When I Need You

by Lorelei James

  fact that we know each other.”

  “So you wanted me to ignore you?”

  “Yes!”

  “Un. Fucking. Real. The first time we had this discussion you were pissed off that I didn’t know who you were. Now that we’re friends, you’re pissed because I do know you? That makes no sense, Ro, and you know it.”

  “You don’t have to worry about being shit-canned for breaking the rules. I do. Getting fired from the cheer team because of rumors we’re sneaking around will have a lasting impact on my future employment as a cheer coach. We both know those types of rumors—whether substantiated or not—can destroy a career. What I don’t need is my résumé to say ‘fired and disgraced Vikings cheerleader’ instead of ‘retired Vikings cheerleader.’ No private cheer school will hire me, say nothing of any colleges.”

  His jaw tightened. “That’d never happen. I wouldn’t let it happen.”

  I stomped up to him. “Don’t you see how that’s worse? You coming forward and insisting we’re just friends? The only way to avoid any whisper of impropriety is if you don’t act like we’re best pals when we’re in a situation like we were in today.” My chest was heaving and I was practically yelling at him. I took a step back and tried to level this uncharacteristic burst of anger.

  Those beautiful blue eyes of his turned hard and cold. “So I’m good enough to watch movies and share meals with in private, but in public you’d prefer I acted like a dismissive asshole.”

  “I’d prefer you didn’t pay any attention to me at all,” I retorted.

  “There are two problems with that argument, Coach. First, we live in the same damn building across the hallway from each other. We see each other every day, so it’s pretty fucking obvious that we would know each other. Second, why are you worrying about future job problems when you already have a job with U of M? They wouldn’t fire you over rumors.”

  I threw up my hands in total exasperation. “You don’t know that. And I never intended to stay at the U my entire career. Right now I am a valuable commodity to any cheer program with my years of experience on the pro side and the collegiate side as well as the athletic training side.”

  He stared at me.

  “What?”

  “You’re not a commodity,” he said softly. “I’ve spent my life believing that’s all I am. That’s all I’d ever be.”

  I hated having this conversation with him. I knew it hurt him. It hurt me too. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Lund, but you are privileged. Nothing will ever affect you the same way it does me.”

  “You’re right.” He pushed away from the brick building. “Evidently the time we’ve spent together hasn’t affected you at all if you’re so quick to dismiss it as nothing.”

  That stung.

  “That’s not what I meant, Jensen. And that’s not fair.”

  I thought he’d move in and loom over me, but he kept his distance.

  “You want to talk about unfair? I’ve never let myself get close to a woman like you. A woman of substance, of principles and responsibility and loyalty. You scare the hell out of me, Rowan. You’re smart and funny and thoughtful and beautiful and I knew after that first night we had dinner that it’d be hard just being friends with you. But if friendship was all I could have of you? I was willing to take it because I liked being around you. I liked being around your son. I really liked that you seemed happy to hang out with me. The real me. Not the football player or the rich guy everyone else sees. I hoped if I was patient that you could see that our interest in one another and the attraction we both feel could lead to more than friendship.”

  I truly didn’t know what to say.

  “But the ‘principles’ part of who you are that I admired came back to bite me in the ass. I get that you are a list maker and a rule follower. What I don’t get? That you’re willing to blindly follow someone else’s rule even if it causes you to lose out on something that could have a positive impact on your life.

  “I’d never do anything to jeopardize your livelihood. But I don’t think your extreme overreaction today was about how our friendship will affect your career. You’re just as scared about what’s been building between us as I am. The difference is? I want to embrace it, not run from it.”

  “I’m not running from it,” I said hotly.

  “Yeah, sweetheart, you are. You’re latching onto any excuse to keep things as they are.”

  “It’s not an excuse, Jensen.”

  “So if the no-fraternization rule didn’t apply? Things would be different? You would’ve talked to me today instead of shutting me out? You would’ve let me kiss you last week instead of shutting me down?”

  I said, “Yes,” without hesitation.

  “Two words: injured reserve. You know what that means?”

  “I know what injured reserve means,” I said crossly.

  “Do you know that technically when I’m on injured reserve . . . I’m not officially on the roster? If I’m not officially on the roster, then the rule isn’t in effect for us. Think about that.”

  My jaw might’ve hit the concrete.

  Jensen walked away without another word.

  Fourteen

  JENSEN

  I believed I’d prepared for every contingency for the official opening of Camp Step-Up.

