Page 99 of Raging Fires

“Okay. Thanks.” Kelli hesitated. Well, there was no smooth way of getting into this. But she had to know. “Has… um… did Neil say anything about Jake? How he’s doing?”

God, this was so humiliating—begging for scraps of info from one of his teammates’ wives.

Stephanie quickly covered her look of surprise by watching her fingers as she fiddled with the straw in her drink, and she said carefully, “Neil mentioned that Jake was doing well at practice.”

“What does that mean? He’s doing something bad in his free time? Is he drinking? Getting into fights?”

Stephanie’s eyebrows went up a little. “No, Neil didn’t say anything about that. He mentioned that Jake was looking pretty grim. Kind of overdoing the running and working out. Which is saying a lot, since Neil’s obsessive about it. I think he’s hanging out with the steady guys—Justin and Jalyn and that bunch. Asa. Pete.” She paused. “It’s kind of scary to think that Pete Cherneski is considered one of the steady guys.”

Kelli smiled faintly at her comment, relaxing a little. “Jake looked good in the exhibition game last week.”

“He did.”

Kelli wanted to ask her a million other things about Jake—was he eating enough, sleeping enough, was he hanging out with any women—but she couldn’t bring herself to get that high school romance-y in front of Stephanie, who was always so calm and collected. So was Neil. Kelli wondered what it was like living in their house. It certainly wouldn’t be like anything she had ever experienced.

It was bound to be more pleasant. And boring. Okay, so maybe she was a little bit of an excitement junkie.

There was a moment of silence as Kelli scrambled to think of some way to get more out of Stephanie about Jake without seeming desperate and needy. Then Stephanie said gently, “You could call him, you know.”

“No.” Kelli shook her head. “He’d probably hang up. And it’d be stupid, just prolonging all the...” Her eyes stung. Not again. She couldn’t cry in front of Stephanie.

“What is going on with you two?” The question burst out of Stephanie. “I’m sorry. I know I’m being rude and nosy, but I can’t help it. Curiosity is my job.”

“Jake hasn’t said anything to Neil?” Kelli asked.

“Not that he’s told me. But then Neil wouldn’t break the bro-code if Jake told him in confidence. It’s really annoying.”

“We broke up,” Kelli told her. “Again. Except I guess this time Jake broke up with me instead of the other way around.”

“Why? You two seemed so happy.”

“We were. We always are until reality catches up with us. Jake’s undisciplined and unreliable and reckless.”

“Really?” Stephanie sounded surprised.

“Yes. And apparently I’m an uptight, controlling bitch. So all we do is keep falling in love and breaking each other’s hearts.” Oh, God, and now here she was, choking up and getting actual tears in her eyes. Kelli swallowed, tracing a gouge in the bar. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t dump this on you.”

“Of course you should. That’s what friends are for, right? At least, it’s what Claire and I have always done.”

Kelli smiled faintly. “I guess so.”

“But I don’t understand. Neither one of those descriptions sound like the two of you. I mean, Jake’s always on time to practice—maybe not as on time as Neil, but Neil’s not normal.”

“Jake’s been working on it, especially on team stuff. And he tries. I try too, and then something happens and we’re back to the same old thing. This time, my mother came to visit.”

“She and Jake don’t get along?” Stephanie guessed.

“No. Actually… I don’t know; they’ve never been around each other that much. My mother and I don’t get along.” The entire story came pouring out—her mother, their past, their divorce, the visit, Jake not showing up, until finally Kelli wound down. She sniffed and wiped a stupid tear from her cheek. “Sorry. You’re too good a listener. I told you far more than you wanted to hear, I’m sure.”

“No, don’t apologize. I am a pretty good listener, and it’s because I’m interested in people. I care about you and Jake. You don’t think you could work through this?”

“How? I know it may not seem like much. He was late one time, big deal. But it was incredibly important to me. And he knew it; he just didn’t care enough to make it a priority. He wanted to go see someone, so he did. I guess the time got away from him or there was something he wanted to do. I don’t know; he didn’t even have an excuse. He said he couldn’t tell me—I mean, seriously… he took a blood oath or what? He said I should just trust him. But that’s exactly the problem: how am I supposed to trust him when he breaks his promises to me?”

“It’s hard to have a relationship with someone who lies to you,” Stephanie agreed.

“Oh, he doesn’t lie. He doesn’t try to hurt me or let me down. He just does. It’s like it always was with my mother. She didn’t mean to not pick me up at the mall; she didn’t intend to pass out and not come to my graduation; she didn’t set out to get drunk at our wedding. It was always just a mistake and ‘I’m sorry, baby girl, I’ll make it up to you.’ Or ‘I’m going to change, you’ll see.’ And sometimes she did, but it never lasted.

“Jake didn’t mean to shut me out after we got married. It was just that the game or a publicity shot or hitting the nightclub was more important. It was just that he was having fun and forgot that he was supposed to take me out to dinner.”