Page 43 of Under the Lights
“Your family’s not the only one going through hard times. Trust me. But stealing is not the answer.”
“I won’t do it again. I promise.”
Talking to Emily’s dad was as awkward as she’d imagined. Between hearing the news his daughter had shoplifted and learning she was transitioning into young womanhood, he was so flustered he forgot to be mad. After pulling him aside to give him a crash course on how to deal with this new chapter of his daughter’s life, Kelly got back in her cruiser with a sigh of relief.
She had to go back to the gas station to fill her tank, and she was thankful the department had cards to swipe at the pump so she didn’t have to go inside. And there were other customers, so Janie couldn’t do more than give her a quick wave through the window.
She wondered who had been telling tales about Chase’s life, but she also thought about Janie’sdodged a bulletsentiment. It made Kelly wonder how she would have coped if her husband had lost all of their money and his business and their home. Probably not well, because she tended to be very conservative when it came to money and wouldn’t do well in financial chaos.
But she already knew Chase wasn’t marriage material for her, and she didn’t care. She didn’t want to marry him. She just wanted him to call her. Or text her.
She got back in her cruiser and, after a glance at her silent phone, went back out on patrol.
—
Chase sat in the back of the high school cafeteria, which had been chosen for its seating, trying to pay attention to the television that had been wheeled in and hooked up to somebody’s laptop. They were all there—the alumni, the football team and a few of the dads and staff members—watching video of the Eagles’ previous season.
They were good, he thought. Maybe not great, but they were a solid team, and he recognized some of Coach McDonnell’s personal touches in their training. They were positive without being cocky. They communicated with each other rather than constantly looking to the coaching staff as go-betweens. No play was made by one single player, so they celebrated together and they also shared fault together. Whether they ever got to play for a championship or not, the things they learned from Coach and on the field would stay with them forever.
He wished there was an abridged version, though. Sitting in the curved, hard plastic cafeteria chairs wasn’t comfortable, and the plays on the screen were all starting to blend together. What really sucked was that it had been his and Alex’s idea to do this. They were hoping to fire the boys up in case their energy was flagging only halfway through the fund-raising and, maybe, see what the alumni team was up against.
There was no mystery there. They were up against a team of teenage boys who played good football together and were led by a great coach. Watching game tapes wasn’t going to give the older guys an edge.
After a while, Chase pulled up his email on his phone and scrolled through, deleting the spam. There were a few communications from builders he’d talked to about taking over the big jobs he could no longer afford to do, and he went through the slow and painstaking process of responding to them on the phone’s small screen.
It was tempting to ask the McDonnells for access to the computer they had at Coach’s office, but then they’d know something was going on and ask him questions about it. Even if they were coming from a place of concern and caring, he didn’t really like talking about the mess at home. It felt like a failure on every level.
When he came to an email from his lawyer, he braced himself as he opened it, hoping it wouldn’t be some new horror show in the making. It wasn’t, but it also wasn’t good news. Seth’s lawyer had contacted his lawyer, and he was denying he’d taken the money, blaming it on a hacker or computer glitch.
Chase cursed and had to make an effort not to throw the phone across the room. There was no question Seth had taken the money, and it wouldn’t be hard to prove he had. But it would take time. And it also meant he’d probably buried the money someplace where they wouldn’t easily find it.
“Hey.”
Chase looked up and saw that Deck was leaning toward him. “You’re making pissed-off noises. Like sighing and growling and shit. And you’re getting louder.”
He flagged the email to respond to later and closed his email. “Sorry.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Just work crap I’m not in the mood to deal with right now. And I’m getting hungry. How much longer do you think this will go on?”
Deck looked at the screen for a few seconds. “There are two games left and they’ve started fast-forwarding through a lot of it. Not long.”
“Too bad the pizza place doesn’t deliver.”
“Dude? Pizza?” That was Cody, from the front of the room.
“There’s pizza?”
Somehow they ended up walking to the Stewart Mills House of Pizza when the video ended, where the alumni guys all chipped in enough to buy pizzas for everybody. Chase thought he’d had enough of football for the day, but once they carried the pizzas to the town square and were all sitting in the grass with their slices, he didn’t mind. The kids were happy to have the free pizza, and there were no surly attitudes in sight.
Hunter even asked him about his time as running back for the Eagles and, the more he spoke, the more Chase warmed up to the topic. He wasn’t sure anything had ever come close to replicating the rush that came from running up the sideline, evading defenders without stepping out of bounds, and breaking the plane for the touchdown.
“Did you ever get hurt?”
Chase shook his head. “No, but I was lucky. Just some bad bruises and a lot of sore muscles. I remember a kid on an opposing team tearing up his knee, though. I don’t think he ever played again. That’s one reason stretching and workouts and listening to Coach matter. A lot of injuries come from poor conditioning.”
He missed whatever Hunter said next because a police cruiser was driving slowly down the main street, and Kelly was behind the wheel. Wishing he’d thought to ask her if he’d see her again—alone and up close—before he left the night before, he debated texting her. But even if she hadn’t been driving, he wasn’t sure what he’d say.
