“Sam, come on over and give your old man a hug,” his dad called out in an overly loud voice. “Or have you already forgotten me?”
Sam hugged his father tight. “Of course not.”
And it was true. He hadn’t forgotten his dad. But things did feel different.
He felt older and more distant.
But the look in his father’s eyes he remembered clear as day, as it was now obvious that Kurt had, too.
His father was up to something. Hopefully they’d discover what it was real soon.
CHAPTER 29
FROM LES LARKE’S
TIPS FOR BEGINNING POKER PLAYERS:
Don’t be afraid to fail. Every successful poker player will tell you that they’ve learned more from losing than from winning.
On Monday night, after a particularly stressful day which had included a conference with the parents of a student who was failing her junior honors class, breaking up a fight near the parking lot, and an interminable English department meeting, Emily just wanted to collapse in front of the TV.
Even Campbell’s guilt-inducing phone call about having to go to hot yoga alone hadn’t changed her mind. She literally couldn’t wait to put on one of her brother’s old college T-shirts and some flannel pajama bottoms and eat a grilled cheese sandwich.
And maybe follow it with half a pint of ice cream.
That was why she almost didn’t answer her doorbell. But when it rang again and was followed by a text from Kurt announcing that he was standing outside her door, she suddenly felt that maybe her awful day had just gotten a whole lot better.
“Hi, Kurt,” she said with what was probably the biggest stupid smile on her face. “I didn’t expect to see you today.” She leaned forward, sure he was going to kiss her hello.
Instead he shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “Hey, Em. Sorry I came over without calling first. Is this a bad time?”
She shook her head. “Is everything okay?” Of course the moment she asked, she wished she could take the question back. Because of course it wasn’t.
“Yeah, well, I wanted to talk to you about something and didn’t want to do it over the phone.”
All of the newfound confidence she’d been feeling about their relationship faded. Stepping back, she kind of waved a hand toward her entryway. “My place is a mess, but do you want to come in?”
“Thanks. I won’t stay long.”
She turned and led the way to the small deck she had outside the kitchen door. Suddenly, she decided if they were about to break up she knew she didn’t want it to happen on the couch, where she’d have to walk by it every day and be reminded about it. “You know what? Today’s weather is so perfect. Do you mind if we sit out here?” she blathered in a rush. “After being in my building all day, I can hardly sit inside, especially since there’s hardly a drop of humidity. Oh! I’ve got iced tea. Would you like some iced tea?”
He studied her face for a moment before nodding. “Sure, honey. Wherever you want to be is fine.”
He’d called her honey. Some guys dropped endearments like crumbs on the floor but not Kurt.
She exhaled, hating that it sounded as ragged as she suddenly felt. After pasting a smile on her face, she said, “Go on out and I’ll get our drinks.”
He reached for her hand and tugged her toward him. “Wait a sec.” Still staring at her intently, he said, “You thought I came over here to break up with you again, didn’t you?”
She shrugged.
He winced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even think that might occur to you.”
“No need to apologize.”
He brushed away a lock of hair from her forehead. “Yeah, there is. It’s going to take me a while to regain your trust, isn’t it?”
She smiled, liking how he again inadvertently gave her a hint that he was serious about her. “I hope not.”
“I’m rusty at this relationship thing, but I swear I’ll do better. ’Kay?”
She nodded. “Listen, it’s not just you. Remember, I’ve been burned before so I’m afraid I immediately think of the worst scenario right away.”
“We need to change that, don’t we?”
Embarrassed that she’d gone all emotional on him when he’d obviously come over for support, she squeezed his hand once before pulling her hand from his. “Go sit down, Kurt. I’ll be right out.”
When he walked out to the patio without another word, Emily gripped the edge of the countertop and breathed a sigh. She meant what she’d said. Sure, he’d hurt her, but she was also responsible for the way she often prepared herself for bad news.
She needed to stop doing that. It wasn’t a good habit for either of them to fall into.
Feeling better, she quickly filled up two glasses with iced tea then stirred a little bit of sugar into each glass. When she got outside, Kurt was sitting at her small table, his elbows resting on his knees. His eyes were closed. She wondered if he’d been praying or merely resting his eyes. He did look tired.
Without a word, she handed him his glass then sat down across from him. With Campbell, she would have eased into the conversation, maybe chatting about how she’d attempted to grow strawberries, but a bunny kept eating all of them and she didn’t have the heart to ruin his snack.
But with Kurt? Being direct was best.
“What’s going on?”
Holding the glass between both of his hands, he said, “Last night, just two hours before some guys were expected to come over to play poker, my dad showed up.”
He sounded really uptight about this. So much so, she was confused. “I thought you got along with him.”
“I thought I did, too.” He frowned. “No, what I thought was that he was okay with me moving to Bridgeport and taking Sam with me. But it turns out I was wrong.”
He sounded so down. “You came to Bridgeport for Sam, Kurt. I knew practically from the first moment I met you that you wouldn’t have come here without him.” She paused. “Or would you? Had you been planning to come to Bridgeport for a while and just used Sam as an excuse?”
