Page 70 of Under the Lights
They’d barely finished the pizza when Briscoe was summoned back to his parents’ to help wrangle kids while his wife started packing for their trip home. They were hitting the road early in the morning, so he said his good-byes with a lot of handshakes and backslaps, and then it was just Chase, Sam and Alex.
“So what’s next for you guys?” he asked them, and they both shrugged.
“I’m heading back to my glamorous life in Texas,” Sam told them, holding up his soda glass as if he were making a toast.
“How the hell did you end up as an oil-field electrician, anyway?” Chase asked.
He shrugged. “I just drove around the country, doing whatever jobs they were hiring for. Ended up in Texas and I like it there. Worked on a ranch when I first got there, but then I found out I don’t like cows very much. So I decided to get some education and bump my paychecks up a bit. That’s it. How ’bout you, Murph? What’s next?”
Alex shook his head, staring into his beer mug. “I’m not sure. I’ll head home and do some research. Catch up on the world news and brainstorm a new story to tell. Then try to sell it.”
“You don’t get assigned stories to take pictures for?” Chase asked.
“Sometimes publications contact me to ask me to do a story, but I’m freelance, so I can do what moves me. It’s getting tough, though. We used to give the world the photographs that illustrated news around the world. Now people on the street are using their phones to upload pictures to social media while the news is still breaking.”
“That sucks.” Sam covered a yawn, but it spread until they were all yawning. “So you looking for a new line of work?”
“No.” Alex was definitely starting to slump in his chair, and Chase knew they weren’t much better off, no matter how much he wanted to put off going back to Coach’s house. “I don’t know how to do anything else, for one thing. And the photos I like to take aren’t necessarily breaking news, anyway. I like to use the camera to tell stories, and those stories don’t always have splashy headlines. They’re more than a quick flash in the social media pan and sometimes in-depth is still as important as immediate.”
Chase wasn’t sure he totally grasped what Alex did, although Mrs. McDonnell had showed him a scrapbook that had some of his pictures, but he knew Murph was good at it. He’d even won some awards. And he traveled a lot.
“You ever think about a wife and kids?” Chase asked him. “Settling down, I mean.”
Alex shook his head. “I had a wife once, actually. She didn’t like my lifestyle and, when I wouldn’t give up my career, she left me. I’ve learned it’s easier not to have a wife than it is to keep one happy.”
Sam nodded. “What about you, Sanders? What’s next on your agenda?”
Not a wife, that was for sure. “I’m heading back to New Jersey. I’ve got some jobs lined up, and I need to find a new apartment that’s substantially cheaper than the last one I had. Downsizing all the way around, I guess.”
Sam gave him a solemn look. “At least you’ve still got your truck.”
That made Chase laugh. “You’ve gotta get out of Texas more, my friend.”
He shrugged. “It’s a nice truck.”
Chase remembered the way Kelly had teased him about gelding his truck and took a swallow of beer. That was probably one of his favorite things about her. She made him laugh, and he liked that even more than he liked her legs.
“We’re heading out about six o’clock Monday morning,” Alex said, “because dumb-ass over here wanted a morning flight. When are you leaving?”
“Not at six in the morning,” Chase said, and they all laughed. “I haven’t really thought about it.”
He should think about it soon, though. It was time to go, and no amount of dragging his feet would make it any less painful. Getting up and on the road first thing in the morning would be like ripping a bandage off—it still hurt, but it faded faster.
“The parade’s at ten tomorrow,” he said, “which kind of kills it as a travel day. Maybe Monday morning.”
But if the parade started at ten and everything was over by noon, maybe he’d head out then. He could drive until he got tired and then find a cheap motel somewhere to spend the night. If he stayed, he might try to see Kelly, and he wasn’t sure that was a good idea.
Maybe things were best left the way they were. They’d had fun. He’d made it awkward, and now it felt as if there was a distance between them. It seemed like a natural segue to the very real and substantial distance about to be between them.
He’d do the parade, say his good-byes and then hit the road. And, no matter how much he might want to, he wouldn’t look back.
—
Kelly stared at her ceiling, feeling the lack of Chase beside her in an almost physical way. It had been a long day and, though she couldn’t say she was in the mood for sex, she wouldn’t mind nodding off wrapped in his arms.
Her mom had called her shortly after she got home, wanting to thank her again for all the work she’d put into Eagles Fest on Coach’s behalf. During the conversation, she’d casually mentioned that Chase had gone out with the guys to celebrate their parts in the successful fund-raising, so Kelly didn’t bother reaching out to him. And she didn’t hear from him.
Now, unable to sleep and with nothing better to do, Kelly replayed the night over and over in her mind, wishing she’d handled it differently. He’d been hurt by the way she’d laughed off their relationship. She could see that now, but she wasn’t sure exactly what it meant.
