Chapter Eight #2
“Good to know we’re on the same page,” she said, and her voice had a breathy quality to it that she didn’t even recognize. The baseball coach had never made her feel this way. Not ever .
“Absolutely.” He tugged her closer until Calla’s breath caught in her throat.
She took a trembling inhale and tipped her head up to fully meet his gaze. His irises had tiny flecks of silver that she’d never noticed before, and her head whirled like she was caught in a meteor shower. “Right. Not only would it be unprofessional…”
“…but we’re also completely incompatible.” His eyes drifted to her mouth.
And heaven help her, she’d never wanted to be kissed so badly in her life.
All she had to do was rise up on tiptoe and his mouth would be a mere whisper away. And she very nearly did it. She was right there, teetering on the edge of something dangerous and delicious, and even though her head was saying one thing, her heart was screaming another entirely.
Live a little, Calla.
It’s what Ethan would’ve said. Her brother had lived every single day of his life with passion, and no matter what happened, he’d never regretted it.
Not once—not even when he’d had to wheel himself onto the field in his chair instead of running through the victory tunnel.
Calla couldn’t fathom it, but here in the moonlight, with Jackson looking at her like that, she wanted to understand…
Oh, how she wanted to.
But then the porch light flickered, just like it used to do back in high school when a date was dropping her off mere minutes before her curfew—her dad’s secret signal to get inside. And just like that, the magic spell was broken.
“Good night, Jackson,” she said as she took a giant backward step and wrapped her arms around herself. It truly was like high school all over again, back before her entire world had slipped right off its axis.
She might be too old for a curfew, but that wasn’t about to stop her dad from making sure the head coach of the Bulldogs got a good night’s sleep before the big game.
Jackson’s smile went sad around the edges. If Calla didn’t know better, she would’ve thought it was because he didn’t want to tell her goodbye. “Good night, Calla.”
“This was nice,” she said before she could think better of it. Then she gave a little fist pump. “Good luck tomorrow. Go, Bulldogs!”
She’d meant it as a joke, but neither of them laughed. Then something unspoken passed between them—something that made a lump form in Calla’s throat as an undeniable ache burrowed its way beneath her prickly defenses.
“Go, Bulldogs,” Jackson echoed.
And as she watched him walk away with Bishop waddling at his side, a troublesome truth settled in Calla’s bones.
She hadn’t really been joking, after all.
* * *
“Are you feeling good about tonight?” Cade swung a glance toward Jackson as they walked to Huddle Up early Friday morning before work.
A loaded question, to be sure.
“I am. The team looks good, and I’ve been watching tapes of the Yellowjackets from last season. Unless something significant has changed since last season, I don’t think they stand a chance against our offense.” Jackson nodded and shifted Bishop in his arms.
The dog was approximately ten times heavier than he looked, but he was trying to think of hauling the beast around as a supplement to his strength training.
In any case, carrying the lazy dog was easier than trying to get Bishop to walk half the time, and with the pressure of the season opener bearing down on him, Jackson couldn’t take coming home to another mess before the big game.
So he’d declared today to be Unofficial Take Your Mascot to Work Day.
If Principal Dean had a problem with that, so be it.
Jackson would probably get an earful before the opening bell rang.
“I agree.” Cade zipped up the front of his Bulldogs jacket. By some autumn miracle, a cool front had blown in overnight, and they’d been blessed with honest-to-goodness fall weather.
Or football weather, as Jackson called it.
He scratched Bishop under the chin as they neared the coffee shop. “You think Watson is ready?”
Cade snort-laughed. “As you’ve no doubt noticed, no one thinks more highly of Watson Stokes than Watson himself. So yeah, I’d say he’s ready.”
Watson was the starting quarterback, and as Cade had just pointed out, the kid had an arrogant streak a mile wide.
Jackson overlooked it for the most part, because at least the boy backed it up with talent.
Plus he saw a lot of himself in Watson, so as a coach, his tolerance level for that kind of nonsense was pretty high.
He’d only felt the need to call the boy out once for being mouthy, but after a round of bleacher sprints, the first-string quarterback had taken things down a notch.
Still, sometimes Jackson was glad the kid was more Cade’s problem than his, given Cade’s role as quarterbacks coach.
“You heard what Simmons is calling Stokes, Collier and Brown, right?” Cade opened the door to Huddle Up and held it for Jackson, who still had an armful of bulldog to contend with. “The Holy Triangle.”
Jackson ground his teeth. The assistant coach shouldn’t be feeding the egos of certain players above others—not even when those players were unquestionably the strongest on the team. In his experience, special treatment ultimately led to division, when what they really wanted— needed— was unity.
“I hadn’t heard that, actually,” he said.
“You want me to put a stop to it?” Cade asked as they approached the counter.
Jackson counted his blessings that they were in agreement about the favoritism. He really needed at least one of the other coaches on his side. But keeping Simmons in line was Jackson’s job, not Cade’s. “I appreciate the offer, but I’ll deal with it.”
He wasn’t ever going to fully fit in at Bishop Falls High School if he took the easy road and pawned off his responsibilities on others.
Is that really what you want? To fully fit in?
Jackson paused to let that question sink in as he placed Bishop on the floor and stared at the same coffee menu he’d pretty much committed to memory by then.
Yes, fitting in was what he wanted…for now.
