Playing at Love (17 page)

“For starters, he needs to take down the online article right now,” Tess said, stepping up to Rick, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Mac. “And then I want you to tell me that you know what you did was wrong and that you understand it would be just as damaging if you published the football team’s playbook.”

“Wait a minute,” Jack said automatically. “No one’s going to print—”

Tess swung around to him. “Chill out,” she snapped. “I’m not telling him to print it; I’m making a comparison.”

“Oh. Well.” He gestured for her to continue, deciding to keep his mouth shut until the women were done.

“So?” Mac glared at Rick, who was standing speechless.

“Do you admit it?” Tess added, turning her wrath back to Rick where it belonged.

Rick’s lips were pressed into a thin line and Jack noticed his left eye twitching. “I can’t say anything like that, officially, and I stand by tonight’s column.”

“You won’t take it down?” Tess affirmed, folding her arms.

“No.”

Jack held his breath, waiting to see Tess’s reaction. She was narrowing her eyes in thought, probably deciding what to do next. Jack had some ideas of his own.

After a long moment, Tess blew air out of her rounded mouth. “Fine.”

“Fine?” Mac echoed, sounding astonished.

Tess shrugged, looking helpless.

Mac turned back to Rick. “Don’t you think I’m through with you,” she said, pointing a finger in his face.

Rick swallowed uncomfortably and stepped back. “Yes, well, if that’s everything.” He jerked his head toward the office door beside him. “I have to get back to work. So, good night.” Without looking at anyone else, he closed and locked the glass door, then disappeared.

There was a collective exhale.

“Thanks for coming,” Tess said to Mac.

“Of course. We couldn’t let him get away with that,” Mac said. Jack blinked when she suddenly turned to him. “
Either
of them.”

“It wasn’t Jack,” Tess said after a loud sigh. “He’s not the source.”

Mac eyed him up and down. “You sure?”

“Rick confirmed it.”

This seemed to reassure Mac, but Tess was still visibly upset. Jack guessed that she believed it wasn’t him who’d talked to Rick, but—by the way she was keeping her distance—he knew there was something else troubling her.

“Well, okay, then,” Mac said. “But let me know if you want me to call any of my…” She looked Jack up and down again. “People.”

Tess snorted a laugh. “You know I will.”

“Well,” Mac said, “I’m going to take off.” She gave Tess a hug and only gave Jack a courtesy glance. He politely waved good-bye to her. After she drove away, the parking lot was quiet.

“I thought you were going to rip that guy’s head off,” Jack said to Tess, if only to fill the silence.

“I was about to say the same thing to you,” she replied.

A ghost of a smile was on her lips. When Jack tried to return it, hers was already gone. Her stillness made him uneasy, but seeing her worried expression was just plain painful. “I tried to get here sooner,” he said, “but Mac wouldn’t let me leave without giving me a piece of her mind.”

“Yeah.” Tess looked in the direction of where Mac’s car had driven off, then dropped her gaze to the ground. “She’s good at that.” Her voice sounded weak, a defeated whisper.

“So I’ve seen.”

When she didn’t even attempt a smile, a knot formed in Jack’s stomach. This was very bad. Maybe Duffy’s new article really would damage the choir’s chances beyond repair. But that was unfair.

Still staring down at the ground, Tess wrapped her arms around her middle, almost like she was trying to hold herself together. The knot in Jack’s stomach grew. It was agonizing to see her like this, knowing there was nothing he could do. His feelings for her were building, swelling, becoming almost out of his control. If he couldn’t help her, maybe he should—

“I have to go,” she suddenly said. “I’m late for rehearsal.”

“Wait.” Jack got over his surprise quickly enough to move to her side. “Are you okay?”

She didn’t answer right away. She was biting her bottom lip.

“Not really,” she finally said.

As she pulled her keys out of her purse, Jack saw that she was shaking. Automatically, he reached out and put an arm around her. “Come here,” he said, trying to coax her into a hug. He might not be able to solve her problem, but he would be here to comfort her, if nothing else. After the drama of the last hour, they could both use relief in each other’s arms.

