Full Coverage: Boys of Fall (10 page)

Glen didn’t seem fazed.

Nolan had to admit that intrigued him. Anyone who could come into Quinn as an outsider and lay claim to one of the town’s favorite daughters, had to have some gigantic balls. And hopefully, some good intentions.

But Glen was hanging back, where Nolan was, outside the circle of friends at the bar. Nolan wasn’t an outsider exactly, but he wasn’t sure what he was at the moment. His girl was in there, just like all of theirs, but…he hadn’t staked his claim like those guys had. It was still new. He didn’t want to push Randi.

And, if things worked out with them, this scene wouldn’t be the regular thing that it was for the rest of them. He and Randi wouldn’t be here every weekend, wouldn’t be hanging out with them all the time. They’d be in San Antonio and just coming home for visits.

He didn’t know what to feel about that. He loved these guys, this town, these occasions. But it was a once-in-a-while thing for him. This was Randi’s world though. This was her normal. He wasn’t quite comfortable with stepping into her normal as if he belonged yet.

Being on the fringes of the team—a friend to all the guys but not a teammate—had often felt like this. He’d never minded. In fact, he’d stayed on the edges on purpose. He’d known he was leaving. He had bigger aspirations than Quinn. And he knew that the most common story in Quinn were the people who had deep roots they couldn’t walk away from—family, jobs, friends. Not that everyone felt stuck, but they also didn’t feel like they could just pack up and go.

Nolan had kept his ties loose and his relationships light, knowing that he wanted to go.

Besides, he’d felt enough a part of the group anyway. He’d been a storyteller from early on, and had been satisfied looking in on the story of the team, much like following multiple seasons of a television drama. He’d watched the personal struggles, the team’s trials, the one-on-one relationships and dramas, the bonds between the football brothers, Coach and his boys, even the team and the town, as a fascinated onlooker. He’d felt all of the emotions the rest of the town had felt about the championship football season. He hadn’t cared about the games and the trophies himself, but he’d wanted it all for the people involved. He’d cheered along with the rest of them, worried about the injuries, doubted if they could pull through when Jackson had been kicked off the team, rejoiced when they’d triumphed and celebrated when they’d come out on top.

Graduation that year had felt a lot like the finale episode of a favorite TV show. It was over. And Nolan found himself happy with the way it had all ended, but sad that he wasn’t going to get to see it anymore.

Now he was looking in on the gang again. Some of them had left and come back. Some had stayed and struggled to find what they wanted in their own backyards. New people had been added. A few regulars were gone for good. But the core was there—the friendship and love and support. Nolan was shocked by the nostalgia he felt, watching them.

Nolan realized he’d been paying attention all along. He’d seen the guys figure themselves out, make something of themselves, find love. He hadn’t realized how great it all was, how everything had come full circle, until he’d started the book. But the boys who had learned about life on the football field in Quinn were now the men Coach Carr had seen in them from the beginning.

He almost felt like he couldn’t take credit for the book. He was just telling the stories that had unfolded in front of him. But he was very happy with how it was all coming together. And now, here in Pitchers with two beers in him and watching the group right in front of him, he could admit that he was a month past his deadline because he didn’t want to finish the book. He didn’t want it to end.

“So it’s always like this around here?”

Jerked from his musings, Nolan looked over at Glen, then back to the gang. They were all laughing over something Joel had said. Nolan wondered if anyone else noticed the look Oakley gave Sadie. Sadie was behind the bar, Oakley perched on a stool, both watching Joel with a love so obvious, Nolan felt a stab of jealousy. It hadn’t taken the group long to accept the threesome—or the threesome Colt, Paige and Drake had formed—and Nolan remembered being proud of everyone for realizing that love was love, and being happy Joel and Colt had both found it. Times two.

When this group was together, the love, support, friendship and laughter, was constant.

“Yeah,” Nolan told Glen. “It’s always like this around here.”

