Catching Cameron: A Love and Football Novel (27 page)

“Do you need some water? I’ll go get it,” she said.

“I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.” He gazed into her eyes, which were a hundred shades of brown. “My professional goal is to make it to the Pro Bowl at least one more time, and I am already preparing for my retirement from the NFL. Every game you get after thirty years old is a bonus.” He hauled in a breath. “After retirement, I’d like to be a coach.”

A huge smile spread over her face. “Really?”

“Absolutely. I’d like to start at the high school level. Coach the kids up, and teach them the fundamentals. I’d have a blast. There’s not a lot of money in it, but that’s okay. I’ll be fine with what I have now.”

“What about your personal life?”

“That’s easy. All I have to do is make sure my sisters get through college and find guys to marry who deserve them, which might be a tall order. Right after that, Grandma might want a place of her own, so I’ll work on that, too.”

“So your grandma really does live with you.” She looked interested and curious. “Tell me about her.”

“She’s my mom’s mom. She helped raise my sisters after my mom died.” He stroked the hair off Cameron’s forehead. “She’s—she still cooks and cleans for us. I told her she doesn’t have to do that shit anymore, I can hire someone else to handle it, but she says she wants to pull her weight. That’s nuts. She’s done so much for me and for my sisters. She let me hire a dog walker and she’s okay with my making sure she has transportation when she has errands or needs to get out of the house for a while, but that’s it. She loves Judge Judy and all those crap daytime TV shows. If they make her happy, though, I’m glad she likes watching them. She’s kind and funny and accepts people as they are. I think you’ll like her. We love her.”

“Does she hate me, too?”

“Not at all. She’s not like that. She’ll want to feed you, though.” He kissed the middle of her forehead.

Cameron let out a soft laugh. He laced his fingers through hers.

“You have a dog?” she said.

“His name is Butter, and he’s a yellow Lab. He’s a four-month-old chewing machine. He also likes to lick.”

“You must miss him right now.”

“I do, but I’ll see him again soon. Do you have a pet?”

She looked regretful. “No. I’d like one, though. I wish I could have a dog, but I live alone and I travel. It wouldn’t be fair. My family didn’t have pets at all, and I’ve always wanted one.”

He loved the mental picture of Cameron and Butter playing in the back yard of his house, hanging out with him and his family, and long nights spent holding each other and talking before they fell asleep. Even the smallest things would be special if she was with him.

“Maybe we could make some kind of deal about honorary dog ownership. One thing’s for sure—if Butter chews up one more pair of Shelby’s shoes, she might want him to move in with someone else.”

The sun sank lower in the sky as they talked and laughed about the minutiae of their lives. She told him about her adventures on the subway. He told her about what it was like to deal with teenage sisters. He’d tried to eat his weight with the picnic basket earlier, but he was hungry again. He’d like to broach the subject of her family, and maybe he should do so when they both had a full stomach.

He scrambled out of the bed, grabbed the one-size-fits-all hotel robe that Cameron could wrap double around herself, and padded into the living room.

“Don’t eat those cookie bars,” she teased him.

“That’s right. I was going to call and see if we could get more before we have to leave.” There weren’t a lot of leftovers from their feast earlier. He knew there was a prix-fixe eight course dinner in the inn’s restaurant each night, but he didn’t want to spend the entire evening with anyone else but her.

“Are you hungry again?” He could hear laughter in her voice.

“Always.”

C
AMERON SPEARED ANOTHER
bite of her salad with a fork as she swirled the wine in her glass. She’d worked up more of an appetite than she thought. They ate a Mediterranean take-out dinner at the weather-beaten wooden table on the little balcony overlooking the water, and drank some more excellent wine as the sun set.

“I wish we didn’t have to leave,” she said.

“I wish we could stay, too.” Zach touched the rim of his glass to hers. “Maybe we should come back soon.”

“Maybe,” she said.

