Hope for Us (Hope Series Book #3) (9 page)

I admired Jack’s ease around people. I wasn’t sure where he got it. I had always had social anxiety issues, and while I handled myself better than I did back in college, put in a room with strangers, I couldn’t shake the feeling of people talking about me behind my back.

I felt out of place, an intruder into someone else’s world. I imagined if Jackson were here, I would be someone on his arm, a decoration. It reminded me of my first day on campus at FSU.

I can’t believe I held onto the same insecurities as when I was a freshman in college.

Stuffing Jack with stadium food had the desired effect. After the game, he was ready to crash. When I declined the dinner invitation, no one thought anything of it, except maybe Jackson. He showed up on my front porch a couple of hours later.

I fixed a smile on my face and opened the door before he could ring the bell.

I waved him in, ignoring the disappointed look on his face.

I laced my fingers in his and pulled him into the kitchen. I hopped up on the counter. Jackson started to speak, but I grabbed the collar of his tailor suit jacket and pulled him toward me. I wrapped an arm around his neck and kissed him. He attempted to pull away, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. I stuck my tongue in his mouth, and he moaned. He made one more attempt to pull away, but I pulled on the front of his pants making sure he stopped thinking. If this didn’t work, I had one more weapon in my arsenal.

He grabbed at my hands and pulled them to his chest, which put some distance between us.

“Carrington, what are you doing?”

“Watching you out there got me so hot." I attempted to kiss him again, but he stepped back out of my reach. The disapproving look was not what I was going for. He furrowed his brow, trying to figure out what was happening.

I jumped off the counter and slinked up to him, my hands found their way inside his jacket. I pushed it off his shoulders and unbuttoned his starched white shirt.

"I'm so glad you're here." The shirt settled on the grown with the jacket. His ragged breath signaled he was close to giving in. 

I stood with my hands on his belt buckle, I looked up and him and said, "Fuck me, Jackson.”

That was all it took. He unbuttoned his own pants and pushed them down. He grabbed me around the waist and sat me back on the counter as he pushed my panties aside, and pressed into me. I gasped.

“Oh, fuck, Carrington,” Jackson grunted in my ear.

"That's what I said."

I latched onto his neck and my head swam from the taste of his skin. I wanted to take a bite, so I did.

“Ouch.” He pulled back and stared at me. I giggled and pulled his face down to meet mine. He bit my lip. I moaned.

He pulled my face to his and kissed me hard, moving inside of me varying the depth. His hand dug into my thighs and he sucked all the breath out of my mouth, which made me gasp for air.

Then, he stopped. I leaned back and searched his face. I blinked away the tears. He cradled my head in his hand and kissed my face. He consumed me; my entire body from the inside out and I couldn’t get enough air in my chest.  He invaded my every thought, my mind and my body. He claimed it as his.

He misunderstood my tears as a tender moment between the two of us. My tears were caused by something else. While I had no doubt he was all in. I never felt more alone.

Before my panic attack took over, I latched onto his shoulder and held on as Jackson pressed into me. His whole body shuddered, but he didn’t make another sound. As we both caught our breath, we clung to each other. I rested my head on his shoulder and sighed.

“You’re going to hurt me,” he said as he kissed my checks and my nose and then my lips.

“Not it if you hurt me first.”

Jackson and I fell into bed, and he passed out in seconds. Game day and kitchen sex wore the man out. I laid awake next to him for most of the night, waiting for the alarm to go off at five am when I could kick him out and not feel bad. We had already discussed no more close calls with Jack finding him here in the morning.

When the alarm sounded, I relaxed. I kept my eyes shut as he rolled over and shut the alarm off.

“I guess I have to go.”

I yawned. “I guess so.” He kissed my neck, and I moaned.

“Don’t start that if you want me to leave.”

I pushed him off me.

“Go, so I can get back to sleep.”

“Wow, you’re not even going to walk me to the door.”