“Hard group to get into?” Glen asked.

Nolan thought about that. Oakley was a new addition. So was Lacey. Sadie had been older. Though they’d all known her, she hadn’t been a part of the core group. Annabelle had been a classmate, but she’d been a bookworm rather than a football girl. Charlene was with Wade now, but she’d been his brother’s girl in high school…

Nolan shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t say that, actually.”

“But you’re standing back,” Glen pointed out.

He
was
standing back. But it was by choice. And habit. “I’m more of an observer,” he said.

“Nolan Winters, right?” Glen asked. “You’re writing that book about Coach.”

“Yep. And all of those yahoos.” He gestured toward the group with his beer bottle.

“Yeah?”

“Can’t write about Coach without writing about those guys,” Nolan said. Coach had influenced a lot of kids over the years, but none as much as the guys who’d played on his championship team.

“You can’t date Coach’s daughter without involving those guys either,” Glen said, lifting his own bottle to his lips.

Nolan chuckled. “Yep. But you seem to be holding your own.”

Glen lifted a shoulder. “She’s worth it.”

Nolan took a drink. “Just so you know, the fact that you think that, makes those guys pretty happy.”

Glen looked over. “Truth is, I don’t care much about making those guys happy.”

“Those guys being happy makes
Lorelie
happy,” Nolan said, but he was impressed by the guy. Because he was right—it wasn’t his job to make Jackson and Tucker, Wade, Carter and the rest happy. Just Lorelie.

And maybe Coach.

“Yeah, well, that’s maybe why I didn’t knock any heads together when they first started giving me shit,” Glen said. “Didn’t want to lose points with Lori.”

Nolan lifted an eyebrow. No one called Lorelie “Lori” besides her dad.

“So how come you’re not over there with your girl?” Glen asked.

“My girl?” Nolan repeated casually. But his heart kicked against his ribs.

“Randi. The gorgeous brunette—the mechanic—there in the middle who’s four shots in,” Glen said. “She’s yours, right?”

Nolan felt the
hell yeah
rock through him. Randi was his. Absolutely. And ever since he’d given her the Valentine and seen the look on her face—how much a stupid two-dollar card had meant to her—he’d been determined to be
hers
. Not just the guy who had a crush on her, not just the guy fucking her, but the guy who took care of her and made her feel as special as she was. The guy who wanted to make her look the way that card had made her look, every day for the rest of his life.

Randi needed to be loved. And no one could do that better than him.

“Yeah, that’s her,” he told Glen. “Miranda.”

“So how come you’re not over there with them?”

“Well, because I’ve been fighting being over there with them for a long time,” Nolan said. “It’s safer over here.”

He already felt the pull—the temptation to claim a stool at the bar as his forever, to start reminiscing about old times, the urge to make a bunch of new memories to reminisce over in the years to come. It was strong here—the lure to stay, to settle down, to make a home.

“And it’s just my luck that when I finally fall for a woman, it’s the one in the midst, literally, of that group,” he added.

Glen took a long draw of beer, watching the group, seeming to consider what Nolan had said. Then he nodded. “I’ve noticed that falling for a Quinn girl has a way of fucking up a lot of plans.”

“Your plans get fucked up?” Nolan asked. The “Lori” thing might have something to do with that.

Glen didn’t even hesitate. He grinned. “Big time.” He definitely didn’t look disappointed or apologetic.

Nolan couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “I’ve been trying to get Quinn out of my system for twelve years. I can tell you, it ain’t easy. Add in a girl you’re crazy about and yeah…good luck.”

He paused in lifting his beer to his mouth.
Dammit
. He should listen to himself. Quinn still meant something to him, even after all the years of being away, and avoiding the ties. Now Randi was making it mean even more. Seeing Randi with her friends made him happy—because
she
was happy. Taking her away from this wouldn’t be easy.

“Think I have a little Quinn in my system too.” Glen’s gaze was fixed on Lorelie. “But I’m not so sure I mind.”

