CHAPTER 12 LINCOLN

Ellie leaves, and I finally call Troy Bodine's secretary and make a dinner appointment with him and his wife on Tuesday evening when he doesn't have a game. Sam is available and Jolene plans to watch the kids, so our plan is in place.

Except it's Jolene I should be taking to dinner with the baseball manager and his wife, not Sam.

It's all wrong, and meeting with Ellie made me see that more than ever. We aren't distracting anybody with a fake relationship. Instead, we're just creating more potential problems for ourselves down the line.

And I hadn't thought of it that way. I'm not sure exactly when Sam and I should have our public break-up, or when Sam and Jolene should have their public make-up, but I have faith in Ellie drafting up a plan that'll work for all of us. Until then, we're sort of stuck in the same limbo we've found ourselves in for the last few weeks.

I have some things to take care of at home, so after I bid my girlfriend goodbye—both the real one and the fake one—I get on my way. And when I pull onto my street, I see my dad's car parked in my driveway.

I blow out a breath and debate turning the car around, but I know I need to face dear old Dad even though it's sort of the last thing on my list of what I want to do right now.

I pull past him and into my garage, and I draw in a fortifying breath as I exit the car.

"Where have you been?" he demands gruffly.

"Out," I answer, feeling a bit like I'm thirty-six and don't need to answer to my father anymore. I do wonder for a beat whether he's been waiting in my driveway since last night, though.

"Are you going to invite me in?" he asks.

"I have things to do today," I say, essentially declining to invite him in. "You could've called."

"I could have, but a surprise visit is always more fun. Where were you?" he asks again, and the hairs on the back of my neck prickle in defense as I get the very real sense that he knows exactly what's going on.

"I was at my girlfriend's place, not that it's any of your business."

"Your girlfriend is roommates with that Bailey girl, isn't she?"

I sigh. "Yes, she is."

He offers a sly smile that comes off as a bit venomous. "Way to go, kid. Step in on the best friend. Knock that girl down a few pegs back to where she should be. How she got the correspondent position, I'll never understand. Like we need more women there." He scoffs, and I feel a little sick.

"Sorry, but I refuse to agree with that rather outdated sexism, Father."

He rolls his eyes, and then he narrows them at me. "Oh, I bet you like having the ladies in the locker room." His tone is full of the type of suggestiveness I don't care for.

I heave out a breath. This is exactly the sort of thing Jolene hates—having that reputation that she got to where she was because she's a woman, not because she's smart and savvy and knows the game better than her male counterparts.

"That's neither here nor there. What are you doing here? Can't you go bug Asher?"

He chuckles. "Asher is doing just fine on his own. It's you I'm concerned about. You're letting that girl get in your head again, and I won't stand by and watch you ruin your life over her. I put a stop to it last time, and I'll do it again if I have to."

"What girl?" I ask, and my voice sounds tired even to my own ears.

"Oh, come off it, Lincoln. You jumped in between us last night to stop the fight, and you came out looking like an idiot. Her asshole father is trashing your name and you're just sitting by."

"You think I'm just sitting by?" I hiss at him. "I've already met with my publicist. She's developing a plan. I don't need to defend myself to you or anyone else."

"You don't," he says, holding up both hands. "You're right. But allow me to remind you where your focus should be."

"My focus is exactly where it needs to be."

"On the girlfriend? Because I've seen you with her, and I have my suspicions about what's really going on."

"You can take your suspicions and shove them where the—"

He holds up a hand. "Careful, Lincoln. I brought you into this world."

"And you can take me out. Yeah, yeah. I have a long list of shit to work through today, so if you'll excuse me." I nod toward my door to indicate that I'm going in and he can get the fuck out.

"I just want to see you succeed. That's all I'm trying to do."

"Give Mom a hug," I say, ignoring his words and him as I turn and head into my house, closing the garage door on my way in to really drive home the message that I'm done here.

And as I lean back against the door after closing it behind me, I can't help but feel like he came here with the intention of making the two of us closer, but he might've just driven a wedge between us that I'm not convinced we can come back from.

It's the first time in two decades I've really wondered why I'm so intent on staying loyal to a man who acts like he does.

It's the first time in two decades when I'm starting to wonder whether it would really be such a bad thing to choose Jolene and walk away from the Nashes.

