The Gate to Everything (Once Upon a Dare Book 1) (5 page)

Jordan had first attended Coach Frank Garretty’s reputed Ohio football camp as an eight-year-old. His mother had applied for a scholarship, and he’d shown up pretending to be tough, but quaking on the inside. The Coach’s annual Once Upon a Dare speech—or, rather, challenge—had changed him.

Playing professional football is not some fairy tale, boys. It’s hard, exhausting work. You’ll be tested in every way a man can be. There are no daisies and buttercups in this game. If you want everything handed to you like some princess, get off my field right now. If you’re going to play football for me or any coach worth his salt, you’re going to have to dare it all. So, here’s my challenge to you punks. I dare you to be more than you ever imagined…

Jordan had been full of dare—always had been and always would be. And since Coach believed in putting kids of varying ages together to share life lessons and skills, Sam, who was four years older, had been put in the same cabin as Jordan alongside the other six guys in their group. They’d formed a fast friendship that had only grown stronger with each passing year. Now they were all pro football players—an achievement that spoke of Coach’s instincts. Jordan considered the other guys his brothers, especially since he was an only child.

And after learning the woman whom he loved—and had lost—was carrying his baby, Jordan needed a brother.

When he arrived at Sam’s home in the early morning, the Virginia horizon was hazy, making the large acreage look like a blurred picture, much like Jordan’s future. He felt the opposing forces of restlessness and depression war inside him. They hadn’t abated since his talk with Grace.

He kept rehashing the reasons behind their breakup in the hopes of figuring out what to do. He and Grace had fallen into a deceptive rhythm over the past few years. They were absurdly happy in the off season and out of sync during the regular season.
 

His multi-million-dollar salary last year had been a sore spot. Even worse, the paparazzi and tabloid journalists had started to converge on him at all times—even on simple errands to the grocery store—and they’d started to go after Grace, saying she wasn’t good enough. He’d told her not to let it get to her, rather like he did when people jawed at him on the field, but it hadn’t worked.
 

They’d started fighting over silly things, like the expensive clothes and jewelry he’d wanted to buy her to wear out to special functions in the hopes that the media wouldn’t make fun of her off-the-rack clothes. She’d thought he was changing and didn’t like it. He’d wanted her to enjoy the perks of his success and protect her from their negative comments about her lack of style.
 

Letting her go had been the most unselfish act of his life. He’d wanted her to be happy—even if that meant not being with him.

Now she carried his child. He was thirty-two, and in a few months, he would become a father. He still couldn’t take it in.

When he knocked on the door, he was surprised to see Sam’s mom. “Hey, Mrs. G,” he said because no one called her Helen.

“Jordan!” she exclaimed, pushing her curly white hair back behind her ear. “You guys aren’t supposed to be here until this afternoon. Wait. Why didn’t you text Sam to say you were coming earlier? Is something wrong?”

Helen Garretty had been their football camp mom at Once Upon a Dare, always there to prod them toward success like the best mama robin. She and Coach Garretty were divorced now, so she no longer played a role in the camp, but she treated the eight of them just like she had back in the day.
 

“I needed to talk to Sam before the guys got here.”

She had her arms around him before he could blink. “What’s wrong, sweetie? Don’t make me pull it out of you.”

Jordan sighed. No use keeping it a secret when it would come to light soon enough. “Grace is pregnant.”

She squeezed him tight and then pressed back.
“Well
…that’s a pickle. I was sorry to hear from Sam you two had broken up. Grace is such a nice girl.”

“Yeah, she is,” he replied.

“I can see why you want to talk to Sam. Come on in. I was finishing up some meals for you guys. He’s in the Man Cave stocking the bar for you yahoos.”

“You’re not going to beat me up or try to give me advice?” he asked, following her into the kitchen.

She gave him an amused look over her shoulder. “Coach dished out the beatings, if you recall, and as for advice, if you want mine, all you have to do is ask.”

