Page 44 of Under the Lights
Hey, had fun. Want to do it again?
That was lame. Maybe something simple and not pushy.I had a great time last night.OrI’m sitting on the grass eating pizza with a bunch of guys jacked up on football talk and all I can think about is you.
“You going to eat that piece, dude?”
He realized Cody had moved closer and was talking to him. “No, I’m full. Go ahead.”
“I thought it was super lame they were making a big deal out of you guys coming back,” he said around a mouthful of cheese and pepperoni, “but it’s kinda cool having you around. Like seeing you all went to college and do different jobs and all live in different places and stuff.”
They gave the kids hope there was life outside Stewart Mills. Chase thought he probably would have latched onto that, too, if they’d been in a similar situation back in the day. “You thinking about where you want to go to college?”
Cody shrugged. “I thought I’d work at the mill until they shut it down. So I figured I’d drive over to the furniture factory like some people do, but then that closed, too. So I’ll probably go to whatever college will take me.”
Not the most encouraging of outlooks. “Once school starts, you should make an appointment with Jen... uh, Miss Cooper, and talk about your options. That’s a big part of her job, you know. Helping you figure out what comes after high school.”
“Yeah, she’s pretty cool. And hot, too. I’ll probably talk to her.”
Whatever got him in the guidance office. “Good plan.”
The cruiser made a second lap, and this time Kelly beeped and waved. They all waved back, but he wondered if she’d looked for him in the crowd. He really should text her soon, because the longer he waited, the more awkward it would be.
How’s your day going?There. That was conversational and friendly, without being about sex. Not that he didn’t want to pursue that angle, but he didn’t want to be pushy. And it would be a fairly benign message should she not have privacy when she opened it.
He pulled out his phone and punched it in before he could change his mind. A few seconds later, he saw the cruiser’s turn signal blink, and it pulled to the curb.
Really? You can actually SEE that I’m driving right now.
Oops.I thought you’d read it later, when you weren’t driving.
I’ll text you later, when I can.The cruiser pulled back into traffic and turned off on a side road.
Chase leaned back on his hands, grinning. Even if the brief conversation hadn’t gone anywhere, he knew one thing. She hadn’t been able to wait when she saw a text from him, and had pulled over right away to read it. In his book, that could only mean good things.
12
On Tuesday, the three women all managed to finally have free time together, so they met at Kelly’s apartment to deal with the money from the street fair. So much of it was one-dollar bills, or even quarters, they knew they couldn’t just show up at the bank with the plastic buckets.
It took a lot of trips to get the buckets upstairs, and then they all sat on the floor and started separating the money. The bank had a sorting machine, but they wanted a rough idea of how much they’d pulled in. Jen had pulled in a couple more monetary gifts from some foundations Kelly had never heard of, and there was a possibility they could close out the spaghetti dinner tomorrow night with the good news the Stewart Mills Eagles would report for tryouts in August.
“I wonder if strippers have to do this every night,” Gretchen said.
Kelly laughed. “Hey, the barn has a pole. You could pull in some extra money.”
“I think stripping and a wooden barn pole is asking for splinters in bad places.”
About halfway through, Kelly stood up to stretch her back and try to get some feelings back in her legs. “I can’t believe how much money is here. Not that I’m complaining, but this is crazy.”
Jen tossed a handful of quarters into a bucket and made a tally mark on her legal pad. They were going with rough estimates for the coins, or they’d be in her apartment for a week. “After you left, the boys—the current team, I mean—took turns in the booth, since it’s to raise money for them. Their girlfriends and siblings were practically begging money from people to dunk them.”
“I noticed you didn’t come back after your turn, Kelly,” Gretchen said. It was a statement, but the nosy tilt at the end made it more of a question.
“By the time I took a hot shower and had some hot cocoa, I was done. I fell into bed.” It was the truth.
“Chase disappeared about the same time you did,” Gretchen added.
Kelly gathered four twenty-five-dollar piles of one-dollar bills, very meticulously tapped the paper to line up the edges and then slid a paper band around the stack. She didn’t want to lie to them, but she didn’t really want to talk about it, either.
“Nothing?” Gretchen pushed, and Kelly shrugged.
