Homecoming (A Boys of Fall Novel) (16 page)

“It does make sense. And you have to do what’s best for you and your sobriety.”

“Right now, this is what’s best for me. And looking forward. That’s the best thing.”

They lapsed into a comfortable silence while digging into their dinners, but then Sam wiped his mouth with a napkin and looked at his mother. “We have a game tomorrow at one,
if you wanted to see the boys play. If you don’t have to work, I mean.”

“Really?” Her face lit up. “I have to work until one thirty, but I could see some of it. At least the second half.”

“Only if you want to. And I’ll be busy, of course. I might not see you.”

“That’s okay. I want to see you coach.”

The light in her eyes dimmed a little, and he knew she was thinking about the fact he’d not only never invited her to watch him play football in high school, but he’d actually told her not to show up for his games. They were moving forward, though. “I think you’ll have a good time. And we have some away games after that, so it’ll be even colder by the time we play at home again.”

“Will Jen Cooper be there?”

He could tell just by the way she asked the question that she had heard he and the guidance counselor were hooking up. “She usually is. There’s not much else for Stewart Mills to do on a Saturday afternoon.”

“I’ve always liked her. She’s very pretty.”

“Yes, she is.”

She sighed, looking every bit the disappointed mother. “So the rumor you guys aren’t serious about each other is true?”

“Judging by how good Coach McDonnell looks and the fact he had to slow down and wait for me when we went for a walk yesterday, it won’t be much longer before I leave.” Even if the position of assistant coach didn’t start until the following summer, he’d want to move right away if he took the job. It would give him time to learn his way around the community. But he wanted to be influenced by his mother’s emotions even less than by Coach’s.

“Oh. Of course.”

She hid her disappointment by concentrating on swirling spaghetti around her fork and taking a big bite. Sam cut off a piece of his steak, but his appetite had faded for some reason. Coach was going to be back on the sidelines, where he belonged.

And Sam was going to have to figure out where
he
belonged.

J
en clapped her hands together. Despite the blue wool mittens with the white and gold trim that Gretchen’s grandmother had knit for all three of them, her hands were cold. Once the game started, excitement and cheering would warm them all up but, for right now, there were a bunch of people sitting in the cold, waiting for the game to start.

“It shouldn’t be this cold yet,” Gretchen said. “And why is football played in the cold, anyway. They should play it in the summer.”

“There’s no school in the summer,” Kelly pointed out. “And if they played at that time of year, they’d probably all drop from heat exhaustion. As would we.”

It was rare for the three of them to be out and about alone these days. But Chase had decided, with Kelly’s blessing, to
stay in New Jersey for the weekend. He was so close to wrapping up everything he needed to do, and they were both willing to sacrifice some together time now to get that much closer to him being able to call New Hampshire home for good.

And Alex had gotten a job taking some promotional shots for a new powersports shop opening about an hour north of them. They wanted professional pictures of their new building as well as some action shots of employees showing off their machines on their private test-drive circuit. He hadn’t wanted to miss the game, but the money they offered was too good to pass up.

“You don’t mind him working on the weekend?” Jen had asked when Gretchen told her she’d be at the game alone.

“I’m a farmer. We don’t do weekends.”

Jen had laughed, but she wasn’t sure how Gretchen did it. Maybe it was spending every Monday through Friday in brick buildings with children, but Jen protected her weekends at all costs. Besides a few household chores and the occasional shopping run, Saturdays and Sundays were for fun.

Even if fun this time of year meant sitting on frigid aluminum stands, waiting to watch football. They’d put down a wool blanket, as most of the spectators had, but it would take a long time for body heat to warm the aluminum to the point the cold stopped radiating through the fabric.

Finally, the visiting team ran out onto the field. They all clapped politely while the parents and other fans who’d made the trip cheered for them. Then the Eagles were announced and everybody from Stewart Mills was on their feet, screaming.

Jen watched Sam jog alongside his team. Joel and Dan were behind him, and they all veered toward the home bench.
Sam looked focused, but more relaxed than he had at the homecoming game.

She watched him scan the crowd, wondering if the pressure he’d put on himself to fill Coach McDonnell’s shoes still weighed on him, or if he’d figured out that he didn’t need to do that. He just needed to be Coach Leavitt.

“Wave, Jen,” Kelly hissed. “He’s looking for you.”

“No, he’s not,” she said automatically, but she stood up and waved in his direction.

When his gaze locked on hers and his face relaxed into a smile, she realized Kelly was right. Sam had been looking for her in the crowd.

