Under the Lights (15 page)

Thinking she heard her name, she glanced up and caught two members of the board of selectmen watching her from a table diagonally across the way. Dan Jarvis turned his face abruptly, but Judy Faring gave her a very prim, pursed-lipped look of disapproval before slightly turning her body away.

Great. It wasn't bad enough the chief was in her business. She needed the town government judging her, too.

“How are you not stuffing your face with this spaghetti?” Jen wiped a smear of red sauce off her lip with her napkin, seemingly oblivious to what was happening around her. “It's like a free pass for all the carbs you can eat, and nobody makes meatballs like Cheryl Decker.”

“I feel like everybody's talking about me.”

“They're probably wondering why you've been twirling your fork in your pasta for ten minutes without taking a bite. I hope you realize that can't possibly fit in your mouth now.”

“I meant talking about me and Chase, smart-ass.”

“Which reminds me, tell me about you and Chase.”

“There's nothing to tell.”

“Interesting.” Jen pointed her fork at Kelly. “If there's nothing to tell, what do you think people are saying about you?”

“I meant,
you
already know everything there is to tell.”

“Seriously? He's not sneaking out of your parents' house every night and waiting for you to pick him up at the end of the block?”

“Nope. Between Eagles Fest and work, I have erratic hours, and he's been with the guys. And I live right in town, which isn't exactly private, and he's staying in my old room. It's not an easy thing to manage.”

“You could meet in Gretchen's barn. Wouldn't that be romantic?”

“You've clearly never had straw poking your naked ass. And the barn cat hates me. She starts hissing the second I walk through the door.”

“There has to be a way.” Jen shoved another forkful of pasta in her mouth and looked thoughtful while she chewed. “You could always . . . wait. When did
you
have straw poking your naked ass?”

“You're not really paying attention.”

“Oh, you have
all
my attention now.”

Kelly laughed and used her knife to shove the wad of spaghetti off of her fork so she could start over. “Think about it. I'm the coach's daughter and, just like now, finding
privacy was a bitch. Remember Kirby? He only lived here a couple of years before his family moved again.”

“Oh, that's right. He was your first.”

Kelly nodded. “In Gretchen's barn.”

“I guess associating sex with straw poking you in the ass would explain the standing-up-against-the-wall fantasy,” Jen said, and Kelly almost choked on her first bite of spaghetti.

“Very funny,” she muttered when she'd managed to chew and swallow. “So what's going on with you?”

Jen froze with her fork halfway to her mouth. “What do you mean?”

“I don't know. Yesterday, Gretchen asked me if you were okay. She said you weren't being like you.”

Something flashed across her friend's face but was gone before Kelly could identify it. “I had a headache yesterday. One of those that's not horrible, but won't totally go away.”

“Those suck.” She didn't think that was the entire truth, but Jen was the talkative one of the group, and big on expressing herself. If she didn't want to talk about something, there was a good reason, and she would when she was ready.

They ate their spaghetti, though neither of them cleaned their plates. That was the nice thing about spaghetti dinner fund-raisers. Everybody was willing to cough up the all-you-can-eat price, but very few people actually went back for seconds.

Once everybody had wandered off, the women and the high school team got to work cleaning up. Despite the expense, Kelly was glad they'd gone with disposable plates and utensils. Cassandra had volunteered her staff on her
dime to wash the pots and serving spoons, but she couldn't do a town's worth of plates and silverware. Gretchen, who was a lot more used to physical labor than the rest of them, had suggested the three of them could wash by hand in O'Rourke's sinks, but Jen and Kelly had quickly vetoed that.

While going around with a garbage bag, picking up the napkins and occasional fork people had dropped, Kelly spotted Chase and was surprised to see him. She thought he'd left already, but apparently not. He was still there, directing the boys as they returned the picnic tables and various borrowed seating to where it belonged.

Because of the look he gave her, she wasn't surprised when he managed to corner her later in a small back room of O'Rourke's, where she was looking for a broom. There was no door, but somebody would actually have to step into the room and look to the right to see them.

“You're a hard woman to get alone,” he said, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

“I'm not making out with you in what's essentially Don and Cassandra's supply closet. Just to be clear on that up front. I see Alex made it back, by the way.”

