“Or we could skip it,” he suggested, but the Woodsmen tryout was too close. I said no, that this would make me feel better, and he shrugged and agreed. I checked my phone a few timeson the ride but didn’t hear anything from Kiya about Channing’s apology, which I hoped was groveling enough.
Instead of driving to the practice facility to hang out with the toy dog-sized mice, we went to the gym that I belonged to and he had joined. Eddie had sworn that the rodent population out there was decreasing (even in the epicenter), but exterminators were coming shortly, anyway. That wasn’t to help the Junior Woodsmen, though—it was a sign of how close the Woodsmen preseason was. They would be in the practice facility soon enough, and of course it needed to be perfect for them. I planned to be there and let the rodent experts know that there were two sides of the building that needed to be cleared and not to forget that mice weren’t stopped by padlocked doors, like football players were.
That line of thinking only made me grumpier. I was muttering under my breath as we went into the gym and my mental state didn’t improve when I looked over from the treadmill I was on and saw Ronan in the free weight area. He wasn’t lifting, but he was involved in a conversation with a woman. I could only see the view of her back, which meant I could see her butt and it was incredible. How did she get an ass like that? I thought about increasing the incline but it wouldn’t have given me what she had. Then I watched her put her hand on his arm and I hit the red stop button. I went equally as fast as I’d been moving on the treadmill toward where they were standing but about ten feet away, I stopped.
Judas Priest. Was I going to charge over and grab her by the hair? Push them apart? Yell that he better get away from her?No, none of those things. I swiveled and went into the women’s locker room to try to get control over whatever emotions were making me act so out of character. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror above the sinks and I saw two swipes of angry red on my cheeks. That was ridiculous—what was I doing?
Ronan was loitering near the locker room door when I came out. “I don’t know what happens in women’s bathrooms but I have to think it’s more interesting than men’s rooms,” he commented. “I never go in one of those to chat, for example, and I don’t think I come out looking better than when I went in.”
I definitely didn’t look better but I was hoping that I didn’t look quite as red as I had when I’d entered. “There’s no one to talk to in there,” I told him. Other women had come with friends and I had, too, but mine had been busy picking someone up. Which was totally his right, I reminded myself. Why was I acting like this?
“Cate?”
I looked up at him and he actually seemed concerned.
“I’m worried about Kiya because I haven’t heard from her yet. And I’m tired,” I said. “I’m tired, that’s all.”
That was all it was. Also, I felt a little confused and I didn’t enjoy that. I was a person with plans and a future. I let everything roll off me like a duck. I never acted like this, like—as if—
“Cate?”
“Let’s get out of here,” I said, and we left.
I brought the confusion with me, though.
Chapter 8
It had been a terrible few weeks…
But not for everyone. “This summer has been so fun!” Taylor said. She had been busy with her friends, one of whom was now a friend with benefits, and her cool job in Marketing.
“So fun!” Victoria echoed. She was loving her new apartment, she told us.
“So fun,” Kiya stated flatly. She blew her nose and didn’t mention her Cado.
I didn’t even bother to respond. They already knew that I hadn’t been having any fun for a while now. This period of anxious waiting would end tomorrow, which was not soon enough.
“Fan Day was great,” Taylor reminded me and Kiya, and we nodded mutely.
I recognized that Fan Day really had been an amazing experience for a lot of people. Every Woodsmen employee hadworked manically but also exploded with excitement that the team had come back to town. The football fans who showed up to the stadium had loved it. The current Woodsmen players, the ones returning from last season and the guys who had already signed contracts, had sat at booths to meet and greet everyone and there had been all kinds of activities. I knew that, because I had helped to run them.
Fan Day had also been the first day of the tryouts for the would-be Woodsmen. It was only a meeting and not an actual practice or workout, but Ronan had been at the stadium for it. I’d managed to run over to catch a glimpse of them just before they went into one of the conference rooms. I hadn’t yelled his name or tried to attract his attention, but he’d spotted me and I’d seen him smile. I had smiled back and not given an indication that I was anxious in any way or on the verge of flipping out. After all, this was his deal, not mine. I was invested because I was a friend who had joined him on part of the journey to make the Woodsmen roster, but he had been putting his heart and body into football for his whole life. It was his dream, not mine.
But the training camp so far had not been fun, not for Ronan and not for me. He had been working his butt off and was exhausted and worried. I felt like I’d been going through it too, when actually all I’d done was try to help him while also avoiding the Office of Special Projects. I had been farming myself around to different departments without even asking my boss if that was ok—I assumed it was and anyway, Mr. Gowan wasn’t there much himself. He was traveling even more than what he’d done overthe winter (and I also assumed that he was golfing but really, I had no idea).
I was working hard to distract myself but it hadn’t been a solution for my anxiety. No matter what I was doing, my focus always swiveled back to the Woodsmen training camp and my focus was no fun at all. With Kiya out of sorts and with me brimming with nerves, Taylor and Victoria were probably glad when we finished our lunch.
“I’ll walk you back to your office,” Victoria volunteered. That made sense since we worked on the same floor and across the hall from each other, but she meant directly to my office. She escorted me all the way to my cubicle and then kept going up to Mr. Gowan’s door. She peered cautiously inside and then, when she saw that he wasn’t there, she walked right in.
“What are you doing?” I asked as I followed.
“I just wanted to see,” she told me. She walked around the back of his desk and pulled out his chair. “What do you think of Beau?”
“Of Mr. Gowan? He never suggested that I could use his first name,” I answered. “I don’t know him very well.”
“You’ve been working for him for almost a year.” She looked at the bare surface of his desk. “You have that weird alligator but he doesn’t keep anything out.”
“He’s not in the office very often. My stuffie is a crocodile and his name is Polyphemus,” I let her know.
