“Hey, Stu. I have a workout tomorrow at Riley Field. You know, to test out the old ankle. You want to come?”
His face lights up. “Sure, man. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Chapter 29
Angie
High off of our first-place victory in the sandcastle sculpting competition, we continue our tradition by heading straight to the warehouse to work on our parade float.
The Pirate Parade is coming up soon, and the gate is always open the night of official events. And tonight, all of the lights are on when I arrive and pull into a dirt parking spot way in the back. The place is packed.
I get out of my car and find Fi and Kaylee and we go in together with barely a wave from whatever new front gate volunteer is now on duty.
Once we get inside, the place is noisy with excited conversation and busy with lots of work getting done. It’s like Christmas for the Pirate Festival. Tonight means everything is in full swing.
“Oh shit,” Fi says as she gets to our float first.
“What?”
Kaylee glances at it and shakes her head as I peak around her. “Looks like teenagers got into our float again.”
Fi carefully climbs up onto the float to survey the damage. “What the hell is the point of all this security if people can just sneak right onto your parade float. It looks like somebody got some booty.”
“I don’t know, how can you tell? Looks like they just sat here and drank. Or something.”
Both of their heads swivel around to me and stare.
“I’m just saying.”
My idea backfires, and the two of them start searching the parade float for any evidence of who exactly invaded our space and what they were doing.
“You’d think if they were drinking there would be a bottle or a can or a spill or maybe a cigarette.”
“Well, thank goodness there’s none of that,” I say, “that could have caused a fire. And not finding those things make it easier to fix, right?”
Kaylee kneels down in the far corner of the float. “Hang on, I think I see something. It’s shiny.”
I wonder what it is that she’s found. Maybe after Jake and I were here the other night other people really did jump in and mess with things. I sincerely regret not cleaning up after me and Jake now, though. What the hell was I thinking?
Kaylee freezes with the shiny thing in her hand. I hear an excited inhale of breath. Her back is to me, but she holds out the item for Fi to see and Fi gasps.
“What is it?” I ask with a rising level of concern.
Then Fi and Kaylee both turn to face me slowly. In Kaylee’s hand is my Aunt Patty’s bracelet. Shit. It must have fallen off.
Fi raises both eyebrows at me. “Do you have something to tell us, Angie?”
“That’s where I left that. Thanks for finding it for me, Kaylee.” I try to pass it off, but I can feel my cheeks heat.
“Oh. My. God,” Kaylee says drawing out the words, “you had sex in our parade float, didn’t you?”
“I knew it,” Fi says, “that text the night of the ball. At the Beaky Tiki, and then you left. It was a booty call.”
A part of me is horrified to be caught and also relieved. Now I have no choice but to come clean.
“Why would you keep something like that from us?” Fi asks. “You know full well how supportive we are of booty calls.”
“Oh fuck,” Kaylee says, elbowing Fi, “look at her face, she’s still hiding something. What is it, Angie?”
“You’re right, Kaylee. She’s hiding more than just post pirate ball booty call sex in a parade float. Angie? How is that even possible? Oh, was it Tristan? It was Tristan, right?”
I shake my head. “No, it wasn’t Tristan.”
They both study my face for seconds that tick on forever while I try to will my lips to form the words that I had post-pirate ball booty-call sex in the parade float with Jake. It’s more of a full paragraph than a terse confession. And anyway, it doesn’t really matter because my lips won’t move anyway.
“IT WAS JAKE.” Fi screams so loud that I’m sure that everybody in the warehouse hears it.
I hold my breath, but nothing in the surrounding room changes or stops. I nod.
Both of their eyes get three sizes bigger. Fi motions for all of us to huddle in the middle of the float. So I crawl over there to join them.
Kaylee’s face has a huge smile on it. “Girl, we have a lot of follow up questions.”
Chapter 30
Angie
I get to Riley field early. It’s an unannounced workout, and Jake’s no longer active in the NFL, so there are only a few people scattered around. Honestly, I haven’t been at a football field since Jake left town.
Everything about it feels both strange and familiar, all at the same time. The smell of the grass, the feel of the metal bleachers, feeling every sound vibrate through my body as footsteps ripple across the metal bleachers. Even the sound of a whistle and yelling. In a crazy way, I guess I missed it.
Jake said that not even his agent was coming in for this one. Just a quick workout to see if his ankle will hold under game time conditions.
I spot Stu and Jimmy and give them a wave. They sheepishly wave back. Small towns. I squint a little, but Jake is not hard to spot. Even from up here I can tell by his body language that he’s nervous.
“C’mon, Jake!” I scream. Then I laugh to myself. If I’m going to resurrect the past, I might as well do it all the way. I was always one of the loudest voices at his games.
He hears me. His head spins around to find me in the sparse crowd. In the back as always. I wave. He grins and
