The Debt 9 (Club Alpha) (4 page)

Faith swallowed, her heart feeling like
it was beating in her throat.
 
“I—I had to leave to drive my sister home.”

There was a deep exhalation on the other
end, and then silence.

Panicking, she continued.
 
“My Dad took off in his car and I
couldn’t just leave my sister and my Mom there while I ran off to…” her voice
trailed.

“Ran off to what?” he said, and his tone
was unreadable now.

“Ran off to see you,” she replied.

There was another long silence.
 
“You should’ve found a way,” was all he
said.

“I wanted to.”

“If you wanted it bad enough, you
would’ve been here.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling desperate
now, like she was losing him.
 
“I
really enjoyed the game,” Faith added, trying to lighten her voice and show her
enthusiasm.
 
“You were wonderful…I
mean, I don’t know.
 
It seemed like
you did great.”
 

Somehow, she felt like she was digging
herself out of a very deep hole now.

“Look, I gotta go,” Chase told her.
 
“It was nice meeting you, Faith.”

“So,” she said, wanting to ask if they
would speak or see one another again, but she was terrified the answer might be
no.

“So,” Chase said, “do I have a new fan or
what?”

“Definitely,” she replied, breathless,
wanting to say more, wanting to tell him what she would do to his body if he’d
let her.
 
And that was shocking and
frightening in and of itself, because Faith had never been the kind of girl to
throw herself at someone.

“Good,” Chase said, and then he was gone.

Faith stared at her phone.
 
“Hello?” she asked, knowing he wasn’t
there.
 
He’d sort of hung up on her
at the end, hadn’t he?

She felt the first prickling of tears
behind her eyes.
 

That was it, then, she realized.
 
She’d had her chance and she’d blown it.

But if that was the case, then in all
likelihood, Chase hadn’t wanted much more than a quick bout of meaningless sex
with her.

Strangely, even if that was all he
wanted, the thought that she couldn’t even have that with him was incredibly
saddening.
 
Faith hadn’t allowed
herself to realize just how big of an impact he’d had on her in such a short
time.

Somehow, Chase Winters had pried open a
secret door, an entrance to her heart and her body and soul that she hadn’t
even known existed.
 
And she wanted
him badly, wanted him more than anyone or anything she’d ever encountered.

Maybe
it’s a godsend that he’s done with you.
 
Because you’re obviously no match for him in any way shape or form.
 
I mean look at you.
 
Five minutes in this guy’s presence and
you’re practically willing to crawl on your hands and knees to be with him
again.
 

Faith wiped her eyes and tried to
smile.
 

I’ll
always have a fun story about the time a famous athlete kissed me.
 
That’s something, isn’t it?

But as she drove home, she knew that it
wasn’t nearly enough.

***

“You look tired,” her boss said.
 

“I do?”

“Yeah.”
 
Greg Bloom surveyed her, his eyes
scanning her up and down as he stood in the entryway of her cubicle.
 
“And you have a coffee stain on your
pants.”

“Oh.”
 
Faith looked down and saw that she did
in fact have a light stain on her bright white pants, near her right
pocket.
 
“Shoot, I must’ve done that
when I was bringing coffee in for everyone.”

“Well, try and be more careful.
 
And you could also try and look half
awake.
 
Did I hear something about
you going to the Nationals game yesterday?”

Faith wanted to kill whoever had blabbed
that piece of news.
 
She tried to
smile instead.
 
“I won a contest.”

Greg pointed a long finger at her.
 
“I didn’t hire a contestant, I hired a
temp.
 
We need you in here
fresh-eyed and bushy-tailed, Faith.
 
Your ass is dragging.”

“Sorry, Greg.
 
I’ll do better.”

“I need those case reports scanned in
today, the next batch.
 
We’ve got
deadlines and I actually care about meeting them.
 
Get on it pronto.”
 
He turned and disappeared around the
corner before the words of acquiescence could even leave her mouth.

Faith hated him so much, but there was
nothing she could do about it.

This was the first long-term temp
assignment she’d had since moving out of her parents’ home, and it was steady
work that paid reasonably well, even if the work itself was completely dreary
and dull.

And Greg had been right that she was tired.
 
Exhausted, actually, from lying awake
all night thinking about Chase Winters and wondering if she’d ever hear from
him again, or whether she should try and text him if she didn’t.

At five a.m. she’d been up and listening
to the local sports radio A.M. station—which was Dad’s favorite, but
something she’d always hated.
 
That
was, until Chase had come into her life, and now she suddenly couldn’t get
enough sports talk, football talk, especially if Chase’s name might come up,
which it usually did nowadays.

But now was not the time to be thinking
about football.
 
Greg was on her ass
and she had to get a move on.

Shaking herself out of her weary state,
Faith got the scanner set up in her cubicle and then began using the staple
remover to take the staples out of a batch of case report pages.
 
It was mind numbingly dull work.
 
Removing staples and paperclips, then
putting the pages into the scanner and making sure it took every page and
scanned them into the computer properly.

Sometimes the scanner got finicky and
began scanning pages two at a time, or sometimes she missed a staple and the
pages would get all messed up and rip.

