging him as I shove my finger into his chest.
His body doesn’t move, but he drops his eyes to where my finger is pressed into the steel of his muscle and then slowly drags them back up to meet mine.
Challenge and anger swirl in the storm of his gaze, but I don’t look away—not until I’m sure my point has hit home. And when I know it has, I remove my finger, pat his chest, and spin back around, walking away once again.
A frustrated growl ripples out from behind me, and I must be insane because the frustration in that sound causes a slow smile to spread across my lips. This is the problem. We find too much joy in pushing each other’s buttons. Hayes and I are two sides of the same coin. It’s impossible to escape one another, but in the end, we are different.
“Why can’t it be both?” Hayes asks, closing in and crowding me so close that I can feel the heat from his body radiating off my back. “Why can’t it be that I am looking out for you, and I’m scared of going back to a sport that took everything from me.”
The way he says everything nearly rips my heart in two because I know he’s not just talking about losing Langston—he’s talking about losing me, too. But we made our choice—he made his choice. It wasn’t me, and there is no escaping the consequences.
So, instead of answering him, I shove through the door into the open air outside and nearly run over someone.
Hayes’s hands are on my shoulders, catching me from falling as I apologize to whoever I nearly knocked over.
When I look up, a teenage boy is standing in front of me, and for a minute, with the way anger burns in his eyes so deep that it’s likely to incinerate anything in its path, all I can see is Langston standing in front of me again. It’s not that they look alike—they aren’t similar at all in that aspect. Where the kid in front of me has dark hair, my brother’s was a blonde so light it was almost white. No, it’s not the physical appearance but rather the way his shoulders slump like a weight well beyond his years is pulling him down.
My stomach falls, and the blood in my veins begins to pump harder as my heart rate kicks up.
He’s not Langston, MJ. He’s not Langston.
But I can’t unsee it—my brother standing in front of me in the same school, never telling anyone about the struggles he was experiencing.
The kid lets out a curse that is not fit even for the mouth of an adult before he shoves his hands behind his back, a guilty expression written all over his face.
He looks to be at least a junior. He’s taller and more filled out than a freshman. His shaggy hair hangs down low on his forehead, and when he turns to look at me, he shakes it so it falls out of his face.
But I’m too lost in my memories to say anything or even to understand that maybe I should question what he’s hiding behind his back.
Hayes must not be reliving the same memories I am, though, because he steps around me, eyes narrowed at the kid’s arms tucked behind his back, all while I’m frozen, too numb to move.
“What’s your name?” Hayes asks, his voice a deep rumble through the muggy air.
The boy’s nose scrunches up in a sneer as he sizes Hayes up, then looks around him as if searching for an escape.
“None of your business.”
“Fine,” Hayes shrugs, “Then I guess I can walk you to the principal, who’s sitting right through that door, and you can explain to her why you are on school property and what you’re hiding behind your back.”
Even as his skin loses some of its color, the boy never stops scowling at Hayes.
“Tanner,” he spits out. “My name’s Tanner.”
“Well, Tanner. How about you hand over that cigarette hidden behind your back and the lighter in your pocket, and we’ll call it square.” Hayes says, keeping his voice calm as he assesses the situation. I can see why he chose to become an officer. Dominance radiates off of him, even when he slips his hands into his pockets and takes a more casual stance.
My eyes flick to Hayes in surprise. I knew the kid had something he didn’t want us to see, but I’m surprised by the details that Hayes was able to take in with a split-second notice—no way I would have known what he was hiding.
“Yeah, right,” Tanner says, that scowl turning into deep hatred. “You’ll rat me out the first chance you get.”
Hayes doesn’t take his hands from his pocket as he says, “I won’t. Scout’s honor.”
The ridiculousness of that statement finally shakes me out of my stupor. Leaning forward, I whisper low enough so Tanner can’t hear me, “You weren’t even a Scout.”
Hayes’s responding scowl over his shoulder is answer enough.
Throwing my hands up, I take a dramatic step back as if to say Fine. You handle this your way.
He turns his attention back to Tanner, waiting for him to decide.
“You better not snitch,” Tanner says, taking his hands from behind his back and shoving the cigarette into Hayes’s chest.
Hayes takes it with merely a grunt and a nod, holding it between his fingers as he assesses Tanner again.
“What are you doing here?” Hayes asks, and I wonder if he can see it too—the sadness that seems to settle over Tanner like a well-worn blanket. He tries to hide it behind the teenage glares he keeps throwing Hayes and me, but I’m all too familiar with that sadness—I understand how dangerous it can be.
“Again—that’s none of your business,” Tanner says, pulling himself to his full height so he’s almost eye to eye with Hayes.