“He was back before I was, but I think they cheated. And I just put away three helpings of spaghetti and meatballs. I'm surprised I can walk, never mind make out.”

“Three?” She shook her head. “You're going to crash hard in a little while.”

“If those kids work a little faster, the crash should come when I'm facedown in my pillow.” He moved forward, crowding her against the metal shelf unit. “But I wasn't passing up an opportunity to sneak a kiss.”

Kelly wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him
close. “I thought you'd left or I'd have dragged you back here already.”

His mouth met hers, and the rush of desire hit her hard. When his hands slid up her waist, she couldn't hold back the small moan of frustration. She needed him, and this was definitely not the place.

Still, they were both breathing a little harder and their hands were roaming to the point that they were treading close to the definition of
making out
, when somebody called Kelly's name.

They parted reluctantly and she gave a breathy laugh as she made sure her shirt was in order. “I needed that.”

“I need more.”

She walked by him, but paused at the doorway. “We'll figure it out.”

“Gretchen's barn?”

That made her laugh. “That's so not going to happen.”

T
he next morning, Chase sprawled on his back on the high school football field and stared at the sky, waiting for the wind that had been knocked out of him to come back. He was seriously too old for this shit.

Deck loomed over him, hands on his wide hips and blocking out the sun. “You dead?”

“You're supposed to pull up in practice, not bulldoze me.”

“Hell, I didn't even hit you, man. You ran the wrong way and hit
me
.”

“And bounced,” Sam added.

“You should try running the right route next time,” Alex suggested, extending his hand to help Chase to his feet.

“I don't remember that play. Maybe because I'm supposed to be the running back and Briscoe's the wide receiver?”

“I can't catch all the balls,” John protested. “We don't even have a tight end. You need to step in and catch some, too.”

“What about Dan?” He was the custodian, who'd been in the band during high school, but he met the criteria for the alumni team. Except for the football part.

Dan shook his head. “Last time I tried to catch a ball, I was eleven and it broke my glasses. I'm going to stand in the line and try to knock down anybody who doesn't look old enough to drink.”

“That's actually a good plan,” Alex said.

“I go that way,” Sam said to Chase, pointing to his left, and then he pointed off to the forward right. “And you go that way. I throw the ball. You catch it.”

“I thought I went that way.” Chase pointed straight down the field.

Sam put his hands on his hips and looked up at the sky as if praying for a lightning bolt to shoot down and end his misery. Then he waved a hand toward the end zone. “You just run somewhere and I'll throw the ball to you. If you catch it, try to fall down before they hit you.”

“Sliding's for pussies and quarterbacks.” Chase pointed straight down the center. “I'm going that way.”

“Brilliant play calling. Those kids will never see what's coming,” Briscoe muttered before going to take his position.

Chase thought of PJ, Coach's secret weapon, and laughed. He wasn't sure what the kid would make of this, although he was positive PJ wouldn't be shy about telling him. The other guys looked at him when he laughed, but he just shook his head and lined up. PJ really had to be experienced to be believed.

He made it barely ten yards before the ball hit him in the back of the head and he stumbled, tumbling to the ground again. “What the hell?”

“Ball slipped,” Sam called.

It took Chase a few seconds to realize there was laughter coming from the sideline as well as the field, and he sat up to see Coach laughing and shaking his head. “You boys look like a bad movie out there.”

“This is where you give us that inspirational speech about being in our prime,” Chase said, “and how pride and perseverance and maybe some other P-words will overcome adversity and . . . stuff like that.”

“Son, the only P-words that come to mind right now are perspiration and prayers that none of you need an ambulance before this is over.”

“I'm blaming Cheryl's meatballs,” he heard Sam say. “I must have eaten a thousand of them, and if I'd known she could make meatballs like that, I might have married her before Deck got the chance.”

While Chase agreed with Sam's assessment of Cheryl's meatballs wholeheartedly, he knew there was more than an overindulgence of pasta at the root of his inability to get his shit together today. His mind didn't want to focus on trying to remember football plays from a decade and a half ago. It was too preoccupied trying to come up with a plan to get Kelly alone again. A hurried kiss in a restaurant supply room wasn't cutting it.

“Let's take a break,” Alex said, and there wasn't a single objection.

