“Actually, just water.” He lowered his backpack and sat down in one of the kitchen chairs. “I’m not really a coffee drinker.”
Her eyebrows rose as she shot him a curious look.
“To be honest, I just wanted to hang with you a little longer,” he said, studying her face for a reaction.
“Oh. That’s cool.” A warm feeling radiated from her heart to the extremities of her body. He liked her. And she had a crazy desire to wrap herself around him and never let go. But for now, they both had to play it down, play it cool.
She was leaning toward the sink, filling a glass with water, when her stomach growled. Dinnertime.
“I’m kind of hungry.” She placed the glass on the table in front of him. It was touching, the way he worried his fingers over a button on his flannel shirt. He was nervous.
Well, she was, too, but in a good way. “You up for some cracked-egg ramen?” she offered.
He nodded. “That sounds great.”
Cassie turned away to hide her pleased smile as she rummaged in the cupboard for a pot. This was going to be good.
Chapter 6
Rachel knew that she was like a bulldog with a chew toy when a problem was tossed her way. She would grind and maul and gnaw with single-minded focus until she saw the satisfaction of a solution. Sometimes that made her a bit overbearing. But when it came to parenting, she thought it helped her stay focused on showing her kids how to deal with obstacles.
As she drove east toward Bend and Green State, she tried to weigh the various possibilities for KJ’s future minus the thick glaze of emotion that distorted things for him right now. She had gone over finances and figured out that, if her oldest son lost his scholarship, there was a way to patch together student loans and savings to cover the next two years. Yes, it was more debt than she wanted to take on, but she believed college was vital to a young man’s future. She had made it through Oregon State back in the day when things weren’t so expensive, and she was grateful for the experience.
Sunday afternoon traffic was light as she drove along the ridge road that offered the cool shade of mountains on the left with occasional glimpses of Detroit Lake through the tall fir trees on the right. From up here the water was blue, sparkling, and inviting. Tapping on the steering wheel in time to the music, she thought of other possibilities for KJ. He could do a gap year in Washington, D.C. As a political science major, a year as an aide in the Capitol would be great on his résumé. Or maybe they would redshirt KJ, give him a year off from football—time to heal. KJ had plenty of options.
But the young man she found pacing the kitchen of his apartment was not going to see new possibilities. KJ was in crisis.
“I can’t believe this is happening to me,” he muttered. Barefoot and wearing athletic shorts and a stained T-shirt, he was on a rant. His dark hair was disheveled and oily, his skin blotchy and red. A new growth of dark hair curled on his chin, the beginnings of a soul patch if he trimmed it. What really smote her sense of hope was the stillness in his eyes. Hollow and tired, his eyes had lost their light. He hardly resembled the handsome, clean-cut quarterback that had led his high school team to a state championship. “Everything I’ve worked for—everything—is turning to shit. My life is over.”
“Aw, honey . . .” Rachel reached up to press a hand against his cheek, then hugged him. “Looks like you’re not up for going out to dinner.”
“What do you expect?” He pulled away from her. “I can’t eat or sleep. So, no, sorry if I don’t feel like going out.”
“No problem. I’ll order us some sandwiches from Jimmy Johns.” Long ago she had learned that food and sleep took the edge off every crisis. Even when Jackson was dying, in those last days when he’d been confined to a bed in their living room, he had awakened with renewed spirit after dozing off. Yup. What KJ needed was less drama, more sleep and nourishment.
“First, how are you feeling? How’s that head?”
“The headache’s still there, but the ringing in my ears has stopped. And I didn’t throw up this time.” He rubbed his hand over one bristly side of his short dark hair. “The doctor told me to rest until Tuesday. I can’t believe I got a concussion in a pickup game. I must have a thin skull, like a useless eggshell.”
“It’s kept your noggin together for more than two decades.” She slipped off her jacket and propped herself on a kitchen stool, noticing no sign of the roommate around. “Where’s Bowler?”
“He went to a movie with his girlfriend.”