But Tess stiffened and stepped away. “This was a rude awakening,” she said, her voice practically a whisper.

“What was?” he asked, reaching a hand out to her.

“That.
This
.” She laughed bleakly, looking down at his outstretched hand. “Like I said the other night.” Her voice was even softer. “Nothing has changed.”

He dropped his hand. “Tess,” he said, feeling his heart racing, pounding with emotion. “Everything’s changed.”

“No.” She shook her head. “We’re messing up our careers, Jack, the school, everything. What we’re doing, what we
did
, it was wrong.”

He stared into her eyes, his heart racing faster. “It
wasn’t
wrong,” he said earnestly. “I love you.”

When she blinked up at him, something in her broken expression flickered with hope.

“I’m in love with you, Tess.” His voice was softer this time. “Believe me.”

She blinked again but her expression changed, darkened, as if she had suddenly remembered something. “Believe you?” Her voice sounded harsh as she stared up at him. “Like I believed you fifteen years ago?”

“What?” After he’d just opened his heart to her, this felt like a kick to the stomach. Jack stepped back.

“Look what happens when I trust you.” She motioned toward the newspaper building. “When I trust
anybody
. I can’t believe I let this happen again—”

“Again?”
Jack cut her off. “Tess, I thought we moved past what happened when we were kids.”

“I thought so, too,” she said, sounding frustrated. “But maybe I never will.”

Jack didn’t know what to say to that. There were tears in the corners of Tess’s eyes, but he was too confused to hold back his own frustration.

“You want to talk about trust?” he said. “Do you think it was easy for me to introduce you to Jenna?”

Tess blinked, causing a single tear to trickle down her cheek. This slowed him down.

“Tess, since my divorce, no one I’ve dated has met her,” Jack went on after taking a moment, pressing his fingers into the back of his neck. “I put aside my personal concerns that night, everything happening at school, and I invited you to my home. That’s how much I trusted you. Are you’re telling me I was wrong to do that?”

“No! I don’t know.” Her voice was shaking. “I’ve been hurt, too, Jack. Deeply. Not just by you, but by other guys. This whole night has thrown me—reminding me of that.” She dropped her chin as her voice faded out. “I don’t open up easily, and when I do, it always seems to backfire. If that happened again, Jack, I don’t think I could handle it.”

When she lifted a hand to wipe a tear from her cheek, Jack felt like he could crumble onto his knees. But there was nothing more he could say.

“Maybe it would have worked between us,” she continued, “despite the mess at school. But we can’t ignore that.
That’s
reality.”

“So what are we supposed to do?” Jack asked, folding his arms across his chest. “Just stay away from each other until one of us gets fired and moves away? Is that your solution?”

“I don’t know,” she repeated, running a hand through her hair. “The other night—
weekend
, I mean…” She cleared her throat. “We knew what we were doing, that it couldn’t really be the start of anything official.”

Jack had no recollection of any such thing.

“And now,” Tess added, “all I know is, I’ve got a job to do. A job that just got much more difficult.”

Jack felt his eyebrows shoot up. “A job?” he repeated, staring at her, feeling another kick in the stomach.

“Yes.” Tess was blinking into the wind.

Then there was heavy silence.

“So,” Jack said, not able to curb his hurt pride, “that’s it?”

Tess wouldn’t look at him, even when he moved to stand right in front of her.

After a moment, she looked up with tears in her eyes. “I never said we could be anything more.”

Chapter Nineteen

“Everyone’s ready,” Mac reported. “Makeup, sequins, dance shoes. And that’s just the boys.”

Tess laughed. “Fabulous! Thanks again for helping tonight.”

“Of course.” Mac smiled encouragingly, rubbing Tess on the back. “How much time?”

“About another twenty,” Tess answered.

Mac nodded, then turned around to look through the glass, leaning against the long counter of the press box. “What’s the score?” she asked.

“No idea,” Tess said flippantly while looking at something in the opposite direction of the football field down below. “I haven’t been paying any attention.”

