Chapter 10
Jasmine
“That man drove across Manhattan to bring you coffee and pastries before his flight,” Clara asks, standing over my desk.
“He brought coffee for the whole office,” I say, feigning ignorance at what she means.
“He brought coffee for the whole office because of you. That man is in love with you, and everyone on this floor just watched it happen in real time.”
“Clara, please.” I pick up my coffee and take a sip. It's perfect.
He got me a latte, which is what I order every time. He either remembered from ten years ago, or he paid attention at the End Zone when I ordered one after my cocktail. “Can we please get back to work?”
“We can get back to work when you admit that Logan is not just a friend from high school.”
“He is just a friend from high school, Clara, and you’re being dramatic.”
“I'm being observant. There's a difference.” She takes a bite of her croissant. “The almond Danish is incredible, by the way. If you don't date him, I will.”
I arch a brow at her. “You’re married.”
“Semantics,” Clara throws over her shoulder as she leaves my office.
Logan drove across Manhattan to deliver coffee to my office. My cheeks start to hurt from smiling. He wanted to see me before he left for Chicago, just like I wanted to see him. Before a fantasy takes hold, the rational part of my brain kicks in.
This is Logan being Logan. He's thoughtful and considerate. He's a good man doing a nice thing for someone he grew up with.
That's all this is.
I open the sportswear contract and force myself to read. When my heart is loud, I make my brain louder. Clause by clause, paragraph by paragraph, I build the framework Wilder needs.
I draft the preferred player model with separate negotiation protections and shared marketing rights without exclusivity. By four o’clock, the framework is done. I email it to Wilder with a note asking him to review before the end of the week, then I email Mabel a status update.
I respond to three other client emails that have been sitting in my inbox since this morning.
At four-fifteen, my phone rings. It's Harper.
“Turn on the news,” she says immediately, her voice shaking.
“What’s going on?” I ask, taken aback by her tone. I’ve never heard Harper speak like this.
“Jasmine, turn on the news right now. It’s about the plane the guys were on,” she says with a hint of panic.
My blood goes cold. I open my browser and type “Renegades” into the search bar, and the first result is an ESPN breaking news alert.
brEAKING: New York Renegades charter flight makes emergency landing in Pittsburgh. Mechanical failure reported.
I read it twice. The words don't change. My whole body goes cold and numb. “Harper, what happened?”.
“I don't know. It just came across the wire two minutes ago, and nobody knows anything yet.” Her voice is tight and filled with fear.
“Does it say if anyone is hurt?” I whisper, already thinking the worst
“It doesn't say anything. Just mechanical failure and emergency landing. That's all they're reporting.”
The words on my laptop start to blur. Logan is on that plane. Logan could be hurt.
Clara opens my door without knocking. “Jasmine, oh my God, I just saw the news.”
Her words make it even more real. My face crumples, and the tears come fast, and I can't stop them. I press my hand over my mouth, but my shoulders are shaking and my breath is coming in short, ragged gasps.
Clara closes my office door, pulls a chair next to mine, and puts her arm around me and holds on.
“He was just here, Clara. He was standing right here two hours ago.”
“I know.”
“What if he's—”
“Don't. They landed. Emergency landing means they're on the ground.”
“What if someone's hurt? What if the landing—”
“Don't do that. They're on the ground, and we don't have any other information, and you need to breathe.”
I grab my phone and call Logan. It rings once and goes straight to voicemail. I hang up and call again. Voicemail. I try a third time and get the same result.
“His phone's going to voicemail,” I say, and my voice cracks on the last word.
“He's probably still on the plane, Jasmine. They might not have let them off yet. His phone could be in airplane mode. It doesn't mean anything.”
She's right, but rational thinking has left the building. All I can think about is that I might never see him again. That the last time I'll ever touch him was that hug two hours ago, and I didn't hold on long enough.
The last thing I said to him was good luck. Casual words, throwaway words. The kind of words you say to someone when you assume you'll see them again.
What if I don't see him again?
Because if something happens to Logan, he’ll never know that I love him. That I never stopped.
I was too proud and too busy protecting myself from the possibility that he might leave again, and now he might be gone for good, and the words are still locked inside me where they've been sitting for a decade.
“Jasmine,” Clara says in a firm voice. “Look at me.”
I look at her.
“He's going to be fine. But right now you need to breathe.”
I nod and wipe my face with the back of my hand. Clara hands me a tissue from the box on my desk, and I press it against my eyes and try to pull myself together.
“Go home,” Clara says. “I'll tell Mabel you weren't feeling well. Go home and wait for him to call.”
“I can't just leave.”
“You're sitting in your office crying, Jasmine. You're not going to get any work done. Go home, turn on the news, and wait.”
