So they were arguing about money too. Not good. “Well, she values her independence.” Like someone else he knew whose name started with N.
Jordan leaned down and stroked the field. Touchdown sniffed the grass by his fingers. Blake wasn’t the only player who liked to get a sense of the turf.
“Would it upset you if I asked if you and Natalie ever had these kinds of arguments?”
If he and Natalie hadn’t been back together, it might have been difficult to discuss it, but now, he could answer his friend without any pain. “We fought about the money more than the hype. She didn’t want me to pay for everything either. I hated that at first, but that’s what she wanted, so I conceded.” He would have conceded pretty much everything to be with her. “She wouldn’t accept any money from me when we…divorced.”
Okay, it did hurt to say that, more than he’d thought it would. Memories poured back in, ones they hadn’t talked about. She hadn’t even shown up to sign the divorce papers. He’d scrolled out his name on the legal document ending their marriage with a Mont Blanc pen as a punishing rain streaked the windows of his lawyer’s office building.
“Are you two…” Jordan trailed off.
“We’re…working through things.” He dug out his sunglasses, no longer liking the glare stinging his eyes.
“I’m glad. I hope it sticks.” Jordan slapped him on the back. “So, let’s do this.”
While they waited for the others to arrive, they threw some passes, and then he called in some takeout from Brasserie Dare. Thankfully, no one mobbed him when he went to pick it up. Brian even came out of the kitchen to say hello. Apparently the Hale clan was inclined to keep the peace as he and Natalie worked things out.
They ate lunch in the center of the field, and it felt good to be back on the green grass dotted with white lines every ten yards. Natalie was his home, but this was too. He’d given his whole life to the pursuit of a mere ten yards over and over again.
When the rest of the guys arrived, they hugged and talked trash. Brody challenged Logan to a forty yard dash, causing Zack and Jordan to groan in tandem. They complained they were going to upchuck their lunches, even though that was total bullshit. They just hated to run that fast if there was no need. After all, they were quarterbacks, not wide receivers.
“Are you and Natalie still doing great since our last call?” Sam asked, coming up beside him to clap him on the back.
He and Sam talked every week, and he’d told him where things stood. “Yes.” So far. He couldn’t forget about the things they hadn’t discussed—the details of the future and the past—so he still wasn’t convinced they were totally out of danger. The pressure grew in his chest.
As Brody and Logan crouched down into their sprint stance, he called out “Wait. I’m joining you guys.”
“Your old sack of bones?” Logan taunted. “We are so going to smoke you, Ace.”
Yes, they were, no doubt. But at least it would take his mind off the half a dozen doomsday scenarios it was spinning about him and Natalie. His focus needed to be on the camp right now.
“On your mark,” Jordan called out, staring down at the stopwatch he’d snagged from the camp’s supply table. “Get set. Go.”
Blake darted off with the wide receivers, and sure enough, he felt like a sack of old bones as their athletic shorts rippled in the wind a few yards ahead of him. Blake had been considered a passable runner in the NFL. He could run for the first down when necessary. But they smoked him, just as Logan had predicted. If the burn of his muscles and the clearing of his mind hadn’t felt so good, he might have been embarrassed.
“All right,” he said, sucking in deep breaths and heading over to the coach’s table where his clipboard was resting. “Let’s run through some last minute details and questions before our coaching partners arrive.”
He’d paired all of them up with a coach who had experience running a flag football camp for kids with intellectual disabilities. That way, everyone would be bringing their A game for the kids.
“The other coaches will arrive at three with the rest of the volunteers. Including our camp mom.”
“You didn’t talk Mrs. Garretty into coming, did you now?” Brody asked, giving Sam a pointed glance.
“Mrs. Garretty has retired.” Divorcing Coach had pretty much ended that. “But Natalie’s mom volunteered to help, and I can’t think of anyone more fun, maternal, or tough. She had five kids, after all.”
“Awesome,” Hunter said, twirling the whistle hanging from his neck. “She and I did the Electric Slide at your wedding.”