“Good girl,” Mac said. “You don’t need a man to be happy. Just look at
me
, for example: I’m perfectly happy setting up other people to fall in love, but I don’t need it myself.”

“So you’re always saying.” Tess looked down at her nails.

She was determined to not think about Jack, and she’d been doing pretty well for a few hours while rehearsing with the group. But now that there was nothing to do but wait for halftime, she couldn’t stop her mind from picturing his anguished face when she’d told him it was over.

The issue of trust hadn’t crossed her mind in weeks, not since that night at the pool when he’d told her why he hadn’t shown up all those years ago. So why had she thought about it last night in the parking lot?
Someone else
had betrayed her, had leaked the story to Rick—it hadn’t been Jack. But Tess had lashed out anyway, not able to stop her mind from replaying all the other times she’d been burned from trusting guys too soon. Something about opening herself up again had suddenly terrified her.

She didn’t think Jack was untrustworthy. No, the problem was with
her
. Until she could figure out a way to let herself open up to him fully, she knew she couldn’t be with him.

She twisted a strand of hair around her finger, thinking back to when Jack had said those words…those three little words that she didn’t realize she’d wanted to hear from him. As she gazed off into space, she couldn’t help remembering their first kiss in her apartment or how adorable he’d looked that morning after, and it took everything in her not to burst into tears.

“So,” Mac said, causing Tess to almost jump out of her skin, “you haven’t found out who leaked the info on your competition piece?”

“Not yet,” Tess replied steadily, even though she felt a fresh wave of nausea at the subject. “I’m sure it’ll eventually come out, but I can’t worry about it at this point. It is what it is and I have to live with it.”

They both turned to look out the window when the crowd cheered for something. “Ya know,” Mac said, “it’s totally horrific to even
think
this way, but…”

“What?” Tess asked, turning to her.

“Well.” Mac was chewing on a thumbnail. “Tess, sweetie…” She lowered her voice and her eyebrows knit together. “We might lose.”

Immediately, Tess felt pressure behind her eyes. “I know,” she whispered in the tiniest of voices, then took Mac’s arm and led her down to the far end of the window.

“It’s a possibility,” Mac said, adjusting her glasses.

Tess sighed and dabbed at the corner of her eye. “More than a possibility,” she admitted in another whisper. “I’m doing everything I can think of and the kids are performing great.” She shrugged, swallowing down another rush of tears. “There’s just nothing else I can do.”

“I’ve been thinking, though,” Mac said slowly. “This whole new mess is pretty much Rick’s fault, right?” They both leaned forward and glanced down to the end of the counter where Rick Duffy was seated, taking stupid notes in his stupid book.

“Pretty much,” Tess agreed for the sake of argument.

“Well…maybe there’s something
I
can do about that.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe with a bit of friendly persuasion, the problem might be spun in our favor.”

“Persuasion,” Tess repeated, deadpan.

“Yeah.” Mac gazed off, a faint smile on her mouth. “The proper mixture of convincing and distraction might be just what he needs.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well.” Mac cleared her throat. “And this is only an idea…but, ya know, I might volunteer to kind of…” She shrugged one shoulder. “Seduce him.”

Tess felt her eyebrows shoot into her hairline. “
Seduce
him?” she practically screeched.

“Shh!” Mac elbowed her. “It won’t work if he’s on to me,” she said in a low voice. She looped her arm through Tess’s and led them away from the window. “All I’m saying is that I’d be
willing
to give it a try.” She glanced over her shoulder toward the end of the counter. “Tonight, in fact. I could pay him a little visit at the paper, wearing nothing but my pink trench coat, and kind of…you know.”

“Mac, sweetie.” Tess patted her on the arm. “That’s a very, um,
generous
offer, but you’re no Mata Hari.”

She frowned. “I’m not? Are you sure?” She took another peek over her shoulder. “’Cause I could be. For the sake of Franklin High’s music program, I could take those juicy lips of his and that curly blond hair and I could just—”

“Thanks!” Tess said, cutting her off. “But I think I’m good.”