They all walked to the sideline, where a cooler full of ice and bottles of water had been stowed under the bench. Chase
cracked one open and sat on the bench, wondering what the hell he'd gotten himself into, because they had no chance at all of even competing with a bunch of teenage boys.

Just for fun,
he reminded himself. The only thing on the line was money, and Chase was doing his part just by showing up and shaking hands. Who cared who won the exhibition game? The real winners would hopefully be the kids when they got to take the field in the fall.

As soon as the guys cleared the field, Briscoe's three boys and Decker's two were out there with a football. The ages varied, but they immediately launched into some kind of catch, keep-away hybrid game. Briscoe and Deck joined them, and Chase laughed when the kids ganged up to take their dads to the ground.

It would be nice to have kids to play ball with, he thought. He could picture the Briscoe family, gathered around the television to cheer on the Patriots, followed by a backyard game of their own.

He always thought he'd have that by now. A house. Some kids to toss a football around with, and it didn't matter if they were boys or girls. A house. A dog. Maybe if he'd given Rina the diamond ring when he bought it, he'd have had some of it by now.

And she probably would have then taken it all in a long, ugly divorce battle, instead of quietly boxing her things and having her new boyfriend carry them out. A wedding band wouldn't have changed things for the better.

Chase drank more water and watched the kids and their dads play. He still had time, he knew. No matter how it felt when he was out on that field, he wasn't old yet. But he was
starting over, and things could get messier before they got better. Maybe when the ground was solid under his feet again, he'd find the right woman.

A woman like Kelly, maybe.

“The longer you sit, the harder it'll be to get back out there,” Coach told them.

Chase put the cap back on his water. “Says the man whose sole job is to carry a clipboard and wear a whistle.”

“And put up with you lot. Let's go, Sanders. Leavitt, you, too. Maybe a few laps will loosen you up.”

They laughed at him and made their way back onto the field with no intention of running laps. Or even
a
lap. Sam stepped up behind one of the dads, who was filling in at center, and then pointed at Chase. “You run to the left and wave your hands in the air, and then I'll throw the ball to Briscoe.”

“Just call a damn play,” Chase growled. “I'm not that far gone yet.”

“Keep telling yourself that, old man.”

—

O
n Thursday afternoon, Kelly walked over to Eagles Lane to visit her parents. Because she'd seen the mail carrier up the street, she grabbed the mail from the box on her way into the house.

Her mom was in the kitchen, sorting through her coupon box. Helen McDonnell had watched a show about extreme couponing a few years back and, while she didn't go to extremes, she'd made something of a sport out of grocery shopping. “Hi, honey.”

“Where's Dad?”

“He's working this afternoon. He'll probably be gone a couple of hours, at least.”

Technically, there was still a McDonnell's Plumbing office downtown, and her parents visited it a few times per week. The paperwork was all there, as well as the ancient computer they both hated. But more often than not now, they stayed home. If somebody called, Coach went to work. If not, he worked around the house, taking care of the honey-do list his wife made out for him each week.

“I grabbed your mail.” She set it on the counter, but slipped the weekly newspaper out of the pile and tossed it on the table. Then she poured a glass of lemonade, topped off her mom's, and sat down.

Her mom hummed while she sifted through the coupons, checking expiration dates and pulling any that corresponded to the week's shopping list. Kelly flipped through the paper until she came to an article about Eagles Fest.

The writing was fairly routine, which wasn't a surprise since the same guy had been writing the community articles for as long as Kelly could remember, but the photos drew her attention. They were more eye-catching than usual, with vivid detail even in black and white. Sure enough, when she looked closer at the fine print in the captions, the photos were credited to Alex Murphy.

She wondered if the editor of the weekly had an idea of who Alex was or if he'd just been offered high-quality photos and used them.

Alex had managed to get a shot of the dunking booth, catching Chase in the middle of his ridiculous windup. At the
edge of the photo was the tank itself, and Kelly was laughing at him. Probably taunting him, too. Even as she admired Alex's eye for composition, the memory of Chase playing up to the crowd made her smile.

She traced her finger over his picture, thinking about the fact that he'd be stopping by later for a quick dinner. Earlier he'd texted her a photo of them all sprawled out on the football field, with a note that he should get some kind of special reward for working so hard.