That was good. No one to interrupt. “So tell me about the meeting,” she said. “What’s the takeaway?”
Never one to condense, KJ went through a play-by-play description of how the coaches expressed their appreciation for his team loyalty and leadership, and then went on to cut his heart out. They wanted KJ to get checked out by a neurologist, a Dr. Ginsberg.
“That’s a great idea,” Rachel interrupted. “Maybe this doctor can be more definitive than the last neurologist you saw.”
“Or maybe they want to use whatever she says to write me off,” he said, explaining that the coaches were planning to recruit a freshman quarterback for next week. “They’re already trying to replace me.”
“That’s not true. They’re just trying to cover all possibilities. They need to give the team some depth—an alternate, in case you can’t play.” Rachel, with her glass-half-full attitude, understood what the coaches were trying to do.
“But you weren’t there, Mom,” he snapped. “They told me there were no guarantees.”
“There never are. They could redshirt you or drop you completely. But the coaching staff doesn’t have a crystal ball. They don’t know what’s going to happen in the fall, any more than we do.”
He hung his head and sighed. “This is so unfair.”
“It is what it is. You need to let it go for a while. Things are still fuzzy for you. Right now you need to take it easy and stop thinking about football.”
“I can’t. It’s my future. It’s everything to me.”
“I know that, and your obsession with football is another concern. But let’s dial it back for a second and order some food. Hunger adds stress to the situation.” She opened the app on her phone and looked up at him. “What sounds good? Roast beef, turkey? Or do you want the Gargantuan?”
They decided on two turkey sandwiches, and she placed the order. She coaxed him into the living room in an attempt to get him to relax and stop pacing. “And how about a cup of tea? That always settles my nerves.” When he started to get up she waved him down. “Let me wait on you. I can only stay for a few hours, so you might as well take advantage of it.” As she heated up a mug of water in the microwave, she asked about his girlfriend, a sophomore journalism major, whom he’d met when she had interviewed him for the school newspaper.
“Lindsay is a disappointment, just like everything else,” he said. “She’s been around, but she’s no help at all.” He complained that she didn’t understand what he was going through.
“Cut the girl some slack. She’s not your therapist or your mother.”
“I think she should be here for me.”
“You said she’s been around, and that says a lot. You’re not a very fun person right now. Look, it’s fine with me if you want to cut Lindsay loose, but don’t blame her for your unhappiness.”
He was sitting back on the couch, staring off with a sour expression when she handed him the tea sweetened with sugar.
“You’re welcome, Cookie Monster,” she said, referring to one of his favorite characters from childhood.
“Yeah, thanks. I appreciate what you’re doing, Mom. I just know everything’s a lot worse than you think it is.”
“You’ve always had a flair for the dramatic, and you’ve got a concussion. Confusion is one of the symptoms. And speaking of cookies . . .” She turned toward her tote bag, where she had stashed a tin of cookies. “I made these last night. Oatmeal chocolate chip. I figured you could use some cheering up.”
“Mom.” He lowered his voice as his head lolled back against the sofa. “I’m too old for this. There are some problems that cookies can’t fix.”
“Shut up and drink your tea. Not to burst your bubble, but we are not talking about curing cancer or ending a war here. I take your problems quite seriously, but I also know that some things in life work themselves out.” She went back into the kitchen and returned with her mug of steeping tea. “So. Now it’s time to recuperate. And when you’re feeling better, you’ll work to change the things you can, and you’ll have to let go of the things beyond your control.”
KJ took a sip of tea and lowered the mug. “So you’re saying I’m an asshole.”
“No, honey.” She took a cookie for herself. “Right now you’re acting like one, but I’m confident that you’ll get over it.”
It was dangerous to let him into her house. Ariel knew that. But with Cassie gone back to school and the younger kids up in their rooms, Ariel knew no one would be the wiser. Her kids had been taught to leave Mom alone when she was in her studio, and with the door locked, there would be no accidents.
