is nonexistent, Mary. I haven’t been on a date since Dad came home.”
“You poor girl. I’m so sorry. Well, I’ll be glad to stay over any night you want to go out on a date. You don’t even have to pay me for the extra hours.”
“You’re too sweet.” She stopped to give the woman a hug. “I’ll think about it. Okay?”
“You do that.”
“All right, I’ll see you later,” she told the woman with a heartfelt smile. “Bye, Dad!” she called, but got no response.
Making her way out of the house, Jensen rushed to her car. She didn’t want to be late. College wasn’t cheap and she didn’t want to waste a moment of lab time. If it weren’t for the insurance money she’d received upon her mother’s death, Jensen would have to be working as well as taking classes. With her father’s disease, that would’ve been impossible, unless she opted to put him in a home and the cost of living in a nursing facility fulltime was sky high. Faced with such choices, she was managing as best she could.
As she backed out of the drive, she smirked at herself in the rearview mirror. “A date? Huh.” The only men she was ever around were the ones in her classes and they were all as busy as Jensen. Besides, none of them really appealed to her – not that she’d given the idea much thought. “You’re not in the market for a serious relationship, so stop being so picky. You just need to have a night of fun every century or two.” As she drove slowly down the street toward the college, Jensen let out a long sigh. “Just keep your distance from jocks. The last thing you need is to get mixed up with a football player.
Clint at 22 – April 26th, 2012
“Want some butter pecan pie, Clint?” Colleen waved a saucer of the delectable dessert under his nose.
“No, thanks. I’m too nervous.” Surrounded by family and over a hundred friends, Clint sat in a booth at a Walk-on’s restaurant in Waco, clutching his phone as he waited to find out if he’d been chosen in the NFL Draft. A bottle of champagne with ten balloons tied to it sat at the start of a receiving line for food. One of the balloons was a Waco Bear’s football. Another read ‘Congratulations.’ Everyone was waiting on the same thing – for Clint’s phone to ring with the news he’d been drafted by one of the NFL teams.
“You have no reason to be nervous, you’re Waco’s most decorated receiver, that phone will ring any minute,” Rowan clapped him on the shoulder as they stared at the jumbo flat-screen television on the wall where the draft was being televised – live and in living color.
Clint nodded as he stared out the window. Rain was falling so hard; the streets were flooding. “I hope so.” He was projected, almost across the board by the experts, to be drafted in the first five rounds. Last week, two days before the draft began in Philadelphia, one of the most respected talent evaluators, the NFL Network's Mike Mahoney, ranked Clint the 30th best player among the year’s prospects.
“Would you rather play for the Cowboys? How about the Patriots?” Cassidy asked as she bee-bopped up to him with her hand hooked through the arm of some guy Clint didn’t know.
Giving the young man the evil eye to let him know he was being watched, Clint answered, “I guess the Cowboys, I don’t really want to move far from home.”
“I agree.” Clint smiled when he felt his mother stroke his hair. “I want him to stay close. We need him.” Gillian handed him an envelope. “This letter came for you.”
Clint took it without glancing at who it was from. “Thanks, Mom.”
“I know you’re anxious, but you probably should mix and mingle a little. Let people know you’re grateful they came.”
Gillian’s suggestion made sense. “Sure, I’m just not thinking.” He jammed the letter in his pocket, then rose to do as his mother suggested.
Clint kept his phone with him as he moved around the restaurant, speaking to everyone who came to cheer him on. People wanted to snap selfies with him, so he posed and smiled each time he was asked.
“When’s the phone gonna ring, Wilder?” His friend Russ Bran asked as he waggled a French Fry in Clint’s direction. They’d played ball together since elementary school.