“We have a strict no-animals policy,” he said, right off the bat.
“Buster Keaton is a service dog,” she explained patiently. He was wearing his vest and everything, so it should have been obvious.
“Are you blind?” he asked in surprise. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. We, um…The files aren’t in Braille.”
“I’m not blind,” Carmina said. She didn’t add the Duh that was on the tip of her tongue. Why would she apply for a file clerk job if she were blind?
“I see.” He paused. “May I ask if he is required because of a disability?”
“Yes,” she said. She’d been through this with Sydney. He had the right to ask for proof of a disability if it wasn’t obvious. She pulled out the card from Buster’s vest that explained her situation and handed it to him. He read it quickly.
“Would the dog be required to help you perform tasks on the job?” he asked, handing her back the card.
“Not always,” she said. “Some days are better than others.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry, Ms. de la Cruz,” he said. “But our no-animals policy isn’t negotiable. Several of our employees suffer from severe allergies.” He stood up and held out his hand. “Good luck in your job search.”
She stared at him for a moment. That was it? She didn’t even get a chance? She got the impression the issue wasn’t with Buster so much as with her. Once he’d read that card and discovered she had a traumatic brain injury, he crossed her off. Buster was just an excuse. She almost felt like calling him on it by telling him she didn’t need to bring Buster, but the truth was she might, and she didn’t want to put herself in that situation. Also, she didn’t need the job that badly, and she didn’t want to work with this guy if she didn’t have to. She stood up, pissed off that she’d rushed to get here this morning for nothing. “Thanks,” she said, not burning any bridges. “I appreciate your time.”
“If your situation changes, don’t hesitate to apply for a job here in the future,” he said insincerely.
She didn’t bother to answer, just turned and left with Buster. He’d been so good during the interview, sitting quietly next to her, not moving or drawing attention to himself. Once they were out on the sidewalk she squatted in front of him and gave his ears a good rub. “We don’t need them,” she told him. “We’ll find another job.” He licked her chin and she grinned. “Thanks. I needed that today.”
Chapter 14
“Hey,” Sam said as he opened the door, greeting Carmina with a big grin. “What’s up? I haven’t heard from you today.” He looked so happy standing there with that dumb haircut, in his big, goofy basketball shorts and T-shirt. King and Jane were arguing in the background about whose turn it was to do laundry. King wanted to do it again, even though it was Jane’s turn. It was unfair that Jane could find two great guys and Carmina couldn’t find one. “Oh, hey,” Sam said, alarmed. “Are you crying? Why are you crying?” She ignored his panic and just walked right into him, wrapping her arms around his waist and hugging him. He hugged her back while Buster barked once and sat down beside her, pressing against her leg. She’d walked with him around half of Birmingham today, looking for work with no luck. And all day Tom was blowing up her phone. She hadn’t even wanted to think about that whole situation, but it was all she could think about. That and how unemployable she was.
“Who’s crying?” King demanded, walking up behind Sam. “Why is Carmina crying?”
“Oh, dear,” Jane said. “Bring her in. What’s going on?” Sam backed up, pulling her into the apartment, and someone closed the door behind her.
“Buster needs some water,” she said, sniffing into Sam’s shoulder.
“Got it,” King said. “Come on, Buster.” Carmina made a hand signal without looking down at Buster and he trotted off with King.
“Should I go, too?” Jane asked, worry in her voice. Carmina shook her head. “Do you need more hugs?” Jane asked. Carmina nodded and then Jane was wrapped around her back, hugging her tight. It felt nice to be surrounded. “Nurse Jane to the rescue,” Jane said, and Carmina gave a sniffling laugh.
“I’m glad you guys weren’t having sex,” Carmina grumbled. “I couldn’t handle that right now.”
“We wouldn’t be having sex in front of you,” Sam said, sounding affronted. “We wouldn’t have answered the door.”
“I think that’s what she means,” Jane said. “Come on. Let’s get out of the doorway. We have two perfectly good couches.”