The realization warmed her far faster than the wool mittens and blanket did, and her heart did a summersault when he returned her wave. No warm and fuzzy, she reminded herself.

The Eagles kicker put them on the board first with a field goal, and the offense maintained the lead by getting the ball in the end zone twice. The defense played a fierce game as well, holding the other team to two field goals.

Once the clock started ticking down toward halftime, Jen kept an eye on the end of the bleachers. When Sam had called her the night before to tell her how his dinner with Sheila had gone, he mentioned that he’d invited her to the game, but that she’d miss the beginning due to work. He’d sounded really solid on the phone, which Jen thought was amazing. In the five weeks or so that Sam had been back in Stewart Mills, he’d done a lot of work on putting his past behind him and reconnecting with his mother. It looked to be paying off, and she was happy for both of them.

And sometimes, when she let her guard down, she thought
about how much healing Sam had done since he’d been back, and wondered if he’d stay.

That would be a serious problem as far as their fun fling went, she thought. It was one thing to hold her emotions in check when she was doing it for a limited time. But if she just kept on seeing him every day, it was going to get a lot harder to lie to herself. And to him.

When she finally spotted Sheila, looking up at the stands with obvious trepidation on her face, Jen stood and waved to her. Sheila waved back and then Jen gestured to the seat next to her. Nobody wanted to walk into a crowd and sit alone.

“Sam said you might come,” she said once his mom had said hello to Gretchen and Kelly and settled next to Jen on the wool blanket. “I’m glad you made it.”

“Me, too.” She sighed as she looked at her son, who was currently in what looked like an intense conversation with PJ. “He looks so different out there, in that shirt and looking all official.”

“He’s a great coach,” Jen told her. “I don’t think Coach McDonnell is an easy man to substitute for, but he’s done so well. The kids really love and respect him, and so does everybody, really.”

“I think it’s wonderful that you two are seeing each other,” Sheila said.

Jen was thankful the woman’s gaze was locked onto Sam because her expression was probably something like
oh, crap.
She had no idea what to say to that, since she wasn’t sure if that information had come from Sam during their dinner or from the Stewart Mills grapevine.

If there was one thing Jen was absolutely sure of, it was that Sam wouldn’t be comfortable with her talking to his
mother about him or their relationship or practically anything of a personal nature.

“He’s a great guy,” she finally said. She felt as if she was repeating herself with how great Sam was, but at least it was noncommittal.

When Hunter Cass found a hole in the defensive line and broke free for a thirty-yard touchdown run, everybody jumped to their feet, screaming and stomping. It was a good distraction and hopefully the subject of her and Sam seeing each other was closed.

Who would have guessed a fun fling could be so complicated?

—

S
am snapped the clean flat sheet so it fell over the bed, crooked and folded over on itself. He swore under his breath and tried again. Making a bed wasn’t one of his more finely honed skills, but he wanted clean sheets because Jen was stopping by anytime.

Somehow, after the game, he’d snuck a few minutes away from the team to say hello to his mom. She’d seemed shy in front of the others, but she smiled and told him she was proud of him. And after she left, Jen had been there to tell him it was a great game.

And he’d told her if she wasn’t doing anything later, maybe they could get together. Since she was going to be hanging around town, she offered to come to him this time. It was only later, when he was picking up stuff around the apartment, that he realized he could probably have used some time alone to process how he felt about the day before seeing her again.

Spotting Jen and his mother together in the stands, their heads close as they talked about who knew what, had felt like running into a brick wall and being knocked on his ass. He couldn’t get past the wall and couldn’t seem to get over or around it in his mind.

Casual, fun flings shouldn’t sit and be chummy with a guy’s mother. He wasn’t sure if that was a rule but, if it wasn’t, it should be.

Logically, he knew that Jen and his mother knew each other. Hell, Jen knew her better than he did. But it had made him uncomfortable in a way he couldn’t define. Maybe it had been the illusion of having his family cheering him on, the way Mrs. McDonnell and Kelly had done for Coach when Sam was playing.

He and his mom were trying to be a family. But he and Jen weren’t, and he’d reached a point where he wasn’t sure if he was shaken because it looked that way and he didn’t want it to, or if it was because it had looked that way and he wished it was true.

If he didn’t hit the road soon, he was going to be in trouble.

He was already having a hard time imagining a day without Jen in it. Even when they were too busy to get together privately, they saw each other at school a lot. They texted and sometimes even talked on the phone just because it was easier. And because he liked hearing her voice.

When he went back to Texas, he knew he wouldn’t call her. It would only prolong the process of letting go of each other and getting on with their lives. Jen wasn’t going to find herself a perfect husband if she was at home on the phone with him.

