slid in between. “I was curious how you’d been.”
He nodded slowly, searching her face. “Never thought about calling, though, did you? Or an e-mail?”
She shook her head just as the waitress walked by again, slowly, looking at Jocelyn, who lowered her head and let her hair cover her cheek. “I think I’ve been busted.”
“I’ll say. Who knew you’d Google me?”
“I meant by the waitress, Will.”
He nodded. “I know.” She turned toward the wall as Will gave the woman a sharp look and she scooted away. He reached over the table and put his hand over Jocelyn’s.
“It’s okay, Jossie.”
Déjà vu rolled over her again, much stronger this time, a whole-body memory that didn’t just hint of the past but lifted her from today and dropped her right back into every feeling she ever had for Will.
Respect. Appreciation. Admiration. And something so much more, so much deeper. “But if you want to leave, we can,” he said.
“No, let’s work on your career. What exactly are you doing in order to get that coaching job?”
“Waiting to hear from my agent.”
“Then you mustn’t want it very much.”
He shook his head vehemently. “That’s where you’re wrong. I want it very much.”
“Then the first word you use for your ‘action’ wouldn’t be ‘waiting,’” she shot back. “You’d be calling, meeting, searching, networking, applying, fighting, clawing, interview—”
He held up his hand. “I get the picture.”
“Do you?” She propped her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her knuckles. “Prove it.”
“What’s to prove? When you finish in the minors, you get a coaching job in the minors.”
“Are you passionate about coaching?”
“I’m passionate about…” When he hesitated, her whole body tightened in anticipation. What was Will passionate about? She wanted it to be—
“Baseball.”
“Of course.”
“Surely you didn’t forget that about me.”
“I didn’t forget anything about you.” Lord, why had she told him that? Because he had that gift: He made her so comfortable she forgot to maintain control.
The admission made him smile, not cockily like when he found out she’d Googled him, just—well, she couldn’t quite read those dozen different emotions flickering in his dark blue eyes. “Then we’re even. And you know that from the time I was five, I’ve lived, breathed, and slept the game. You know I love baseball. It’s all I know, all I’ve ever known.”
“You know,” she said, “I have a choice right now.”
Lifting his eyebrows in question, he waited for more explanation. “You do? I thought this was about my choices.”
“It is. But I have to make a choice.” She sipped her drink and chose her words carefully. “When I am coaching a client and I believe they are self-delusional, I have two choices. I can either let them off easy because they don’t really want to face the truth and they’d rather write a check and believe they found their answers, or…”
He didn’t respond, scratching his neck a little, as if he wasn’t quite sure where she was going with this. And might not like it when he was.
“I can challenge them to face the truth head-on and deal with what that means.”
“You think I’m self-delusional?”
“I think you’re not that passionate about baseball.”
“Are you nuts? If I’m not, what the hell have I been doing for the last, Jesus, thirty years since my dad bought the first tee and put a bat in my hand?”
She just stared at him. “Precisely.”
“Precisely what?”
“Will, baseball has always been your father’s passion. Good God, I can remember him talking about you playing for his beloved L.A. Dodgers since the day you guys moved in.”
“He always hated that I couldn’t get into that franchise,” Will admitted. “But we shared the passion, Joss. You can’t get as far as I did without it.”
She wasn’t sure about that. “With your natural talent, you could get very, very far. And you did. But—”
“But what?” He damn near growled the demand. “But if I had been more devoted, I could have gotten into the majors? I could have played for the fucking Dodgers?”
She flinched and his hand shot across the table to take hers. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get mad like that.”
“No problem,” she lied. “That’s exactly why I let some clients take easy street. It’s easier for me, too.” She slipped her hand out from under his. “And I’m not saying if you were more devoted your career would have gone differently because, frankly, the past doesn’t matter anymore, unless it helps you see your own patterns.”
He nodded, but she could tell agreeing with anything she was saying