Page 5 of Raging Fires

“I can see how that might slip your mind,” Asa said sarcastically. “How’d it go?”

“Same as last time I saw her. We got into an argument.” Jake peeled a little strip of label off the bottle. “My fault.” He shouldn’t have said that about money; he knew it wasn’t true. Kelli had never been about the money. But it burned him that she had refused to take anything of his. That she’d left every bit of jewelry he’d bought her. The car he’d spent a week picking out for her. He could still remember her wedding ring sitting all alone on the polished wood of his dresser.

“Shocker.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jake narrowed his eyes at the other man.

Asa didn’t look intimidated. “You know what it means. You were being a jackass back then. All ‘I’m Super Cool Megastar Quarterback.’” He made a pair of air quotes around the words. “A Lamborghini and a Ferrari, not to mention the five other cars.”

“Four,” Jake corrected. “The Mercedes was Kelli’s.”

“And your posse? Come on, man, a posse?”

“It wasn’t a posse. It was just some guys.”

“Who trailed around with you, telling you how cool you were, picking up stuff for you, so they could get drinks and score with the girls you didn’t want.”

“I didn’t cheat on Kelli,” Jake snapped, shooting a fierce look at his friend. “She knows I never cheated on her.”

Asa gazed at him calmly until Jake slumped back in his chair as if the air had gone out of him. “Okay, okay, I was a jackass.” He added quietly, “But I didn’t cheat on her.”

“I believe you.”

“And I’m different now. I’m not going to screw this up with the Pumas.”

“I know.” Asa tipped his beer bottle toward him. “Cause if you do, I’m going to kick your ass.”

“Yeah, right,” Jake snorted.

“When are you going in to meet with management?” Asa asked.

“Monday morning. I have an appointment with Howard Perry at 9:00.”

“I can meet you there if you want, introduce you to Howard,” Asa offered.

“Sure, man.” Jake hated to admit how many butterflies danced in his stomach at the thought of going in, starting all over. “That’d be cool.”

They talked for almost an hour, mostly about old college teammates and friends. When Asa left, Jake decided it was late enough he could escape to his bedroom. The small room under the eaves had been where he stayed whenever he spent a weekend with his grandparents from the time he was a kid. It still contained his too-short single bed and a few pictures and odds and ends, but now there were also a bunch of his memorabilia that his mother had dumped on her parents when she moved to Florida.

There was a picture of Kelli and him stuck in the corner of the dresser mirror. She was laughing and wearing flip-flops and one of his jerseys and not much else—she’d had on shorts as he remembered, but they didn’t show beneath the jersey. They were laughing, and he had his arm around her, and she was leaning into him. He tugged the photo loose and looked at it more closely.

It was at a pool party at the offensive coordinator’s house, but it could have been any number of times. He’d spent every minute that wasn’t devoted to football and school with her—and probably a good number of them that should have been devoted to football and school. He could picture her in his old Jeep, her hair flying around and her trying unsuccessfully to hold it back. In his arms at some party as they sway-danced to a slow song. Sitting on his bed in the dorm trying to explain the symbolism in a poem to him—she’d always claimed to be ignorant because she hadn’t gone to college but she’d understood that kind of stuff a lot better than him. Of course, those sessions had never lasted long since, you know, there was a bed right there.

Man, it was a good thing you never knew how things were going to turn out. Jake turned and dropped the picture in the empty trash can.

Chapter Four

The next day was as bad as Jake had expected. St. Cat’s was filled, and the mass went on forever, and there was that casket sitting there in front of him the whole time. Last night Jake had still felt somehow, deep down, that Pops might walk into the room at any moment, that Jake would hear that belly laugh or Pops throwing his crazy curses at the Suns game on TV. It was pretty hard to hold onto that delusion when you had that big steel gray box right in front of your face.

But he’d gotten through it and through the wake. He’d hugged all Gran’s old friends and let them cry over him and tell him Pops was in a better place. He’d talked football with all the men at the wake and hadn’t drunk himself into oblivion. He’d even managed to avoid being anywhere close to Kelli the whole time. Gran had insisted on Kelli sitting with the family, but he’d had Gran and his mother and Dr. Bob between them. He’d hung back at the cemetery to make sure there were people between them again. And at the wake, she’d spent most of her time in the kitchen of the bar, running everything. They hadn’t had to speak to each other. Perversely, it annoyed him a bit that she hadn’t even tried to say hello.

The rest of the weekend was easier. Mom was there to take up Gran’s attention. Jake bit the bullet and played a round of golf with Dr. Bob, so he felt justified spending the rest of his time working out and watching some of the Pumas’ games from last year. It was pretty clear that aside from injury or late game garbage time, there wasn’t any likelihood of Jake getting to play. But that was okay. This year wasn’t about playing time. This year was about proving himself.

Monday morning he set out thirty minutes early for the Pumas’ complex. He knew his undeserved reputation for being chronically late—well, maybe some of it was deserved—and he wanted to make it clear from the beginning that he had changed.

Jake wouldn’t have admitted it, but he was glad Asa had offered to meet him there and introduce him to the head of Player Personnel. He’d been through the routine several times before, but it still put a few butterflies in his stomach to meet a new team. He felt like the new kid in school.

Jake found Asa in the lobby, flirting with the pretty receptionist, and they went up the elevators and emerged in a smaller lobby with a much older receptionist with glasses stuck in her short white hair. She could have been a hundred and four, easy, and even her glasses looked like they’d been made before Jake had been born. But Asa gave her the same flirty grin he’d used downstairs.