Instead of getting offended, she sucked in a bit of air and shook her head. “Dude – googling how to keep my baby from having a big ass head was like, the first thing I wanted to do when I looked at that test!”
“We’re gonna pray. Call mama’s people, I think some of them still have a direct line to the man upstairs.”
She nodded. “Yeah. You think daddy can get a prayer through too? I should ask Jade to talk to Ezra. We gotta start going to church. Like yesterday.”
I laughed. “How does Jordan feel about it?”
Our little back and forth stopped as Cole shook her head. “I haven’t had a chance to tell him yet. I just found out. Read my test results maybe ten minutes before you walked through that door.”
“So… I’m the first person to know?”
She smiled, then gave me a nod. “Yeah. Only makes sense though… Ramsey’s movie theatre thing didn’t bring you through my office door. It was twintuition.”
I pulled her in again, kissing her forehead. “Yeah, maybe so. How are you feeling? You sick or anything? What made you take the test?”
“Cycle was missing in action. No other symptoms yet though. Or hell, maybe I was just in denial. Now that I know, we’ll see. I hope it stays like this though, because the last thing I need is another reason for people to think I can’t do my job.”
Sounds familiar.
“Everybody knows you kill this shit, Cole,” I assured her. “And I’ll be there to pick up any slack. Don’t worry about that.”
“I know you would, Nate. But… still. Pre-season just started. Don’t tell anybody. Not even Daddy. I want to tell him in my own time. When I’m ready. Not before. Okay?”
Yep. Familiar.
I nodded.
“You’ve got my word. My lips are closed.”
“… expected a little more out of those Kings’ wide receivers tonight. Sure, it’s only preseason, but the new wide receiver coach was the talk of training camp. Maybe she’s not living up to the hype.”
“Well that’s not a fair assessment to make after two preseason games, is it? We haven’t seen Johnson on the field yet, or even Grant. Hell, we haven’t even seen their controversial rookie. She’s giving the other receivers a chance to get some miles on them, without putting her proven receivers at risk. That’s good coaching in itself.”
“Nah, that’s scared coaching if you ask me. Which… I expected.”
“Why, because she’s a woman?”
“Because she’s coming to the pros from college football – it’s a different world here.”
“And in that world, she was damn good at her job. I see no reason – yet – to expect any different.”
“I beg to differ. Coach Brooks can impress me with a swimsuit spread any day, but her coaching leaves a lot to be desired based on these last two games, preseason or not. I read one of her interviews, where she talked about excellence, excellence, excellence, it was every tenth word out of her mouth. Where is it out on that field though?”
“I thought we agreed to turn this off?” I asked, pulling the remote from Sloane’s hand to shut off the nightly sportscast on the TV. Not that I thought she was incapable of having her performance critiqued, but she was getting a little overzealous with the constant consumption of it – especially when there was a big deal being made about nothing.
Nobody actually gave a shit about a pre-season loss, they were just there to give people something to talk about. At least, that’s about as far as I cared.
To Sloane though, the imperfect performance of our backup receivers was a scathing indictment on her abilities as a coach, and there didn’t seem to be anything I could say to keep her from internalizing it like that.
I could, however, keep her from binging on it while I was around.
“I am going to murder them on the field next practice. They’re going to run those routes until their legs fall off – but their legs will know the routes so well that their bodies aren’t even necessary. They’ll just be legs, running the proper fucking routes,” was her response to my questioning how the TV had gotten back on. I’d been downstairs not even a whole three minutes, fixing her a glass of water so she could take her meds.
She was supposed to be relaxing.
“I’ve been too nice,” she declared, taking the glass from my hand to walk to her vanity, where the pills were already out. “That’s the problem. If they thought I might rip their useless arms out of socket for missing a wide-open pass, they’d run the fucking routes! I’m too nice!”
“Why do you think that? Nobody thinks that,” I informed her, shaking my head. Everything I’d heard was that Sloane was fair, and honestly easy to get along with, but she was tough. Relentless. Swift with precision critique, but equally quick to offer praise.
Nice was not a word ever used.
At all.
“Well I guess I need to drive it home a little more,” she snapped, swallowing her pills in one gulp that she chased with a long drink of water.
“What you need is to… relax. You haven’t gotten the puppy, you haven’t started the yoga.”
“I’ve been busy, and I’ve been--”
“Stressed the fuck out? Yeah, I’ve noticed.”
It wasn’t exactly surprising that now that wins and losses were at stake – even just pre-season – Sloane’s stress level had been through the roof. It didn’t help that there was an undue focus on her performance – position coaches being talked about on the newscast wasn’t really a thing, at least not as long as I’d been watching, which was… a long ass time.
But apparently it was a thing now.
Everybody had something to say.
I’d never been more grateful that she lived in a gated community than I was now, because I had little doubt she’d be getting harassed. As it was, home was still a much-needed safe haven.
At least for now.
“I don’t know how you expect me to react to this. This is what I do – I hear the critique, I analyze it, and I adjust myself accordingly.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Oh that’s what you do? You hear a critique, and you analyze it, and adjust accordingly?”