Sam settled Carmina on the couch and then sat down on the table right in front of her. “All right, give it up. What’s going on?”
“I tried to find a job today,” Carmina said, starting with the easy problem.
“Oh, man,” King said, coming back into the room with Buster. “I guess it didn’t go well.” Buster came around and sat down on her foot, his head on her knee again.
“Nobody likes Buster,” she said, petting his head. “Or me.”
“Well, he is a big, ugly mutt,” Sam said. Jane punched him in the arm. “What?” he said. “It’s true.”
“He has a beautiful soul,” Carmina said, hugging Buster, who licked her ear.
“He is a good dog,” Sam said. “Did they really tell you they wouldn’t hire you because you had a service dog? Isn’t that illegal?”
“No one said it. But they asked questions and made up excuses.” She sniffed and Jane grabbed the box of tissues off the table and gave it to her. She blew her nose. “They all looked…” she waved her hand in front of her face. “Freaked. When they read the card.”
“Lots of people have trouble finding a job,” Jane said. “Sometimes that’s not a bad thing. It’s good to wait until you find the right one.” Jane was always trying to put a good spin on everything, to make everyone happy. Carmina nodded miserably.
“Do you want us to help you find a job?” Sam asked. Carmina sat up straighter after he said it. Hadn’t Tom said something about that the other night?
“With the Rebels?” she asked. “Tom said maybe you could get me a job in the office there. I didn’t want to ask. But after today…” She shrugged.
Sam looked nonplussed for a minute. “I could try. Not sure how to do that, but sure, if that’s what you want.” He seemed to warm up to the idea. “Then we could take you to work,” he said. “And bring you home. And help you out if you need it. That sounds like a great idea.”
“No help,” she said firmly. “Just…get the job. Then I can take it from there. Promise?”
“Let’s call Melody Ann,” Jane said. “She runs that place, even though no one admits it.”
Melody Ann Merriot was in charge of the Rebels’ social media. Carmina had met her a couple of months ago when Sam and King and Jane had first started seeing each other. She was a PR genius and very nice. Carmina had seen her a few times since, and Melody Ann was always smiling and friendly. She was just one of those peppy kind of people. She dressed like a cross between Harley Quinn and Wednesday Addams, and she had a seriously hot redneck boyfriend.
“Okay,” Carmina said.
Five minutes later she had a job as Melody Ann’s assistant. She wasn’t sure how it was going to work out, but her mood lifted…until she realized she was going to be seeing even more of Tom and Danny now. Which brought her around to problem number two. She wasn’t going to tell Sam about what had happened this morning. He would totally lose it. But she needed to talk about what had been bothering her since they’d returned from Afghanistan. Maybe if she talked to Sam, the memories wouldn’t keep surfacing at inconvenient times.
“I need to talk to you about Richie,” she said when she and Sam were alone in the family room.
“Richie?” Sam said, frowning in confusion. “Okay. What about?” He was standing and he put his hand into the pocket of his big shorts. He always carried a picture of their unit in his pocket, the same one she had tucked in her phone case. Both of them carried the burden of being survivors.
She took a deep breath. “We
were…” She floundered, searching for the right word. There had been no dating. No sex. No words of love. “We were involved.”
“What?” Sam asked. He looked shocked. “Involved?”
“Romantically involved.”
“That’s impossible,” Sam said firmly. “I would have known about it. You would have told me. Richie would have told me.” He stared at her accusingly.
“I didn’t want anyone to know,” she admitted. “I was afraid of what would happen if people found out. I’d heard stories. It was against the rules.”
“You don’t break rules,” Sam said. He was actually arguing with her about it, as if he could change the past.
“No, I didn’t. And I will regret that forever.” She stood up abruptly and paced over to the window, staring out at the street far below. “I let fear keep me from being with him.” She turned to face Sam, who now sat on the couch looking stunned. “It wasn’t much. Some stolen kisses. Promises of more when we got back home. But…it was there. The knowledge of it. The certainty of it. I know that Richie and I would be together now if he’d lived.” She sniffed and wiped her runny nose with the back of her hand. Screw manners. “It’s just, lately, I can’t stop thinking about him. Because I wasn’t there for it, you know? I don’t remember how he died. I…” She choked up and could only shake her head.
