The red light above the camera flickered off and they were clear.
Ten minutes for commercials and for the network anchors to update viewers on the other opening day games. Brooks drank a bottle of water and leaned back in her chair watching the field.
“Your boy’s doing well out there. Looks like the old Jonas,” Stan said.
“He isn’t my anything,” she replied automatically, wishing the words were true. It had been less than three days since she broke things off with Jonas, and each day it was harder to stay away.
She had the job. Why was it so hard to let the guy go?
“I thought—”
Brooks shook her head sharply, and Stan shrugged. The marching band filed off, and she saw a few Kentuckians come back on the field. Jonas was nowhere to be seen, and she couldn’t keep her gaze away from the walkway between the locker rooms and the playing field.
“Good work so far.” Stan stood up, put his hands on his hips and did a couple of deep side bends. “You coming back to the booth next week?”
“Haven’t heard yet.” She sat up straighter as the Kentuckians came back onto the field. Jonas and Ramos ran together, helmets in their hands. She knew he couldn’t see her from her position in the booth, but she still willed him to look her direction. He didn’t. “Do you know how long the contagion of mumps lasts?”
Stan shrugged. “Football analyst, not doctor. I didn’t even know a person could get the mumps still.”
They chatted for a while as she watched the players warm back up for the second half. The cameraman gave them their cue and Brooks pasted a wide smile on her face while Stan recapped the first half and asked what she expected from the second half.
This is what she wanted, Brooks reminded herself. It was a great job.
She would get used to being without the great guy.
* * *
JONAS HELD UP his hand in the interview room. “One at a time, please.”
A balding man wearing a brown-checked jacket asked for his insight into the game.
“We were good today. Offense and defense worked together as a team. It’s what we wanted for the first game of the season, and marking a W in the win column is never a bad thing.”
“What about the loss of Parker Jamieson? The front office has been quiet about it. What does his not playing mean for the rest of the season?”
Jonas shrugged his shoulder, hoping it came off as nonchalant. In twenty-five more days they would know if Parker’s stint in rehab helped with his demons. “We got the win today, we’ll continue working with all the tools in our offense and hopefully that will give us another win next week.” Jonas pushed away from the table. “I’m going to turn this over to Matt Ramos. He and the defense deserve a lot of the credit for today’s win.”
He left the room, but instead of going back to the locker room, Jonas went back into the stadium.
The afternoon sun was still high in the sky, and maintenance workers picked up discarded cups and nacho trays in the stands. For the most part, though, the stadium was empty. Jonas looked around, imagining he could see all the way to the back row on the top level. All those people in the stands cheering him on. Cheering the team on. For a second when that first throw was in the air he’d felt that old feeling. The buoyancy that came with knowing he’d done something good. A twenty-yard pass wasn’t a miracle, but after not being able to throw even ten yards a few weeks ago, it felt like a win.
He’d looked to the sidelines and gotten a thumbs-up from Kent at the camera. The new sideliner seemed bored. Jonas looked up at the broadcast booth, but the sun shone in the windows and he couldn’t even make out the shadows.
It was as if she was completely gone from his life, and in that moment he knew.
He hadn’t been fighting to get football back, although getting it back felt sweet.
He’d been fighting to build a life. A life that contained football, but wasn’t completely wrapped up in it. For a long time his entire life had been football; he’d made the game his family. Now he had a glimpse of what family could be.
Devoted parents who had room in their lives for their adult child.
A football coach who had become a kind of father figure for him.
Sunlight glinted off something metallic, drawing his attention to the first row of seats at the fifty yard line. Brooks stood looking out at the field as if she were reliving something.
The most important part of the family: her. A strong, selfless woman who was passionate about football, passionate in love.
Devoted to her job.
He turned back into the tunnel that led to the locker rooms and offices, and then took the stairs that led to the concourse. She was still there, standing at the railing looking out over the field. She wore trim black pants and a shiny yellow blouse that made her tanned skin glow. She’d left her hair down and done something to make it fall in luscious waves past her shoulders. Maybe he should just throw her over his shoulder, take her back to the farm and taunt her with sex until she admitted she wanted him as much as he wanted her.
She turned from the field and spotted him at the top of the steps. For a second he thought she would walk around him, but then Brooks straightened her shoulders and marched up the steps.
“You need to work on your blindside awareness,” she said.
“It’s called the blindside for a reason. Spatial awareness doesn’t really work there.” He reached out to brush his hand against hers. She flinched at the contact. “How was the booth?”
