Hope for Us (Hope Series Book #3) (2 page)

When I thought of him, I always said his full name. His mother, a Southern belle from Louisiana, named him after a character on
Steel Magnolias
. I hadn’t seen him in person in over four years. I pictured him like the first time we met. His muscles stretching his FSU t-shirt and his baggy shorts swaying as he walked. Those forearms made me lick my lips. And the goofy grin that crept up at the corners until he couldn’t hold it back turned into a full-on smile that I felt in my toes. That was my favorite version of Jackson. A hell of a lot better than watching the darkness over take his bright blue eyes when he gave up on us and the image of his backside as he walked out of my life forever. Again, my interpretation of our last time together. I didn’t even know what the true story was anymore.

I skimmed the contract. 

The one-year contract had an option for a second year for a little under three million dollars. After being hurt and sitting out two years ago, Jackson’s had to prove himself all over again. That explained the shitty second contract for a one-time top ten draft pick. 

I read the rest. I avoided the urge to delete a few zeros from his salary or maybe add a clause that stated he wasn’t allowed to speak to another female during the season, including me.

My last conversation with Jackson happened about three months ago when he called Jack on his seventh birthday. 

“Hi, Carrington.” Long pause.

“Hi, Jackson.” Longer pause.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Fine,” I said, pulled the phone from my ear. “Jack, Jackson’s on the phone.”

That was it. That from my soul mate, the love of my life, my everything.

At some point, I figured Jackson and I would form a friendship, but it never happened.

I held out hope we would be the kind of parents who created a civil relationship for the sake of the kid. The problem with that theory, Jackson wasn’t Jack’s father and we were never married. He maintained his distance.

Maybe it hurt him too much.

“You need anything else before I go?” Carrie, my assistant, asked as she poked her head into the conference room.

“It’s already six thirty.” I checked my phone.

“His flight landed about thirty minutes ago.”

“Okay, no, I’m fine. Go ahead.”

“If I didn’t need to pick Britney up from her father’s, I would love to stay. Jackson Mitchell is so hot.”

I smiled and stared down at my phone hoping she would get the hint and stop asking questions.

No such luck.

She dropped her bag by the door and walked further into the conference room. She collapsed into one of the twelve leather swivel chairs around the long black table and placed her elbows on the table and waited. 

“What?”

“What’s he like?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know him, right? I mean, Jack mentioned it.”

“When did you talk to Jack about Jackson?”

“It was last year when we went to the game and he said his godfather played in the NFL.” She rotated the chair back and forth. I wanted to stop her and push the chair right out the door with her in it. “I figured you two were pretty good friends if he’s Jack’s godfather.”

“We were friends, back when Jack was born, but we haven’t seen each other in years.”

“So.”

“So, what?”

“What’s he like? He seems like such a great guy. In interviews, he always comes off as genuine. Kind of sweet and humble, but sexy.”

“He is or he was.” I tapped my fingers on the table. “Really, I haven’t spoken two sentenced to him in like five years.”

“Well, now you have a chance to reconnect.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why? He’s so cute and from the way Jack talked about him, he adores him.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Why? What happened?” Carrie asked.

Such a loaded question. It would take a week and a day to go over what happened between us. I didn’t want to get into it.

Kayla, my best friend, knew the whole truth, but no one else. She lived through it with me for the most part and while she supported me, even she didn’t understand why Jackson and I weren’t together.

I missed Kayla.

Our senior year, she went to New York for Spring Break and ran into her ex-boyfriend in a coffee shop in Soho. The next weekend he came down to Tallahassee for a long weekend, and by Monday, they were back together. Now they’ve been married for two years. We talked daily and at least once a month, she would tell me some fact about Jackson Mitchell. Not that I every asked. It never stopped her from sharing, though if I confessed how much it hurt to hear about him, it would prove her point. I still loved Jackson.

Kayla had moved back to New York after graduation.

“He graduated a year and a half before me. Since he graduated, he’s been busy. I’ve been busy.”

“And now look, you’re both in the same city at the same time.”

I stared at her, daring her to say what I’ve tried not to think about for the last two hours.

“You and Jackson, back together again.”

I jumped when my phone rang. I looked down and smiled.

“Is it him?” Carrie stood up.

I flashed her the front of my phone before answering it, a photos of Jack and his toothy grin stared back. She smiled.

“Hey, Jacky.” I cringed when Jack coughed into the phone.

“Mama. Did you hear?” he asked as he coughed, again.

“Hear what baby? And calm down before you have an attack.”

“Jackson.” He had another coughing fit.

“Jack, sweetie, you need to breath for me, okay?” I asked. In the background, Julia, our housekeeper, told him the same thing in Spanish.

He let out a frustrated sign and a deep breath. “Mom, Jackson got traded to the Cardinals.”

“Yes, I heard.”

“Well, did you talk to him? I text him, but he didn’t answer.”

“Maybe he’s busy right now. They start training camp tomorrow.”

“I know, but he will call me. Right? I mean, now we can see him whenever we want.”

I could hear him bouncing around and wheezing, and I didn’t want it to escalate. Julia tried to calm him down. 

