“Laura. Laura, wait! I’m sorry.” She paused, her hand on the doorknob. He came up behind her and reached for her hand. “God, I’m so sorry. Forgive me.”

He pulled her down onto his lap, took her head between his hands, forcing it around so she would have to look at him. “I’m sorry.” He kissed her cheek, then her lips. “I’m sorry. Forgive me.”

Hearing genuine regret in his voice, she relaxed her posture. “Why would you say something like that, Foster?”

“It was uncalled for. Completely.”

She looked over his shoulder at the display, which represented so many hours of labor for her and many others. “I thought this would excite and invigorate you.”

He stroked her hair. “I ruined your surprise with my negativity. I apologize for that. Especially since you’ve already had one letdown this week.”

He was talking about her period. True, that was a letdown, but she wouldn’t be distracted from this subject by talking about that. “Do you hate the idea of SunSouth Select?”

“It’s a lot to absorb in fifteen minutes.” His gentle smile was an attempt to soften the blow, as were his carefully chosen words. “You’ve had months to fuel your enthusiasm. I was blindsided. Give me some time to mull it over.”

“But your initial reaction is thumbs down.”

“Not at all. It’s cautiously favorable to an idea that needs further study.”

Which translated to thumbs down.

He guided her head to his shoulder. “In the meantime, congratulations on a job well done. It’s one of the best presentations I’ve ever heard.”

He was rejecting the idea but giving her an A for effort. She hated being patronized but was too downcast to take issue with it tonight. She’d poured all her energy into the presentation. Now that it was over, and hadn’t yielded the result she’d wished for, she felt hollow and depleted.

“Now,” he said, as though a minor matter had been dealt with and dismissed, “tell me what else happened today.”

CHAPTER 17

BOLLY RICH CLIMBED THE BLEACHERS AND SAT DOWN BESIDE Griff. For a full sixty seconds they sat there in identical poses-forearms braced on their thighs, hands clasped between their knees-staring at the players on the field.

Bolly was the first to break the silence. “What the hell are you doing, Griff?”

“I’m watching practice.”

“This is the third day in a row you’ve been here.”

“You’re counting?”

“Yeah, I’m counting. What’s the deal?”

“Well, in my learned opinion, Jason is as good as any other player on this team. They don’t have a strong running back. Their safety’s for shit. Jason’s scrambling, but he’s-”

“Cut the crap, Griff,” Bolly said, even angrier than before. “What are you doing watching a middle school’s football practice?”

Griff turned his head then and looked at him. “Killing time, Bolly. ’Cause I’ve got nothing else to do. Last time I checked, this was public property, giving me as much right to be here as you. You don’t like it, you don’t have to speak to me. I didn’t invite you up here. So why don’t you go back down there and rejoin the decent folk before I rub off on you and you get ousted from the Booster Club?”

Down on the field, the coaches had the boys huddled, letting them drink from their water bottles while talking them through plays. The boys looked too small for their wide shoulder pads. From this distance they looked like bobble-head dolls, all out of proportion. Griff had started playing football at about Jason’s age. He supposed he had looked small then, too.

Bolly stayed where he was. He said, “My kid idolizes you.”

“I make a sorry hero.”

“I told him as much.”

They watched as the coaches divided the offensive players from the defensive and herded the two groups to opposite ends of the field to run practice drills. Five minutes passed. Ten.

Then Bolly cleared his throat. “That night in Buffalo?”

Griff didn’t acknowledge that he’d heard him, although he knew immediately the particular night he was referring to.

“Never been so cold in my life.”

“Ten below at game time,” Griff said. “Or so they told me later. They didn’t have the heart to tell us in the locker room before the game. Sixty minutes of football played in blowing snow, and at the final whistle, all we had to show for it was a freaking field goal. The kicker, wrapped in Mylar and sipping hot drinks on the bench the whole game, trots his skinny ass out there and makes the only three points of the game. My fingers are bleeding from some Bills lineman digging his cleats in. They’re so cold I can’t even bend them. That runty kicker gets all the glory.”

Bolly snuffled a laugh. “He was a cocky bastard to start with.”

“Tell me. Where was he from anyway? There were no vowels in his last name.”

“One of those eastern European countries. Switched from soccer to football so he could come to the States and make more money. Cowboys are well rid of him.”

It had been an inglorious win to a game that came late in the season, its outcome irrelevant to the play-offs. The airport was closed because of the blizzard, so the team couldn’t fly home. No one was in a party mood as they returned to the hotel for another night. Most went straight to their rooms.

“You and I wound up the last ones in the bar,” Bolly said, as though following Griff’s thoughts. “I got wasted.”

“Bolly-”

“No, no, this needs to be said, Griff. I got drunk on my ass and blubbered like a baby about my marital problems.”

Best Griff could recall, Bolly’s wife had packed up and moved out on him, saying she was sick of staying at home with their young son while he was away having fun with the guys, covering one sporting event or another.

“It worked out okay, apparently,” Griff said.

“Lucky for me.”

As drunk as Bolly had been that night, Griff was surprised that he even remembered his emotional meltdown. Maybe he’d needed that catharsis to make things right at home. He and his wife were still together. He had a nice house, a kid with a reasonable haircut and no visible body piercings. Why bring it up now?

“I never thanked you for keeping my confidence,” Bolly said quietly.

Griff looked over at him.

Shrugging self-consciously, Bolly removed his tinted eyeglasses and twirled them by the stem. “A lot of my colleagues cheat on their wives when they’re on the road. They sure as hell don’t cry over them. I’d given you plenty to talk about in the locker room. But you never breathed a word of it to anybody.”

“I didn’t have any friends, remember? Nobody to tell.”

Bolly gave him a wry look. “But you never brought it up to me, either. Held it over me. You know. In fact, you pretended it hadn’t happened.” He ducked his head and squinted down at his sneakers. “And you never called in the favor, not even when you came asking me for a job. That’s been eating at me ever since.”

Bolly replaced his glasses. Several minutes passed while they watched as Jason’s coach gave him some pointers on taking the snap. Finally Bolly said, “This guy’s okay for a middle school coach, but Jason could use some extra help. I realize it’s not much of a job. In fact, Griff, it’s not-”

“I accept.”

“Hold on. Any offer of payment I make will be insulting.”

“You don’t have to pay me. I need something constructive to do. Buy a dozen footballs for me to use, and we’ll call it square.”

Bolly considered him a moment, then seemed to reach a decision. “How about here, an hour before practice each day?”

“Suits me.” They shook hands. “Tell Jason to come prepared to work his butt off.”

“He’ll be thrilled. Start tomorrow?”

“I’ll be here.”

Bolly stood and clumped down several of the bleachers, then stopped and turned back. “This doesn’t mean I excuse what you did, Griff. You’re still on probation, with me as well as with the court. The least hint of trouble, you’re outta here.”