Running Interference (17 page)

She smiled and waved like he had nothing to worry about. But while he watched her go all out at practice, his doubts grew. Something wasn't right here, and he bet it had something to do with last night. She was scared. Those damn feelings she wanted to take to her grave.

He waited for her outside the locker room even though he'd made plans to watch a movie with his mother and aunts.

Her steps faltered when she saw him. And she was with her bodyguards again. He smiled at MJ and Jillian. “Ladies, nice practice.”

They smiled back. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

“Did you drive?” he asked Tanya.

The women exchanged looks, but nobody answered.

That
was odd.

Finally, Tanya said, “MJ drove,” a little like he'd expect her to say, “Fine. I give up. Shoot me.”

What the hell?
“Then how ‘bout riding with me?” he asked.

Her blink lasted a split second too long.

“Okay.” She shuffled toward him.

MJ and Jillian still didn't look certain, so he ushered Tanya away, and he waited until they were inside his car before he asked, “What's going on with you? Or is it me? Did I do something wrong last night?”

She sighed. “You didn't do anything wrong. I just think … Cam, it's time.”

His throat felt thick. “For what?”

“It's time to end the … extras. Friends first. Friends last. You know?”

He lifted a hand to bang the steering wheel, but stopped mid-air. “Because you have feelings for me? That's it, isn't it?”
Fuck!

You know, he knew this was coming. Hell, he was leaving in little more than a week, but it still knocked the wind out of him. And he just wanted to hear her say it, to let him know he wasn't crazy for feeling something, too.

She shook her head frantically. “We had rules for a reason, Cam.”

“Jesus, just say it, T. It's ridiculous to think two people could be friends and then become lovers and not feel something more than pleasant around each other.” He got in her face. “Say you have feelings for me.”

She lifted her chin. “Fine. I have feelings for you. How's that? Better?”

No. Worse. Because he'd been over and over it in his head these last two nights, and there wasn't anything he could do about it. His life, his team, and his career were in Boston. Her life, her team, and her career were here.

He hit the wheel.

“We can still be friends,” she said.

He didn't want to be friends. He did, but … “What if I started coming back more? It doesn't look like my mother's interested in Boston, and I have projects here now. The field. The work I've been doing with the high school team.”

She stared straight ahead. “That would be great, but,” she looked at him, “it doesn't change anything between me and you.”

He hit the wheel again. “Why?”

“Because we aren't going anywhere. We've taken this as far as we can.” She grabbed his hand. “If we push it any further, we could cause some real damage.”

He snorted.

“You'll thank me one day,” she said. “When you're married with kids.”

It was ridiculous. So ridiculous. He pulled his hand away.

Again he wanted to pound the steering wheel. This time he was stopped by his phone buzzing in the cup holder. A second later Katerina Kloss's name lit up the dashboard display.

She couldn't have worse timing.

Tanya stiffened for a split-second, and then gave him the fakest smile. “Go ahead and answer it.”

“Only because it's about your dad's gym.” He hit a button to answer the call. “Katerina, hey. Let me take this call off speaker phone.” It didn't feel right to insert an innocent woman into this.

He glanced at Tanya, who played with her phone or looked out the window like nothing that happened here was a big deal. And that made him angrier.

“Change of plans,” Katerina said.

“How so?” It was all he could do not to let his anger spill out onto her.

“Skip can't meet for drinks tomorrow. He can do the next day if you're free.”

He glanced at Tanya again. “I'm free.” So damn free it was a shame.

“Good. Now, one more thing. I was a little disappointed when he cancelled because, well, I was looking forward to spending the evening with you. And then I got invited to this opening for the new community center Coffee Bean corporate is opening in your neighborhood. It's super last minute, but I thought, ‘Hey! Since we're both free.'” She giggled. “Would you be interested in escorting me?”

This was hands down the most ridiculous night of his life.

“I don't know. I … ”

“They would love to have an inspirational appearance by someone who grew up in the neighborhood and wants to see it thrive again.”

Under the circumstances he couldn't come up with a reasonable way out. “Yeah, yeah. I'll be there.” He hung up about a block away from Tanya's apartment, and when he pulled into the lot, she unbuckled.

“Thanks for the ride,” she said.

He winced at the way that came out. How ironic. Seriously. How many rides had he given her these past three weeks? And still, after everything, he could honestly answer, “Anytime.”

But it was all very
friendly
-like.

He watched her disappear into her mother's restaurant, and pounded the hell out of his steering wheel. As he growled and banged, he imagined the airbag going off. Maybe the blow would knock some sense into him. He was not a desperate, depressed man. He had the world by the ass. Tanya or no Tanya, it was time he remembered that.

She might not want him, but there was no shortage of people who did. It was time to focus on those people, like he'd been doing his whole life—every time he thought about the fact that his father didn't want him.

• • •

The next evening, Cam skipped Clash practice for obvious reasons, but he also had a legitimate excuse. He needed to get ready to escort Katerina to the community center opening. His mother wasn't particularly happy he was doing anything that involved Coffee Bean and their “underhanded attempts at getting in good with people just so they can make money.”
Such paranoia.
But she was happy to see him in a suit.

He hadn't been dressed up in over a month. In fact, he'd been living like a college kid on leftovers and in workout clothes even off the field and outside of the gym.
Back to the real world, baby.

He straightened his tie knot and swallowed against the restriction. He splashed his face with cologne and weathered the burn. Then he headed out of the city toward the swanky suburban address Katerina had given him. It would've been so much easier for her to come to him, but this was the proper way to escort someone. Besides, it was good to get out of South City. Katerina's Pepper Pike neighborhood with its perfectly maintained rows of homes reminded him of Boston. He'd been stuck in a rewind of his life so long he'd forgotten how proud he'd been to get out and achieve something like this.