The only problem is that the Nashes are so tied to football that I can't exactly do that. My brother plays on my team. Grayson decided to stay in the game at least one more year, but maybe he'll come coach with me next year.

What would happen to those sibling relationships now if I chose Jolene over my father?

It's a question I may always wrestle with because I'm not sure either of us will ever be able to go all in, and the thought of maybe not having this work out between us physically twists a knife in my guts.

Jolene's working on team interviews while I'm working on reviewing film, so we don't get the chance to talk much over the next couple days until I find myself on her doorstep—or rather, on Sam's doorstep—to pick up my dinner date on Tuesday evening.

Jolene is sitting at the kitchen table playing cards with the boys, and she glances up at me when I walk in. She wears a look on her face resembling extreme disappointment, but she masks it quickly.

How can she not be disappointed that she's missing out on this dinner? It's her chance to interview the manager of the Vegas Heat mid-season. She's done reports on baseball before in her role as a sports beat reporter, but she spent much more of her career focused on football. Still, sitting in on this dinner would be a dream for her, and instead she's relegated to playing cards with a couple of first graders while I take her best friend to the dinner she has every right to be attending.

Everything about all of this is completely backwards.

Ellie's texted me with updates over the last couple days to let me know she's still working out the plan and to sit tight for now. So that's what I'm doing. But I hate it. I hate everything about all of this.

Jolene basically ignores me—or at least she pretends to—but I can't help saying hi to her kid, who seems to have taken to me over the last few weeks much more than my pretend girlfriend's kid.

I wonder how Jonah would feel about me if it was his mom I was taking to dinner. Maybe he can see through us, or maybe he doesn't want me with his mom. At first he thought it was cool, but it seems like something changed.

"What are you playing?" I ask.

"Rummy," Jonah says.

"Who's winning?"

Jonah grins as he raises his hand, and I feel a sense of pride in that—a strange sense that I can't quite understand or explain.

Cade essentially ignores me, and I grin at Jonah and bid them all a good night before I head out the door with Sam.

"Your kid hates me," I say once we're outside.

She laughs. "No he doesn't. He just wishes me and his dad would get back together."

"What exactly happened between you?" I ask as we get into the car.

She sighs as she buckles her seat belt.

"If you don't want to talk about it—"

"No, it's fine." She shakes her head a little. "It was just tough when Cade was little, you know? We'd only been together a few months, didn't know each other all that well. I thought I was in love, thought we'd make it work. There wasn't any one thing that broke us up. No cheating or whatever, we just had a lack of communication that sort of brought about the end. I was more focused on the baby and Devin wanted me to be more focused on him and we just threw in the towel. It felt like less pressure when we were apart."

"I'm sorry. That sounds incredibly difficult," I say.

"It was. It is. Because sometimes I think I love him more now than I did back then, but he's moved on."

I'm surprised at her confession. "Are you sure he moved on?"

"He's been dating the same girl for the last year, and they just got engaged." Her tone is flat.

"Ah. So that's why you were so amenable to this deal." And potentially that's what changed with Cade.

She shakes her head as she presses her lips together. "I wish it was that simple. He proposed after he saw that I was dating you."

"Do you think he did it because he thought you moved on?"

She bites her lip and it's clear that she's doing it to keep from crying. "That's what Cade indicated."

"Jesus, Sam," I say, grabbing her hand. "I never intended for this thing to—"

She holds up a hand to cut me off. "It was my idea, if you recall. I never intended for any of this, either, but here we are."

I blow out a breath as I squeeze her hand before I let it go. She's Jolene's best friend, but she's become my friend over the last few weeks, too. "What if you were just honest with him?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "We may teach our children that honesty is the best policy, but really, what good would come from me being honest about this? I'd just end up being embarrassed every time I had to drop Cade off when Devin would look at me with sympathy because he chose Maddy."

"Maddy? That's his fiancée?"

She nods.

"Or maybe he feels the same way. I mean, he waited to propose until he saw you were with somebody, Sam. Don't you think that could be significant?"

"Probably not." She shrugs.

"But maybe."

She sighs. "Maybe," she finally concedes.

I can't ruin this woman's chance at happiness. I need to think of something…and fast.