“I’m asking,” he said, unbuttoning his jacket.

“Is there any chance of reconciliation?” Mrs. G asked, taking aluminum foil out of a kitchen drawer and wrapping up what looked like her famous breakfast casserole.

“No,” he said, and it still smarted. “She doesn’t think I’d make her a good husband.”

“Hmm,” Mrs. G said, putting the casserole in the Sub-Zero. “Well, that’s for Grace to decide, I suppose. You might have some growing up to do, especially now that the country’s set a spotlight on you, but you’d make a good husband to my mind. Of course, all the tabloid photos I’ve seen of you since you broke up with Grace aren’t particularly encouraging. I mean, how many women does one man really need, Jordan?”

She could throw a haymaker for an old lady. “Ah, Mrs. G.”

“Don’t Mrs. G me. I’ve been around you boys since before you had hair on your chests. Coach and I might be divorced, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t right about the trappings of fame. That’s not what the game’s about. Neither are the women. You’re better than that, Jordan.”

Well, that put him in his place, didn’t it? How could he explain that he’d wanted to forget Grace? That he’d tried in the only way he knew how, and it still hadn’t worked?

“The real question is: do you want to be a good father to your baby?” she asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“Then do it,” she said in her characteristic matter-of-fact way. “I’m going to wrap up the rest of these meals and put them in the refrigerator. Go see Sam. I’ll be back at the end of the weekend to see all of you. The Smuck award is a doozy. Sam outdid himself this time, and I helped him execute his idea.”

“I can’t wait,” he said, but he couldn’t muster his usual enthusiasm for the contest of wills he and his buddies played every time they all got together.

“Off with you now,” she said, and since she made a serious shooing motion, he obeyed her.

Taking the stairs to Sam’s lower level, he tried to put a lid on his emotions. Sam was stocking bourbon on the shelves, and Jordan had a flash of his brother giving him other advice over the years.

When he was a new kid at camp, Sam had said, “You’re going to do just fine, Dean. Work hard and hit the players between the numbers. The rest will fall into place.”

And when Jordan had thought about leaving football altogether a few years back, Sam had said: “You certainly won’t play if you quit. How much do you want to play? Hang in there. Your time is coming.”

For over two decades, Sam had always given him the most simple, grounded advice that had paid off. Jordan needed guidance now more than ever, and he hoped beyond hope that his brother could help him out.

“How’s it going?” he asked, approaching the bar.

Sam turned around and immediately frowned. “What are you doing here early? I get worried when you arrive before everyone else. What’s wrong?”

Jordan lifted a shoulder. “I messed up. I needed to talk.”

“Why don’t I pour us a drink, and you can tell me about it?” Sam asked, setting out two old-fashioned glasses and grabbing the Buffalo Trace. “Who cares if it’s early? You look like you could use one.”

“It’s happy hour somewhere,” Jordan said.
 

They each took a drink and settled across from each other on the leather sectional.

“All right,” Sam said, lifting his glass slightly in a salute. “How’d you mess up?”

“Grace is pregnant,” he said, fighting the urge to knock back his drink. “I don’t want you thinking I didn’t take care of her. She was on antibiotics, and the condom broke. We broke up a week later. She just told me about the baby last night.”

Sam took his time sipping his liquor. “It’s been a few months since you two split. Why did she wait so long to tell you?”

“She says she didn’t want to mess with my head during the playoffs and the Super Bowl,” he said, setting his drink on the coffee table and standing. “And she was waiting to see if…the baby stayed.”
 

That thought still unsettled him to the core. She would never have terminated her pregnancy—that he knew about her—but it made him wonder if she’d wished for a miscarriage.
 

“I see,” Sam said gravely. “Tough situation all around.”

Tough wasn’t a mild word when Sam used it. “It makes me feel like crap, knowing she’s been shouldering this alone.”

“That’s in the past. What does she want to do about it?”