And, God, that made his stomach ache.

He almost jumped when there was a knock on the door, and he took a deep breath before opening it. Fun. Casual. Friends with benefits, as Coach had said. He just needed to keep it more about the benefits.

“Hey,” he said when he’d let her in. “Did you enjoy the game today?”

“Of course.” She kissed him hello before peeling off her coat and draping it over the back of a chair with his. He didn’t have a coat closet. “They’re so good this year. I mean, they were good before, but I think almost losing the program made them realize how much they love it and they’re bringing that renewed passion to the field.”

“They have a pretty decent coach, too,” he joked.

“That they do.” She looked around his apartment, but then stopped when she saw the line of little pumpkins on his counter. He’d forgotten about them. “What is happening right now?”

“Some movie that half the team wanted to take their girlfriends to is playing about forty minutes from here and they played a good game, so . . . I’m babysitting pumpkins.” He wasn’t surprised when she gave him a
really?
look. “I have to write down when I pretend feed them and pretend change them and stuff, so I have alarms set on my phone.”

“You can’t just write down some random times for each pumpkin?”

“That’s cheating.”

She laughed at him. “You can’t be serious.”

He had to admit it was a little ridiculous. “I was bored.”

The last thing Sam wanted to admit was that he’d been curious about the health class assignment. If it really simulated
having to care for a child, would he be up to the challenge? Even though it was stupid, because he was starting to seriously doubt he’d ever be a father, he threw himself into babysitting the little baby pumpkins to the best of his ability.

Until he lost track of which one was which and screwed up the times. Then he realized that taking care of seven miniature, misshapen pumpkins with faces painted on them was nothing like caring for an actual child.

“I’m not bored now,” he said, looping his arm around her waist and pulling her close.

She wrinkled her nose like she wasn’t in the mood. “Before you get your hopes up, this isn’t a sexy week for me, if you know what I mean.”

It took him a few seconds to catch on, and then he smiled through the disappointment. “Okay. Should I be afraid?”

She laughed and shook her head. “I don’t get really moody, but you might want to hide any potato chips you have in the house.”

“I ate the last ones about an hour ago.”

She frowned. “Okay, you should maybe be a
little
afraid.”

“Do you want to watch a movie or something? There must be something on TV on a Saturday night.”

“Sure.”

And that’s how Sam found himself curled up on the couch, watching an action movie they’d both seen a dozen times, with the woman he was supposed to be keeping at an emotional distance.

He should have offered to take her out, he thought. Once she’d told him about her period, the best move would have been to get out of his apartment and out of sight of the bed, but instead they were having a movie night. With her body
tucked against his and a fleece blanket thrown over them, the last thing they had was distance.

He squirmed a little, which only made it worse because the couch wasn’t really big enough for both of them, so her body was pressed pretty closely to his. He really liked her body a lot and not being able to put his hands on her was killing him.

“Do you want me to move?” she asked.

Desperately
. “Nope. I’m good.”

“I can feel how good you are right now, actually.”

“Sorry. Ignore it and it’ll go away. Eventually.”

She laughed, which made her body shake, which wasn’t going to help
anything
go away. Then she threw back the blanket and sat up on the edge of the sofa.

“You really don’t have to move,” he said, but she gave him a smile that made him even harder, which he hadn’t thought was possible at that moment.

Then she pushed the blanket back even more so she could tuck a finger under the waistband of his sweatpants. When he realized where she was going with that, his balls started aching in earnest.

“You don’t—” The words choked off when she ran her hand over his erection through the fabric and he forgot what he was going to say.

He lifted his hips when she started working his waistband down, lifting it up and over his dick, which twitched at the brush of her hand. He’d skipped the briefs after his shower since he hadn’t intended to have any clothes on for long, so after one easy tug, there was nothing between her hand and his flesh.

Sam closed his eyes, moaning when her fingers stroked the length of his dick. She had long, slender fingers that closed
around his throbbing erection, and he had to clench his teeth hard to keep from begging her to take him in her mouth.

She teased him, stroking him lightly before tightening her grip. Her tongue flicked over the head and he shuddered. This was
not
going to take long, he thought, even though he’d do his best to savor every minute. Or second.

He groaned, a harsh and guttural sound, when she finally closed her lips around him. As she stroked down his length, her lips followed. The heat of her mouth was almost his undoing, but he clenched his jaw and dug deep for self-control.

When she shoved at her hair, which kept falling in the way, he put his hand under the blond length of it and splayed his fingers to capture it all. Then he closed his fingers, holding it out of her way, and she smiled.