“I want to start by apologizing for Friday.” I begin. “I was completely out of line. I asserted myself, invaded what was supposed to be your time and embarrassed you.”
Elle doesn’t say anything but listens intently.
“I forgave Cassie, however, forgiving her doesn’t heal those wounds overnight. She really fucked up with my ability to trust, which has unfortunately bled into our relationship, on multiple occasions and that is on me and me alone.” I take a steady breath. “I have asked Dr. Mondary to start seeing me on a bi-weekly basis, to try to work on my trust issues. It’s not fair for you to have to pay for the sins of Cassie.”
Elle looks at me with a serious expression. “I accept your apology, Archer.” She takes a deep breath. “That is exactly what I needed to hear, thank you. And thank you for being pro-active and taking the initiative with Dr. Mondary.” Her serious expression morphs into something more relaxed.
“The girls had fun with you.” She pivots, a smallsmile gracing her lips.
I let out an embarrassed chuckle. “Well, I’m glad I didn’t completely ruin the night.”
“You didn’t,” She assures me.
We finish our dinner and then go to the couch to finish our wine and relax.
“Tell me more about Nashville, what else did you girls get up to?” I ask wrapping my arm around her and pulling her close.
I listen with rapt attention as well divulges all the details of the remainder of the girls’ weekend to me. She tells me about brunch, dancing on Broadway, and singing to Shania. She even shows me a video that Nia recorded of her and Vi singing a duet.
“It looks like you had a lot of fun.”
“We did, but honestly, I think it would be more fun to go with you next time.”
I pull her into a deep kiss, our first truly romantic kiss since Thursday morning.
Chapter 69
Archer
Elle is stressed. Between finishing up the final touches for Vi’s wedding and the end of the year school stuff, particularly field day, she’s one minor inconvenience away from a meltdown. Ty said that Sadie is equally stressed. Apparently, their PE teacher, who is in charge of Field Day, quit to go “find himself.” Which normally would be the principal’s problem to handle except his wife just had a baby so he’s out for paternity leave. Talk about a perfect storm.
They needed a game plan, and who better to create a game plan than Super Bowl champs?
The plan consisted of several steps.
Step 1: Find volunteers.
That was easy, DJ, Cam, Mack and a few of Mack’s clients from the Thundersnow were more than willing to give up one of their days to help the kids. Stephanie also volunteered her time. Ty and specifically said we wanted to keep this under wraps, no advertising this. Steph was cool with it, she wanted to help; her cousin kids’ go to Elle and Sadie’s school apparently.
Step 2: Go to the central office with the necessary background checks so we can volunteer.
Also, surprisingly easy. Since professional teams are expected to keep background checks on all the employees.
Step 3: Figure out what stations Field Day is going to have and split the additional manpower appropriately.
This was a bit harder. Elle said there was going to be parent volunteers, but she wasn’t sure how many parents were going to be there. The sixth-grade teachers were in charge of the volunteers.
We ultimately had Steph reach out, saying the Wolves would like to donate supplies for Field Day. The organization was surprisingly chill with the idea. I guess it’s easy positive press, donating to a school.
From the correspondence with the school Steph was able to find out the exact number of students and parents that were going to be attending so we were able to donate the appropriate amount of water bottles, snacks and hot lunch for everyone.
I threw in the consumable supplies for the school. I, meaning Jason, the real MVP of my life, went out and purchased water balloons, regular balloons, cones, extra soccer balls, an additional tug of war rope and medals for the kids to wear after field day as well as two additional blow-up obstacle courses. I really hope those don’t become consumable but if they do, oh well.
Coach caught wind of all this because honestly nothing gets past that man. He also volunteered his time, snowballing into the rest of the coaches and team coordinators volunteering their time. They said they would happily man the grills for the cookout lunch.
Step 4: Show up and Help Out.
The day finally arrived. Elle left earlier than normal.
