Page 56 of Returning Your Love
“She was going to meet with a lawyer on Thursday to divorce me so she could be with you—the father of her unborn child. Were you aware she was pregnant?” I asked in no more than a pained whisper.
I didn’t believe it to be possible, but his face turned an even whiter shade of pale, his eyes widening and flooding with tears. “Wh-What?”
My goddamned heart broke for the man as his shattered in front of me.
A hard swallow allowed me to continue. “She was a few weeks along, and it’d been months since she and I…”
The man barely drew a breath as his eyes unfocused, and tears spilled down his cheeks once more. Hehadn’tknown, which meant Tara probably hadn’t either.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I whispered, my tone as broken as his spirit.
He choked on a sob, and I clasped his shoulder before turning and walking away. I’d hoped speaking to him would lighten the emotions attempting to hold me back from living, but my heart lay heavier with grief.
Chapter 19
Jamie
For the next three weeks, Chaz ignored my text messages and everyone else who reached out to him. With how he shut himself off completely, the town grew concerned. A few people besides myself had attempted to interact with him outside of his shop, but he refused each and every invite to get out of the house during his downtime. Rather than starting at the beginning stages of grief, he’d jumped straight to the end with immediate acceptance before sliding backward, seemingly stuck in depression from what I’d seen and heard from Babs and Dad.
I found myself still bogged down in self-loathing for wishing Shelly was gone and anger over her death draining Chaz of life along with hers. Dad told me everyone grieved differently, that each stage passed as a person slowly came to terms with their new reality.
Wanting to push Chaz along made me feel even more like a shit friend, and the fact I couldn’t do a goddamned thing to ease his suffering created more bitterness in my heart for a woman whose body now rested in a cold casket.
Powerless, I stood on the sidelines, only allowed to offer encouragement to Chaz via text—if he even read my messages.
My football team was another matter. They heard me loud and clear. Listened and attempted to stride toward victory. We continued in our season’s losing streak, but at least we’d managed to tack points onto the board in recent games thanks to Gabby and her golden foot. The lack of talent otherwise lay like a stifling blanket over my already shitty mood, even though I’d known what I was getting into when I agreed to take over Coach Bernard’s job. I told myself daily “I’ve got this.”
I’d begun to feel like I lied to myself.
Waiting for Chaz to decide he could live again wore me down. I’d never been a patient man, always proactive, and with how every part of me ached for him, those steps Chaz needed to get through in order to move on dragged like molasses in winter.
Slow. As. Fuck.
How the hell had Babs survived all those years without losing her shit?
Unlike those Hallmark movies I longed to live in, weeks didn’t leap forward with scene breaks. A blink left me standing just as lonely and helpless as a second earlier when I’d wished to be transported into the future where Chaz was willing and ready to love again.
Where guilt and shame no longer shrouded every thought and action.
Needing to dosomething, I bought a bunch of gym equipment and set it up in Dad’s garage, dedicating most of my free time to getting into the best shape of my life. While I had no say over Chaz’s emotions nor could I steer the journey he was on, I was able to control my own forward progress. But I knew better than to push myself too hard, too fast. Modifications for some weight training I used to do while in the NFL had to be done, but at least I made gains toward losing the pesky pounds that I’d put on due to lack of motivation since my return to Pippen Creek.
I sent my usual daily text to Chaz after practice on Thursday night, but rather than begging for him to hit up Frenchie’s for a beer with me, I simply informed him that was where I would be. Maybe his not having to please someone else but rather be prompted on his own to socialize might get his ass in gear. Less pressure, which had afforded Chaz to make decisions easier in the past.
Iris manned the place by herself, and rather than spilling my woes to her like needy patrons usually did, I asked questions to keep the focus off me and my misery. She leaned on the bar, eyes twinkling while she told me about her and Frenchie’s “meet-cute” as she called it. The whole damsel in distress on the side of the road with a flat event. Frenchie had come riding in on a black stallion—Harley Davidson style—and changed out her tire. She had insisted on repaying the bad girl goddess with dinner, but it was realizing they shared a similar tattoo on the same body part that had her tumbling head over heels.
What that was exactly, I didn’t ask because the flush on her cheeks and hint of shyness in her gaze made it clear I would be better off not hearing details.
One of the town drunks sat at the other end of the bar nursing his beer while listening in on Iris’s tale, two couples sat at high tables, oblivious to anyone around them and making me envious as fuck, and a few newly-legal drinkers hung around the pool tables, shooting the shit and attempting to sink balls into pockets while buzzed.
It was the perfect night for Chaz to show up. No nosey people to get in his space and cause him discomfort. Just me being my anxious self and a smiling bartender who wasn’t known to judge a single soul.
The door opened behind me, and Iris smiled. “Welcome to Frenchie’s!” She called out the usual greeting over my shoulder.
Tingles of awareness crept down my spine, and I stayed put, my focus on my beer rather than drawing even more attention to the man who’d stepped inside. Relief swept through me along with a shot of adrenaline that had my heart racing. I’d made the right call in not pushing.
“This seat taken?”
I chuckled and glanced over at Chaz, my pulse thrumming regardless of his appearance.