“I’m sure you can find the way.” I blinked my eyes open, “I’ll talk to you later," rolled over, pulled the comforter over my head, and prayed he would leave.

God, I feel cheap.

I laughed as I slid into my car, but I wasn’t kidding. Carrington pushed me out the door. She seemed like she couldn’t wait for me to get out of her house. Granted, it was five am and Jack woke up at six.

I drove home and took a shower before heading into my study to run through film from yesterday’s game.

I played well. Towson played lights out. I put some balls out there that a normal human being could not catch. Towson made me look better than my ability. I keyed up our opening drive and watched each play, grading how accurate I picked up the defense's coverage. I concentrated on the first four of the nine plays in that drive.  On the last five plays, my mind wandered.

My parents said she came to the game, but she sat in the back of the suite and didn’t really speak to anyone. In contrast, Jack was the life of the party.

I shook my head and rewound the tape back to the parts I missed.

On a third down, I overthrew Brennan, my second receiver and the opposing teams defensive back laid him out. Brennan popped back up, but his body couldn't take much more of that. I promised to never overthrow him again.

I looked forward to having dinner with Carrington and my family. If she was in my life, I wanted her to get to know my family.

As I arrived at the restaurant, I received a texted from Carrington saying that Jack had conked out. She used to use Jack as an excuse to get out of doing stuff. I hoped that wasn’t the case now. I texted her that I would come over later, but she didn’t answer.

When I arrived at her house, around nine o’clock, she waved me into the house and pulled me into the kitchen. The next thing I knew, we were fucking on the kitchen counter.

I never had a chance to talk; it was like hello, fuck me, and good night. I liked that I could be a little rough with her, it turned me on even thinking about it, but it scared me, too.

She zoned out, but felt it, too. I knew she did. The sounds she made and the way her body reacted to the way I touched her, she couldn’t fake that.

My phone range and I answered it before looking at the caller id.

“Good morning, Mr. Mitchell. How you feeling this morning?”

“Hey, Michael. I am good. A little sore, but my offensive line is insanely good.”

“They took care of you, yesterday.” He laughed. “We didn’t get a chance to talk much last night about the game.”

“I felt good. The system’s great. It suits my game, and I think I surprised a few people.”

“When you took off and ran for fourteen yards for the first down, you won a lot of fans with that hit.”

“Yeah, that’s the only reason I’m sore.”

“You are making my job easy. We have a couple of meetings set up for tomorrow afternoon. Don’t worry; I stayed in my window. I’ll have you back in your office watching film by eight o’ clock.”

“I’m not that bad, am I?”

“You can be a little anal about your game, but that’s good. That’s why you’re so good.”

“You know my rookie year when they kept bringing up how I had this reputation of studying the game. Like studying film in the bye week was an anomaly in the league.”

“Yeah.”

“You have guys taking vacations between playoff games and they win. I study and lose, so who knows if what I did was the right thing. Maybe it doesn’t matter.”

“Jackson, you all right?”

“Yeah, just rambling.”

“Okay.”

I paused for a minute. Toggling forward and backward on the hit Michael spoke about. It hurt to watch it. I knew that side of the field would be open for ten yards. I figured that out by watching film. The next play, they single covered Towson on a go route and I hit him in stride, sixty years for a touchdown. Something I learned while watching film. 

“Did you get a chance to talk to Carrington yesterday?” I asked.

“Briefly. She is cute. I didn’t realize she was black.”

“Does that matter?”

“No, but I didn’t know. I don’t know her at all really. She’s a beautiful girl. A little quiet. She seemed overwhelmed by the whole scene. Her son is a riot.”

“Yeah, he’s a cool kid.”

Michael blew out a breath.

“Listen, I don’t mean to be a dick about this, but …”

“Yeah.”

“Is this going to a problem for you?”

“I don’t know, yet.”

“Can I offer you some advice?”

“Isn’t that what I pay you for?”

“As your agent, yes, but I’m talking as a friend, now.”

“Okay.”

“You don’t need the distraction.”