She's right. I gather my bag and my coat and leave. The cab ride home takes twenty minutes, and I spend every second of it refreshing the ESPN page on my phone. No updates. No reported injuries, but no confirmation that everyone is okay.
I call Harper. It goes straight to voicemail. I call Avery, then Natalie, then Olivia. Every single one of them is on the phone with someone else or trying to get through to their own person, and the lines are jammed.
I scroll through my contacts. Cat Shaw's number is not in my phone. For one desperate second, I consider finding it, calling her, asking her if she's heard from Logan, because Cat is his mother, and if anyone has heard from him, it would be her.
But I can't call that woman.
I get home and walk straight to the living room. I turn on the TV, find ESPN and stand in front of it with my bag still on my shoulder.
The anchor is reporting the story with a graphic behind her that says RENEGADES PLANE EMERGENCY LANDING, and there's aerial footage of a plane on a runway at Pittsburgh International surrounded by fire trucks and emergency vehicles.
Relief surges through me.
“We're told that all passengers and crew are safe,” the anchor says.
“The aircraft experienced engine failure approximately forty minutes into the flight from Teterboro to Chicago.
The pilot diverted to Pittsburgh International, where the plane landed safely.
We're awaiting confirmation from the Renegades organization.”
All passengers and crew are safe.
I drop my bag on the floor, collapse to the floor, and press my hands over my face and cry again. Relief rolls through me in waves that leave me shaking and gasping.
He's okay. He's alive.
ESPN brings on a former pilot to explain what engine failure means and how pilots train for single-engine landings, and he says the crew did an excellent job and that these things happen.
I want to reach through the screen and shake him.
My phone rings, and I frantically dig for it in my purse. The screen shows Logan's name, and I answer before the first ring finishes. “Logan,” I sob.
“I'm okay.” His voice is solid and real. “We're on the ground. Everyone's fine.”
I press the phone hard against my ear and close my eyes, and the tears are falling again.
“Jasmine. I'm here. I'm fine.”
“I saw it on the news, and I didn't know if you were—” I swallow hard. “I couldn't reach anyone. They kept showing the plane on the runway, and I didn't know if you were okay.”
“I'm okay. I promise.”
The line is quiet for a moment, and I can hear noise in the background — voices, the beep of equipment, someone making an announcement over a PA system.
“Jasmine, I need to tell you something.”
“Okay.”
“When the engine went out, and the captain told us we were making an emergency landing, I thought about a lot of things. I thought about my family, but mostly I thought about you.”
I press my hand over my mouth. My whole body is shaking, and the tears won't stop.
“I thought about the fact that I never told you that I love you, Jasmine. I never stopped. Not for a single day in ten years. It's always been you.”
I'm crying so hard I can barely breathe. My hand is shaking against my mouth, and the phone is slipping against my wet cheek, and I am completely and totally undone.
“When I was up there, and I thought it might be over, the only thing I regretted was that I never said those words to you again.”
“I love you too.” The words come out broken and raw, but I don't care. I don't care what my mother or Cat Shaw thinks. “I never stopped either. I’ve loved you since I was sixteen years old, and I have been so scared to admit it because the last time I loved you, you left.”
“I'm not leaving. Not this time.”
“You better not.”
“I'm not, Jasmine. I swear to you.”
We're both quiet for a long moment. The TV is showing the same aerial footage of the plane on the runway. “Are you really okay? Are you hurt?”
“I'm fine. Blake almost broke my arm gripping it during the descent, but I'm fine.”
I laugh, and it comes out wet and shaky. “Tell Blake I said thank you for holding your hand.”
“I will not be telling Blake that.”
“Is everyone else okay?”
“Everyone's fine.”
We're quiet again, and I pull a blanket off the couch and wrap it around my shoulders. “When are you coming home?”
“I don't know yet. Probably tomorrow. Right now, they’re arranging another plane or a bus or something.”
“Will you still play in Chicago?”
“If we get there in time. Cole is talking to management now.”
“When you get back to New York, come straight to me.”
“That's exactly what I was planning to do.”
I close my eyes and lean my head against the couch, and listen to him breathe on the other end of the line. The biggest thing on my mind this morning was a sportswear contract. It seems so trivial right now.
“Tell me about the house in Maine,” I say.
“Now?”
“Yes. I want to hear about the porch and the kitchen you almost destroyed with a hammer. Tell me everything.”
He laughs and starts talking. He tells me about the porch that faces the water, the wood he chose for the railing, and how he sanded it by hand over three weekends.
He tells me about the fog that rolls in off the ocean in the mornings and how he sits on the porch with coffee and watches it burn off until the water appears.
“I can’t wait to see it,” I tell him.
“You’ll love it,” he says.
But I know I’ll never love anything as much as I love him.