“Kelly, I hope you're being careful.”

She looked up, her face flaming when she realized her mom had been watching her practically stroking a picture of Chase Sanders. “Uh, what?”

“There's been talk, honey. And look at you.” She pointed at the newspaper. “I know you're young and having fun, but the more I see you two together, the more I worry you're getting too involved with him.”

“I'm not.” She closed the paper and set it aside. Talking about Chase to her mom wasn't particularly high on the list of things she wanted to do, but she may as well face it head-on. “What does Dad think about the talk?”

Her mom sighed. “He's trying to ignore it because you're his daughter and he doesn't want to hear about certain details of your life. Plus, as I keep reminding him, it's really none of his business. But he worries about you. He doesn't want you to get hurt like last time.”

Kelly swallowed a mouthful of lemonade. “There's a big difference between having a fling and getting divorced because your husband cheated on you.”

“Broken hearts hurt no matter why they broke.”

“Chase isn't going to break my heart, Mom. It's really not like that.”

“Okay.” Her mom slid a stack of coupons into a plastic sleeve labeled
baking products
. “Since everybody knows he bought condoms at the drugstore, at least I don't have to ask you if you're using protection.”

Kelly laughed, even though she was totally sure she didn't want to talk condoms with her mother over coupons. “It's all under control, I promise. But do you think I should find him a different place to stay? Are you guys okay with him being here? Or is Dad, I guess I should say.”

“We're fine. As long as you're okay and Chase is being respectful, your dad will stay out of it. You're his daughter, but Chase is important to him, too.”

“I know.” Kelly could kind of see where Chase had been coming from now. It was a little awkward, sleeping with the guy who was staying with her parents. It had to be even worse on Chase's end.

They visited awhile, making small talk and going through the coupons. Kelly had tried to show her mother how to find some online, but it hadn't worked out. Her mom liked gathering the coupon sections from the Sunday papers and clipping them while they watched television. Kelly thought it was as much something to do as it was about saving money, and using the computer and printer took the fun out of it for her.

“I have to stop at the store and grab some things for dinner, so I should go,” Kelly said after an hour of reading tiny expiration dates started making her eyes hurt. “Tell Dad I said hi and that I'm sorry I missed him.”

“I will. And I'll tell Chase you said hi, too. I don't think
he's joining us for dinner tonight, though. Said something about grabbing a quick bite with a friend.”

“Subtle, Mom.” She kissed her mother's cheek and rinsed her lemonade glass. “Yes, I'm making Chase dinner, but just tacos. No meat or mashed potatoes.”

“Is that how we separate flings from marriage material? Meat and mashed potatoes are for potential husbands?”

“And casseroles. Chase is definitely not marriage material, so no casseroles for him.”

Her mom smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. “He's leaving soon, so casseroles would be a waste of time.”

As if she could forget. “Just tossing some ground beef and seasonings into a shell.”

Kelly walked to the market for the makings of soft tacos, her mind now stuck on the fact that Chase would be leaving soon. The big game was tomorrow night, and then Eagles Fest would close out on Saturday with the parade. He'd never said when he actually planned to leave, and she'd never asked.

If he left Stewart Mills on Sunday morning, he'd be back in New Jersey and ready to start getting his life back on track for Monday morning.

Two and a half days, she thought, with a good chunk of that time already committed to the fund-raising activities. She backtracked through the store, putting back the groceries she'd already gathered, and then she went to the freezer section. After a moment's deliberation over toppings, she grabbed a couple of frozen pepperoni pizzas.

The less time they spent on supper, the more time they could spend in bed. And she liked being in bed with Chase a lot, so there was no time for tacos.

—

C
hase waited for Kelly to let him in, determined to keep a tight leash on his raging libido. His balls ached even more than the rest of his body—so much that sitting on a kitchen chair was going to be brutal—but she was making him dinner, so he was going to show the proper appreciation and eat every bite before trying to get into her pants.

Then she opened the door and that fruity cop smell hit him, and he wanted to sweep everything off the table and take her right then and there.

But as the door closed behind him, he realized there were no food smells mingling with the aroma of fruit. No candles or place settings on the table. No food prep happening on the counter. If she hadn't even started cooking yet, that leash on his libido was going to start chafing in a big way.