“I’m glad you don’t remember,” Sam said harshly. “I wouldn’t wish that memory on my worst enemy. It’s for the best.”
“For the best?” she asked, getting angry. “This is for the best?” She grabbed her head with both hands. “¡No puedo recordar mis últimos momentos con él! No sé lo último que le dije, ni lo último que me dijo.”
“English,” Sam said, his voice shaking. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”
For once Carmina didn’t need to think about her words. She’d been thinking about them for years. “I can’t remember my last moments with him! I don’t know the last thing I said to him, or the last thing he said to me. Did he talk to me in the truck? Did he make a joke? Did he touch my hand? Did he say anything before he died? I didn’t get to say goodbye. ¿Hice? No lo sé. I don’t know.” She collapsed in a chair and put her face in her hands, overwhelmed with sadness. “You don’t get it. I lost the best thing…I pushed him away and…” She couldn’t find the words to express the immense sense of loss that had followed her like a shadow for the last two years.
“You don’t want to remember his death, Carmina,” Sam said quietly. She could hear the anguish in his voice.
“You don’t get it,” she whispered, looking up at him through a veil of tears. “If I could remember, then he wouldn’t haunt me anymore. How can I move on when the past won’t let me go?”
“Are you trying to move on?” Sam asked. “Is that what all this is about? The job, the sex?”
“It’s about living,” Carmina said, wiping her tears away. “If I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it right. I think I owe Richie that, don’t you?”
Chapter 15
“Oh my god, I am so glad you were looking for a job!” Melody Ann exclaimed as she came up behind Carmina and hugged her. “I was going crazy trying to keep up with everyone’s social media accounts. I never even thought to hire an assistant.”
“Me, too,” Carmina said.
Melody Ann walked around the side of Carmina’s desk and propped her butt on the edge, facing Carmina. Today Melody Ann was wearing high-waisted, tight, black pants, Timberland boots, and a fuzzy pink sweater that barely covered her stomach. Her hair was in a messy topknot held together with luck and chopsticks, and she had on cat-eye glasses and bright-red lipstick. Carmina’s eyes hurt just looking at her. But Melody Ann would be gorgeous no matter what she wore, and she was one of the nicest people Carmina had ever met, and she was going to be really easy to work for.
“Also, I’m glad you don’t talk much,” Melody Ann said. “I like to talk. I’m not so much on listening.” She made an embarrassed face. “Can I say that, or am I being insensitive? My boyfriend Gage said sometimes I’m too honest.”
“No such thing,” Carmina told her. “It’s okay. I wasn’t hurt. I know what you meant. I’m quiet.” She honestly didn’t mind Melody Ann’s comment. This was her first day at work and she’d only been there for a couple of hours, but already Melody Ann had treated her better than every single person she’d talked to about a job the day before. When she was explaining what she expected Carmina to do, she didn’t treat Carmina like she was stupid, for one thing, or an invalid. And she liked Buster, which was worth a lot of points in Carmina’s book.
“So, has anyone posted anything alarming or controversial today?” Melody Ann asked. “Do we need to put out any fires?” She looked at her watch. “It’s ten a.m. Usually someone has started a shit storm by now.”
Carmina laughed. Melody Ann had put Carmina in charge of reviewing players’ social media each morning, and she’d been at it for about an hour. “No shit storms. Dominique Reyes cusses too much. Every caption on Instagram.”
