Page 7 of Under the Lights
Chase shrugged. “Not yet. Almost had a wife, but it didn’t work out.”
They caught up a little over his mother’s pie, all of them going a little heavy on the milk to wash it down, and Chase noticed that not only did he skirt around the issue of his company’s woes, but Coach didn’t seem too inclined to delve into the town’s problems, either, or his own.
After pie, he grabbed his bag and followed Mrs. McDonnell up the stairs to the small bedroom at the back of the house. No pink, thankfully, or boy band posters on the wall. The room was mostly creams and whites, with a funky, homemade-looking quilt on the twin bed and a rag rug in the middle of the hardwood floor. Either Kelly had been a neat freak in her teens, or most of her childhood history had been boxed up.
A few hours later, when he’d gone to bed simply because it was obvious the McDonnells were already up past their bedtime, he stared at the ceiling and tried not to think about Kelly McDonnell. Actually, thinking about Kelly wasn’t the problem. It was trying not to think about her handcuffs that was causing him problems. He couldn’t figure out what it was about her that had him tossing and turning, so he chalked it up to his body looking for some stress relief. He wasn’t comfortable with relieving that stress by hand, so to speak, under Coach’s roof, so he gritted his teeth and suffered.
Chase woke up the next morning, disoriented and with a heaviness in his gut he suspected might be his mother’s pie. Light on the breakfast,he told himself as he pulled on some clothes to walk down the hall to the bathroom. When he got downstairs, Mrs. McDonnell shoved a full coffee mug into his hand, and he struggled to wake up while his hosts went through their morning routine.
“I’m heading to O’Rourke’s in a few minutes,” Coach told him. “The missus doesn’t make breakfast on days I go there, so if you’re hungry, you’d best come along.”
Not nearly enough minutes later, and still suffering a caffeine shortage, Chase slid into a booth across from Coach and tried to decide what his stomach was up to dealing with. He would have thought the laminated menu was the same one he’d looked at the last time he’d been in O’Rourke’s, except the prices were higher.
Don and Cassandra Jones had opened the restaurant in 1984 and, according to the anecdotal history of Stewart Mills, they were going to use their own last name. After half the town got sucked into a two-week-long battle over apostrophe placement, Cassandra had gotten mad and ordered a sign with her maiden name, so O’Rourke’s Family Restaurant was born in a town that didn’t have a single O’Rourke in the telephone book.
Coach ran his finger down the menu, making sounds of indecision as he read. “I usually have the hash and cheese omelet since the wife won’t let me have them after my cholesterol check, but I’m not that hungry this morning.”
“Me neither, to tell you the truth.”
Amusement crinkled the corners of Coach’s eyes. “Make sure you tell your mom we said thanks for the pie.”
“The gift that keeps on giving,” Chase muttered, but his mood brightened considerably when their waitress set an oversized mug of coffee in front of him. No dainty teacups for O’Rourke’s.
Then he looked toward the door and saw Kelly McDonnell walking toward them. Either the caffeine chose that second to hit his bloodstream, or he had a serious, previously undiscovered thing for women in uniform.
Or maybe justthiswoman in uniform. She still had those killer legs, and the rest of her wasn’t bad, either. The hat was left somewhere, probably in the cruiser, and her hair was braided so tightly he was surprised she wasn’t squinting.
There were a few seconds of awkwardness because Chase and Coach were both sitting in the center of their booth seats, but Coach took care of that. “Slide over, Chase, and let my daughter sit.”
Kelly smelled as good as her legs looked in the navy pants, and Chase lifted his mug to his mouth so the coffee aroma could block out the surprisingly sweet and slightly fruity cop smell.
“Glad you could make it,” Coach told her.
“It’s pretty quiet this morning.”
Chase chuckled. “Like Stewart Mills becomes a hotbed of crime in the afternoon. New Hampshire’s very own Gotham City.”
When neither of his breakfast companions laughed, he realized he may have stepped in it. Rather than sink further into the conversational muck trying to talk his way out of it, he gulped some more coffee.
“You’ve been gone a long time,” Kelly said as she stirred cream and sugar into her coffee. “And the worse things get for people financially, the more desperate they get. Shoplifting, burglary, domestic violence. All of it sees an increase.”
He knew all about things getting tight, and Seth had shown him how good people did shitty things when they got desperate. But Chase knew, as bad as it was, he was luckier than many. Not only did it look like he’d be able to tread water, but he also didn’t have a wife and kids to worry about dragging down with him if he sank.
“And the kids are acting out?” he asked.
Coach nodded. “Yeah. And some of them only walked the straight and narrow because they knew I’d kick their butts off the team if they didn’t. If they know there won’t be tryouts come August—”
“There will be,” Kelly interrupted. Her voice was low and firm, and Chase wondered if she used that voice while handcuffing miscreants, which led him to wonder if she’d use that voice being bossy in bed. Then he wondered if she’d notice if he squirmed in his seat. “Stewart Mills is coming together to save the team. They’ll dig deep.”
“Digging deep doesn’t do much good if all you’ve got in your pockets is lint. School spirit and good intentions won’t pay the bills.”
The man sounded defeated, and that started an ache in Chase’s chest. The coach who had changed his life had been inspiring and tough, and he’d refused to give up on anything. Not on his unlikely dream of a state championship. Not on a group of misfit boys who weren’t an easy bunch to wrangle. But it sounded like the fight was going out of him.
The waitress showed up to take their order and then stopped back to top off their coffees. Kelly shifted on the hard bench seat, and her knee bumped his leg.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
He didn’t mind at all. He didn’t mind when her leg brushed his ten minutes later, either, or when they both reached for the salt at the same time and almost ended up holding hands.