“Why do I feel like you’re about to make me curse you out?”
“Cause I probably am,” I smirked. “You want to take in the negative critique? Cool. But take this one too – you need to fucking relax. Adjust accordingly.”
She huffed. “If only it were so easy.”
“It can be. Listen… I know you’re into the little fancy bubble baths and stuff. I’ll fix it for you. You go pour yourself a glass of wine.”
“My one itty-bitty carefully measured glass per day?” she scoffed. “What am I supposed to do with that?”
“Last I heard, you were supposed to drink it, but who knows these days?”
“You really do enjoy being an asshole, don’t you?”
I smacked her on the ass, then stepped into the bathroom. “Go pour the damn wine!”
She said something back that I couldn’t make out, but the fading volume told me she said it while she was moving to do what I’d said. In the bathroom, I shuffled through a few tins and bottles before I settled on something that claimed it was calming, moisturizing, and pussy-safe – my own words. I followed the instructions to add it to the oversized bathtub that I’d already started filling, and by the time Sloane came to the bathroom, wine glass in hand, the candles were lit too, just waiting for her to step in.
Sloane leaned against the counter, pushing out a little sigh before she raised the glass to her lips for a tiny sip.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, and she rightfully raised an eyebrow at me.
“A long list. But… you’re right. I’m focusing on it too much. Thank you for urging me to step back.”
I shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”
“It… kinda is, though. I mean… you don’t have to be here on a Friday night, managing my feelings while your friends are probably out getting lap dances.” She tipped the wine glas
s in my direction. “You’re thirty years old. No kids. Fridays should be for fun, not… dumping your cougar into a lavender bath so she doesn’t have a widow-maker.”
“Here I was, thinking we were past this age shit, but—”
“It’s not even the age difference,” she interrupted. “We could be the same age, and I’d still feel like… thirty is too young to have to take care of somebody. I don’t feel like this is fair to you.”
“Why are you acting as if you’re some heavy burden?” I asked her, confused. “Listen, it is a rare occasion in my personal life to do a goddamn thing I don’t want to do. I care about you, more than I’ve cared about… any woman.”
She shook her head. “Even though I’ve done nothing but hold you at arm’s length, and called you immature, and acted as if you were a nuisance to me?”
I leaned into the counter beside her, crossing my arms as I thought about it. Then, I nodded. “Yeah, actually.”
“Why?” she asked. “I mean… when I look at us, and how our relationship has changed since that conversation we had the night before my heart attack… it’s clear to me what I get from this. That “certainty” that I claimed you weren’t capable of… you have made a complete liar out of me. But I don’t understand what you get, other than the fulfillment of your teenaged fantasies.”
“That’s because you’re still – mistakenly – only looking at it through your lens,” I told her, moving to turn off the water for the tub. “You’re a woman – a divorced mother. At this point in your life, you want certain things, and you made that clear to me. The same goes for me – I’m at a point where I want certain things, that on the surface look like opposite goals. But the more I’ve thought about, I’m not sure it is.”
Sloane narrowed her eyes. “Um… you’re gonna have to explain this to me.”
“Not a problem,” I grinned. “So, my wants in a woman are, superficially – beautiful, takes care of herself, great in bed. You easily knock all of that out of the park. A little deeper – smart, successful, funny. You have all of those too. Then, the specifics – someone who challenges me. Someone who won’t be pressed about how I spend my time. Doesn’t want to have babies, and blah, blah, blah… you check all the boxes. You see now that I check all yours.”
Shaking her head, she pushed out a sigh. “You don’t see how impersonal that sounds?”
“You asked an impersonal ass question,” I countered. “A question I hate, by the way, no matter who has to answer it, because yeah, I can list off all the ways you check my boxes, because you want something… quantifiable, I guess. But anybody could check off the boxes – Leya checked off all the fucking boxes, but guess what, Leya isn’t you. I can list off the qualities I like about you, the things you do for me, the things you do for other people, and I guess all that would be cool, but the real, for real answer is that I like you because I just do. I care about you because I do. Why do I have to justify it with some made up shit that I’m only saying because the why is… something I can’t even really put into words?”
When I stopped speaking, she didn’t say anything. She just looked at me, and after a moment, I shrugged. “My bad. That was…”
“Really sweet,” she interrupted, lifting a hand to my face as she graced me with a smile. “And… hell, you might be right. Garrett and I… we tried marriage counseling. And that “why?” question got asked. Something that I noticed was, if you mentioned things they did for you, it meant you were selfish. If you listed qualities you liked, it was superficial. If you mentioned how they treated others, it was like… well maybe you like the idea of them, or something like that. It was exactly like you said – you wind up feeling like you have to justify why you love someone when really… it kinda is selfish, and superficial, and liking the idea of them, and a whole slew of other shit all mixed up, some things you can verbalize and some you just… can’t. I get it.”
My eyebrows went up. “Well hell, I’m glad you do, cause I confused my damn self, and I’m not even sure how we got here.”