“Oh.” Mac bit her lip, looking disappointed. “Okay.”

“If you’re that interested in him,” Tess said, “you might try asking him out.”

Mac yanked at the front of her jacket, looking indignant. “Who said I was interested?”

Tess tilted her head, trying not to laugh. “Come on,” she said cheerfully. “Let’s go down to the kids; it’s psyching-up time!”

Mac lifted a defeated half smile. “Go, team,” she muttered, pumping one very unenthusiastic fist in the air.

…

Jack was sitting over a steaming mug with his face in his hands when he heard the paper hit his front porch. Like a guilty convict on his way to the gallows, he stood up and walked with heavy feet to the door.

He wasn’t sure, but if he were a betting man, he would wager that in the history of Franklin High football, the franchise had never taken such a brutal beating as his team had last night. It wasn’t just that their opponent was that much better; there had been something off with his team. There was no connection, no communication. He’d practically yelled himself hoarse by halftime—something he absolutely hated to do. With five games in the books, one left and only three wins, there was no question about it: to save the program, they had to win homecoming.

He sat down at the table and rolled out the paper. Much to his chagrin, Duffy didn’t rake his team over the coals like he’d expected, especially after Jack had showed up at his office two nights ago. Jack felt a bit disappointed in this—he was getting really good at despising that guy, with his floppy hair and hipster suits.

After a quick jog around the neighborhood, Jack took a shower, letting the water pound against his muscles. He pulled out a plain navy V-neck sweater, needing to wear something other than school-issued gear for one whole day. Grabbing a bottle of water, he sat at the table to read the article again. He couldn’t help scratching his chin and smiling at the praise the show choir received. He hadn’t heard the halftime show, but from what Duffy had written, it appeared to have been a huge hit. Another jazzed-up rock song from the nineties; Tess sure had a strange obsession with that decade.

Jack sat back, his fingers itching to call her and offer congratulations. But he knew he couldn’t. She had made her feelings crystal clear on the subject. He had made his feelings for her just as clear that night in the parking lot. And she’d broken his heart.

After that perfect weekend they’d spent together, Jack had realized things might get difficult and thorny between them come November, when Walker would make his decision about which program to cut, but Jack had been sure they would be able to work through it. Now he wouldn’t even get the chance.

Not even after he’d told her he loved her.

Why had he said that? He hadn’t planned to, but in the moment, he couldn’t help it. She needed to know, even if it was the last thing he’d ever say to her.

His thoughts were interrupted when his cell rang. He muted the game tape that was playing unwatched. “Hello?”

“Bro!” Brad said. “You’re still alive.”

Jack moaned. “You read the column?”

“Just checking to make sure you’re not about to step off a bridge.”

“Not funny.”

Jack heard his brother chuckle. “Hey, look,” Brad said, “Nancy and the girls are still inside the mall, so I can’t talk long.”

“You’re at the mall?”

“Technically. I’m outside in the parking lot,” Brad confirmed. Jack couldn’t help smiling when he heard the beat-down exhaustion in his voice. “I can’t stay in that hellhole for more than five minutes.”

“You’re a spineless jellyfish.”

“Indeed. Anyway, how you doing? You’ve got one more game, right? The big one?”

The two discussed the game for a while and Jack’s plan to use the last of the special plays he’d taught his team at the beginning of the season. The more Jack talked, the more confident he felt in the situation. Brad was an invaluable catalyst for times like these.

“How often do you see Tess?”

“Tess?”

“Yesss,” his brother said slowly. “Her name is right next to yours in every article. So? Have you two gotten together to reminisce about old times?”

Jack felt like there was a rock in his stomach. He was about to blow off the subject, but when his pause went on for too long, Brad was all over him.

“Oh, buddy. You didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?”

Brad laughed. “You
did
.”

Jack let out his breath. “Yeah, I did,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. “But it’s not what you think. I really like her.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Well, that’s great,” Brad finally said. “It’s about time. I’m happy for you, bro.”