“Michael-”

“Wait, hear me out. I understand you two have a history and if you want her, great. If she wants you, even better, but don’t be all about it now. Okay? Take is slow. Focus on where you are right now. Not the past, not the future, but right now. Control what you can control and deal with the rest in the off-season when you have more time to reflect.”

“Wow. That was inspirational. You need to record that message and send it to me so I can play it over and over again.”

“God, you’re suck a dick,” Michael said and chuckled. “That’s why I don’t tell you stuff.”

I laughed.

“No, I get it. Don’t worry, I’m not going to lose my focus on this girl. Not this time.”

“Sounds good. Get back to studying, I’ll send you some stuff to review for tomorrow.” 

I hung up the phone and set it on the table, but then I picked it up and wrote Carrington a text.

I read it once and then twice. I looked back at the computer screen. I found the hit where Brennan got laid out. I watched it in slow motion. His body tensed before the impact and then crumpled to the ground. I watched the expression on his face as he looked in my direction. His face changed, and I knew the guy was on my side. I had no doubt. He deserved for me to stay focused. My whole team did.

I read the text message again and tap, tap, tap … I deleted it, shut off my phone, and watched more film. I was a send button away from fucking it all up before it even got started, and for once since I arrived in this city, I wasn’t referring to Carrington and me.

I lay awake in bed after Jackson left, going over the events of yesterday knowing my reality of how the day went was drastically different than the way Jackson saw it.  He scored three touchdowns and then got laid. A pretty good day by anyone's standards. I wished I could see it the same way, but the prevailing thought going through my mind all day yesterday and last night was how much I didn't fit his world.

I didn't want to. It was too hard. I saw myself disappearing and I couldn't let that happen again. I needed to stay present for Jack's sake, for my job's sake and for my sanity's sake.

I got up when I heard Jack running down stairs. I found him in the kitchen.

“Good morning, Mama.”

“Good morning, baby.”

“Yesterday was the bestest time ever. I can’t wait to tell everyone at school.”

“The best time.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.” He giggled and shoved a large spoon full of cereal in his mouth, milk dripping into the bowl.

My son was all in. The game, the Mitchells, he was ready for all of it. The last thing I wanted to do was disappoint him.

I grabbed a cup of coffee. I picked up my phone and saw I had two missed call and a couple of text messages.

I read them as I fixed myself some toast.

Great. Kayla seemed to be on board, too. I couldn't deal with her right now.

I sat next to Jack and finished my breakfast.

“Can I bring my game ticket to school?”

“Don’t you want to save it with your other tickets?”

“I’ll be careful. Put it in an envelope.”

“Okay.”

“When do we get to see Jackson again?”

“Sweetie, I don’t know. Maybe later in the week.”

“He’s off tomorrow. Ask him to come over for dinner.”

“Jack, you know Jackson doesn’t take days off. Not during the season.”

“Yeah, but they looked so good yesterday.”

“That’s why they looked so good. They work hard throughout the week so it looks easy on game day.”

“I’m going to practice on my off day, too.”

“You have to practice to get good.”

Jack’s face scrunched up as if trying to figure something out but gave up and hopped out of his chair. He placed his bowl in the sink and headed toward the stairs.

“But he’s got to eat to maintain his strength. Can I at least ask him?”

I sighed and my shoulders slumped. I shook my head. “Okay, but if he says he’s busy, don’t push it.”

“Okay.” I listened to Jack run up the stairs and into his room. He returned five minutes later.

“Did you brush your teeth?”

He ran over and breathed in my face. I recoiled but laughed.

He disappeared into my office and came back waving an envelope. I took the ticket out of my purse and placed it into the envelope. He took the precious piece of paper between his thumb and finger, placed it inside of a book in his Cardinals backpack, zipped it up, and put the pack over his shoulders. I grabbed him and pulled him in for a hug.

He squirmed and coughed but hugged me back.

“I love you, Jacky."

