Chapter 7
Francesca
Walking into the meeting room of the rec center, I find my mom with all her binders and laptop opened to Pinterest searching out Christmas decorations.
“Hey, mom!” I say, sliding into the seat next to her.
“Hey, honey! Oh, I’m glad you’re here. Check this out! I think we should do a ‘Falling in love in Winterland’ theme this year. We’ll still have the cutesy Christmas scenes for the kids, but the adults will love the romantic side of Christmas. What do you think?”
Mom takes this festival seriously every year. And every year she steps up her game, changing the themes and getting more extravagant with each new item.
“I want the theme to be ‘Fall in love with Christmas’. The twinkling lights, fireplaces, cookie making... we can have a scene set at each station for couples to fall in love with. It should be a huge draw and keep people coming back to visit for years to come,” she continues.
It sounds great, but then I picture our Grand Marshall making everyone fall in love with him and I want to run screaming from this room.
Full disclosure? I still have feelings for Jackson.
I don’t think you ever get over your first love, right?
Even though I was twelve and didn’t know what love was, he stuck with me.
His compassionate nature, even though he joked around with me and called me names, and his authoritative manner, which I understand now was him being protective of me.
There were two sides to Jackson Gage. The fun party boy, who everyone loved.
The girls all wanted him and the boys all wanted to be him.
He was the typical high school jock. But he hid behind his popularity to avoid getting deep and personal with anyone.
If you’re a friend to all, you didn’t have time to get close to anyone.
And only the select few were lucky to see that second side of him.
The sweet, sensitive, give his shirt off his back if you needed it, guy.
I knew the real Jackson, the one he hid to avoid being asked about his family.
The questions wondering why his dad never came to games, or why he was always at our house for breakfast and dinner. Why my mom packed him lunch every day.
“Chess? Think it’s a good idea?” Mom pulls me from my thoughts.
“Yeah. I think it’s sweet. So where do we start?”
Mom flips through her Christmas catalog of years past when the door to the meeting room opens and in struts Jackson.
“What’d I miss?” he bellows with a devastating smile.
He’s still dressed in his sport shorts with a Comets High School tee pulled tight across his chest. He looks relaxed, he looks good. He looks like every girl’s fantasy.
My fantasy because being with him could never be real.
“Jackson! I’m so glad you’re here,” Mom says. “Come here, sweetheart. Francesca and I were just going over the themes. What do you think of a romantic winter wonderland?” My mom swoons at the idea, those heart emoji eyes replacing her own.
“I think it sounds perfect,” he replies, all the while staring at me. “Does the Grand Marshall get a Winter Queen to ride with?”
My mom gasps. “Oh, my goodness, that would be so magical! Maybe we could involve the town, have them choose a winter king and queen. Obviously, you’d already be the king, but you need a queen!
The town will go crazy for this!” I can see my mom’s brain churning over all kinds of new ideas, and dread settles in my stomach.
I’m staring at him with wide eyes. I can’t believe he’s doing this right now. Totally falling into line with my mom, so if I was to denounce any of her ideas, I’d be the bad guy.
“Actually, maybe I should pick the queen. I am the king after all, I should get to choose my royal highness,” he winks at me and continues flipping pages with my mom pointing at different decorating ideas.
She pats his hand. “You’re right honey, it should absolutely be your choice.”
“What do you think, Noches? Who should be my queen?”
“From the stories I’ve heard, it seems you’d have your pick of just about any female in a twenty-five-mile radius.” My snappy retort, as my defense mechanism, doesn’t seem to faze him.
He chuckles, “So, while those stories are always entertaining, and make me out to be really hot, more than I already am,” he winks as he leans in, “you and I both know they’re exaggerated.”
“Are they? Because I’ve read a lot of tabloids in my time and underneath every story is always some truth. Pictures don’t lie, you know.”
“This is true, but unfortunately, the pictures don’t do the stories justice either. And they cause more harm than good. Which is actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”
I raise an eyebrow, then narrow my eyes as my mom continues flipping through pages.
Jackson continues. “I have a proposal for you, a work thing if you will.” When I’m silent, he continues. “As you’ve noticed, the public has not portrayed me elegantly.”
