Two weeks had passed since Jenny called, ecstatic with the news. She was so damn happy I couldn’t help but let it rub off on me too. Brian was a fighter, that was for damn sure. A pretty sharp observer too. The more time I spent with him the more I realized why Jenny was the way she was.
If there was ever a cynic in the world, it was me. Yet her dad was doing so damn well, even I was starting to believe a miracle might just be possible.
I had to go meet with a kid a few hours outside of town. Jenny had taken the last few weeks off work, and I’d been scarce around the office, working from her father’s house so that I could hang out with them. But she insisted I go to this meeting. The prospect was projected to go number one in the draft, and landing his contract would be huge from a monetary and PR standpoint.
“Turn right in fifty feet.”
The Australian chick on my navigation system had to be wrong. I wasn’t used to driving myself with these things, but my driver was on vacation. So there I was, in the middle of butt fucking nowhere with an Aussie lady telling me to turn onto a nonexistent road.
Coming to a complete stop in the middle of the road, I stared. I noticed a trail of two parallel tire tracks and a hint of gravel strewn over it, not much else.
“How did this road even make it onto the map?”
I was a pretty smart guy but technology baffled me sometimes. I made the turn, worried about my car the entire way as I weaved around and worked my way up a hill to a shithole house in the middle of nowhere.
I was half-certain I’d be met with a militia or the cast of Deliverance.
A large man in overalls stepped out onto the front porch and an even larger body with a baby face followed behind him.
I parked and grabbed my phone. No reception. Shocker.
I tossed it back down and stepped from my vehicle.
“See ya found us?” They all glared.
Yep, this would be fun.
It took about four hours but eventually the Clampetts and their son with a flamethrower of a left arm warmed up to me. Signing clients was an entirely different ball game from negotiating with owners on contracts.
Charm was the key, and I could turn it on when needed. The trick was to relate to them and woo them, but still be honest and straightforward. The type of people who lived in a shed in the middle of nowhere didn’t respond to money the way a lot of prospects did. Family values, moral code, loyalty—these were the selling points.
Confident their son would sign with Mason and Associates, I waved and hopped into my car.
I pushed the button on my steering wheel to call Jenny and check in as soon as I was back on a main highway. The screen in my car kept telling me the phone wasn’t connected. What the fuck?
I picked it up and hit the home button. Nothing. “Shit!”
I’d had problems with the phone before in remote locations. It would keep searching for a signal and run the battery down the whole time. What I should have done was shut it off before I got out of the car, but when the possibility of having a shotgun shoved in your face is in the back of your mind, you don’t think those kinds of things through and you kind of want your phone on so people can find you.
I looked down for the charger. “Oh for fuck’s sake.”
I could never keep up with phone chargers while traveling all the time and I’d taken the one from my car up to my office the day before.
It’s just a few hours’ drive. She’ll understand when I explain it to her.
I pulled into the parking garage and sprint-walked with my phone toward my office to plug it in. Excitement still pounded in my veins at the thought we were going to get a number one draft pick, from Texas nonetheless. When I walked through the doors and into the office, something was off.
Everyone kept walking by with their heads down, avoiding eye contact. This was the norm a few months ago, pre Jenny Jackson, but times had changed. Once Jenny came along, my whole world was turned upside down.
I started toward Todd and he glanced to his watch and scurried off. What in the hell?
Jill walked by and I grabbed her lightly by the arm. She trembled like a clown had snatched her leg from under her bed.
“Hey, what’s going on?”
“W-what do you mean, Mr. Mason?”
I took a step back and examined her features. She made an attempt to look normal, but failed miserably. I would’ve thought it was from the day I reamed her in front of everyone, but I’d apologized and tried to make her more comfortable around me since. It seemed like it’d been working.
“Something isn’t right around here. Have you talked to Jenny?”
Her head shot the other direction in a flash. My heart pounded and worry flooded my body. The saliva in the back of my throat turned thick and salty. “What is it?”
“N-nothing—”
“What is it?” My voice boomed through the office and everyone cowered a little.
Jill looked on the verge of bursting into tears. I ran a hand up through my hair.
“I’m really sorry. Please, Jill. Just tell me what happened.”
“H-her dad. H-he passed earlier.”
My hands dropped to my sides and I stood there, looking at Jill but not really looking at her. Brian was just fine. He had scans done and everything looked good. Jenny had been upbeat on the phone when I left the city early this morning. This couldn’t be true. Jill was lying. She had to be.
I stumbled a few steps backward.
“I’m s-sorry, Mr. Mason. We knew he’d been sick but didn’t know how serious it was.”
My lower back rammed into a cubicle wall and jolted me from the initial shock. I scanned the room like a panorama, from one side to the other, and then bolted in a dead sprint for my car.
A cold sweat broke out on my forehead and it felt like my collar and tie were strangling me to death. I jumped in the car and pounded the gas, heading straight for her dad’s house.
When I fishtailed around the corner of her dad’s street my tires squealed on the pavement. The house looked normal; it was just Jenny’s and Kelsey’s cars in the driveway. I prepared myself for the worst. He was just fine. He was doing better. How did this happen?
I hammered the gas and skidded to a halt alongside the curb in front of his house. A small gap in the window blinds closed.
I opened the door and hauled ass for the front porch, leaping up the steps in one stride. Taking a deep breath, I knocked on the door. I knew Jenny would be broken and upset, and most likely take it out on the fact that I wasn’t there. If she needed a punching bag, I would be one for her. I’d be anything she needed me to be.
Kelsey stepped out and she closed the door behind her. Her eyes were pink and puffy, and she looked drained. All of her spunk and charisma were somewhere else entirely. Why did she step out and close the door?
It shocked me for a second. “Can I come in?”
Kelsey stared at the ground, refusing to look at me. “She doesn’t want to see you right now.”
If I thought I couldn’t have felt any worse than I already did, I was wrong. I looked up and tried to hold it together. “W-what? I mean—” I reached up and yanked the hair on the back of my head. “My phone died. I was in the middle of nowhere.”
Kelsey shook her head. “She—she’s just in a bad place right now. And you weren’t here.”
I tried not to make it about me. I wanted Jenny comforted, and whatever would make that happen was what I would do. But fuck—this wasn’t my fault. Was it? It was just a bad circumstance. I should’ve stayed. “I-I’d really like to see her. B-but I don’t want to m-make things worse.”
I hadn’t stuttered since the day my mom left Dad and me.
“Just give her a little time.”
I wanted to barrel through the door and wrap her up in my arms. It took everything I had to stop myself. Acting without thinking had always gotten me in trouble with Jenny. She was already crushed. This wasn’t about me. It was about what was best for her and what she wanted. If she needed space I had to give it to her, because the last thing I wanted to do was make this any harder on her. “O-okay, I mean, sure. I t-trust you. Whatever you th-think’s best.”
Kelsey turned and I stopped her with a light hand on her shoulder. She looked back at me.
I took in a deep breath, trying to make my words clear. “P-p—” I stopped myself and blinked a couple of tears away, trying to get control of my voice. “Please take care of her and let her know that I love her.”
Kelsey covered her mouth and nodded before going back inside and closing the door.
I told myself over and over as I pulled out of the driveway that it would be okay. That she was just hurt about her father, and the circumstances were just unfortunate. She’d told me to go to the meeting. My phone died. Those types of things happened sometimes.
Nothing could stop the hurt though. The pain I felt in every cell of my body, that she was suffering and I couldn’t be there for her. Leaving that porch was the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life.