“Jackson David Butler,” I said. He screeched to a halt with a whimper.

“Yes, ma’am.”

The full name always got his attention.

“Listen, I’m sure Jackson will call you when he has time. He may be moving to town, but I imagine he doesn't have a lot of time right now. He will be busy with football. We have to remember that, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He didn’t bother to hide the disappointment in his voice, but his breathing steadied. “But we will get to see him more, probably.”

“Probably.”

“Yessssss.” He let his ‘s’ trail out.

“Okay, I still have some work to do. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

“Okay. Love you, Mama.”

“Love you, too.”

“One more thing?”

“What?”

“If he calls you, tell him to call me. Okay, bye.”

The line went dead.

“He’s excited.”

I blinked as I turned and sat back down at the table.

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Well, aren’t you excited to see him?” she asked with an expectant look.

I stared back, not sure what she wanted me to say. My pulse raced, and I could use a drink. I was scared that I would look at him and fall back in love. Scared that I would look at him and feel sad, angry, and hurt. 

Even worse than both of those scenarios, I was scared he would look at me and feel nothing.

I sighed and turned back to Carrie. Even if she wasn’t my assistant, even if we were friends, I had never before confided in her. I wasn’t sure why she thought I would open up now.

“It will be good to see him.” I said and kept my voice calm and neutral as my insides where raging a war.

“Okay, well, I’m heading out.” She stood up, waiting for me to say more. When I didn’t, she nodded and headed out the door.

A few moments later, her muffled voice rang out and seconds later, my heart stopped beating. I grabbed onto the side of the table and waited for my world to turn upside down.

Yesterday, I went to bed a San Diego Charger and woke up today an Arizona Cardinal.

When you see those athletes interviewed after begin traded, and they nod and smile and say
it's just part of the game
, they are lying their ass off. Getting traded sucked.

My agent woke me up at six am and told me it had happened. I turned on the NFL network and on the ticker, it stated,
Former first round draft pick Jackson Mitchell traded to the Arizona Cardinals
. I knew it was real and it was happening to me. Arizona gave up a first and third round pick. At least I wasn’t cheap.

My first two years in the NFL weren’t what you would call successful. I had two winning seasons. My second year, we went ten and six and lost in the first round of the playoffs. My third year, eleven and five and lost in the second round of the playoffs. We were on track to win it all my fourth year, but my plan along with my season ended in the third game when a three hundred pound lineman rolled up on my leg and broke my ankle. I sat out the rest of that year, and that was the hardest thing I ever had to do. I had never missed a game since I started playing football fourteen years ago. 

Last year, my big comeback year was derailed due to an offensive line decimated with injuries, and we finished the season at eight and eight and missed the playoffs.

I should have expected the trade, considering the Chargers traded up in the draft to the tenth spot and picked a hotshot quarterback out of University of Texas. As I watched my team pick another quarterback in the first round, my phone rang. The owner of the team called to tell me that they picked the best guy on the board and I had nothing to worry about. He lied. Hell, he knew he was lying, but I played my role through the off-season. I talked to the media and attended mandatory practices. Hell, I even took the new little hot shit quarterback out to dinner and listened to him tell me how much he admired how I played the game and how he couldn’t wait to learn all he could from me. We both said and did the right things and this morning, he was driving to training camp in Renton, Washington slated as the new rookie starting quarterback, as I headed to a law office to sign a shitty contract and report to hot ass Tempe, Arizona in the middle of the summer to compete for a job.

Only consolation in this trade happening so quickly was that I didn’t have the chance to dwell on the fact the Carrington and I would now be living in the same city. If I added that to the long list of unknown issues I would have to deal with, I might turn this car around and head back to the airport. At least for the next three weeks I would be isolated, concentrating on learning this new system. I felt like I had to prove I belonged in this league all over again.

I pulled into the circular driveway in front of the six story red brick and glass building. Every building in Arizona looked like a desert oasis and everything looked beige and dusty. I parked next to the curb and got out of the car and coughed.

How am I supposed to play if I can’t breathe?

“Mr. Mitchell,” a short guy with cargo shorts and a golf shirt with the Cardinals’ emblem greeted me from the door. “I’m Cameron.”

He extended his hand, and I shook it.

“Welcome to Arizona,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“I’m an intern for the Cardinals. Kind of assigned to you.”

“Okay.” I looked down at him and narrowed my eyes. “How old are you?”

“Nineteen, sir,” he said with a smirk. “I’m a sophomore at Arizona State.”

“Okay.”

“And Coach Crawford’s oldest son.”

That explains it.

“Okay, so where I am headed.”

“I’ll show you.”

I followed Cameron into the building and we took the elevator to the sixth floor. We stepped out into a reception area with glass windows in the back that overlooked the Cardinals’ practice facility in the distance. You couldn’t mistake the huge Cardinals symbol on the side of the building. The office appeared deserted. Not like I expected a welcome party. The coach’s son was all they could afford considering camp opened tomorrow. I wondered if that said more about his role here or mine.

