Page 62 of The Progressions

“Yes, of course I am! But I also want him to get out and be more independent. I don’t know how to balance those things,” I admitted. “I got really upset when I heard that he’d left with Iva and I’ve been tracking them.”

“Let that go and have fun tonight on this date that you organized.”

“It’s not a date,” I corrected. “We’re not—”

“I meant between me and Santiago,” Tyler interrupted. “But do you also want to go out with me?”

“Is that a real offer?”

“What would you say?” he asked back.

“I would say, figure out your intentions and then bring some flowers and a cute sign,” I told him, and he smiled. We continued on our very, very slow way to the restaurant.

Chapter 13

It was not going well. This was not at all how I’d planned it, no, not at all.

“So, um…” I was, apparently, the person leading the charge to salvage this dinner, because Tyler had lapsed not what appeared to be a sullen silence, Jayden Santiago was in the bathroom (for the fifth time), and her husband, the Woodsmen wide receiver, had been on his phone again and again since we’d sat down, texting or something. I was getting over being star-struck pretty fast as I became more and more ticked off at how everyone was acting. What was his wife doing in that bathroom? Why was Santiago on the phone like that? Why was Tyler being a booty hole?

All the other diners in this restaurant were openly gawking at our table just like I would have been if I were sitting with them instead. It was really something, wasn’t it? Two Woodsmen stars out having dinner right next to them. Too bad both of them were silent and annoying! Now my anger was boiling and I gotover being star-struck to the extent that I directly addressed the player sitting across from me.

“So, um, Zachary,” I said, and he glanced up from his screen. Unlike Tyler, he looked pleasant, if slightly worried. “You’re from South Carolina, right? How do you feel about Michigan?”

“Call me Zach,” he said. “I don’t mind it now, but it was a big change coming up here. I didn’t have four-wheel drive and I wore my winter clothes when the temperature got below sixty.” He smiled a little. “I didn’t think about cleaning the snow off before I drove, either, and when I met Jayden, she thought I was an idiot because I would wait for the wind to blow it away. She said, ‘Get a damn broom!’ I figured it out.”

“It’s a big change for someone from a warmer climate,” I agreed. “You probably had to do a lot to settle in.” He nodded. “That reminds me…if you know anyone from the team who’s looking for help with that, with unpacking and setting up their lives here, you could let them know that I have a side business in relocation assistance.”

“Uh, sure,” he said.

Good, maybe I’d get some bites from that. Tyler hadn’t been any help in getting me new clients, as I’d hoped he might, since they’d all been so angry at him. I was feeling a lot more charitable about their feelings due to the way he’d been acting tonight.

And now he was staring daggers at me, too. I had no idea why until he said, “You’re not working for any of them.”

“I’ll do what I want,” I stated, and Zach’s eyebrows raised. Things now seemed worse, but I kept trying. “Tyler is from Georgia,” I mentioned. “I bet you didn’t get a lot of snow there. Right?” I asked him.

He shrugged.“No.”

Wow. That was all he was giving me? I glared too, but he was looking at his glass of water.

“Jayden didn’t grow up here, either,” Zach said. “She’s from the Detroit area. She came up to try out for the Wonderwomen.”

“I remember her dancing,” I told him. “She was amazing.”

“The best,” he agreed, but then frowned and looked at his phone. I realized that he had been doing that when his wife was away from the table. Maybe he was checking on her?

“Is Jayden ok?” I asked. She’d been in the bathroom for longer than she’d sat with us.

“Yeah, she’s all right. Here she is,” he said and seemed relieved, but she really didn’t look ok to me. It was more like how Iva had looked about eight months ago…oh, good grief. This woman was pregnant, of course. She was probably going to the bathroom because she felt sick, just like how Iva had gone out into the parking lot (and a few times, she’d thrown up into a flower bed or behind a hedge).

“Sorry,” Jayden told us. Her husband put away his phone, so I’d been right about who he was texting.

“You don’t have to stay if you’re not feeling good,” I told her quietly. I didn’t know her personally, but I actually hadwatched her a lot when she’d worn the iconic uniform of the Woodsmen Wonderwomen and performed during games. She was beautiful, even when it appeared that she had just been ill in the bathroom.

“I’ll be ok. Zach, did you order bread?” she asked, and he held up his hand, signaling to the waiter and requesting that again. “I really wanted to come out and meet you and Tyler,” she told me.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m so glad you did.”

She smiled. “Most of the players’ partners are nice, but there are some who suck. The placekicker’s wife is a real piece of work. I don’t want to hear one more time how the game is won and lost on his foot. Only sometimes!And that doesn’t have anything to do with Britney!” She made a face like she was sick again.

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