She was free to take him, explore the hard lines and planes of his body, and share the ripe, soft curves that defined her. She needed this. In a suburb of sameness and routine, a family community where everyone was so focused on the kids, the students, the damned SAT scores, and the car wash for the soccer team, Ariel needed an outlet . . . her own secret pleasure. And damn those PTA warriors if they couldn’t accept that a hot middle-aged woman still enjoyed sex.
“Tell me you want me.” His voice was an enticing whisper that demanded she stay close. “Tell me how much you missed me . . . how much you missed this.”
She told him with her lips, her hot mouth, her hands, and finally, that primal connection that filled the empty places inside her with satisfaction.
He was one of the few men who liked to cuddle afterward, and that was fine by Ariel. Most of the others dozed off or found some excuse to head off. But he liked to stay, holding her close in his strong arms, flesh on flesh. The feel of his chest rising and falling settled her in a surprising way, and she had to admit that she liked being held. There was a reassuring message in his embrace that said:
I’ve got you. I can take care of you. I’ll hold you together.
Their entangled bodies sank into the lemon velvet sofa, and she closed her eyes and imagined them drifting together through space.
“I want to stay with you,” he said. “Wake up beside you. I want to hold you through the night.”
Much as she would like to be held, Ariel knew she couldn’t take him up to her bed. “I can’t let my kids see you. There’d be hell to pay.”
“Your kids love me.”
“It’s not going to happen.”
He didn’t understand about the kids. He never had. Guys never did. It pissed her off, the whole gender thing. Women were born with the ability to give birth and after that they got stuck with all the nurturing assignments that followed. Men were born with the need to mark their territory and move on to the next conquest. No nurturing there. Except for Oliver. He had cared about her girls, loved them like his own daughters. He had been one of a kind.
“And anyway, you have to go.” She rolled back, hating the cold air that rushed between them, the separation that signaled a return to the mundane routine of life. He had stuff to take care of, and so did she. Society had built in complex ways to keep people apart, snuffing the flame out of sexual creatures like her. She got up from the couch and reached down for her jeans.
He looked at the time on his cell phone, then sat up abruptly. “Yeah, I’d better get going.” His hand cupped one cheek of her backside before she could slide her jeans up. “But I don’t want to.”
She glanced back at him, at his thick erection, and that male body, all muscle and bone and raw sexuality. Desire licked through her as she thought of giving it another go. It’d be sweet, but stupid.
“You’d better get out of here,” she said. Damn, but she hated being the voice of reason.
Chapter 7
Where the hell was Ariel? The meeting was about to start. Rachel took inventory of the moms and one dad assembling in the green room for the Gleetime parents’ meeting. Plenty of strident conversation, perfume clouds, and stylish glasses with black, blue, or bright red frames. But no Ariel.
She probably forgot, and now it was too late for Rachel to back out of the room and make a beeline over to her friend’s house. Rachel wanted to kick herself for not shooting her friend a reminder or swinging by to pick her up. Last time they had talked about this meeting, Ariel had joked about coming down with a cold or a hangnail or bubonic plague; showed you how much Ariel hated these community things. Rachel could think of plenty of things she would rather do on a Tuesday night, and after a day on her feet, she needed to get horizontal. She pulled a chair out from one of the round tables and took a load off.
Without Ariel by her side, Rachel felt out of sorts among the soccer moms and parents, many of whom acknowledged Rachel as their stylist but had never bonded with her outside the hair salon.
Some of them Rachel had known since her kids were in grade school. Women like tiger mom Nan Lee and perennial volunteer Margaret King, who was a self-righteous know-it-all, had pushed Rachel and Ariel to form a bond to survive.
“Are we going to start?” Margaret held up her cell phone like a beacon, showing the time displayed on the screen. “It’s five after seven. Let’s go. Where’s Craig?”
“He’ll be right back,” said Nora Delfatti. With a squat face and body, Nora was solid and level—probably the most solid, centered woman in the bunch. Cutting Nora’s hair was always a calming experience. If it weren’t for Nora’s job writing university grants, which consumed much of her time, Rachel felt sure they would have been better friends. “He went to the office to get some flyers.”
