Jilted Jock - Rebecca Jenshak Page 0,81

just…” He paused to move his hands in front of him looking exasperated. “Everywhere. I can’t function in a house that isn’t clean. Even to sleep.”

I snorted and dressed into regular gym clothes since it was still a bit before the game.

“You want to play some tennis after we warm up?”

I nodded and after grabbing my shoes we headed into the workout room. Foster grumbled as I did twice the amount of stretching he was used to, but he waited all the while filling me in on the latest in his life. He and Lauren broke up and he’d started dating someone new. Foster had the best stories. Not stories you’d wished you lived but entertaining as hell to hear secondhand.

Like the one he told as we walked to the indoor turf where we had a makeshift net set up for our version of tennis. We used a soccer ball, of course, and instead of a racket, our feet. Maybe it should be called soccer with a tennis net, but that was a mouthful.

“She had me pick her up at her parents’ house. Which I of course didn’t realize until I showed up to this bomb mansion in Beverly Hills. I hadn’t been to her place before, so I didn’t even consider it wasn’t hers as I walked to the door.”

“Does she still live with them?”

“No.” His voice was borderline a screech. “She just wanted me to meet them.”

I grabbed a ball and kicked it over the net. “What’d you do?”

“What else? I went in and had drinks with Dr. and Mrs. Louise. Nice people. They invited me over for Sunday dinner.”

“You know they’re going to think things are serious if you keep going over there. Meeting the parents is a big deal.”

“That’s their problem. I’ve made it very clear to her that I’m not looking for anything long term.”

“Be careful. Next thing you know, you’re gonna be on family vacations.”

“Dr. L did mention they had a winter place in Vail.”

I shook my head. Some of the other guys started to trickle in and joined us. We played for thirty minutes or so before Chris, an intern, called out from the office. “Yo, McCash. You’ve got visitors out front.”

Excitement bloomed to the surface before I could stop it. I knew it wasn’t Adele, but damn if I didn’t let hope crush me time after time in the most inopportune of times. Like every time my phone rang, or a new email popped up.

I headed down to the front security gate and spotted Chance and CJ. Shit. We’d talked about him bringing CJ to this game, but I’d completely forgotten and even if I had remembered, I’m not sure I would have believed he’d still show up.

“Hey, guys. You made it.” I extended a hand to Chance and smiled at his son.

“It’s okay we still came?” Chance asked. “I started to call…”

“Totally fine. Glad to see you both actually.”

We checked in with security and I got them both badges to come back with me. CJ with his usual energy, ran slightly ahead.

“How have you been?”

“Good,” I answered automatically and then chuckled. “No, that’s a lie. I’ve been shit.”

He chuckled back softly. “Yeah, I figured. You look like shit.”

“How is she?” It didn’t escape me that I hadn’t even asked how he was yet, but I needed something of her. Anything.

“She’s good.”

My heart simultaneously lifted and broke. Of course, I wanted her to be happy, but it hurt to know she was able to move on while I was still only half breathing without her near.

The team was about to start warmups, so I got Chance and CJ to their seats behind the team bench and headed back to the locker room to get ready for the game.

During games I didn’t have time to think or even to miss Adele. She was still there in that missing piece of my heart even when I couldn’t actually mentally decide to miss her.

Afterward, I showered quick and headed out to see if Chance and CJ stayed. I was glad to see they had, and we hovered around the exit while the cleaning crew got to work.

“Thanks for that. Seats were great. So close that it kept CJ glued to the action for five minutes at a time.”

I wondered what Chance had done to occupy him for the rest of the time but didn’t ask.

“Any time. It was really great to have a couple familiar faces in the stands tonight.”

We walked toward the parking lot