AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What will be the determining factor?” I ask.
“Seeing my boys on the field together at games.”
“You need a life separate from your boys, Mom,” I chide.
“I know. I’ll find my place. I guess I just got used to hanging with the goats on the farm, and life’s a little more fast-paced here.”
“Why don’t you go back to New York, then?”
She clears her throat. “Your father put the farm up for sale.”
“He what?” I choke. Grayson and I paid off the farm so my mom could have it forever. Spencer pays the staff. And my father just…put up the farm without telling us?
“You heard me correctly.” She’s quiet a beat. “Anyway, I better go, honey. Let me know if there are any charity events for an old lady like me.”
“You’re hardly old, Mom.”
She practically snorts at me. “Even if one of you surprised me with grandchildren at this point, I’m not sure I could keep up.”
“Oh stop it,” I tease, but I’m only saying it because I’m deflecting what I already know is the next question.
“So when will that happen, by the way?”
Predictable…as is my answer. “Not anytime soon.”
She sighs with exaggerated disappointment, and we say our goodbyes.
Still, that call gave me an awful lot to think about, and maybe the topic at the forefront of my mind is whether my parents are destined to stay together forever or if there’s an end in sight…and what that will mean for their four adult children.
Maybe nothing.
But maybe they’ll force us to choose sides when I’m already caught in the middle of a situation where I’ll need to choose sides.
I don’t want them to separate. I don’t want them to go through the hardship that certainly comes with divorce.
Still, I can’t help but think that if they do, it might just make my own decisions that much easier.
CHAPTER 24: JOLENE
Our second episode dropped two days ago, and it hit the number two spot for sports podcasts this week. I’m thrilled with what we’ve already accomplished, and training camp is just two weeks away so Ellie has filled both our calendars with charity work that we can spread out through our next few weeks.
It’s great since that means I get more public time with Lincoln.
But it also sucks because we’re still hiding our real feelings in public.
And I have to be extra careful since Rivera is acting as my boss in my real boss’s absence.
It’s Friday morning, and I suppose I should’ve called Jeremy before this moment, but I decided to hold out to see if he’d call first. It’s his weekend with Jonah, and the last time we saw him was when he stormed out of the Gridiron two weekends ago.
He answers right away, and he sounds like he’s in a much better mood than he was the last time we saw him. Still, alarm bells ring. I don’t like the moodiness and the unpredictability of it all.
“Jolene, hi. What can I do for you?”
“I haven’t heard from you and just wanted to chat about this weekend,” I say, careful with both my words and my tone.
“Right, sure. Listen, I can’t talk now but we’re excited for Jonah to get here. We have fun plans this weekend.”
“We?” I ask.
