He got voicemail. Jackson cleared his throat and waited for the beep.
“Yeah, Jerry, hi,” Jackson said, running a hand over the back of his neck as he left a message. “It’s Burke. Just wanted to know if you’ve had a chance to think over that assistant coach proposal. I’d be damn good at it. You know I would. I just…Call me.”
Jackson hung up the phone but didn’t set it down. Held it, staring at the screen, willing the head coach of the Texas Redhawks to call him back.
Although for the first time it occurred to Jackson that if his old life came calling, it would mean saying goodbye to his new life.
A new life that, if he played his cards right, just might involve Mollie.
Chapter 6
“I seriously can’t believe you’re doing this,” Madison whined into the phone.
Maybe you could seriously believe it if you’d bothered to pick up one of my phone calls before now, Mollie wanted to retort.
She tucked her cell between her chin and shoulder as she used both arms to scoop out the contents of her underwear drawer, dropping a smattering of thongs before plunking her undergarments into a moving box.
“I know it’s weird, Mad, but it’s only for a couple of months, until I find something else.”
“You could have asked me.”
“Well, I would have,” Mollie explained patiently, “except the last time I even mentioned Jackson’s name, you got pissed and told me not to say his name to you because it was interfering with your new life.”
A new life that involved Madison’s boyfriend moving into Jackson’s house. That was still a hard one for Mollie to swallow. Bad enough that Maddie had left Jackson for another man. But to bring him into the bedroom she had shared with Jackson just seemed wrong.
Then again, Mollie moving in with her ex-brother-in-law wasn’t exactly right either.
And yet Mollie couldn’t bring herself to regret saying yes. Not only because it was probably the one and only time she’d ever set foot in a penthouse, but because Jackson had somehow seemed so very alone.
Mollie’s best friend stuck her head out of Mollie’s walk-in closet and held up a long billowy dress, lifting her eyebrows in question.
Mollie glanced at it and gave a thumbs-up, and Kim rolled her eyes. “That was a test and you failed,” Kim hissed. “This could fit three of you.” She dropped the dress into the giveaway box.
“Is someone there?” Madison asked.
“Kim’s helping me pack,” Mollie said as she put a sexy black bra into the moving box and at the same time tossed an ancient, torn beige one into the trash pile. Then, on second thought, she fetched the beige one out of the trash bag and added it in with the keepers. Comfort counted for something.
“Oh, tell her I said hi!” Madison said.
Mollie pulled the phone away from her face and turned toward the closet. “Madison says hi.”
“Oh my gosh, tell her I say hi back!” Kim said in a gushing, fake voice as she came out of the closet and put a couple of blouses into a box. Kim fluttered her eyelashes behind her thick black-rimmed glasses and pretended to flip her chin-length black hair over her shoulder.
Mollie mouthed “ha ha” before turning her attention back to her sister. “Kim says hi back.”
Kim and Madison had only met a couple of times, but they weren’t exactly friends. Madison, at least, pretended to like Kim with all her brainy, no-bullshit candor. Kim, on the other hand, had trouble being more than passably polite in the face of Madison’s sugar-sweet Texas charm.
But Mollie had bigger problems to worry about than the fact that her best friend and sister weren’t pals. Like the fact she was about to be living in Jackson Burke’s guest room, and big sister was none too happy about it.
“You know that Jackson’s just doing it to mess with me,” Madison complained.
Mollie’s eyes narrowed at the smug confidence in her sister’s tone. As though the only reason anyone would do anything would be if it somehow related to Madison.
“Or it could be because Jackson and I are friends,” Mollie said, the sharpness in her own voice surprising her. She rarely swiped back at Madison’s bitchy jabs. She’d learned early on that her sister was rarely worth engaging.
“Has he mentioned me?” Madison asked, as though the idea of Jackson and Mollie’s friendship wasn’t even worth acknowledging.
Mollie picked at a cuticle. “Nope.”
“Huh.” Madison’s tone was irritated.
“Look, Maddie—”
“I hate that name.”
Mollie ignored this. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask you first. Truly. But I really didn’t think you’d have a problem with it. You’ve told me a million times that you didn’t care if I stayed friends with Jackson after the divorce.”
“Sure, I meant you two exchanging your little inside jokes by text, or whatever. I didn’t mean becoming his roommate.”
Mollie frowned at the edge in her sister’s voice. Even before Maddie had filed for divorce, she’d seemed long uninterested in anything having to do with Jackson, as though the very mention of his name irritated her.