Second Chance: A Military Football Romance

*****

I wasn’t expecting Parker to call, but he did, the very next day. I didn’t recognize the number when it appeared on the screen, and usually I didn’t pick those calls up, but for some reason I did this time. Maybe it was just simple curiosity.

“Hello?”

“Chloe?”

“This is Chloe.”

“Hey, this is Parker,” he said. “Your mom passed your number along to me the other night. Sorry if it seems a little strange that I’m just calling you out of the blue like this.”

His voice was deep and smooth, like he should be doing voiceovers on television commercials. I pictured him standing there at the party that night with my father, talking about whatever the hell it was they’d been discussing. The stock market? Golf?

“Oh, hi.” I felt nervous all of the sudden, even though there was absolutely no reason for me to; it’s not like I was going to hang out with him. It’s not like I needed to say anything to him beyond this phone conversation. Really, I just hated being on the phone with anyone.

“How’s it going?” He, however, seemed like the type of person that would be perfectly at home talking with anyone, in person, on the phone, via Skype, whatever.

“Um ... it’s pretty good. How are you?”

“It’s summer and I’m on vacation, so I’d say I’m doing pretty good, too. So, I was thinking maybe

we should hang out some time. You up for that?” He spoke easily, as though we’d been friends for a while. I knew enough to know that this wasn’t necessarily a good sign; if he was this relaxed and easygoing-sounding, surely he couldn’t be that interested, could he? Wouldn’t he sound the least bit nervous?

Not that it mattered if he liked me or not; I wasn’t interested. I just wasn’t sure how to say it, because all of a sudden, I felt as though I was going to hurt his feelings.

“I don’t know,” I stammered.

“You don’t know what?”

“I just ... I don’t think that I’m going to be able to hang out. I’m sorry. Bye!” I hung up the phone before he could say anything. My pulse raced, as though I’d just done something very exhilarating. In a way, I had. I doubt Parker had ever had a girl turn him down before, never mind hang up on him.

My mother would not be thrilled, of course. But if she was that upset about it, then maybe she really should be the one to go out on a date with him herself.

*****

I met up with Tara later that day at the beach.

“I have a confession,” she said as she stretched out onto her beach blanket, her entire body glistening with coconut oil. “I don’t know if you’ve been on Facebook recently, but I added a few pictures.”

“I’ve been taking a social media break,” I said. “It’s actually been kind of nice.”

“Well, here, look.” She reached over and yanked her bag over to her, rummaging through it until she found her phone. I watched her tap at the screen and then she handed the phone over. There were two pictures, from the day that we’d gone to the outer beach with Graham. One was a selfie of Tara, with Graham’s profile in the shot, too. The other was one I had taken, actually, the two of them, with their backs to me, facing the water. I remembered taking that photo; the sun had been just right, dazzling off the surface of the water, and the two of them standing there reminded me of something you might see in a magazine.

“Tara!” I said. She hadn’t actually captioned the photos, or tagged Graham, but she’d gotten hundreds of likes and plenty of comments. “I thought you weren’t going to do this! Does he know?”

“I had mentioned it to him.”

“I know, but he said he wasn’t into it.”

“Well, it’s not like I tagged him.”

“He probably doesn’t even use Facebook. You can’t just put his photos up. How long have these been up for?”

She held her hand out for the phone. “Not that long.” She scowled. “You can barely even see his face. I mean, in the second picture, you can’t see his face.”

“Then what’s the point in putting them up to begin with? You don’t even know if Michael saw them. This whole thing is silly, doing this to make him jealous. Maybe he’ll send you a message and say he’s happy for you.”

I handed the phone back to her, surprised that even she would do something like this. Was it because she really had been so in love with Michael and seeing him with another girl was making her do irrational things? “You really have to take those pictures down. Or at least tell Graham, at which point, he’ll probably tell you to take them down.”