“No. Not at all.” He set his glass on top of a magazine on her table. “Emily, as soon as we got those scores and the counselor gave us a call, I went to the school. After the counselor talked me through everything, I knew I had to do something.”
“Wait a second,” she interrupted. “I’m kind of confused about why you were the one to decide to move here. Can you walk me through it all?”
“Walk you through what?”
He still didn’t seem to get it. “Kurt, you’re Sam’s brother, not his father. Why were you the one meeting with the guidance counselor and not your dad?”
He blinked, like he thought it was obvious. “Because my father wasn’t going to do anything.”
“He didn’t care that the school called? Or he didn’t know what to do when he heard about Sam’s scores?”
Kurt’s blue eyes clouded before she shrugged. “I don’t know, to tell you the truth. Last spring, Dad was still having a hard time with my mother’s death and then getting laid off. Shoot, we all were.” Looking like he was trying to keep his emotions in check, he paused, then leaned back. “You know what? I think if Sam had pushed Dad to go to school, he would’ve. But I’m also fairly sure it wouldn’t have gone real well.”
She couldn’t help but notice that his accent had become thicker, something that happened when he was emotional. “All right then. So, instead of your dad, you went up to the high school and met with the counselor.”
“Yep. Mrs. Neely.”
“Did Sam go, too?”
Kurt looked a little exasperated, like he wasn’t sure why she was questioning him so much. But Emily was starting to feel like she needed the whole picture. Even more importantly, she was feeling like maybe Kurt needed that whole picture, too.
“Yeah,” he said. “Sam went.” He took a
long sip of tea then leaned back. “Almost the minute we sat down, Mrs. Neely shoved his score sheet across the table at us. She was smiling big time, like she’d just found out that the Easter Bunny was real.”
Emily laughed. “I bet she was excited. Sam’s scores are excellent. In the top two percentile.”
“Maybe real good describes those scores here in Bridgeport. Back in Spartan though? They … well, they were incredible. Mrs. Neely said she’d never seen a student score so high and she’d been the guidance counselor at the high school for fifteen years.”
“It must have been so exciting. What did Sam think?”
He waved a hand. “Shoot. Well, you know Sam. I think he was both embarrassed that she was making such a fuss and trying to figure out why he and I had to come in to talk to her about it.”
She smiled. “I can see him acting like that.”
Looking a little chagrined, Kurt said, “To be real honest, I was feeling kind of the same way. I mean, in my world, you don’t get asked to come to the high school’s office for good reasons.”
Emily laughed. “I get that a lot, which is kind of a shame. So, I’m guessing that she told you how good those scores were and that Sam had a bright future?”
“Yeah. But she also said that he was going to need more than their school could give him. She said something like if we didn’t do something to ensure his future it would be a travesty.” Kurt drained his tea. “When we left her office, I was holding a folder filled with boarding school applications.”
Emily blinked. “Wow. She wanted Sam to go away to school?”
“Yeah. Mrs. Neely had done a lot of work, to tell you the truth. She’d called up two boarding schools, talked to the financial folks, and pretty much got a verbal promise from both of them that Sam could get a full scholarship to go. Books, room and board, uniforms, you name it.”
“That’s incredible.”
“Yeah. I didn’t know what to do. I mean, I had never heard of anything like that happening before.”
Emily hadn’t ever heard of it either. “She must have really thought Sam deserved that opportunity.”
Kurt grunted. “He didn’t see it that way. He was pissed, if you can believe that.”
“I actually can. He didn’t want to leave his home and his friends to go to some strange school and wear a uniform.”
He chuckled. “You’ve got it. Out of everything she said, after all the fanciness she told us about, that was what he was fixated on.”
“That’s normal. Teens like fitting in.”
“Well, Sam was acting like a teenager, all right,” he said dryly. “I didn’t know what to tell him. But when we did get home, I sat him down and made him help me relay all of it to our father.”
“And let me guess—your father wasn’t too excited about the scholarship to the fancy school either.”
“Not even a little bit. Matter of fact, he was offended. Said that just because he lost his job and his wife it didn’t mean that the school had to start making a charity case out of Sam.”
Emily waved her hand. “Ouch.”
“Yeah, the whole thing absolutely sucked. By the time we were done talking—which was really arguing—Sam had taken off, my father had opened a third beer, and I was wondering why in the heck I cared so much about a bunch of test scores.”
“Let me go get you more tea,” she said, needing a moment to figure out a way to help him. Walking back to the kitchen, she thought about all her experience with both high-performing students and what she knew about standardized tests.
But as she walked back she realized she might know a lot about school but not a lot about raising a brother. Kurt didn’t need her advice, he needed her to listen to him.
“Here you go.” After she put the glass back on the table, she said. “Now that I have a better understanding of what happened, why did you decide to leave Spartan?”
“For my mother.” Impatiently, he corrected himself. “Sorry. I mean for our mother. See, Mom was smart. Not Sam-smart but pretty bright. I knew if she’d been the one who’d been sitting in Mrs. Neely’s office, she would’ve been tickled pink.”