Making the most of his time in Bishop Falls was the only way he was going to get back in the public’s good graces and earn his place back on the Cyclones roster once his knee had fully healed.
His life here was simply the means to an end…
He wasn’t sure why that seemed to slip his mind so much lately.
“What can I get for you, Coach Knight?” Bailey greeted him with the warm smile she wore every morning when he and Cade stopped by. “Your usual?”
He’d been in town for less than a week, but he already had a usual coffee order.
People on the sidewalk had stopped giving him the stink-eye, which he attributed to the kind things Calla had to say about him in her column.
They now flashed him thumbs-up and high five gestures and stopped to talk to him about the team. All of this had to be progress, right?
“Yes, Bailey. Thank you,” he said.
Cade placed his order, too, and then excused himself to go to the men’s room, leaving Jackson alone with Bailey while she filled their coffee cups.
As it always did, his gaze darted to the portrait of Ethan Dunne that hung in a place of honor over the shiny espresso machine.
Someone—Bailey, he presumed—had stuck a spirit ribbon to the picture’s wooden frame.
Yesterday, Jackson had noticed the pep squad selling the ribbons at a table in the school lunchroom.
His lip curled in amusement at the words printed in white lettering on the silky strip of green ribbon: “Buzzkill! Swat the Yellowjackets! Go, Bulldogs!”
“Nice pun,” he said.
“Pardon?” Bailey slid the coffees across the counter, and then her gaze followed his to the ribbon attached to the portrait.
“Oh, right. The spirit ribbon. They sell new ones every week, and the proceeds go toward the school’s student activity fund.
I like to support the kids, plus tacking one to Ethan’s portrait is kind of my way of keeping him a part of the team.
” She tucked a loose strand of dark hair behind her ear and scrunched her face. “People probably think that’s silly.”
“I don’t.” Jackson warmed his hands on his cup of coffee. “I think it’s nice. I’m sure it means a lot to Calla that you keep his portrait here. You two must be pretty close.”
Cade returned just as Bailey’s smile seemed to falter, ever so slightly.
“We are. I love Calla like a sister,” she said. Her eyes darted to Cade and her easy grin returned. “Good luck tonight, y’all.”
She moved on to the next customer, and Jackson handed Cade his drink. It wasn’t until they were outside, headed toward the high school, that Cade turned toward him with a solemn look.
“You don’t know, do you?” He took a sip of his coffee and tucked his free hand in his pocket.
Jackson felt himself frown as a sinking feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. “About what?”
“Bailey and Ethan.”
“What about them?” Jackson asked, but he had a good idea what might be coming next, purely based on Cade’s tone.
“They were high school sweethearts—the golden couple of Bishop Falls High School. Bailey was the head cheerleader, and as you know, Ethan was our star player. During senior year, he was being scouted by the University of Texas up in Austin. Everyone thought he’d have a future in the big leagues someday. ” Cade sighed.
“Until the accident,” Jackson said. It was hard to believe how everything could change in the blink of an eye. He’d witnessed horrific injuries on the field before, but nothing like what had happened to Calla’s brother.
“Yeah, the accident changed all that, obviously. Except for Bailey. She stuck by Ethan through everything. I’m pretty sure her family tried to get her to move on.
They were both so young, and she had her whole life ahead of her.
They didn’t think it was a good idea to tie herself down to a boy who’d just suffered a catastrophic injury.
For a while there, Ethan agreed. But all she wanted was him, same as always.
She opened the coffee shop shortly after graduation, while E joined the coaching staff at school.
A couple years later, he proposed. But then he got sick while they were in the middle of wedding planning, and they ended up getting married right there in his hospital room, just before he was put on a ventilator.
When Bailey says she loves Calla like a sister, she really means it.
Ethan passed away two days after the wedding, but they are sisters.
Always have been, always will be.” Cade’s voice clogged a little toward the end of the story, and they walked the rest of the way to school in silence.
Jackson hadn’t thought Ethan Dunne’s story could get any sadder, but he’d been wrong.
There was so much more to a person’s life than what ended up in news clippings.
He should’ve known that by now. Jackson hadn’t exactly been portrayed accurately by the press over the years.
Not that he cared, per se. Some things were better left misunderstood.
He cleared his throat. “Thanks for telling me. Every time I think I know all there is to know about this place, I learn something new.”
There was probably more he’d yet to unearth, but he knew enough to realize this place was special.
The people here had heart. They cared a lot about football, sure.
But they also cared about each other. No matter what happened before he left Bishop Falls, Jackson hoped to take a little bit of that compassion and empathy with him when he left.
He’d always loved the anonymity that came with living in a big city like Chicago, but maybe being greeted by name by strangers on the sidewalk wasn’t altogether a bad thing.
At least not when you were on the town’s good side.
Cade just nodded, and when they walked inside the school, the conversation was forgotten as they got swept up in the frenzy of game prep.
But in the quieter moments, Jackson’s thoughts kept going back to Calla.
To her family. To Bailey. And for perhaps the first time in his career, he wanted to win a football game for reasons that had nothing to do with himself or the other players on the field.
There was more going on in this town than his dumb “redemption tour,” as Harper had called it. Tonight, he wanted to win for something that really mattered…
For some one who mattered…
Even if she pretended she no longer cared about the game.