She took another bite of food and managed not to choke, which was always a good thing. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to spend more time with Zach. She never wanted to let him go. She had had a taste of what the last ten years of her life could have been like, and she wished this peaceful enjoyment could be their reality. She didn’t see how it could realistically happen. She took another sip of wine.

He was right. They would be apart at least six months a year, unless she quit her job and followed him to Seattle. One didn’t take a job in the fourteenth-biggest TV market after earning and holding a national job in the number one market in the United States, if not the world. She maintained editorial control over her work and scheduled her own interviews. She knew she would never get the kind of independence she craved in a smaller market, nor would she be able to have a career that would continue to grow commensurate with her ambition and willingness to work hard.

Zach wasn’t going to play football forever, but he also was not going to want to retire a five-hour plane ride away from his family. She loved her family and she knew they loved her, too, but they weren’t as close as Zach’s. He’d told her he talked and texted with at least one of his sisters and his grandma every day, and most of the time, it was all of them. He’d described the simple things that most families shared—cooking together, playing games or watching TV in the evenings, taking Butter to the dog park on weekends he didn’t have a game and was in town. He made sure his sisters brought the guys they dated home to meet him first. His focus was completely different than any other thirty-two-year-old she’d ever met.

“We’re not perfect,” he’d said about his family, “but we love each other, and we’re happy together.”

Her musing was interrupted when Zach passed a hand in front of her eyes. “Hey. I lost you for a few minutes, didn’t I? Tell me what’s on your mind.”

She put her fork down on the plate and reached across the table to lay her hand over his.

“I’ve been thinking, and I’m not sure how this is going to work.”

He looked startled for a few seconds, but covered his confusion with a big grin. He knew exactly what she was talking about. He wasn’t giving up on their future quite so easily.

“What do you mean? I have plenty of those cookie bar things now. We can split them. We’ll eat our dinner, and we don’t have to finish the bottle of wine if you don’t want to. Things are great.”

“No, Zach, that’s not what I’m talking about.” She forced herself to look into his eyes. “I’m not sure we should take this any further. You don’t want to move, I don’t want to move, our families won’t get along, I have to deal with my job, and—”

“If we handle this stuff one obstacle at a time, we’ll be fine.” He squeezed her hand. “It’s not like we have to get married tonight or anything.”

Just that fast, she remembered standing at the altar in the tiny wedding chapel in Las Vegas. They were a bit buzzed from the evening before. She could still see the shabby decorations and hear the couple in the back pew, who spent the entire time Zach and Cameron were repeating their vows trying to shove their tongues down each other’s throats.

She also remembered the joy in Zach’s eyes, the way his big hand trembled when he slid the plain gold band onto her finger. He needed a custom-made ring due to the size of his fingers, so they’d decided to buy him a ring later on. She remembered the gentleness of his kiss, and his whispered, “I’m crazy about you, Mrs. Anderson.”

They weren’t even married long enough to get him that ring. She still had hers. The gold band lying in the bottom of her jewelry box at home was a daily reminder that there was no such thing as a happily ever after.

“That’s the point. I’m not sure we could get married at all.” She picked up her wine glass and drained the contents. There wasn’t much left in the glass, but she hadn’t chugged alcohol since she was a freshman in college. “Everything is great as long as we’re in bed, but when we get out of it, there’s all this stuff waiting for us.”

He picked up the wine bottle and poured a serving into her glass.

“So you think that’s all we have together?”

“No,” she said. She picked up her glass again and took a swallow. Maybe she should lay off the wine, but she was in pain thinking about what had to be said, and maybe it would be easier if she were drunk while she did it. “It’s even worse that I know what I missed out on before. I also know that I can’t do this again.”

“What do you mean?”

“My heart will break in a million pieces if we try and it doesn’t work, and I don’t think I can survive it. I lost you before, and the only way I got through it was to tell myself that it was like a dream, and I woke up.” She made herself look into his concerned eyes. “I have a good life now. I work. I travel on the weekends six months a year. I go to the gym, I get take-out, and I go over my interview questions. Sometimes I do some more research or sit on the couch and watch something on TV. I don’t miss what I never had, so maybe I shouldn’t try for it at all.”