“Don’t be.” Jack ran a hand over his face. “It’s over.”

“Why?”

Jack didn’t want to get into the whole thing about Tess not trusting him enough to take a chance. Besides, he had his own fault in their argument.

“It’s not a good idea for me to be in a relationship right now,” he said. “The court date is in December.”

“Jenna’s?” Brad asked. “Does she have a problem with Tess or with you dating in general?”

“No, Jenna’s fine with it, actually. She really likes her.”

“So?”

Jack stood up and started pacing around the kitchen table. “Don’t you think it would look bad? Inappropriate? To a judge?”

“No one expects you to be a monk,” Brad explained. “I’m sure Susan is back in the dating game.”

“That’s different.”

“Jack, don’t be an idiot. This is America. There’s nothing wrong with being in a relationship. Now if you were whooping it up every weekend and
that
got back to the judge, I see how it could raise a flag. But Tess Johansson, the pillar of your community? Being with her would only improve the standing of someone as pitiful as you in any judge’s opinion.”

“Thanks.” Jack chuckled, but the comment didn’t make him happy. He missed Tess, often to the point of physical pain. In fact, after he hung up with Brad, he felt even more upset. Jenna adored Tess—she’d actually asked about her a few days ago. And if Brad didn’t think dating would hurt his chances in court…then what was he doing?

He loved Tess; he wanted to be with her. But then he remembered: it wasn’t as simple as that. If she didn’t trust him, there was nothing he could do except go on with his life and try to forget her.

The ball is entirely in her court
, he thought stubbornly.

But that only lasted a moment. “Oh, the hell with it!” he exclaimed and reached for the phone. He wasn’t ready to lose her completely. Just as his fingers curled around it, his cell buzzed with an incoming call. Jack didn’t recognize the number and suddenly his heart started to pound.

“Hello?” he said hopefully.

The voice was deep and male: definitely
not
Tess. Jack listened for a few minutes, scribbled some things on a piece of paper, then hung up. He stared down at the phone, kneading the back of his fist into his forehead. After a minute, he punched in a number and waited.

“Danny,” he said. “This is Jack. We’ve got a problem. Can you meet at the school? Yes, now. I’ll call the rest of the staff. Right. See you there. ”

Jack grabbed his keys and was out the door.

Thirty minutes later, Jack stood before his staff. “It’s Morison,” he said, his arms crossed. “I just got word that he’s flunking chemistry. He’s ineligible to play in this week’s game.”

“But it’s homecoming,” Buck said, as if no one else realized that fact. “If we don’t win that game, it’s the end of our season. The end of Grizzlies football.”

Jack noticed all the evil glares shooting in Buck’s direction. For the most part, his coaching staff had made it a point to never talk about the potential cut—everyone knew it wouldn’t help.

“Yeah,” Bryson chimed in, “even after what I did. What
we
did, I mean.” Jack looked across the room at him, and for a moment, the two just stared at each other. Jack’s stomach hit the floor. “I mean, after all the work we’ve done,” Bryson went on, more animated this time. “We’ve coached this team out of the grave. It’s criminal. Am I right, guys?”

The other coaches clapped, agreeing with Bryson, while Jack continued to stare at him, hoping that what had just occurred to him wasn’t the truth. Even though, in his gut, he knew it was.

“I realize the dire circumstances,” Jack began, after the applauding had ceased. “Williams is doing just fine so we probably wouldn’t need Morison as backup QB anyway, but this changes things. Without Morison, we’re down one man on the line for most of the plays we’ve been running. We need to rework the offense. And we only have a week to do it.”

“I’ve got some ideas,” Pete said.

“So do I,” said Bryson.

“All right, good.” Jack nodded. “Because, as Buck pointed out earlier, this is our last chance. This could be it.” He felt every eye on him as he strode across the room to the chalkboard. “But I know we can do it. We can pull out one more big win.” He felt a little like a character in one of those movies trying to rally the troops, and he wished his players were there with them. They needed to work as one unit to pull this off.