Sloane laughed. “Well, I see it like this – After being a wife, and still being a mother, I’m at a place that’s a little selfish, so I’ve been placing a high value on the things you’ve been doing for me. You’re in a different place, so your appreciation for me is based more on who I am, and how I fit it into your life.”
“Right,” I agreed, finally feeling like we’d gotten back to common ground. “I just need you to be you, nothing else.”
She nodded. “And if those needs change… I’ll be sure to adjust accordingly.”
“That was never in question to me,” I told her, putting my arms around her waist. “Now… enough of this sappy ass conversation. Take your bath. Drink your wine. I’m going to head out.”
“Okay. I got a text from Mads while I was downstairs, she’s on her way home.”
“Girls night?”
Sloane sighed. “Probably not. She’s still kinda sad about her breakup, especially since her bestie got a boyfriend, so she’s been having to split time. So Madison has been holed up in her room a lot. School starts in a few weeks, so I’m hoping that can take her mind off it enough that she can get over him.”
“Yeah, those high school breakups are tough,” I laughed.
“They are so emotional! And… not gonna lie, I don’t think I could handle it tonight, so I’m not even going to bug her about it. Just going to let her listen to whatever artsy whisper-singing black girl is putting out the current heartbreak music in peace.”
“Probably a good plan.”
After she laughed, Sloane let out a deep sigh before lifting a hand to my face. “Thank you,” she murmured, then pushed up on her toes a little to press a quick kiss to my lips. “For everything.”
“You are very welcome.”
I left Sloane in the bathroom, closing the door behind me before I crossed her bedroom to leave. I was getting ready to step out when Madison rushed up, her face showing low-level panic.
“Oh!” she yelped, obviously not expecting my presence. She stopped short, clutching a laptop in her hands as she looked up at me. “I was um… looking for my mother.”
“She’s here,” I answered, quickly. “Just in the bathroom – in the bathtub, actually.”
I wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but Madison’s deep golden skin flushed red. “Um… oh. I am sorry for interrupting.”
“Wait, nooo,” I denied, holding up my hands as I realized what she thought I was saying. “Nah, not like that. She had a rough day, so she’s relaxing. I was leaving.”
She nodded, seeming relieved by my explanation. It was fleeting though, because her expression shifted to disappointment as she blew out a sigh.
“Is… something wrong?”
Even though Sloane and I had been involved for years, that involvement had never extended to her daughter – it had no reason to. That day in the kitchen, after Cole’s wedding, was the first time I’d ever even seen her outside of pictures. As such, Madison and I hadn’t exchanged enough words to form any kind of connection. Our communications were limited to the steadily increasing – thanks to the shift in my relationship with Sloane – times that we crossed paths coming or going.
But I wasn’t about to ignore her when she was clearly having a problem.
For a moment, she hesitated, then sighed again. “It’s just… there’s this program through my school, where you can apply to take classes at a local university, so you’re basically earning college credits while you’re still in high school.”
I nodded. “Right. It’s smart, especially if you can get your gen-eds knocked out early.”
“Yeah. But… tonight is the deadline. I wanted my mother to help me, but… it’s fine.”
“I can help you.”
The offer was out there before I really thought it through, but I couldn’t take it back. Especially once this hopeful look spread over her face.
“Really?” she asked, like she barely believed it, but I nodded.
<
br /> “Yeah, it’s no big deal. What is it, an online application? A couple of short paragraph answers?”
Her eyes got a little wider. “Uh… yeah, actually. How do you know that?”
“I’ve helped a few players with college-related things, and I mean… I did go to college myself. Even worked through a program like what you’re talking when I was in high school. I doubt much has changed. We can sit in the kitchen at the counter with it. Come on.”
Downstairs, she sat down at the counter and I took the space across from her, with the computer turned so we could both see it. Once she had the application page pulled up, it prompted me to ask something that probably wasn’t my business, but that didn’t stop me from wanting an answer.
“Hey… why did you wait until today to fill this out? Your mother talks about you often, and I’d gotten the impression you were a pretty type-A kinda girl. This last-minute application doesn’t really mesh with that.”
Whatever her reason was, she must have been embarrassed about it, because her gaze dropped to her hands. “It’s stupid,” she mumbled, prompting me to shake my head.
“You know – it doesn’t even matter though, right?” I glanced at my watch. “Midnight isn’t until hours from now, and as long as it’s in, it’s in. Let’s do this.”
That seemed to bring the smile back to her face, and she nodded, moving her fingers to the keys. She’d typed her basic information – name, address, all of that – enough times that the browser window auto-filled it, so it only took a few minutes to get to the meat of the application.
I didn’t say anything about it, but was quietly impressed by what I read as she typed in her grades, clubs, sports, community involvement, and other extracurricular activity. With parents like hers, it wasn’t surprising that she’d been pushed to excellence, but that didn’t change the fact that she’d had to work hard.
“You already know what you’re going to major in?” I asked, when she came to a part asking about her post-graduation college plans.
She nodded. “Biology. But the specifics will depend on which particular school.”
Pass Interference (Connecticut Kings Book 6) Page 16