She smiled, but the expression was more tired than excited. “Good. It was good.”
“Not what you thought it would be?”
Brooks shook her head. “Everything I thought it would be.”
His chest tightened. “Everything she thought it would be” left very little space for anything else. He knew. It was what football had been to him for a long time. “You want to walk and talk?”
“Not really.” She looked around as if afraid they might be spotted together.
“I don’t think the network has you under surveillance.”
“I’m not worried about that.” She offered him a smile, and it was tentative, but it was the first real smile he’d seen from her in days, and it gave him hope. This was Brooks, the woman he loved.
She had to see that he loved her, too.
“You worried I’ll throw you to the ground and have my way with you amidst the peanut shells and discarded beer cups and hotdog wrappers?”
Brooks chuckled. “No.” She shook her head. “I just... It’s too weird. Too soon. You had some great throws today, congratulations.”
“Thanks.” Jonas rocked back on his heels and put his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t be tempted to touch her again. “It wasn’t what I thought it would be.” Maybe he should start with what didn’t work, then he could show her what did.
He waited and was rewarded when she looked at him from under those thick lashes, green eyes curious. “Why?”
“The crowd was noisy, there was a pulse. Did you feel it?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “When we ran out on the field there was a second when everything seemed to stop, and I looked around and it was everything I remembered. Rowdy fans, loud noises. It was perfect. A perfect Sunday afternoon. But it wasn’t as bright as I thought it would be. Everything was just a little too blurry. When I hit the turf after that first hit I didn’t want to get up.”
“You didn’t hurt your shoulder, did you?” She reached out, but then pulled her hand back quickly.
“No. I’m fine. It just hurt, as it does when you get knocked down. Then I threw that pass and the moment it left my fingertips I knew he’d catch it. It was like I was still connected to the ball while it sailed through the air.”
“Like magic,” she whispered.
“Yeah,
but even the magic wasn’t right.” He didn’t care if she flinched. He needed her to see him. Jonas took her face in his hands and looked her in the eyes. “I looked for you. I wanted to share that moment with you.”
“I was right there in the booth.”
“But you weren’t with me.”
“Jonas—”
“I pushed you away for weeks this winter. I was arrogant through the spring, and I convinced myself it was because I needed to save my career. I thought if I focused on it enough the injury would disappear, and things would go back to the way they were when my team was firing on all cylinders in college. But you wouldn’t let me push you out. You kept coming back, and every time a little piece of my resistance would fall away. When that first story hit about my shoulder I tried to push you away and you took me to bed—”
“I’m not falling into bed with you.” Again. The unspoken word hung in the air between them.
“Of course not, because if you did you could always say it was the sex that brought you back. I want you back because you want to be here.”
“Maybe another time—”
“Maybe the time is now.” Jonas shook his head. “When the team started falling apart under the old coaches I made my life all about my teammates’ happiness. It turned out to be nothing about football. Every night it was a party so the offense and defense could forget the little things we were missing during the games. Those drunken parties and red carpets didn’t help us play better. It divided us because there were guys who were serious about the game and guys who weren’t. Then I was injured and I nearly lost football completely. You came along and I started getting pieces of my life back, and it was better than it had ever been before. Not because I suddenly had football again, but because I had a life. I want a life, Brooks, and I want that life to be with you. If I have to give up football so you can have it, I will. But I want that life.”
“Jonas.” She took his hand, squeezing it. “I want you to have everything. The career and the legacy—”
“Part of the everything is you,” he insisted. He wanted to shake her. Why was she making this so difficult? “You’re letting all of this—” he waved at the empty stadium “—decide what should be just about this.” He motioned his hand between them.
She drew the corner of her lower lip between her teeth, and her eyes went misty for a second. “You told me once that I couldn’t protect you.”
“Pretty sure I told you that at least five times, but go on.”
“I can’t. I can’t protect you. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.”
“I’m still not asking you to protect me. I’m asking you to step outside the stadium. With me. And see what happens.” He kept his voice quiet, because something inside told him that if he spoke too loudly she would run. The way she’d ran the other night. This time, he wasn’t sure he would be able to catch her. “I’ve never chased after a woman in my life. I’ve never gone out of my way to see her when she obviously doesn’t want to see me. When I saw you leaning against the railing, I told myself to leave. To let you be. And here I am. Standing in this empty, dirty aisle. With you.” She closed her eyes. “When I told you to take what you wanted, I never thought you would take that as an either/or. You can have your job, and you can have us.”