It was time-consuming but completely brainless,
and after more than a month of doing it, Faith was about to go crazy.
 
She’d have done anything to be given a
bit of other work to do (the only other duties she had was occasionally being
sent on coffee or lunch runs), but Greg seemed intent on grinding her into dust
with this scanning project.

He hated her.
 
He’d hated her ever since her first
week, when he’d hit on her and she’d tactfully turned him down.

At least, she’d thought she’d been
tactful, but he must not have seen it that way.

Ever since then, Greg had taken glee in
demeaning her in front of the other workers and constantly threatening to have
her replaced.

Yet she was still there and still
scanning, which was both a blessing and a curse.

The bottom line was that Faith needed the
money from this job.
 
As it was, she
was just barely treading water, living week-to-week and having nothing left
over once she was done paying her rent and utilities and eating.

If Greg got sick of her and fired her
(which he could do on a whim), and if she couldn’t get a placement within a
week or two, she would be forced to move home—and that was not an option
she wanted to consider on even her worst day.

Needless to say, it wasn’t looking like a
fun Monday, but thanks to the free coffee in the break room, Faith was able to
make it through the day without losing it.
 
She scanned all day long, making sure to keep her lunch to thirty
minutes and not even taking her normal fifteen-minute breaks in the morning and
afternoon.

The good thing about scanning was, it
allowed her mind to wander, and that allowed her to think about Chase Winters,
to remember the short time they’d spent together yesterday before the game.

No matter how many times she thought
about it and replayed it, it never got old.
 
Besides, in her fantasies, Chase didn’t
just kiss her.
 
Sometimes he took
off all her clothes piece by piece, other times he told her he loved her.
 
The permutations were endless, and it
made the day go by a little faster than it normally would have.

At five o’clock, she was done.

Greg stopped by her cubicle as she was
shouldering her purse and turning off her computer.

“How many files did you do today?” he
asked, scratching his jaw and then giving an exaggerated sniff, as if he didn’t
even like how she smelled.

“I’m not sure.
 
Maybe forty-five?”

Greg nodded his head.
 
“That’s okay, if you actually did that
many.
 
Tomorrow I want you to send
me the updated spreadsheet so I can look at your progress.”

“Okay, sure.”
 
She tried to smile but he didn’t even
look at her, just glanced away.

“And try and get some sleep, Connor.
 
That way I won’t feel like I’m talking
to a zombie.”
 
He sniffed the air
again and then left.

“Have a nice night!” she called after
him, rolling her eyes.

A moment later, she was leaving, making
sure to wait long enough that she wouldn’t have to share an elevator with her
boss.

Once she got outside the building, Faith
breathed a deep sigh of relief.
 
Then
she managed to catch the bus just in time, and she rode that out to the T,
which she took three stops, got off and walked to the Super Stop and Shop.

Faith got a couple bags of groceries and
then walked about a mile home to her apartment.

She was completely spent by the time she
got home and put her groceries away.
 
But Faith still needed to eat, so she quickly boiled some water and made
Mac & Cheese, which she ate in front of her computer, watching yesterday’s
press conference from the New England Nationals website.

When Chase Winters spoke to the press, he
was wearing a Herringbone coat and a white sweater beneath it.
 
He looked elegant and refined, and yet
those dark eyes still had the dangerous gleam that she remembered all too well.

The media, it was clear, loved
Chase.
 
He was able to play their
game, joking when it was warranted, giving serious analysis of his mistakes and
accomplishments.
 
Of course, he
downplayed his own role in the win and gave all due credit to his teammates.

I
wonder
, she thought, as
she chewed her macaroni and stared at her computer screen,
if he’s thinking of me when he should be focused on his press
conference.
 
Did he think about me at
all during the game?
 
Maybe when he
was on the sidelines, did he scan the crowd for me?

She knew it was ridiculous, but just the
idea of it made her skin tingle.

The notion that the quarterback of The
Nationals would have any thought of her in his head was beyond silly, except
that he had.
 
He’d texted her,
hadn’t he?
 
And then he’d answered
the phone when she called him back.

Maybe it didn’t make sense, but it had
happened.

Once she was done eating, she wanted
nothing more than to go to sleep, but instead she decided to take a
shower.
 
After she was done
showering, she brushed her hair and listened to more sports radio, smiling
every time someone mentioned Chase’s name.

It was only after she’d been brushing her
hair for a little while that she realized she’d left her phone in the bathroom.

Faith slid off her bed and went into the
bathroom, grabbing the phone, not expecting to see a missed call or any texts,
unless maybe it was something from her sister or parents.

But when she picked up the phone and
checked it, Faith was shocked to see a missed call from him.

Chase Winters had called her and she’d
missed it!

“Shit, shit, shit!” she said, looking
around, as if there was someone nearby who could advise her what to do.

He hadn’t left a message, and the call
had come through about seven minutes ago.
 
No voicemail, no text.
 
Just
that one missed call.

Maybe it was accidental?
 

She shifted back and forth on her feet,
staring down at the missed call on her cell and trying to decide what to
do.
 
Finally, she opted to simply text
him back.