Linebacker’s Second Chance(16)

“Well, damn,” I mutter.

Macklin’s home is a sprawling white farmhouse-style estate, with wraparound porches and lazily spinning fans on each section of the porch. There are screen porches on either side with swings and chairs, and each view looks out to the gardens or the orchards in the distance. The windows in the front must have a good view of the Charlotte skyline, as open as they are, and each of the shutters are painted a deep green. There are three stories to the thing and the siding is painted a brilliant, gleaming white.

I don’t know what I’d imagined, but it wasn’t this. I guess I must have thought he’d have one of those flashy stucco-looking places like the athletes in Southern California. In fact, I’ve seen so many of those ugly ranches that I’d started to think they might be mandated by the NFL—and the NBA too, come to think of it.

Instead, this is the house I’d dreamed of—the house we’d dreamed of. The one that I’d talked about in every fantasy Mack and I had shared. We talked about raising our two or three kids in a house like this, chasing them around the porches and setting up ramps for their bikes in the garden outside. Tears come to my eyes when I regard it, and I wipe them away before Wingate can see.

The house might be far bigger and grander, but it’s exactly the vision we’d shared so long ago. I wonder if he actively remembered it when he was looking for a place to buy, or if our talks about the house had somehow just stuck in his mind and subconsciously dictated what kind of place he would buy.

Was he thinking about me? The long talks we had sitting on the brick wall outside of my dorm? The place he first kissed me and told me he wanted me to be his girl forever?

I may never know. I don’t want to know. My goal is not to talk to him the entire time I’m here. I’ll collect the money. I’ll do what I have to do to prevent him from damaging his career. And then I’ll be gone, back to my own tiny house in Sausalito, back to a reality that doesn’t involve a man who ripped my heart to shreds.

Wingate breaks me out of my reverie. “I’d get our muscle out here to help you with your bags, but I don’t think that’s going to be what you want to do—is it?” Wingate winks at me and hoists one bag over his shoulder while I grab my laptop and purse and the briefcase that holds every one of the files I’ll be reviewing tonight.

“I guess not,” I breathe, looking up at the coffered windows. It’s a shame I won’t be going inside to see what the view looks like. Instead, I follow my old friend to the guest house, trying to push away the feeling that this is the one place in the world I shouldn’t be.

No, honey. $600,000 says otherwise. You get your act together and be a grown up. You’re over this man. All the relationships you’ve had since them have said so.

I don’t go over how many relationships there have been, nor how mindless each one of them had seemed.

“Guest house has all the amenities. Including a lap pool and hot tub out back. I had everything cleaned and the refrigerator stocked with food. You can also order any catering you want from the book of menus and restaurants I put on the table. We have a guy who delivers any time of day to anyone that calls from this property.”

I nod and draw Wingate into a hug as he leaves me behind in the two bedroom house that sits at the back of the property. In the expansive kitchen—all granite and hardwood and marble and stainless steel—there’s fresh fruit and baked bread, and several bottles of red wine that are probably more expensive than all the alcohol we drank together in college. I uncork one and pour a glass as I kick off my heels, drinking sips of the rich, dark fluid as I put on my athletic clothes and change my lacy push-up bra for one that doesn’t sit so hard against my skin. The wine feels good as it expands through my body, and soon, I have the strength—and perhaps the mental stability—to open my briefcase and sit down at the round dining room table that faces the back of Macklin’s house. I try not to look too carefully at the white painted porches, try not to glance up and wonder if I’ll see his face in one of the windows. Instead, I start sorting through the paper files I’ve printed on each one of the educated, intelligent, well-dressed women that live in a fifty-mile radius of Charlotte.

Soon, the glass is empty and another is poured. I tuck into a plate of Manchego cheese and flaky, handmade crackers and sip more of the wine while I check through the list of people, taking out those I rank above a five, and discarding the women who don’t meet the threshold.

All potentials must get a combined score of at least seven, but we’ll look through those again..