“Would she have sent him away to boarding school?”
“She probably would’ve if that was what Sam wanted. But it would’ve killed her. She liked being around us. Liked being involved at school. Liked knowing our friends.”
Emily leaned back. Some of what he was saying she’d heard before. Some of it was new. But she knew he wasn’t simply restating everything again. There was a purpose to the topic. She knew enough to know that it was best to let him talk and get to his point at his own time. Rushing him wouldn’t help anything.
He sighed. “So, I guess you’re wondering why I’m bringing this up.”
“It doesn’t matter to me. I’m glad you wanted to share.”
Something new and special flashed in his eyes before he leaned back as well, crossing one foot over an opposite knee. “All right. I came here for a reason. I need your help, Em.”
She stopped herself just in time from saying “anything.” “What happened, Kurt?”
“Since Dad arrived, he’s been hinting about a couple of things. He says he’s here just to check on us, but there’s a light in his eyes that’s new. I’m pretty sure there’s another reason.”
“Are you going to ask him or are you going to wait for him to bring it up?”
“Last night, I was all about waiting for him to get to his point. But now? Well, I’m starting to think if I don’t press the issue he’s going to end up hurting Sam.”
“How could your dad hurt him?”
“I don’t know.” Pain entered his eyes. “Am I letting my own fears get the worst of me? My father loves Sam. Of course he’s not going to hurt him.”
Making a sudden decision, she reached out and took hold of his hand. “Here’s what I think. You need to hope for the best but prepare yourself for the worst. And with that in mind, you need to call him out and ask him.”
“So, be blunt with him.”
“I’d probably call it being direct. You know, when I advise my high school students about initiating tough conversations, I give them some advice. It might not sound like it pertains to you, but I think it might be helpful. Would you like to hear it?” she asked hesitantly.
He was staring at her intently. “Absolutely.”
“All right. Here it is: it’s always better to know.”
Still staring at her with those dark blue eyes, a line formed in between his brows. “You’re right. It sounds like bullshit but it’s not.”
“I promise, you’ll be happier when you know what he wants.”
With a groan, he stood up then looked down at her. “So, I guess I’m going to go ahead …”
“And leave,” she finished with a smile. She got up a little more slowly. Stretched her hands toward him. “Good luck.”
He curved his fingers around hers. “Was this a bad idea?”
Boy, she hoped not. “I guess you’ll have to tell me after you talk to your father.”
“No. I mean, was this a bad idea between you and me?” He stepped forward, close enough for her to feel the warmth from his body. Close enough to notice that he’d showered recently but hadn’t shaved.
Close enough for her to have to drop his hands and curve her own around his waist.
“Did I overstep myself? Was this too much, too soon? Was me coming over totally selfish?”
Her mouth was a little dry. She told herself that it was only because it was late in the day, she was tired, and he’d caught her off guard.
But the rest of her was shouting loud and clear that her reaction to him was because it was Kurt. It was because he was everything she’d ever wanted in a man. He was caring. He was decent. He was willing to sacrifice his happiness and his wants and needs for someone he cared about. T
hen, there was the fact that he was handsome as all get-out.
And had a dreamy accent.
“You haven’t overstepped yourself,” she said lightly. “I’m happy that you came over to talk.”
“Happy?”
“All right. How about this? I’m glad. It means you value my opinion and that means a lot to me.”
He blinked. “You are starting to mean a lot to me. Maybe you’ve been meaning a lot to me for a while now.”
He’d come over. He’d allowed himself to become vulnerable in front of her. It was time for her to try to allow herself to show what she was thinking too.
“Maybe I know you mean a lot to me, Kurt Holland.”
The hand that he’d rested on the middle of her lower back curved around her hip. The gesture somehow felt both intimate and far too distant.
His voice thickened. “Maybe next time I come over we can talk about something else besides my problems with my father and brother.”
“Maybe we can,” she said softly.
He bent toward her and kissed her sweetly. A sweet, chaste kiss. It was far from the passionate kisses that they’d shared on his couch after the fair.
But in some ways, it seemed to promise something enduring in their future … if they were willing to take that chance, to gamble on it.
When he released her, he pressed his lips to her brow. “I’m sorry. I’ve got to go.”
“I know. Call me later. Let me know how it goes.”
“Yeah. I will. Thanks, Emily.”
“Anytime,” she said as she walked him back to the door.
Minutes later, after she’d closed the door after him and sighed, she realized that things between them had changed again.
There was the promise of a future between them, now. A promise of something sweeter to come.
CHAPTER 30
FROM LES LARKE’S
TIPS FOR BEGINNING POKER PLAYERS:
Have fun. If you’re not, what’s the point?
“Where did you run off to?” his dad asked when Kurt entered the kitchen. “I walked out here twenty minutes ago and the kitchen was dead. At first I thought you were taking a nap, but I saw your truck was out of the garage.”
Take a Chance Page 19