She picked up her glass again. He took it out of her hand, and set it down next to him. She was a little surprised at his actions, but she didn’t reach out to yank it back.

“So you’re just going to keep running away from anything in your personal life that’s a challenge?” he asked. “How’s that working for you?”

“You don’t understand—”

“Try me, Cameron.” He tipped her chin up with gentle fingertips to look into her eyes. “I’ve loved and lost too. I’ve lost dearly. Your dad made my life a living hell because I dared to get involved with you. But I’m still here.” His eyes entreated and seduced. “I tried to forget you for ten years. It didn’t work. I’d rather see how far we could take this instead of settling for someone else who’s a pale imitation of you.”

He got up from the table and walked into the bedroom. She heard the sounds of his hunting around for his clothes, water running in the bathroom, and a couple of muttered obscenities when he must have banged into a piece of furniture again.

She got to her feet and started clearing away empty to-go containers. She left her glass of wine, but dropped the empty bottle into the wastepaper basket. Zach reappeared in the living room.

“I’m going for a walk on the beach. Want to come along?”

She nodded. He held out his hand to her.

T
HERE WASN’T A
lot of conversation during their stroll. Zach was encouraged by the fact she didn’t let go of his hand, though. Earphones One and Two did a great job of giving them some privacy while they watched the sun set over Saratoga Passage. He knew the guys were there, but they must have had invisibility cloaks or something.

He found a long piece of driftwood that made a great place to sit and admire the pinks, oranges, and purples that washed over the sky as the sun slid behind the horizon. He took a couple of pictures with his smart phone. They saw the first few stars twinkling overhead.

“So, darlin’, I take it you’re all talked out about our situation right now.” He rubbed her much smaller hand between both of his. “What else would you like to talk about?”

“Are you going to be able to sleep in a queen-sized bed tonight? Your feet are going to hang off the end.”

He couldn’t help it. He laughed. She was right: He was squirming around earlier, trying to get comfortable while she took a little nap. Maybe he should bunk on the couch. Then again, he wanted to hold her all night, and he couldn’t do that from the next room.

“I’ll make it work,” he said.

She half-turned to look into his face. To his shock, her eyes were filled with tears. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into him.

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know what we’re going to do, but I know I don’t want to lose you again.”

She laid her head on his shoulder. He felt her tears against the side of his neck, but she didn’t make a sound.

“Shhh,” he comforted. “Everything will work out. I promise it will.”

He expected her to argue and tell him he was wrong. He waited for her to speak. She brushed the tears off her face with one hand.

“I’ll have dinner with your family,” she said.

Chapter Twenty

Z
ACH HOPPED OUT
of the black SUV about a block away from the Sharks’ practice facility the next morning. A slight breeze brushed his skin. He knew it would be a great day for football practice already. A short walk along the peaceful street outside of the facility was a good thing, especially when he knew Cameron was a bit nervous about their arrival together at Sharks headquarters. A cell phone photo of the two of them on the beach in Whidbey Island had shown up on several online gossip sites and trended on Twitter last night. He also had multiple texts from sports media on the subject this morning already. He would do the Walk of Shame, and be a better man for it.

He’d gotten a one-word text from his sister Courtney already, too: NICE.

The skies were overcast. He knew this weather phenomenon was called the “marine layer” in Seattle. It wasn’t going to rain, and the clouds would burn off by early afternoon. He wondered what kind of torture Coach Stewart had dreamed up for all of them today at practice. More cuts were coming in a few days. He wasn’t especially worried, but there were a few other vets who were. The average NFL career was three and a half seasons, so guys who stuck around for any length of time made the extra effort.

His phone was vibrating in his pocket again. It was probably another text from one of those bullshit entertainment shows that wanted to ask questions about his and Cameron’s relationship, but he pulled it out to take a look. If he was really lucky, it might be Cameron instead.

He saw an unfamiliar New York City number. His cell number was not exactly public knowledge, so it might be worth answering.