  But I hadn’t expected projectile vomiting from the oldest kid in attendance.

  Nor had I anticipated getting challenged to a “touchdown celebration dance-off” by a seven-year-old girl.

  Neither did I understand why a kid brought a snake in a bucket for show-and-tell, because we didn’t have show-and-tell. Also, how had the kid’s parents not noticed their son carrying a bucket with a snake into the school?

  Luckily Astrid was a snake charmer or possibly she spoke Parseltongue because she dealt with the snake and with the kid. And probably his parents.

  The next issue involved my cousin Jaxson. He was supposed to drop off his daughter, Mimi, except as soon as Jax realized Lucy’s mother was teaching arts and crafts, my in-your-face hockey-playing cousin demanded that I find a volunteer position for him. Right. The guy beat the shit out of people with a stick for a living—not a lot of need for that skill in the real world, to say nothing of at a day camp for kids under age ten.

  Jax was determined to “do his part as a Lund.” Rather than upsetting Mimi—who was thrilled her father wanted to be around longer than ten minutes—I planned to put him off until registration ended. I flat-out refused Jax’s demand to be assigned to Lucy as her classroom aide. I happened to like Lucy and I was fond of my balls being attached to my body.

  This wasn’t a decision I could delegate to Astrid. I gave Jax one option: He could be the janitor. He didn’t balk. He said yes and “welcomed” the chance to prove he’d changed.

  But I didn’t have time to dwell on that because I had another unexpected crazy Lund family member to deal with—Brady. He demanded to know why the camp wasn’t offering academic tutoring.

  There was some fun. Conjugating verbs and solving story problems. Not.

  I reminded Brady that Camp Step-Up focused on the arts. It wasn’t petty that if I, a pro athlete, wasn’t allowed to teach these kids how to catch a ball, then similarly Mr. CEO Finance Whiz couldn’t try to make math fun.

  Okay, maybe it was a little petty.

  Speaking of petty . . . Rowan and Calder were the last to arrive for registration. I hadn’t seen either of them for a week.

  A week in which only my pride kept me from asking Bob, the apartment complex manager, if Rowan had moved out.

  A week in which I’d convinced myself the only reason I’d wanted Rowan to begin with was because I couldn’t have her. That “out of sight, out of mind” would cure my obsession with her.

  But as I looked at her, I realized my feelings hadn’t changed. At all.

  Immediately Rowan focused on Astrid, but Calder was all about me.

  “Hey, Jensen! I can’t believe I didn’t see you all week.”

&
nbsp; “Did you miss me?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t even watch Chopped.”

  I couldn’t mask how much I needed to hear that. “I missed you too, ninja-boy.”

  “Didja know I graduated from kindergarten last week?”

  “I never doubted for a second that you’d pass.” I leaned closer to whisper, “Did you say, ‘In your face!’ to Tiara the troublemaker?”

  “Huh-uh,” he whispered back. “I’m not mean like her.”

  “Good for you for having in-teg-rity.” I held my fist out for a bump. “Congrats on officially being a first-grader.”

  He bounced a couple of times and pointed at the paperwork in front of me. “Does it say that I’m a first-grader?”

  “Of course it does.”

  “That’s why I got up really, really early today because I was so excited to come to camp!”

  Do not look at his mother and ask her if her son was so eager, then why are they arriving late?

  “During camp you should be respectful and call him Mr. Lund,” Rowan said to him.

  Calder blinked those big brown eyes at me. “Really?”

  “Nope. Doesn’t matter where we are, you call me Jensen, because we’re friends.”

  He looked relieved. “Okay.” Then he was back to bouncing with excitement. “Know what else?”

  “What?”

  “I made my own lunch today! Guess what it is.”

  “A PB and J, baby carrots and a root beer.”

  “Huh-uh.” He leaned in and whispered. “It’s fancy.”

  I tried to keep a straight face, but his earnestness just got to me and I grinned. “I’m not a fancy-food guy. You know I can’t cook worth sh—beans, so hit me with this fancy-schmancy sandwich that Chef Calder created this morning.”

  “Deviled ham on toast!”

  “Wow. That is right uptown.”

  “And I have a hard-boiled egg, pepper sticks and hummus too.”

  “Pepper sticks?”

  “Sliced red and green peppers to dip into the hummus,” Rowan said.

  “Thanks, Coach Michaels, for the clarification.”

