Page 73 of Look What You Made Me Do

“You like my handiwork?” Trish asked. “Miranda and I keep buying him plants. And of course tending them, otherwise they’d be dead.” She grimaced as she looked back into the sparse apartment. “If it wasn’t for the view I’d feel like I was in a factory.”

Ella drew in a deep breath as Trish’s words painted a cozy picture of the three of them in this apartment and it occurred to her for the first time that maybe Miranda was Jake’s daughter. Miranda never mentioned a father but she knew he and Trish went way back and it wouldn’t be the first time paternity was kept secret from a child.

“Yes,” she murmured, distracted by this latest conundrum. “It’s very… masculine.”

Trish laughed. “That’s one word for it. I prefer too much money, not enough give-a-shit.”

Ella laughed despite her racing thoughts. Damn it, she really wanted to dislike the ex-cheerleader but Trish Jones, who had been nothing but super lovely and supportive of the school and the Demons, was impossible to dislike.

“Is Jake Miranda’s father?”

She hadn’t planned on blurting it out. Hell, she hadn’t planned on asking the question at all. It just slipped out. And, given Trish’s shocked expression, it should have stayed unasked.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry.” Ella’s cheeks burned. “That was terribly rude and none of my business.”

Trish finally spluttered out a laugh. “Good grief, no. Jake and I aren’t… we don’t have that kind of relationship. We’re friends. Good friends. But there’s never been anything romantic. Miranda’s father was someone I was with briefly who ran a mile when he found out I was pregnant.”

While embarrassed to be so wrong, Ella couldn’t deny the relief was overwhelming. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “It’s just you seem so… I thought?—”

Trish laughed again. “Don’t worry about it,” she assured, giving Ella’s arm a squeeze.

Which was the moment Jake, now in a black button-down shirt, decided to make an appearance. “Alright,” he announced, stepping into the sunken area, beer in hand. “Let’s get this over with.”

Plonking himself down in one of the leather chairs situated around a low smoky-glass-topped table, he glanced from one to the other. “So is this going to be good cop, bad cop?”

Trish, obviously already moved on from Ella’s gaffe, quirked an eyebrow at her. “You wanna be good cop?”

Ella shook her head. “Nope.”

“Looks like it’s just bad cop, bad cop,” she said as she took the seat beside him, gesturing for Ella to take the one on the other side.

Sighing, he took a quick hit of his beer. “Why don’t I just save you both the trouble. Nothing either of you say will change my mind about coaching the team.”

“Jake,” Trish chided. “Miranda’s going to be very disappointed in you.”

“Well, Miranda’s going to have to get used to being disappointed. It’s a big, bad world out there.”

Trish frowned. “You think I don’t know that?”

“Oh come on, Trish.” He shook his head. “You know why it has to be this way.”

Ella watched their back and forth, understanding that their couched language was for her benefit but impatient with it. Daisy had encouraged her to talk to Jake about the past so she’d rather cut to the chase.

“I know what happened all those years ago,” she announced. “About the sexual assault. I’ve been googling. And I’m really sorry I stirred it all up again for you.”

Jake closed his eyes and expelled a breath as his past rushed out, swirling around him in all its vivid, sullied glory. Somehow the fact that Ella’s loathing of football had kept her ignorant to his sordid decline had been refreshing. Almost twenty years later the shame still clung and a part of him hadn’t wanted her privy to all the murky details.

It had meant something that she didn’t know and he wasn’t sure if he could bear to see the judgment in her eyes. Because she was wrong – she didn’t know what happened.

Very few people did.

“I wish I could walk it back. I really do. But the team shouldn’t be punished for a mistake I made.” She turned pleading eyes on him. “Don’t you want to finish the job you started?”

Jake drained his beer and set the bottle on the table. Walking away from the team had been harder than he’d imagined. The boys were raw but they had that magical combination – balls and heart. And they were playing for much higher stakes than the other teams in the competition.

Hell, if he didn’t recognize himself in those kids. A misfit from a small town against what had felt like the entire world.

“This isn’t about me,” he said, his gaze flicking from Ella to Trish and back again.

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