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My laptop pinged with an incoming email. When I glanced at it and saw Cash’s name in the sender field, I looked at Mia.
“Do you want me to read it?” she asked.
Shaking my head, I tentatively opened it.
To: Hannah Hall
From: Cash Jameson
Subject: Contract
To set the record straight, the contract you saw is for when he gets out of college. I knew it was important to you and to him. It would give him time to hone his skills and still get him on a pro team. He’d need to wait until his junior year or after he graduated to enter the pros. That’s the collegiate rule and what I asked the club to consider. After they read my scouting report, they agreed to the terms. I’ll send it to you, and you can take it from there. If he decides to go down that road, and if he wants, I’ll work with him to find an agent. If he doesn’t, that’s okay too. Like you said, it’s his and his mother’s decision.
Cash Jameson
Utah Hawks, Lead Scout
“What does that mean?” Mia asked.
“It means I just made a horrible mistake.”
Chapter27
Cash
I didn’t know how long I stood and stared at the back door, but it felt as though it had been an eternity. The pain of her words hurt more than when I fucked up my shoulder. Her thinking that I’d enter Jimmy into a contract without her consent didn’t say much about what she thought of me. Even though I was his father, I couldn’t have even if I’d wanted to since my name wasn’t on his birth certificate. The only reason I knew that was that I saw it when he needed it for camp, and that line was blank—something I wanted to rectify—and one day soon, I would.
Her words cut me like a knife. Her lack of trust gutted me. I finally thought we’d worked past things, that this was our second chance. Had I been wrong?
Before going upstairs to shower, I sent her an email explaining the type of contract I’d drawn up. The warm water ran over my skin as I dropped my head forward. Each time I closed my eyes, I saw Hannah crying. The look of devastation on her face when I didn’t tell her I loved her back. Those three words stuck in my throat while my head and heart had gone to war. My head won, and I hadn’t said anything.
For the first time in my life, I didn’t know what to do. When I was younger, I’d call my father and talk it out. What bullshit that was. NowIwas the father, and I needed to act like one. There were several families that didn’t live together and made it work. Technically I didn’t need to be in Utah to do my job. I traveled to where the prospects were, not the other way around.
Once the water cooled, I closed the faucet, dried off, threw on shorts and a Hawks T-shirt, and headed downstairs to compose an email to Vince, telling him I wanted to work in Virginia. If Jimmy decided to forgo college and join the Hawks, then I’d move back. I didn’t need to work, but I wasn’t ready to give up the sport I loved so much. Scouting gave me the connection I needed.
My doorbell rang, so I abandoned my laptop and got up. It rang again. “Coming,” I said before yanking it open to find Mia standing there.
She pushed past me and walked into the house. “Come on in,” I said before closing the door.
When I turned, she was standing there, hands perched on her hips, the toes on her right foot tapping the hardwood floor, and her head cocked to the side. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. How could you do that to Hannah?”
The force of my eyebrows hitting my hairline widened my eyes. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“No, I’m not. I just left her, and she’s devastated. Do you know how much she loves you?”
Think before you speak,I heard a little voice say in my head for the second time that day. “I know she thinks she does. And even so, she doesn’t trust me.”
Her nose scrunched up. “You’re an idiot. I thought you were smarter. You know, Hannah was skeptical that you two wouldn’t work. Not because you didn’t belong together, but because she was afraid her heart would be broken. I never thought you’d do that again.”
“Again? The narrative is a bit skewed, don’t you think, Mia? I get that you’re her best friend, but I didn’t do anything wrong back then, nor did I do it now.”
She put up her hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t come here to play the blame game.”
“Then why are you here?”