  “What’s in your lunch?” Calder asked.

  I groaned. “Shoot. That’s the one thing I forgot this morning.”

  “Oh. Well . . . you can have some of mine.”

  This boy’s sweetness slayed me. I reached out and tugged on his hair. “Thanks for the offer, little dude, but you’ll be starved after dance class.”

  “Maybe you could call your mommy and she’ll bring you something.”

  “Come on,” Rowan said to Calder, “let’s put away your lunch and find your dance class.”

  She left without making eye contact with me.

  As soon as Rowan was out of sight, Astrid said, “Brrr . . . it’s cold in here.” Clap clap. “There must be a mad coach in the atmosphere.” Clap clap. “I said . . . Brrr—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get it. Hilarious.”

  “So, what did you do to the ravishing Rowan to make her act like that to you?”

  I pinned Astrid with a hard look. “Don’t you have shit to file? Calls to make? Clerical duties to perform?”

  Astrid saluted. “Yes, sir, boss man. Sir. I’ll keep my questions to myself.” She pushed away from the table. Then she stopped in front of me. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll keep my opinions to myself.”

  Of course not.

  “Even when Rowan acted cold to you, when she watched you interacting with her son . . . she thawed out a lot. She even smiled. Twice.”

  “So you’re a voyeur too?”

  She laughed. “I couldn’t help but watch her because she is one hot mama. But she couldn’t keep her eyes off you, even if those eyes were shooting daggers. Watching you two neighbors dance around each other is gonna be entertaining. I might even bring popcorn.”

  I pointed at the office.

  She laughed again . . . and did the cheer from Bring It On until she vanished from my sight.

  Surrounded by meddling smart-asses appeared to be my lot in life.

  • • •

  The morning went smoothly, but with the kids’ excessive amount of energy, I opted to give them a fifteen-minute break between activities and before lunch. With Jax at my disposal, I had him supervise the kids inside while I took on the role of playground monitor.

  My ever-efficient program director, Astrid, even brought me a whistle.

  The old playground equipment hadn’t been removed after LCCO’s purchase of the property, so I had to ban the kids from sliding down the metal slide, which sat directly in the sun. Most of them wanted to hang from the monkey bars or swing on the swings. Alex, the ace projectile vomiter, asked me if we’d brought any balls.

  “What kind of balls?” I asked him and the group of six kids with him.

  “A basketball,” he said.

  I did a quick check of the playground equipment. “I don’t see any hoops.”

  “I could teach them how to play foursquare.”

  “I’ll bring one as long as everyone who wants to play gets a turn. This is a fun camp, not a place where anyone needs to be competitive either in art or dance or music or recess.”

  Alex gave me a disbelieving look. “But someone is always better than someone else.”

  Astute kid. “True. But I know from experience that working together as a team raises the level of everyone’s abilities. That means including everyone. That means taking turns. If you all can promise me that—in writing—then I’ll bring one ball on Wednesday and we’ll see how it goes.”

  “In writing?” Eloise, a freckled, pigtailed, scrawny girl of about eight repeated.

  “Yeah. You know. Like when we sign that no-bullying contract at school,” Alex said.

  A collective ah of understanding arose from the rest of the kids.

  “You know what would be really cool?” a nine-year-old named LaShawn said. “If we got a really big piece of paper and everyone could sign it. Then we could tape it by the door so we’d all see it every time we went outside as a reminder.”

  “Excellent idea. I’ll talk to Astrid and track down a piece of paper so we can do it before everyone leaves for the day.”

  The kids were so pumped up and talking a mile a minute, we missed the first call to lunch.

  Evidently Astrid had gotten herself a whistle too. She blew that sucker hard enough that we all stopped and faced her like a pack of trained dogs.

  “Lunchtime. Find your lunch on the tables. Where you sit today won’t be where you sit every day, because we want everyone to get to know each other.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. Who came up with assigned seating? I hated that in elementary school. I was the shy kid and a slow eater, so no one talked to me and I was always the last one to leave the table. That was probably why I learned to shovel food in so fast I barely tasted it.

  After I did a quick check of the playground to make sure no one was out here hiding, I headed toward the door. I froze when I heard her shout, “Lund, wait up.”

  I stepped into the shadow of the building, away from the street side, and watched Rowan amble toward me.

  She thrust a plastic grocery bag at me. “Here. I brought you lunch.”