“Love you, too.” He headed out the front door. I waved at my neighbor parked at the curb.

Jack was so happy and in such a great place. Maybe I need to try and workout my issues in a way that Jack got what he wanted, too. It was simple for both of us. We both wanted Jackson. My issue, I wasn't sure I was ready to give up everything to have him. 

Kayla and her man were reunited lovers, maybe she had some insight.

And, maybe I needed to get my butt to work. 

I called Kayla on my way to the office.

“Hey, chica.”

“Hi, chica,” I said.

“How’s Jack?” Kayla asked.

“He’s fine,” I said. “How are you? How’s Jamie?”

“Fine, fine, and before you ask another meaningless questions, that’s fine, too.”

“How’s your mother?”

“Ugh. Did you and Jackson … celebrate last night?”

“Yes, we did. You want blow by blow details?”

“Let me get the popcorn.”

“For a proper little redhead, you are a pervert.”

“Takes one to know one.”

“Kayla, I miss you. Come see us?”

“I can’t get out there until next month,” she said, I could hear the pout in her voice. “Come see me? Tell Adam you need to close a deal in New York.”

“I don’t close deals.”

“Well, whatever it is you do, do it here.” She sighed. “So, really, how are you and Jackson?”

“We are … it’s hard to explain. It’s so good seeing him with Jack. They are having a blast together.”

“But how is he with you?”

“You know. It’s good.”

“Just good.”

“The sex is amazing. Is that what you want to hear?”

“Yes,” she cackled. “So, what’s the problem?”

“I don’t know. It felt weird.”

“The sex.”

“No.” I blew out a breath. “I went to the game yesterday, and we sat in a suite with his parents and brothers and agents and assistant and people who love and worship him.

"And,"

"And, I felt so out of place.”

“Sweetie. Why?"

"I don't know. It's like I missed out on so much and now I'm all in. Like, all the way in and there was no trial period. We went from zero to relationship in days." I pulled into the parking lot of my office, turned off the car. "And, his family was weird. Like Jackson told them about us yesterday and even they didn't have a chance to get used to the idea."

"What did they do?"

“His mom was sweet and his dad was nice to me, but they were trying too hard. In contrast, his brothers barely talked to me. I understood that. You know they probably know more than most. That’s who he confides in, so I don’t blame them for being wary of me. They were great to Jack, though.”

“Well, maybe it’s going to take some time. You know, for you to feel comfortable around them and them to feel comfortable around you.”

“I don’t know if it’s worth it.”

“Oh come on, of course it’s worth it. Love is always worth it.”

“Now you’ve gone from pervert to Disney Princess.”

“Oh, that’s a great idea for a Halloween costume. Slutty Disney Princess.”

“You could do Arielle. All guys want to do it with a mermaid.”

We both laughed.

“Carrington, I know you. You over think things and that's not always a bad thing ...except in this situation."

"Oh great. Thanks."

“Listen, I have got to go, but please give if it a chance. Give it time.”

“I’ll keep an open mind.”

“That’s all I ask.”

“Love you,” I said.

“Love you, too.”

I hung up the phone and sat in my car thinking about what Kayla said. She was right, of course she was right. Tears formed in my eyes and I tried to stop them. I tried not to be the weepy girl I was in the in past. I should be happy. Jackson was back in my life and he liked me and I like him. So, why did being with him make me want to cry? 

I dried my eyes and headed into work. I buried my head in a contract, wrote some notes on a negotiation strategy, and tried not to think about Jackson.  

“Carrington,” Carrie said.

I jumped when she yelled my name.

“What?”

“I called your name twice. You okay?”

“Yes, I’m working on some notes for Adam. What’s up?”

“A Mrs. Stevens is on the phone. She’s from Jack’s school.”

My eyes narrowed, and I turned to pick up the receiver on the edge of my desk.

“This is Carrington.”

“Ms. Butler. How are you?”

“I’m fine. Is everything okay with Jack?”

“Oh, yes. He is fine.”

“Can I help you with something?”