“Well, she doesn’t want to marry me,” he said, pacing in front of the coffee table. “That’s for sure. Apparently, I’m not good husband material.”

Sam was quiet for a moment—he wasn’t one to hurry things—then asked, “Did you imagine marrying Grace?”

He ground his teeth, thinking back to their breakup conversation and how she’d said she was turning thirty-three and just couldn’t wait anymore. “We talked about it.”

“But you didn’t buy a ring and propose,” Sam said.

“No, I…I wasn’t ready. Everything I’d ever wanted career-wise was finally coming together…” He made himself say it. “I didn’t give Grace equal time. And then the media and all the fame stuff—”

“Bothered the crap out of Grace,” Sam finished. “They were downright cruel to her, if you ask me. But don’t beat yourself up about things you can’t change. Focus on what comes next.”

“That’s the problem. I don’t know what to do, Sam. I agreed to break up with Grace because she was miserable and wanted a family. But now she’s pregnant with my baby, which seems like the greatest irony of all. She can finally have the family she wants, except she doesn’t want me anymore. Sam, I…still love her.”

“Do you think you can win her back?” Sam asked, setting his drink on his knee.

“I don’t know,” he responded honestly. “She thinks I’ve changed, and the whole fame thing seems like a deal-breaker to her.”

Sam snorted. “There’s something you need to understand about women, brother. The media didn’t throw all those girls at you. You threw salt in Grace’s wound, Dean. How would you have felt if she’d done that to you?”

He probably would have punched a hole in the wall. “Everyone has a different way of getting over someone.”

“And yet you’re not over her,” Sam said with a pointed glance.

“You agree with Mrs. G that I’ve been enjoying the hype a little too much. But I’ve worked so damn hard to get where I am. The parties and the attention are my payoff for all those years I sweated my guts out in practice and never snapped the ball. Sam, this attention means I’m a master at what I do. That people respect me.” The frustration inside him threatened to explode like a shaken bottle of soda.

“Are you really giving your power away like that?” Sam’s mouth curved. “You’re a master whether someone sees you play or not. Jordan, there’s the game and then there’s what’s important. When you told me you and Grace had broken up, I was sorry to hear it. She’s a great gal with real character—not the kind of woman a man comes across every day.”

“I can’t be a hermit like you, Sam,” he said. Sometimes he wondered how his friend could spend all his free time secluded in his Virginia colonial out in the country. “No offense.”

“None taken. Why don’t you sit down before you wear my floor out?”

Jordan fell back onto the sofa and tried to get comfortable.

“Other pro players have happy marriages,” Sam said, shooting him a glance. “I bet if you dig deeper, you’ll find there were other reasons for Grace’s unhappiness. And yours.”

She’d already told them to him, but he didn’t see a way to address them now. “It doesn’t matter,” he said with a bite in his tone. “I don’t think she’s going to change her mind.”

“So how are you playing this?” Sam asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I want to be a good father to my kid. I can’t be like my dad.” Running a hand through his hair, he closed his eyes. The father he’d thought to be a good man had walked out on him and his mother the year before his first summer at Once Upon a Dare. He’d only discovered the extent of his father’s sins later, and he’d promised himself he wouldn’t make the same mistakes.

“You won’t be like your dad, Jordan. That much I know.”

Sam’s confidence eased some of the tightness in Jordan’s chest. His dad had liked to party and be surrounded by beautiful women, but it was different for Jordan. He wasn’t an alcoholic or a gambler, and he would never cheat. “Thanks, man. That means a lot coming from you.”
 

Sam set his bourbon down. “Did you tell Grace about the house?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “It seemed like the wrong move in the moment.”

Some people gave jewelry. Jordan had wanted to give Grace her dream house for Christmas—the yellow colonial in their hometown she’d always wanted them to live in together—hoping it might set things right between them. She wouldn’t have accepted a car, but a house… Now that his career had taken off in such a spectacular way, Deadwood would always feel too small to him. There were just so many options for him, even after retirement.