Page 46 of After the Snap

“No.” His gaze holds mine. “But it makes sense.”

I glance toward the open doorway and lower my voice, even though no one is passing outside. “I really didn’t know who you were.”

“I believe you.”

He says it without hesitation, and for a moment, it’s easier to see the man from Houston instead of Dad’s new quarterback. His gaze drops to Mom’s ring on my hand. Getting it back was the reason I came looking for him. I could thank him, walk out the door, and let him get back to work. But neither of us moves.

“What do we do now?”

Jubal lets out a breath and glances toward the hallway. “I’m guessing telling your dad we met in Houston is pretty far down the list.”

A startled laugh slips out before I can stop it. “Yup, right there beneath setting myself on fire.”

“Good. I’m glad we’re on the same page because he can’t know.”

I wait for him to add something else. A rule, maybe. An agreement that whatever happened there stays there, exactly the way I wanted when I slipped out of his house before sunrise, but nothing comes.

“We can’t just…” I start, then stop because I have no idea how to finish.

“Pretend it didn’t happen, can we?”

The hurt I heard earlier is gone from his voice, but I still can’t make myself say yes.

“No, we can’t. I already tried that once today. I don’t think I’m very good at it.” I look down at Mom’s ring before meeting his eyes again.

“So we don’t pretend.”

“We also don’t tell my father.” I laugh softly, but the sound disappears when footsteps pass outside the room.

Whoever it is keeps going, but the interruption brings the rest of the building rushing back in around us. Dad is somewhere down the hall, completely unaware that his new quarterback knows what I look like naked. There are coaches and players who expect Jubal to be here every morning, meetings he has to attend, practices he has to get through. And for however long I’m helping Dad get settled, I’m going to keep walking through these same halls. Houston gave us an ending because there was an entire city between us when I left, but we don’t have that anymore.

“This is going to be weird, isn’t it?”

“Probably.”

I almost laugh, but he doesn’t follow it with some reassurance that we can stay out of each other’s way and go back to being two people who spent one night together. Maybe because we both know that would be bullshit.

“What are we supposed to do?”

Jubal takes a moment before answering, his gaze dropping briefly to the ring on my hand. “I think we stop trying to decide how this ends before anything happens.”

That’s exactly what I did in Houston and this morning. Both times, I tried to get ahead of whatever came next. And both times, Jubal was left standing on the other side of my decision.

“I don’t know how to do that,” I admit.

“Neither do I.” Jubal pushes away from the table and reaches for the laptop he closed when I walked in. “But I know I have meetings here tomorrow, and I’m guessing your dad will find at least twelve things for you to fix before lunch. So I’m sure we’ll see each other at some point.”

There’s nothing suggestive in the way he says it, no expectation that Houston has to become something neither of us is ready to name. He’s simply refusing to pretend there’s still an entire city between us. I look at the ring he kept safe for me, then back at the man who carried it here.

“Yeah, we will.” I flash him a genuine smile and turn toward the door before I can start looking for another problem to solve.

“Calliope.”

Jubal has already reopened his laptop, but his attention is still on me. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He’s Dad’s quarterback, and I’m here almost every day. Of course, I’ll see him tomorrow. Still, the certainty of it catches me off guard.

My fingers brush over Mom’s ring as I meet his eyes. “Tomorrow.”