Nolan looked at Randi. “Yeah, I hear you.”

“So what are you gonna do about it?” Glen asked.

There wasn’t much he could do right now. He couldn’t walk away from her, and that was about the only way to keep this from getting even more complicated. So he was going to cling to simple for a little longer. “I’m going to go ask my girl to dance.”

Glen nodded. “Good plan.”

“How about you?”

“I think I’m going to take my girl home.”

Nolan liked that idea too. “You’re just going to walk right over there, in the midst of all of those people who have been looking out for Lorelie all her life, and pull her away?”

Glen finished off his beer, set the bottle on the table right behind him and nodded. “Yep, pretty much.”

Nolan approved. And he wanted to do the same—step into the middle of it all, everything that represented Quinn and his past here—and claim Randi. But did he want to pull her out? Or did he want to get right in the middle of it with her?

Fuck. It was already complicated.

“
G
o for it
,” he told Glen, hoping he was able to hide his conflicting emotions.

Glen started forward and Nolan moved to follow, but just then Randi extricated herself from the group and came for him instead.

“Let’s go make out,” she told him, taking his hands and starting toward the door.

He pulled her back to him, wrapping his arms around her and linking his hands at her lower back. “Hang on there, Ladybug.”

He wanted to make out with her. Of course. He wasn’t an idiot. Or dead. But she’d had four shots and she was in a weird mood.

She had been ever since they’d left the community center. She’d been quiet on the five-minute drive between the two places, almost seeming lost in thought, and she’d sat clear over on her side of the car. He’d been hoping she’d be plastered up against his side, frankly.

The dance had been nice. The elementary school students helped decorate, and he’d seen the way Randi had looked at the construction paper X and O decorations on the walls and the heart shapes dangling from strings from the ceiling. She’d liked the dance. He’d liked being romantic with her. Tonight and over the last few days. It was important to him that she know this was more than sex. More than a date to the party in New York. More than football. And over the past few days, spending time together, talking and laughing at the shop, the conversation evolving from football to a multitude of other things, he’d thought she was getting that. They hadn’t had sex again. He’d kept his hands to himself. He hadn’t even hinted at wanting to spread her out on top of the car she was working on so he could make her scream with his tongue.

He was trying to
date
her, like a normal couple, rather than just fucking her brains out, and he’d thought she was on board with that. A girl who got stars in her eyes over a Valentine and heart-shaped sugar cookies should be on board with that.

So he wasn’t sure what had happened between the door to the community center and the door to Pitchers.

“We can make out in here,” she said, pulling back and looking up at him. “Obviously.” Her gaze went to the dance floor, where there was a lot more groping going on than actual dancing. “But I was kind of thinking that it would lead to a blowjob and that would probably be better out in the parking lot, if not somewhere even more private.”

He couldn’t
not
respond to that. Again, not an idiot or dead. But there was something in her eyes—and it wasn’t whatever the liquor was that was now coursing through her bloodstream—that made him hesitate.

“Let’s dance for a while,” he said, turning her toward the dance floor.

“I’m done dancing. We danced at the community center,” she said, resisting. “Let’s go get naked.”

He frowned. “Randi, you know how much I love being naked with you, but—”

“No, I don’t know. I’m going to need you to prove it.” She took his hand and again started toward the door.

Something about her saying she didn’t know bugged him. He figured she was simply using it as an excuse to get him to leave with her, but it nagged at him.

“Randi—”

She whirled around, her eyes suddenly flashing. “I want to take you somewhere alone and let you do anything you want with me. I want to strip off my clothes and spread my legs for you. What the hell are you doing fighting me on this?”

He stared at her. With the level of the music and conversation in the place, he didn’t think anyone else had heard her, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away to check.

Miranda Doyle was the sexiest woman he’d ever met, and she was demanding he take her somewhere and get naked. What the hell
was
he doing?

