Under the Lights

by Shannon Stacey

  As he watched the boys climb into the beds of the lined-up trucks—and waved to Cody, who’d spotted them—Chase knew they’d done more than that. They cared. And Sam, maybe more than any of them, should know that mattered. At first they’d come for Coach’s sake, maybe with a sense of obligation, but he knew they’d all come to care about the kids.

  Gretchen stuck her head out the truck window. “I didn’t go through all this trouble to haul an empty trailer through town. Quit screwing around and get on the float.”

  Once they’d all been seated—which required multiple adjustments to ensure everybody could see, be seen and wouldn’t fall off—Jen grabbed the trophy from Gretchen and handed it up to Sam. “Don’t drop it.”

  The last person to climb onto the float was Coach McDonnell, and he gave them all a smile. “Fine day for a parade, boys.”

  Chase hadn’t expected to see him again before he said good-bye but, now that he thought about it, it made sense that Coach would ride with them. They had chairs and a cooler stocked with sodas and water. The boys no doubt had coolers, too, but they were stuck standing on hard metal truck beds.

  Coach didn’t make eye contact with him, and Chase busied himself looking around at the last-minute preparations going on around them. Maybe with a little distance, Coach would come around to the idea that Chase was doing the right thing, but right now all he could see was his misconception that he’d disrespected the man’s daughter. Since Chase wasn’t going to clarify the situation, all he could do was accept Coach’s silent disapproval.

  Far up ahead in what was beginning to look something like a line, they heard the chief’s siren sound and knew the parade was starting. Because they were toward the end, though, it seemed like forever before Gretchen’s truck started rolling and the trailer lurched.

  “Smile, everybody!” Jen was on the ground, timing departures, and she waved as they went by. “Enjoy yourselves.”

  They all did as they were told, smiling and waving as the parade made its way from the school, into town and around the square. They passed the trophy around, taking turns holding it high and making the crowd cheer. The boys were tossing candy from their helmets behind them, and the cheerleaders walked alongside the float and trucks, leading Eagles chants.

  Throughout the entire route, Chase did his part, but he couldn’t help looking for Kelly. While he wasn’t ready to talk to her, he was surprised he hadn’t seen her from a distance. He knew the parade meant she was probably on duty but, even if she hadn’t been, she wouldn’t miss it.

  It wasn’t until they turned onto the state road toward the end of the route that he saw her. She was manning a barricade erected to stop traffic, which gave her an excellent vantage point of the parade as it passed by.

  As if she sensed him watching her, she turned her head and their eyes met. Her expression changed, the friendly and open smile fading, and her gaze skittered away. Deflated, he turned back to the people lined up on the sidewalk and forced himself to wave.

  When their float reached the corner, she once again went out of her way to avoid eye contact with him, even though he was the alumni player waving the trophy around at the time, and he felt the dismissal like a fist to his gut.

  Kelly didn’t want to see him.

  Whatever had been between them was over and she was already putting it, and him, behind her. As she’d said, once he was gone, everybody would forget all about what had happened between Chase Sanders and Kelly McDonnell during Eagles Fest.

  He gritted his teeth and suffered through the rest of the parade with a smile. But once they pulled back into the school parking lot and began to disband, he faced the other alumni players before they could escape the float and told them he was leaving.

  “Something came up at home and I’m going to head out.”

  One by one he shook their hands, and he realized he was going to miss these guys. They’d all exchanged contact info as they arrived in order to reach each other about activities, and now they promised to keep in touch. He wasn’t sure how long it would last, but for now they all seemed sincere about it.

  When he got to Coach, he extended his hand. “Thank you for taking me in, Coach. And for everything. I hope your team kicks ass this year.”

  “So you’re really leaving?”

  Chase wasn’t even sure how to respond to that. The night before, this man basically told him to get out of town, and don’t let the door hit him in the ass on the way out, and now he looked disappointed Chase was going.

  “I have to go,” was all he said, because the explanation was too long and too personal, and Kelly’s dad would probably be the last person who’d want to hear it.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Coach took his hand and then pulled him in for a hug. “No matter what, my door’s always open to you, son. Always.”

  Chase choked up then, and all he could do was nod and climb down off the float before his vision blurred up. Then he almost ran smack into Gretchen.

  “Did I hear you say you’re leaving?” she asked.

  “Yup. I need to get back.”

  She looked at him for a long time, and then gave him an obviously forced smile. “We all appreciate you coming back to Stewart Mills, Chase. I hope everything works out for you at home, and Kelly was heading toward the station to put the barricades away if you want to say good-bye.”

  He thanked her, and then made a beeline for the last place he’d seen Mrs. McDonnell. That good-bye was even harder, because she got emotional and wouldn’t let go of his neck.

  “Promise me you’ll keep in touch,” she said when he’d finally untangled himself from her arms. “Even if it’s just an email. I want to know how you’re doing.”

  “I will,” he said, wondering if he really would. Eventually, maybe. It would be a while before he’d be able to handle hearing about Kelly without remembering how much this was hurting.

