“So what are you going to do about Jupiter?”
I held my open palms out. “I dunno. I wasn’t expecting to see him the other day. I’d been bracing myself to bump into him in the corridor at some point, but not on day one. I was totally unprepared.” My head dropped into my hands. “I can’t believe I slapped him! I shouldn’t have done it, but it was like my body and mind had been hijacked by some other girl – a really angry one.”
“Lowe said it was an impressive blow.”
My head shot back up to find Beulah and Lowe grinning wide.
“Oh, God!” I groaned, letting out a deep sigh as my mind filled with the one other thing which had been bothering me more than I wanted to admit. I chewed a little on my thumb nail while I figured how to word it, but then decided I’d already told them enough, I may as well tell them everything. “I mean, it’s just so typical isn’t it? I feel like a poker thrust into the fire. Though I did think it was weird, Jupiter coming here. The boy I knew would never have left The Dodgers. All he ever used to talk about was being a Dodger for life – on and on and on about it.”
Lowe and Beulah were both frowning at me. I knew I was going crazy.
I gave a heavy shrug. “Never mind, I’m just… frustrated I guess. I wanted to lick my wounds in private. I just hope I never have to meet his wife.”
“Wife?”
“Or girlfriend, I guess. Jupiter was never short of females clamoring to get his attention. That hasn’t changed based on that lot outside.”
Lowe and Beulah exchanged that look again, just like they had earlier.
“What?”
“Marnie, Jupiter doesn’t have a wife or a girlfriend.” Beulah’s eyes narrowed while she stared at me. “The only reason Jupiter came to play at The Lions was to get you back. That’s why you’re here.”
I frowned, first at that statement, and second at my heart, which gave a hard thump. “Wait, what? How? That makes no sense… what does that mean?”
“He would only come to The Lions if Penn found you and offered you a job. I think he wants to try and win you back,” she said simply, and not in any way like that news didn’t hit me as hard as an asteroid.
No, not hit. Wiped me out was more accurate.
Lowe nudged her but looked at me. “He definitely wants to win you back.”
My brain was on the brink of frying, my blood had passed simmer and was on its way to boil, and my stupid heart wouldn’t stop thumping. “One more time please?”
Lowe sipped her coffee with purpose, then placed it slowly on the table and pinned me with a look I couldn’t read. “When Penn took ownership last season, he was determined to build a winning team. He desperately wanted Jupiter to play for TheLions, and Jupiter would only do so on the condition Penn found you and offered you a job. He told Penn to give you anything you asked for. Basically, make you an offer you couldn’t refuse.”
My mouth closed, then opened, then closed again, all while I tried to make sense of any of this. “That’s why he offered me a million-dollar salary?”
Beulah sucked in her cheek and nodded, while Lowe looked kind of apologetic. “Yep.”
My mind whirred; that sledgehammer I mentioned earlier? It had just hit.
“So let me get this straight… fourteen years ago he breaks my heart and leaves me to put myself back together, then wakes up one day and decides he wants me back?! And I’m the dummy who fell for it!” I slapped myself on the head. “Oh, hell no!”
I could see Beulah on the verge of saying something, but it was then something else occurred to me.
“Oh my God! He’s been dictating the course of my life since I was sixteen, and I haven’t even realized!”
“I told Penn this would backfire,” Lowe muttered with a head shake, and looked at her watch. “Okay, it’s lunchtime, which means we can officially drink wine. And I think we need it for this conversation.”
We sat in silence, each of us pondering the new information we’d been served, while actually being served three large glasses of wine and a bowl of fries. I don’t think Lowe and Beulah were plotting Jupiter’s downfall like I was, but they definitely looked deep in thought.
Well, not exactly downfall, but my thoughts weren’t favorable.
“What are you thinking?” Lowe asked, breaking the silence.
I stopped running my thumb nail along my bottom lip and took a large gulp of wine.
“I don’t know. I can’t blame him for my marriage ending; I would have divorced David anyway. But I didn’t need to be manipulated into coming to New York.”