Right about now, he welcomed the reminder.

Ten minutes later, she answered the door dressed in a slinky, gold dress.

“You look amazing,” he said.

“Back attcha, big boy.” She tapped his lapel with her shiny handbag, and a puff of sweet perfume tickled his nose. “We are going to knock everyone's socks off tonight. They're not going to know what hit them.” She hooked her arm around his. “Ready?”

Not really.

She pulled out her phone and moved in closer to him. “Selfie? I have a blog on the station's website. It'll be good publicity.”

Suddenly his workout clothes and his mama's tired house looked like the more attractive option. But he was a gentleman who didn't back out of commitments, so he smiled through the goofy photo and then led her to his car.

During the ride, she talked. A lot. An occupational hazard for a T.V. anchorwoman maybe. She didn't let him get a meaningful word in on the ride back into town. But every time he looked at her she was so smoking hot and so damn charismatic he'd have been a fool to mind. He was going to go along for the ride tonight and hope it helped him feel better.

But one glance at the steel and stone community center at the farthest reaches of South City, and all he was feeling was confused. With a block of vacant buildings to its east and west, it was positioned more prominently in the Greenhurst neighborhood.
Hmm.
That seemed odd. Maybe they had plans to develop the rest of the area too.

Katerina led him toward the check-in table. Every few feet someone recognized him, but he didn't recognize anyone as actually being from South City besides him. Something else that made him go
hmm
.

A surprising number of people recognized Katerina before they recognized him, and she ate that up. He fell back a couple steps and watched her work the crowd. She didn't miss him, did she?

He felt a tug on his arm and looked down to see a Sharpie and a napkin being offered to him. “Can I get your autograph?” the man said.

By the time he finished signing, Katerina had disappeared into the crowd. If he hadn't driven her here, he would've cut out. Gone home and curled up on his mother's couch.

A waving on his left caught his attention, and there she was. When she reached him, she pulled him down so she could talk into his ear. “You didn't keep up with me.”

“You didn't look like you wanted me to.”

“Of course I did, silly.” She slinked her arm around his waist and looked up at him with a smile. “There. Joined at the hip. Well, my hip, your thigh, but why quibble?”

Quibble?
He laughed and somehow the sound loosened the knot in his chest. If he could manage a few more of those, he'd be feeling halfway normal.

Once they reached their table, he enjoyed two glasses of Hennessy and some small talk with people who were apparently from Katerina's work.

“When do you go back?” a gray-haired man in alarmingly tight leather pants asked.

“About a week.” Honestly, right now, he wished it was sooner.

“Katerina should take you to a Cavs game before you leave. They're having one hell of a year.”

He nodded, but basketball wasn't his thing. Unless he was with Tanya.

Tight pants tapped Katerina on the shoulder. “You need to take him to the Cavs game.”

“Ooh!” Katerina bounced. She looked cute enough doing it. “The station has a box. That's a great idea. Let me text Al.” She picked up her phone from the table and started typing.

Was he allowed to say no?
Dummy. Why would you say no?
What else did he have to do for the remainder of his time here?

From there, the evening dragged on. He looked at his watch every fifteen minutes. The fact he was even wearing a watch again felt strange. He needed football to start. That was the great stabilizer in his life. Once he was back on the field with his team nothing that had happened here would matter. Not even the thing he was trying to forget about the most. Tanya.

“Come on.” Katerina put her phone down and grinned up at him. “Tours are about to start.”

She grabbed his hand and pulled him along behind her. They saw the indoor tennis court, the swimming pool, and the exercise room. Then, they heard a speech by some guy named Thomas Rowenthal, who said they were proud to serve the people of the Greenhurst neighborhood.
Greenhurst?
Then why the hell was this thing built in South City?

Shit.
His family had been right. These companies were buying up property in South City to serve everyone else but the people who lived there. What were they hoping those people would do, move? Slowly that sunk in, and left him nodding. Yep. They were going to force them out or leave them here to rot.

Well, not his mother. It was time to refocus on getting her to Boston.

“Get up!” Jillian swatted Tanya's behind.

Tanya turned her head to see Jillian and MJ standing beside the bed.

“Get dressed,” MJ said.

“I'm tired. Practice was hard.”

Jillian grabbed her arm and tugged. “You're depressed. If you were tired, you would sleep it off. Girl, I hear you in here all hours of the night. You aren't sleeping.”

“Doc says you need a drink.” MJ looked serious enough, but she of all people knew how serious Tanya was about her no-alcohol-during-the-season policy. “Desperate times call for desperate measures. One drink.”

“Two would be better,” Jillian said.

Ten minutes later Tanya was up and dressed in sweats. The minute she walked into the restaurant below her apartment she saw her mother behind the bar.
Great.

She turned to her friends. “Did you plan this?”

MJ gave her the raised brow of innocence. “Plan what?”

“Her?” Tanya pointed toward her mother.

Jillian snickered. “So you're not only depressed, now you're paranoid. This is going to take three drinks.”

The first margarita went down easier than she expected it to. Her mother didn't harp, and MJ and Jillian didn't badger. They talked about her mother's new hairdo.

“Red makes me feel alive,” her mother said.

It made her look like she was on fire, but Tanya swallowed those words with the help of her second drink. When she was halfway to the bottom, Jillian spun her stool around and stared at her.

Here it comes.

“I saw Cam and his mother at the grocery store today. He said he's looking forward to the bachelor auction.”

Tanya rolled her eyes. “Good.”

Jillian looked at Tanya's mother. “See? I told you. This mood is about a man.”

“The hell it is.” Tanya attempted a sincere look in her mother's direction, but the booze had one side of her face lagging behind the other. “I don't care about him.” At least she hadn't slurred …. Had she? Ooh! They'd liquored her up on purpose.