As we turned down a hallway, a young lady with curly brown hair a curvy build approached us. She headed toward me but stopped, blushed, and suppressed a giggle as soon as she spotted me. Recognition registered on her face, but not like a fan. She looked me up and down, and I almost didn’t notice Cameron stop.

“We’re looking for Mr. Coulon?” Cameron asked.

Coulon? Why do I know that name?

“Mr. Coulon isn’t available. He had to head back to Florida this morning, but his associate is waiting for you,” she said with a smile on her face, and I thought she winked at me. “Last door on the left.”

As we continued down the hall, my brain became a fog and my heart rate started to increase. Like when you were watching a scary movie and you knew something crazy lurked around the corner, but it scared the shit out of you anyway. That was how I felt as we knocked on the door.

“Come in,” a familiar voice said. It wasn’t the tone, but the crack in her voice that sent a shiver down my spine.

I placed my hand on the wall to steady myself. My mind raced. Would she be angry? Would she be happy to see me? Any chance she got ugly or fat or both? I laughed at myself, because even scarred and weighing four hundred pounds, I would still want her.

“Hi, Cameron.” Her voice shook, but she tried to hide it with a cough.

“Hey, Carrington.” He knew her already.

I followed behind Cameron and cursed my agent for putting me in an impossible situation. I needed to concentrate on football when the most beautiful girl I had ever seen seven years ago was more beautiful now.

Her dark hair flowed over her shoulders. She wore a black skirt that hugged her hips and a white button-down shirt, which contrasted her light brown skin and showed off the right amount of cleavage to make me forget my name. My eyes took their time skimming her body and recognizing it and not at the same time. She crossed her arms over her chest and stood with one hip cocked out to the side and as I reached her face, I realized she wasn’t as happy to see me, as I was to see her.

“Carrington. It’s been a long time.”

“Yeah.” She slid into the seat in front of her and motioned for me to have a seat across from her. On the table, a folder laid open with documents and a pen on top.

Cameron stood by the door and looked from Carrington to me and back again.

Carrington went right into lawyer mode. She had her head down and flipped some pages.

“As you can see, your player contract is fairly standard. Initial every page and sign and date the last,” she said.

“Hey Cameron, you mind waiting for me out front. No need for you to sit here and watch me read a contract.”

They both looked in my direction.

“Uh, yeah sure. No problem.” Cameron headed out and closed the door as he left. When I turned back to Carrington, her eyes were on me.

She looked pissed off, but I wasn’t quite sure why. It worried me. At least she had a little more warning of seeing me than I had of seeing her. Back in the day, Carrington never hid her feelings from me. She always told me how she felt.

“How have you been?” I asked.

“I’m good.” She looked around the room, at the papers in front of her, anywhere but in my eyes.

“Carrington. Look at me.”

She bit her lip and started looking around, but then she looked up. She looked at me, and I smiled before I could stop myself. This made her even angrier, which made me laugh.

“What is so funny?”

“This, you and me after all this time in the same room pretending like it’s no big deal.” I stood up and moved to the seat next to her. She sat back and crossed her arms over her chest, again.

“I’m not pretending anything.”

“Then why are you so pissed off?”

“Because, I’m mad at you.”

“For what?”

She uncrossed her arms and stood up. She headed over to the window and I followed, my eyes seeking the body part unique to Carrington. That epic ass of hers made me want to call my agent and thank him and give him a raise. I chuckled at how she affected me even so many years later.

When I looked up at her face, she held a smirk I couldn’t read.

“For that.”

“I’m sorry. What?”

“For looking at me like that. For walking in her like Mr. NFL quarterback who everyone loves and adores and expect me to do the same.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“What are you doing here?”

“I was traded, remember?”

“I just don’t need this in my life right now.”

“Well, I’m so sorry that I am interfering with your life again. It’s not like I can afford to handle this distraction either. I have enough to worry about without trying to decipher your damn relationship specifications.”

“Relationship specifications. What are you talking about?”

“Forget it.” I grabbed the folder and started flipping through the contract.

I felt her beside me as she leaned over and took the folder and slid it down the table.

I stood up fast and stepped in front of her. My blood boiled and sharp pain shoot through my neck. I rubbed it. 

“I’m not going to do this. Give up everything to prove to you how I feel about you only to have you create some tiny issue to justify why we can’t be together only because you are too scared to admit the truth.”

She stepped back, but she didn’t have far to go, the window stopped her progress, but she stood tall in heels and attitude staring up at me.

“And what is the truth?”

“The concept of you and me, in any form, shape or fashion, scars the shit out of you."

Her chin dropped to her chest, and she relaxed her arms. She leaned back against the window and looked up at me. When she blinked back her tears before they fell, it crushed me.

I didn’t mean to say that, but it came out before I could stop myself.

I relaxed my arms, too.

I wanted to hold her, lean over and kiss her, and show her how I wanted her, even after all these years. I wanted to tell her how not a day went by that I didn’t think about her. I wanted to hear her tell me the same.

I stared down at her, fixated on her lips. She bit them as if she could feel my stare. I leaned in a little more. She placed her hand on my chest. I closed my eyes and said a little pray of thinks to whoever put us in each other’s lives again, but when I opened my eyes, she was gone.