Hayes grits his teeth and is about to respond when the door to the school opens behind us. We both turn to see who it is and find the man who looked familiar to me in the board meeting walking toward us.
“Hayes,” the man greets, disdain evident in his voice.
“Eric,” Hayes says back with even more disdain than the man.
Dipping my brows together, I try to concentrate—Eric…Eric…Eric.
The moment it hits me, my eyes widen in surprise.
“Eric? I ask. “Eric Westbrook?”
The gloat on Eric’s lips almost makes me want to barf—but not as much as when I saw Lily and Hayes together at the coffee shop.
“Surprised it took you this long to remember, Mallorie Jade. After all, I was almost your first kiss,” he gloats, puffing out his chest and shooting a look at Hayes as if to say he still remembers that day from eleven years ago when Hayes pulled me away.
Red. That’s all I see as Hayes’s hands bunch into fists.
“Almost doesn’t count, Westbrook,” Hayes taunts. “It’s just something else I beat you at.”
That red in my vision expands because how dare Hayes use our first kiss—my first kiss—as a bragging right with this man.
“Yes, well, I think I beat you where it mattered. The NFL treated me fairly well.”
Now, the red is all I can see. The NFL chose Hayes. He just chose to walk away.
“That’s enough,” I say through gritted teeth, stepping between the two men. “If you want to have an ego contest, you can do it another time. I assume since you are out here, you have a decision from the board?”
Hayes is smart enough to look admonished, but Eric puffs his chest out further, his pride taking a hit from being scolded.
Ignoring the question, he steps closer to the kid who has been watching the exchange with wide eyes.
“I see you met my stepson, Tanner. He’s the star quarterback on your team this year, Coach.”
Eric says the word coach with so much condescension it makes me want to slap him.
When my anger clears, it hits me that he said stepson. Eric’s too young to have a kid in high school, so his wife must be older than him—not that it surprises me. Even in high school, Eric was known for liking older women. His only exception was the day he was going to kiss me.
In a blink, the blanket of sadness covering Tanner turns into all-out hatred as his stepdad claps him on the shoulder. I can’t figure out if it’s toward Hayes or the man standing beside him with a sneer on his face.
“We met,” Hayes says, twirling the cigarette he took from Tanner. Tanner’s face drains of color as he watches the cigarette move between Hayes’s fingers.
Suddenly, the picture of who this kid is becomes more apparent, and unfortunately, that image is even closer to my brother’s than I initially thought.
Eric’s eyes fall to the cigarette and Hayes’s hand. “Smoking is a nasty habit, Hayes. No wonder you couldn’t make it to the big leagues. I hope our boys won’t be picking up on your bad habits.”
At this point, Tanner is as white as a ghost, and I realize he’s waiting for Hayes to go against his word and turn him in—especially now that he knows Hayes is the football coach. But even if Hayes and I have grown apart these past six years, I know that’s not the type of man he is. He might not like that a kid on his team was smoking, but he’ll find other ways to help him.
“I assume since you’re worried about my impact on the boys, that means I’m still the coach, and MJ has a job.” Hayes’s voice is calm despite the needling that Eric has been throwing his way, and when he flicks his gaze to the boy, I understand that he’s doing it for him. Hayes doesn’t want to start the season by losing his temper in front of this kid.
“Yeah,” Eric says reluctantly. “She got it. Barely.”
“Guess I shouldn’t even ask what your vote was,” I mumble.
There’s no use beating a dead horse, but man, it stings to know that some people will never see the woman I’ve become because they are too busy remembering the girl I was.
Hayes gives a tight shake of his head, meant only for me to see, and I press my lips together, keeping quiet. I know he’s right. I have the job. There’s no reason to stir the pot, but I don’t need him telling me that—or saving me, as he so eloquently put it. So even though I keep my mouth shut, I glare at him, hoping he can feel every inch of anger boiling in my belly.
“Well,” Hayes says, stuffing the cigarette into his pocket, “as fun as this has been, it’s time for me to go. I need to speak with some of the other board members. Tanner, I’ll see you at practice. Eric—stay out of my way.”
Turning back to the door, he gives me a salute, and I lower my voice so that only he can hear me as he walks by.
“Thank you for your support with the board, but just because I got the job doesn’t mean we are friends again. I don’t need you saving me.”
He stops so we are shoulder to shoulder, each facing the opposite way, and when he turns his head, his breath fans across my cheek. There’s a sly smile on his lips and trouble in his eyes when he says, “I wouldn’t dream of it, MJ.”
It’s not his words that send cold chills down my spine, but the way his voice caresses my skin in a tone that says I’m in trouble—deep, deep trouble.