  Once he’d said good-bye to almost everybody, he walked away from the milling crowd. When he reached a junction in the sidewalk, he stopped. His truck was one way, and the police station was in the other.

  He didn’t want to say good-bye to her. He was afraid she’d see the truth of his feelings on his face and reject them. She hadn’t even wanted to look at him earlier, so he wasn’t going to get the response he desperately wanted from her.

  He walked to his truck and jammed the key into the ignition. When he’d been driving for a little while and stopped for coffee and gas, he’d send her a text. Nothing heavy or serious. He’d give her the kind of good-bye that ended meaningless flings.

  After firing up the engine, Chase pointed the truck out of Stewart Mills and, after coming to a complete stop at the sign, hit the gas.

  —

  Chase was gone.

  Kelly stared at her phone, reading the text for what felt like the hundredth time. Had to hit the road. Thanks for a great time, and I’ll never forget the frozen pizza.

  He’d never forget the frozen pizza? She knew on a logical level he was trying to be funny but, on an emotional level, she wished she could reach through the phone, grab him by the throat and shake the hell out of him.

  She was going to tell him she loved him.

  When she’d seen him on the float, she’d been so afraid the intensity of her emotions would show and scare him off, she’d avoided looking directly at him. There would be time after the parade to talk. To really talk seriously about what was between them because, the more she thought about it, the more sure she was he felt the same for her.

  Then she’d run into Hunter and Cody, who told her he’d said good-bye to them and that they were pretty sure they saw his truck leaving town.

  She hadn’t wanted to believe it. She’d continued looking for him, sure that even if he was in the process of leaving, he was taking a long time to say good-bye and just hadn’t gotten to her yet. Then she’d crossed paths with her d
ad.

  “Have you seen Chase?”

  He’d given her that fatherly look that said he wanted to wrap her in a quilt and keep her safe from what was about to come. “He said he had to go. He said his good-byes before we even got off the float.”

  “Oh.” She refused to believe it. “He must be looking for me. For a small town, it can be awfully hard to cross paths with a person at times.”

  “Let him go, honey.” His face was somber, but she could see the love he had for her in his eyes. That didn’t mean she wanted to hear what he had to say. “That boy’s not capable of giving you what you deserve.”

  “I don’t know about deserve, but he’s capable of giving me what I want. Which is him.” She held up her hand to fend off whatever parental platitude he had lined up. “I’m going to take a walk around the square again.”

  Ten minutes later, her phone had chimed.

  Anger was the emotion that rose to the top. That’s what their relationship was worth to him? Not even a good-bye in person? Hell, it wasn’t even a decent text message. He’d basically cracked a bad joke while showing her that he had no respect at all for her or what they’d shared.

  She tried to cling to the anger, to armor herself with it, but the tears kept rising up, and they were getting harder to blink back. She made her way to the covered bridge, which was blessedly empty as people were still milling around the parade route and the school, chatting and picking up stray candy off the ground.

  Without thinking, she went to her spot and sat on the support beam as tears began streaming down her face. She’d give herself a few minutes, to release the pressure of this first wave of tears, and then she’d go back to the station. If she couldn’t pull herself together there, she’d tell the chief she was sick and go home to bed.

  Reaching down behind her, she traced the outline of his initials and the heart she’d carved into the wood so many years before. If only she’d known that someday Chase Sanders would actually look her way and truly see her. And then he’d break her heart.

  A tissue appeared in front of her face, and she looked up to see her mom. She had an entire travel packet of tissues in her hand, which was good because as soon as Kelly saw her face, the crying began in earnest. Her mom sat beside her and put her arm around her shoulders as they shook.

  “He left,” she managed to say between sobs.

  “I know, honey. He didn’t say good-bye?”

  Kelly hit the screen on her phone and held it up to show her mom. After a few seconds of silence, her mom swore, which she almost never did.

  “That little bastard. I never should have invited him to stay with us.”

  The need to defend him rose up in Kelly, taking her by surprise. What happened was as much her fault as it was his, and it wasn’t fair to let people believe he’d callously broken her heart. He hadn’t known he had her heart to break.

  But then she thought of the text, and the words died before she could speak them. Screw him. He didn’t even have the balls to look her in the face and say good-bye.

  The anger returned, which helped dry up the tears. The last thing she wanted was for anybody to see her crying on the covered bridge right after Chase left town. The sideways glances of speculation and pity would be too much to take.

  “It’s his loss, sweetheart.” Her mom stroked her back, saying almost the same words she had when Kelly returned home after the divorce.

  And just as she had then, Kelly tried to believe it was his loss, but she was the one who felt as if she’d lost. She’d allowed herself, despite her better judgment, to believe Chase might be the one she could make a life with, and now she was paying the price.

  20

  In a diner slightly closer to New Jersey than New Hampshire, Chase sat in an uncomfortable booth and watched the sun rise while he drank strong coffee, ate shitty pancakes and missed Kelly.