“There’d be no story if you wouldn’t party, Jacks-off.”
He laughs, “Oh Chesty.” I roll my eyes at his ridiculous name for me and try to slouch to keep my D’s out of eyesight.
I never knew I’d grow to hate my boobs after years of praying for them to appear.
“I am very aware of that. But being a part of the PR world, you’re also more than aware that these stories get spun out of control.
And of course, the media take on a the life of their own. ”
I watch him slide into the chair next to me, slowly tipping it on its back two legs as he smooths his hands over his thighs. Those thick, tan thighs.
Jesus, Francesca, get a hold of yourself.
“I am aware, but if you don’t feed the strays, you won’t have extra cats hanging around.”
He laughs at my analogy. He knows exactly what I’m getting at. “Okay, so let’s just get down to it.” He brings his chair back to all four legs and leans in closer to me. He smells so good, even after being on the field all morning. Like a real man—sweat and sunshine.
Nick always smelled like too much Axe body spray. Like he was a little kid trying to play with the big boys.
“I’d like you to be my PR rep. Now,” he quickly holds up his hand, “before you say no, I want you to hear me out. I was the bad boy of the NFL, most of it was my own doing. I take responsibility for that, but since I’ve been back here, I’ve stayed under the radar.
Even though my life is different now, the public only knows me as the bad boy because I haven’t given them anything different.
I want to show them the difference so I can move on from this image and back into the upper ranks, as coach.
Maybe a college to start and work my way back.
I’d need you to run my social media, put out some stories and accompany me to fundraisers.
If my image can be seen as the down-to-earth guy I really am, rather than the party animal they believe me to be, I think I can work my way up again. ”
I sit quietly taking it all in, but mom has different ideas. I ask why I would need to accompany him to these events when mom exclaims, “Oh Chessy! That sounds like a great idea. This is just what dad mentioned the other night.” My eyes grow wide as I try to get her to stop talking.
“The other night? What was mentioned?” Jackson asks.
Mom butts right in. “Frank was telling Francesca how you’ve been looking to make a change and thought it might be a good idea for Chess to help you out. That way, she can decide if she wants to continue in PR or move on herself.”
“Well, it sounds like you’ve already thought about all this.”
“I haven’t,” I add quickly.
“I mean, we’re already working together on this festival. We could kill two birds with one stone.”
I pause, trying to gather my thoughts. I don’t know if I could spend more time with Jackson.
It hurt so bad last time, watching him leave.
This time, I would basically help him do just that.
Leave. I don’t know if my heart could take another loss.
I look at him and he’s watching me with something different in his eyes.
Vulnerability. He’s afraid I’m going to say no. “Are you different?” I ask quietly.
He opens his mouth to answer. Then shuts it.
Starts again, but then my phone goes off and I look at the text.
It’s Britt checking in, but I take it as a sign to get the hell out of here.
“Oh shoot, I forgot I made lunch plans.” I shove out of my chair.
“Sorry to bolt, Mom. I’ll catch up with you later about all this. ”
As I head out, Jackson calls out, “I’ll text you later Noches and we’ll go over the details!” I continue to run from the room, not caring that I look like the place is on fire.
* * *
I fall onto my couch with a glass of wine and try to relax. I look around at all the boxes I’ve yet to unpack. Coming back here was hard. It feels like I failed. I missed everyone so much, but I always wanted to say I made it on my own.
Growing up with three older brothers, they loved to smother me.
And I didn’t mind it because when I was small, the protection, love, care and attention they showed made me feel safe.
However, when I hit my teenage years, I wanted to do my own thing and find out who I was.
I wanted my own friends and wanted to have girlfriends who wanted my friendship and not my friendship because of who my three older brothers were.
Some girls thought if they hung around me and at my house, they’d have a better chance of getting noticed by the boys.
That’s probably the biggest reason why I left Christmas.
I wanted to branch out, jump into the big city, but I was not ready for what that big city held.
I had to get out from under my brother’s thumb, especially Adam, and I needed to get away from the constant reminder that was Jackson, and how he was moving on right in front of me.
He had no reason not to move on. The attraction was one-sided and immature.
He was going places.