“Can I get you guys something to drink?” I ask.
“S’okay. We’ve got a thermos in the car. Restroom, though?” Jase tips his head at me. “Or do I have to sign in for that one at the gatehouse?”
I don’t say anything to this, just direct him to the bathroom and then stand there uncertainly. Mr. Garrett bends to the pool, dips his hands and tosses water on his face, running it through his wavy brown hair, so much like his son’s. Though Mr. Lennox has faded away muttering, I feel apologetic. “Sorry about—” I gesture toward the club.
Mr. Garrett laughs. “You’re certainly not responsible if they love their rules, Samantha. I’ve dealt with these guys before. Nothing new.”
Jase returns from the bathroom, smiling. “There are, like, griffins overlooking the stalls in there.” He jerks his thumb over his shoulder.
“Take a second,” Mr. Garrett tells Jase, clapping him on the shoulder. “I have to do some more paperwork in the car.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Jase murmurs before turning to me.
“So…will I see you tonight?” I ask.
“Absolutely. When do you get off work? Aw…I forgot. Not till later. Tonight’s Thursday, so Dad’s training me again. At the beach.”
“At the beach for football? How does that work?”
“He’s got me doing his old workout. He had Division Two colleges looking at him until he blew out his knee, so I need to bulk up. It means running in the water knee-deep, and that’s still a killer for me.”
“Jason—all set?” Mr. Garrett calls.
“Coming.” He drops his gloves to the ground, sliding his bare palms up my arms, then edging me into the shade of one of the bushes. I want to lean into him, but I’m still tense. Beyond his head, I see Tim, sorting coins in his hand, headed for the snack bar. He looks over at us, takes in the scene, smirks, then wags an index finger at us. Tsk-tsk.
“I’ll respect the uniform and hold off on the fraternizing,” Jase says, kissing my cheek. “But I’ll see you tonight.”
“Uniform-free,” I add, then clap my hand over my mouth.
He grins, but says only: “Works for me.”
Chapter Sixteen
Jase holds his hand against the windowpane, bumping it only gently, but I’m so alert for the sound that I hear it, throw the window open, and climb out all in under twenty seconds.
He indicates the blanket spread out on the roof.
“Prepared!” I comment, sliding down next to him.
He reaches for me, slipping an arm around my neck. “I try to think ahead. Plus, I needed incentive to finish the last bit of training, so I thought about meeting you up here.”
“I was incentive?”
“You were.” His arm is warm behind me. I curl my toes at the bottom of the blanket, brushing against the still-warm roof tiles. It’s nearly nine o’clock and the last bit of day is losing the battle against the dark. Another starry night.
“The stars are different around the world, did you know? If we were in Australia, we’d see a whole new sky.”
“Not just backward?” Jase pulls me closer, pillowing my head on his chest. I take a deep breath of warm skin and clean shirt. “Or upside down? Completely different?”
“Mostly different,” I tell him. “It’s winter in Australia, so they see the Summer Cross…and Orion’s belt. And this orangey red star, Aldebaran, which is part of the eye of Taurus. You know, the bull.”
“So how is it, exactly,” he asks, tracing his finger idly around the collar of my shirt, a mesmerizing motion, “that you became an astrophysicist?”
“Kind of a roundabout way.” I close my eyes, breathe in the smell of cut grass, Mom’s rosebushes, Jase’s clean skin.
“Go on,” he says, sliding the finger up my throat to follow the line of my jaw, then back down along the collar. I feel almost hypnotized by that simple motion and find myself telling a story I’ve never told.
“You know how my dad left my mom before I was born?”
He nods, his brow furrowing, but doesn’t say anything.
“Well, I don’t really know how it happened—she doesn’t talk about it. Whether she kicked him out or he just left or they had some big fight or…what. But he left behind some stuff—in this big box that my mom was supposed to mail to him. I guess. But she was about to have me, and Trace was really little too, only just over a year old. So she didn’t send it, she just stuck it in the back of the front hall closet.”
I’ve always thought this was so unlike Mom, not to sweep up every bit.