She wet her lips. “Come on, Nolan. Let’s go have some fun.” She stepped closer. “At the high school newspaper office.”

Damn. He’d been thinking about that since she’d first said it to him weeks ago at Coach’s party. That office had been his haven. The idea of taking Randi there—and
taking
Randi there—had stirred up some major fantasies.

He’d been the paper’s editor, reporter and publisher. He’d been a one-man show. Because he’d started the whole thing. There had been a school paper way back in the fifties, but it had died in the sixties when school officials shut it down when they realized that students with information were harder to control.

He’d started it back up under an administration that agreed with his assertion that students deserved to be informed about the things that affected them. But, as altruistic as that had sounded, Nolan couldn’t deny the feeling of power it gave him. He had decided what got lauded and what didn’t, what got attention and what didn’t, what facts people had. And which ones they didn’t. Sure, there was gossip. Yes, people talked. But because Nolan was a good guy, the smartest kid in school, a guy everyone liked, they trusted him and his word was final. Whatever appeared in the
Titan Times
was gospel.

He'd been powerful and they hadn’t even realized it. He knew things—people talked to him, told him details that sometimes astounded him, shared secrets—and he chose what got into print. He’d spilled some secrets. But he’d kept even more.

He’d been the king in that office. And the idea of spreading Randi out on that old desk and making her beg and scream and come…

“Okay, let’s go.”

The back door to the school was, indeed, still broken. A person had to know how to get in, it didn’t just swing open, but everyone knew.

He and Randi parked behind the trees about a block from the school. They ran, holding hands to the back door, and did the lift-twist-push-yank that got the thing open and slipped inside.

Nolan was nearly knocked over by the nostalgia of being in the hallways of Quinn High School again. It smelled the same. It looked the same. It
felt
the same. Not caring about football had put him on the outer edge of the main group, maybe, but he’d had a lot of great times here.

They walked down the hallways, looking around, still holding hands. It was stupid, but Nolan took a second to absorb it all into his memory. He was holding hands with Miranda Doyle in the main hallway of the high school. It was a few years late, but the seventeen-year-old Nolan was pretty pumped about it.

No one was here this time of night. It wasn’t like there was full-time security or even a nighttime janitor. This was Quinn. So they took their time getting to the newspaper office. They stopped in front of their senior yearbook composite that hung with the others in the main hallway. Nolan instantly found Randi’s photo. She’d been gorgeous back then, but as he stole a glance at her, he realized she was more beautiful now. There was a confidence and contentment about her now that drew him. And he was proud that he’d grown into an adult who appreciated that stuff as much as long legs and great breasts. Because it was hard to
not
appreciate her long legs and great breasts. It was a sign he’d evolved. That was a good thing.

But he still really wanted to get her naked in the newspaper office.

“Come on,” he said, tugging her down the hallway.

* * *

T
hey stopped
outside the guidance counselor’s office. There was a tiny room, that had actually been put in as a storage closet originally, that the counselor had let Nolan convert into an office for the paper. There were no windows, not even a window in the door, and it was barely big enough for the second-hand desk they’d shoved in there. But it had worked. He’d produced three hundred copies of the paper once a week from November of his freshman year until May of his senior year.

The counselor’s office was unlocked—because why wouldn’t it be? They pulled the door open to the newspaper’s den and Nolan reached for the light switch.

The overhead bulbs illuminated a completely new space.

The old wooden desk had been replaced with a modern style that was smaller and sleeker. The computer had been upgraded—thankfully—to a huge flat screen that left a lot more room on the desktop. There was still the typical clutter and the shelves were still there. There were even some of Nolan’s old books still on those shelves. There was a huge bulletin board covering one wall that held pinned-up articles from a variety of papers. Some of the articles were his from the
San Antonio Express-News
. He was flattered. But the wall above the computer monitor was his favorite.

On the plain light tan paint were a multitude of inspirational quotes about writing, written in various handwritings with a rainbow of colored permanent marker.

Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use. ~ Mark Twain.

A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it is to be God. ~ Sidney Sheldon.

It is perfectly okay to write garbage—as long as you edit brilliantly. ~ C.J. Cherryh.

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. ~ Douglas Adams.

And so many others. Nolan felt…something he’d never felt in this room before. As if there were people who understood him, and shared his passion.

“This is amazing,” Randi said softly.

He turned to find her studying the wall of words also.

“It is,” he agreed.

And it worked like a damned aphrodisiac. He would never tell her, but if Randi put on some lingerie and lay on his bed reading a book by Anna Quindlen or Anderson Cooper, he’d last about ten seconds once he took his pants off.

She moved closer to the wall and ran her fingers over the words,
Half my life is an act of revision. ~ John Irving
.

It was the hottest thing he’d ever seen. Or one of the hottest, anyway. He wanted to add something else to the list of hottest things he’d ever seen right now.

He put his hands on her hips and pulled her close, her back to his front. He rested his chin on her shoulder.

“I like football,” she said, still looking at the wall.

Nolan wasn’t sure why she said it, but he squeezed her hips. “I know.”

“I like the game. The rules, the strategy, the whole thing. But I like football players partly because I always know what to say to them.” She ran her hand over the Mark Twain quote. “He’s the only one I know. I wish I knew who these other people were. I wish I could talk to people who knew who these people were.”

Nolan frowned. He wasn’t sure where this was going, but he sensed something strange in her tone. Almost a wistfulness. “Why don’t you think you can talk to people who know those people?”

She shrugged. “I could never talk to you without stumbling all over myself. And I’ve known you forever. I can’t imagine talking to someone I just met.” She took a deep breath and turned in his arms. “I don’t know if I should go to New York with you.”

He shook his head immediately. “It will be great, I promise.”

“Do you know why I’ve stuck around Quinn?” she asked.

“Because you love it here.”

“Because I’m comfortable here. I know everything that everyone here knows. I know more than most of them about a few things. But there isn’t one conversation at Pitchers that I can’t follow.”

Nolan felt his frown deepen. “You’ve stayed here because you’re worried about not keeping up outside of Quinn?”

She sighed. “I’ve never wanted to leave Quinn,” she said. “Honestly. It’s not fear. It’s that I like being surrounded by the same things, the same people that I’ve always known. I’m comfortable. I fit here.”

“You can be whatever you want to be, Randi.”

She shook her head, giving him a sad smile. “Come on, Nolan. That’s not true. People say it and it sounds nice. But it’s not true. Not everyone has the brains or the money or the opportunities to be whatever they want to be.”

She was right. That was the thing. It wasn’t always about desire or hard work. Sometimes it came down to dollars or having doors opened. “What did you want to be?” he asked.

She looked up into his eyes, a tiny crease between her eyebrows.

“Randi?” he asked after a few seconds.

“What I am,” she finally said.

“You always wanted to be a mechanic here in Quinn?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I always loved the shop. The smell of the motor oil, the conversation, the idea of taking a bunch of parts and putting them together into a big, powerful machine. The idea of being able to put my hands on something and make it work.”

Nolan felt admiration expand his chest. He gave her a smile. “And that’s what you do.”

She nodded, but her smile fell a bit. “But that’s not something I can tell people at your party. Those people make things with…words. Ideas. Imagination. Everything they do comes out of their heads.”

Nolan didn’t know where to start with the arguments he had for her. “That’s one way to make things,” he agreed. “But what you do is just as valuable. Is that what you think? That you’re not good enough to spend time with them?”

She dipped her head, focusing on the middle of his chest. “I’m just not very interesting. You can exhaust my topics of conversation and knowledge in about ten minutes.”

He actually laughed at that, which pulled her eyes back to his. “Seriously? We’ve been talking all day, every day, for the past week and we haven’t exhausted your topics of conversation and knowledge.”