“I know.” Melody Ann winced. “But try talking to him. He’s impossible!” Melody Ann reached over to her desk and snagged a piece of paper. “Since we don’t have to do cleanup duty this morning, here’s a list of charitable causes and players who donated time over the last couple of months. Look through the press files for pictures of them at events and post those on the team site. I like to do a few a day.” She grabbed another piece of paper. “And this is the password to the game films. I ask the guys which plays they’d like to highlight from last week’s game, and we post a couple a day. No breakdown or critique. Just something like, ‘Sam Taylor saves the day!’ and a clip of him tackling someone. You can even snag clips from news sites, with permission, of course. And,” she said, with a big buildup, “my favorite stuff is here, in this file.” She leaned over and used Carmina’s mouse to click through to a file labeled Fun Stuff. “These are pictures and videos that the guys send in. Stuff from their everyday lives that they thought we might want to post on the team accounts, too. Some personal, some work. A lot of things from when they were younger that are good for throwback Thursday stuff. I’ve got some wedding photos in here, school photos, film from high school games. Stuff like that. With Christmas coming, I expect to get a lot of new stuff. See if you can find pictures from last Christmas. We can do some lead-ins the next couple of days.”
Carmina glanced through some of the file names. She saw a couple from Tom, but nothing from Danny. “Do all the players have stuff in here?” she asked.
“No,” Melody Ann said, sighing. “The ones who really need the image boost something like this brings usually don’t send me anything. Typical, right? I don’t have anything from Danny Smith, Dominique Reyes, Mal—Malachai Goodman, I mean.” She frowned. “Mal doesn’t have anything to give, though. He was in foster care and then a group home and never had anyone to chronicle his life or keep his mementos.” She got up from the desk suddenly. “Come on. Let’s go do something fun as part of your orientation.” She snagged an iPad off her desk. “The guys hate this, which is why I love it, of course. Did you ever see that video I took of the team doing the stairs in the arena? Absolutely hilarious.” She was halfway out the door before Carmina realized she was supposed to be following her. She jumped up and raced after her.
The closer they got to the team area in the arena, the more nervous Carmina got. She’d avoided Tom’s calls and hadn’t answered the door when he came by last night. She just wasn’t ready to deal with the whole mess she’d made by screwing Danny in the shower yesterday. Seriously, what had she been thinking? And the fact that she came with him. She’d been attracted to him for months, it was true. But she didn’t know him that well. And he certainly hadn’t gone out of his way to get to know her or hook up with her. He just walked into his bathroom, took off his clothes, and stepped into the shower with her. Way to play hard to get, Carmina.
Melody Ann stopped outside the team locker room. Voices could be heard sho
uting and talking through the door, along with some music cranked up loud. She pulled up the video camera on the iPad. “I like to do unscripted little videos of the guys here at work. Fans like to see them behind the scenes, getting ready for games, working out and sometimes just goofing off. Some of the players are better at that last one.” She winked at Carmina. “I hope Tom Kelly’s in here. He loves the camera, and can usually be counted on to do something worth filming. And I don’t mean of the X-rated variety. We’ve already had that talk.” Carmina prayed that Tom and Danny were not in there as Melody Ann knocked on the door and hollered out her name to let them know who it was.
“Come in,” someone shouted, but Carmina heard another voice yelling, “Wait, wait!” Melody Ann ignored the second voice and threw open the door, the camera rolling. “Hi, everyone!” she called out. “We just thought we’d catch a little team action before the Rough Riders game.” Carmina winced at her word choice as several cat calls were heard, along with a couple of lewd suggestions. “Y’all watch your mouths,” Melody Ann called out as she slowly panned around the locker room. “I have video evidence. Also, Carmina isn’t used to your bad language.”
“I’m Army,” Carmina said. “I’m good.”
“Hey, Carmina!” Nigel said. He jogged over and pulled her into a hug. He was still sweaty and wearing his practice clothes. “What are you doing here, love? Sam’s out on the field. Want me to get him?” Carmina shook her head, trying to unobtrusively look around for Tom and Danny.
“Some of you guys have probably seen Carmina around,” Melody Ann called out. “She’s Sam’s friend. From the Army. Anyway, she’s my new assistant. Meet Carmina de la Cruz.” Carmina gave a halfhearted, self-conscious wave.
“No kidding,” Nigel said with a big grin. “Congratulations! I didn’t know you were looking for work. That’s good, right?”
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