  He’d spent the night in the motel next door, but he hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep. After nodding off shortly after he hit the bed, he dreamed of her and woke before dawn with a hard knot of emotion in his chest. There hadn’t been any going back to sleep.

  If he’d known missing her would hurt this much after just one night, he might not have been so quick to leave.

  He was a chickenshit. There was no way around that fact. He’d been afraid of being rejected by Kelly—of not being good enough or stable enough or enough of anything else she wanted in a man—so he’d run away.

  “You look like you got run over by a truck and just about the time you started getting up, it popped into reverse and backed over you again.”

  Chase looked up at the waitress as she refilled his coffee cup. The tag pinned to her T-shirt said her name was Barb, and there was a note of sympathy in her voice that tugged at him. She was a stranger and he’d never see her again.

  “I’m a chickenshit.”

  “Well, at least that’s something easy to fix. Suck it up and do what it is you’re afraid to do.”

  That made him laugh. “You’ve never coached high school football, have you?”

  “No, but I had three sons play. You pick up stuff.”

  He dumped sugar and cream into his cup and gave it a more thorough stirring than was probably needed. “My life fell apart on me a little, and then I met the woman I’ve been waiting for.”

  “Having somebody makes putting your life back together suck a little less. I can speak from experience on that.” She didn’t sit across from him, but she leaned her hip against the back of the other bench in a way that signaled she’d be sticking around for a minute or two.

  “She’s looking for somebody whose life is already together.” The words were painful to say. I love her, but she doesn’t want me.

  “Oh, that’s too bad. But if you asked her to be a part of your life, no matter what’s going on, and she said no, then she’s not the right person.”

  “I didn’t actually ask her.”

  Barb put the hand not holding the coffeepot on her hip and gave him a look. “So that’s where the chickenshit part comes in?”

  He ended up telling her a condensed version of the story, feeling safe in baring his feelings because, again, she was a stranger he’d never see again. When he got to the kiss on the sidelines, she actually smiled, but she stopped once he got to the aftermath. Especially the part about the parade and her unwillingness to look him in the eye. And his text message.

  “There are other ways to look at that, you know,” she said. “She’s there at the barricade, in her uniform, so a lot of people are looking at her. Maybe after your little public display of affection on the sidelines, she was trying to look like she wasn’t looking for you and ended up trying too hard.”

  He wanted to believe her, but he couldn’t figure out how to explain how her expression had been different. It wasn’t just that she wouldn’t look directly at him. She’d looked as if she was hiding something—like there was something there she was afraid he would see.

  “If nothing else,” she continued, “you should have said good-bye. The text was a mistake and the tone of it was even worse.”

  “It would have been too hard to hear her tell me that, basically, I was good enough for a fling, but not for anything more.”

  She shrugged. “Harder than wondering for the rest of your life if being a chickenshit cost you the woman you love?”

  He took a sip of the coffee, considering. “I thought so. But now you’re making me doubt what I thought I saw.”

  “There’s really only one way to find out.” She stood up and started walking away, but paused to look over her shoulder at him. “And not by text.”

  Once he’d reached his limit of coffee—which was roughly when it started burning the lining of his stomach—Chase paid his bill and went out to his truck. Once again, he was faced with a decision. He could continue heading south and try to work hard enough rebuilding
his life that he’d forget the piece that was missing. Or he could turn the truck around and head back north. No matter what happened, he’d know he had looked her in the eye and told her what was in his heart. No questions and hopefully no regrets.

  After backing out of the parking space, he made his way to the parking lot exit and sat there for a few minutes without turning his blinker on. Then, calling himself every kind of an idiot, he headed north and set the cruise control for five over the speed limit.

  When he finally, after several stops along the way—including a half hour or so spent at a truck stop cleaning out his truck—reached the Stewart Mills town line, he adjusted his speed down to exactly the speed limit. He wasn’t going to start his second trip into town on the wrong foot this time.

  Even over the music blaring from his radio, Chase heard the siren behind him and he slammed his palm on the steering wheel. That damn stop sign.

  —

  Kelly slammed the cruiser into park and popped the latch release for her seat belt. If Chase Sanders thought he could send her a lame-ass text, sneak out of town, make her spend a whole night crying into her pillow and then run the stop sign coming back, he had another thing coming.

  She got out, not untethering her weapon even though it was protocol because, as tempting as it might be, she couldn’t shoot him. Especially since there were people out and about, and the sirens had attracted attention. Now they were watching, and she was over the Chase and Kelly show being their entertainment.

  The truck door started opening and she kicked it closed. “Stay in the vehicle.”

  “Kelly, I want to talk to you.”

  “License and registration.”

  “What?” She braced herself and looked directly into his face, seeing nothing but confusion.

  “I asked for your license and registration.”

  “You’re going to give me a ticket?”

  “You ran the stop sign again. You were let off with a warning the first time. This time you’re getting a ticket, yes.”