“Well, I wouldn’t ask normally, but I figured since you and Jackson Mitchell are so close. Do you think he would agree to come and speak to the kids at Fair Day in a few weeks?”

I held the phone away from my ear, looked at the receiver, and placed the phone back on my ear. Her high-pitch voice continued through the receiver.

“And maybe he could provide a few signed footballs or something for us to auction off.”

“Wha-“ I started. “What makes you think Jackson Mitchell and I are close?”

“Well, Jack told me. He told the class that Jackson was his godfather and that you guys have a suite in the stadium.”

“Mrs. Stevens, do you not find anything inappropriate in what you are asking me?”

“Well-.”

“No, wait. Correct me if I am wrong, but you interrogate my son to solicit information about my personal life. Then because we shared some pleasantries at a parent/teacher conference, you feel comfortable to inquire about my personal relationship and how that relationship can benefit you?”

“I didn’t mean anything by it, but we are a small school and we survive based on the generosity of donors.”

“And the insanely expensive amount of tuition you charge me.”

“Ms. Butler, there’s no need to get excited. I’m making an initial inquiry. If you and he aren’t that close-”

“Oh, so now, you’re doubting my association with Jackson Mitchell. A minute ago, you had us in a relationship and me in control of his philanthropic pursuits.”

“Ms. Butler. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Wow, I can’t imagine how inappropriate this conversation would get if you had actually tried.”

“Goodbye.”

I slammed the phone down and put my head in my hands.

“What was that about?” Carrie asked from the door.

My head snapped back up. “You heard all that.”

“We could hear you down the hall. Are you okay?”

“Yes.” I shook my head. “No, not really.”

“Can I help?”

“No,” I whisper and laid my head back down. I avoided telling anyone else off for the rest of the day, a monumental feat because I felt on edge all day.

When I arrived at home, Jackson’s car sat in front of the house. I pulled into the driveway and shut my car off. I looked toward the house and didn’t notice any movement. I got out of the car and voices came from the backyard.

“You know you were one-year-old the first time we played catch?”

“Could I catch?”

“You were pretty good. When I stood two feet from you.”

Jack grunted and then laughed.

“You’re really good. Did your mom teach you how to throw a spiral?”

“No, Papa and Uncle David.”

“They did a good job. Let me show you one thing.”

The voices grew quiet. I walked into the house.

“Hi, Ms. Carrington.”

“Hi Julia. How long has Jackson been here?”

“He arrived about thirty minutes ago. I hope it’s okay. Jack said it was, but I wasn’t sure.”

“No, it’s fine. He’s just a friend.”

“My son is a big fan of Mr. Jackson.”

“You’ll have to get a photo with him someday.”

“I already did.” She cackled and headed upstairs with a bunch of folded clothes.

I stood at the back door and watched them toss the ball. My insides played a game of tug of war.

They looked like a father and son and it made it even more difficult for me to do what I knew I had to do. Kayla's warning to keep an open mind rang in my ears. My mind was closed along with my heart. It was too hard. I wasn’t ready for this, for Jackson Mitchell, and the sooner he understood that the better.

I fixed dinner for the three of us, chicken breast and mashed potatoes. Okay, Julia cooked it, but I put it on the table. I went to the back door and called for Jackson and Jack to come in and get washed up for dinner. It sounded so domestic. I shook the image out of my head and watched them walk toward me.

“Hi, Mama.” I leaned over and kissed Jack on the top of the head. He smelled like outdoors and wheezed a little. 

“Go wash your hands and your face and take some medicine.” The pollen count had been higher than normal today and an hour outside meant an hour for Jack to get it out of his system.

“Hi, Mama,” Jackson said.

I glared and scrunched my face, but allowed him to kiss me on the forehead. His sweet, sweaty, sexy scent entered my nostrils.

“You go wash up, too.” I said and held onto the door handle to prevent my knees from buckling. How could I want him so much and be scared around him in every other way? It didn’t make sense.