* * *
BROOKS COULDN’T SPEAK. He still wanted her? She’d walked out on him, chosen work over him. And he still wanted her?
She’d been miserable since she walked off his porch Thursday evening. Miserable in the booth. There were a few moments of joy, that first pass being one of them, but mostly she’d been miserable.
She had everything she wanted, except him. What a miserable way to live.
“I hated it.” Jonas didn’t say anything, just watched her. “I did a good job. I said all the right things. I didn’t cheer when you threw first pass—and it was a challenge not to cheer—and I didn’t scream obscenities when that linebacker drove you into the ground. I was professional and competent and Stan’s already making rumblings about wanting me back.”
His brown eyes clouded. “Then I guess you have what you want.”
“Yes. I do.” She forced the words past lips that wanted to hold them in.
“Have a nice life, Brooks,” he said and turned away. He’d showered after the game; she could smell the scent of his soap through the overwhelming odors of stale nachos and beer. He wore ripped jeans and a plain, blue T-shirt. And those same sandals on his feet that looked as if they’d been worn for a hundred years. He was leaving her.
Brooks panicked. He couldn’t leave. “I will,” she said, and something in her voice made him stop. “I’ll have a nice life. Stan wants what he wants and if he wants me in the booth, I’ll be in the booth whether Ferguson likes it or not. I’ve worked for this for a long time. I started working for it in high school when I realized no woman had been an in-game analyst. I chose the right school and the right internships and I never used my dad’s connections even though I could have. It’s all I ever wanted.” Brooks took a breath. She held her hands out to her sides. “And now I know it isn’t everything I want. When I saw you at that awards show I hated your reputation, and I wanted to jump you in your car. But mostly I knew if I could get your story it would be another step on my career ladder.”
“You think I didn’t know what you wanted from me?”
“I want you to know how badly I wanted it. I would have done anything to get your story until the moment I heard you talking to Mark before that day at the camp. That’s when I started wanting your story not just for me, but for you. I wanted your story because I wanted you to see in yourself what everyone around you sees. A strong quarterback, but a great man.”
“But not a man you’re willing to risk your reputation or your career on,” he said, sadness making his Texas twang even slower than usual.
“I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t want you and I shouldn’t need you. But I do, on both counts.”
“So where does that leave us? Wanting each other, but not willing to finish the play?”
She took a step toward him, and despite the fear of what it would mean professionally, she kept going. Because she knew what it meant, personally, to not have him around. It meant sunny days that were dull and dark. It meant nights of tossing and turning because no pillow would ever be as good as his shoulder. It meant no grilled cheese sandwiches at the crack of dawn and no one who understood her love of the game.
“It might leave me out of a job.”
His brown eyes crinkled and the little crow’s feet seemed more pronounced than usual.
“I’ll still be gainfully employed.”
“I’m not a housewife in training, Jonas. If this job goes up in flames I’ll find another one.”
“Whatever you want.”
“I’ll be on the road as much or more as you are. And we won’t always be in the same city or the same state. Sometimes we won’t even be in the same country, and that could go on for weeks at a time.”
“I’m familiar with the football life.” He put his hands in his pockets. “Early mornings, late nights, hours of game file and days of sleeping in hotel rooms instead of your own bed.”
“Cheering fans, groupies. Headlines that pronounce you’re a god.”
“All fun things. But not as important as I thought they were once.”
“Good. Because they aren’t as important as I thought they were, either.” She slipped her arms around his waist and looked up at him. “This is going to be messy, and not because of the Parker thing, and not because of your past,” she said.
Jonas looked into her eyes for a long moment. “I know.” He slid his arms around her waist, and his hands at her back were warm. “Football is going to keep us apart from one another from time to time.”
He was firm next to her. Solid.
“So is the network.
But if you’re willing to work to have both, I’m willing to work, too.”
“Whatever you want.”
She smiled. “If I’ve got you, I already have everything I need.”
He bent until his forehead touched hers, and then Jonas pressed a soft kiss to her lips and his next words echoed her own.
“And if I’ve got you, I have everything I need. Let’s go home.”
Jonas put his arm around her back, and they began climbing the steps back to the concourse. Brooks looked back. The grounds crew were beginning to clean up the field area, and the stadium was quieting down for the night. She had no idea what would happen in the morning, and she didn’t care.
She had Jonas, and he had her. That was what mattered. Together they were better than they were apart. She leaned her head against his shoulder.
Together, they were perfect.
* * * * *
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