“He should have done that before,” Estee said. “I don’t have all day.” Standing like a statue in the corner of the room, gaunt and darkly glamorous Estee Sherer was majestic, cold, and unapproachable, much like the Sherers’ lakefront palace, which very few of the high schoolers had ever been allowed to enter. When Sage Sherer had made it into Gleetime, the other moms had assumed that Estee would offer up one of the cavernous rooms as rehearsal space. Estee had quickly put the kibosh on that. “I don’t like kids,” she had told Rachel without an ounce of shame. “Why would I invite a bunch of loud teenagers into my home?”
“Ladies, I say if he isn’t back in five we all go for margueri-tas at Wimplebees,” said Dawn Opaka, a big-talking mom who always had a million ideas but never actually did anything. That elicited a big round of giggles from the other do-nothing moms huddled with Dawn, who proudly flipped her spun-gold hair out of her eyes. Considering the amount of product it took to maintain that golden sheen of Dawn’s hair, the woman should have purchased stock in the company.
Rachel didn’t really know the other women in Dawn’s group, mostly because one of them was friends with a stylist at a salon in Portland, and the three of them made the trek into town for what they considered to be more cosmopolitan haircuts. She did avert her eyes from Patti Cronin, the mother of Matty, who used to tease Jared back in junior high, always threatening to beat him up and calling him “homo boy.” Rachel had handled that little turd and his sidekick, Tai Bel-navis, through the principal. Another woman was the mother of Armand Ahari, a brilliant kid who was bound for Cornell; the other had a son named Riley who was a talented drummer.
“In another ten minutes, they’ll be doing the late happy hour at Stanford’s!” Dawn announced, garnering a hoot of laughter from her friends.
To hide her lack of amusement Rachel turned away from them and locked eyes with the one man in the room. Anthony Lopez gave a polite smile, but he did not budge from his spot in the shadows at the edge of the room where he leaned against a wall, arms crossed. The only man in the group, Anthony was a carpenter who had taken on the design and
construction of most of the sets since his son Rick had been cast in a play last year.
Rachel was headed over to thank Anthony for all his hard work on the sets for the Christmas show when the theater director, Craig Schulteis, flew into the room.
“Is this our group? Nice turnout!” Craig Schulteis had the flashing blue eyes of a Hollywood star, embedded in the face of “Mr. Normal,” as Ariel called him. Of medium height and stature, with a bland face and shoulders that seemed a bit wide for his frame, Craig was saved from mediocrity by his enthusiasm and his amazing eyes.
As one of the few passably attractive single men in Timbergrove, Craig seemed to bring out the flirt in the high school moms. Admittedly, Rachel had fallen under his spell a time or two with simple fantasies. She could see herself pressed up against him, melting in the light of those blue eyes and taking comfort from that strong wall of a chest. Yes, she could. Other times, she wondered if the whole flirt campaign was just an act. Maybe he had no interest in well-preserved and -oiled suburban moms.
“Thanks for coming out, everyone. I’ve got flyers with all the pertinent information for our Spring Showcase, which is right around the corner.” As he spoke, Craig passed the stack of flyers to Nora Delfatti. “So we’ll need someone in charge of publicity, costumes, makeup, and hair. Anthony, I’m trusting that you’ll manage our set construction, as usual. I promise you, we will keep it simple,” he said, clasping his hands in prayer position as he faced Lopez.
Anthony nodded. “Will do.”
“This year I’m going to have the students manage the house and take care of ticket sales. Some of our tech students built a Web site for purchasing tickets, and we’ll have students man the box office. What am I forgetting? Anything?”
“I’m sure there’s more, but we’ll figure it out as we go along,” Dawn said with a flirty little smile. Was her skin actually shimmering? Yup. The woman was wearing one of those glitter sheens, here at a parents’ meeting.
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