A Cross-Country Christmas(21)
“Adelante, Coach Will, come in, come in.” The woman stepped aside, and when she met Lauren’s eyes, her mouth opened and she smiled wide. She slugged Will on the arm and said, “Coach Will, you didn’t tell us tu novia was so beautiful!” She touched Lauren’s cheek and looked at her in a way her own mother never had. Rosa held Lauren’s arms warmly. “He’s been keeping you a secret.”
Lauren started to correct the woman, but she didn’t give her a chance.
“I’m Rosa,” she said. “And your Will is our hero.” She leaned in closer. “And so handsome!” She grabbed both of Will’s cheeks and squeezed.
Lauren saw Will’s flustered grin, and she forced herself to look away because the whole scene playing out in front of her was downright adorable. Seeing him embarrassed as this woman fussed over him charmed Lauren in a way no amount of flirting ever had.
“I’m. . .Lauren,” she stammered.
“Lauren! Such a beautiful name!” Rosa pulled Lauren into a tight hug. She looked desperately at Will who just shrugged, put his hands up and chuckled.
Rosa started down the hall, flanked by colorful Christmas lights hanging on the walls. “Ven conmigo, he’s in here. It’s a wonder I didn’t pray the hornets on him, el peque?o alborotador, he breaks my heart!”
Will followed with a purpose, and Lauren tagged after, cautious and unsure. She didn’t want to get in the way, and she still had no idea what they were doing.
Rosa’s small living room had been decked out for the holidays. A modest tree stood in one corner, trimmed with what appeared to be mostly homemade ornaments. There was no fireplace, so the stockings were hung from the entertainment center. Three handmade stockings, names painted on with glittery puffy paint. Her heart squeezed. She would’ve loved a stocking like that.
Lauren sat in the hard memories of her Christmases for a moment. After the divorce, her mother was a shell of herself. She stopped cleaning, stopped making lunches, just. . . stopped. It took her a long time to put herself back together, and because of that, Christmas became the loneliest day of the year. The first year, when they realized Santa had skipped right over them, she and Spencer wrapped up toys and board games they hadn’t played with in a while, exchanging them and pretending they were brand new.
But by the third year, they were too tired to pretend.
Lauren scanned the tidy space and saw a kid—probably about eighteen or nineteen—propped on pillows, stretched out on the sofa. His foot was bandaged and elevated by a large cushion.
“Coach!” The kid’s face lit up, but not with full excitement. Almost like catching someone eating your clearly marked food out of the office fridge. “What are you doing here?”
“Changed my plans so I could check in on you,” Will said. “Wasn’t sure a phone call was going to be enough.”
“Nah, I’m good.” The kid’s eyes danced. He obviously didn’t care that he was caught eating someone else’s clearly marked food out of the office fridge. Lauren was reminded of a younger version of Will—charming, handsome, and from the looks of his attitude and his bandaged leg, never took much of anything too seriously.
Did those comparisons still ring true for her traveling companion?
The kid looked at Lauren, his lazy grin hanging lopsided like a crescent moon. “Coach, you’ve been holding out on us!” He smiled fully now, and Lauren imagined this kid was as dangerous to the opposite sex as Will Sinclair at the same age. “What are you doing with Coach, did you lose a bet or something?”
Lauren actually chuckled. You don’t know the half of it, kid.
“I’m Jackson.” He spread his hands out wide behind his head, relaxed. “Coach’s star pitcher.”
“More like Coach’s star bench warmer. You know you can’t play with that.” Will nodded toward Jackson’s foot.
“It’s just bruised,” he waved him off. “It’ll heal before I’m even back from Christmas.”
“Is that right?” Will took on a completely different demeanor. Jackson sat up straighter, now the pupil to the teacher. Will wasn’t that flirtatious guy pushing all her buttons—he was the coach. And this kid was looking up at him like his opinion was the only one in the world that mattered.
Will sat on the armchair beside the couch. “Jackson. You know we need to talk about a few things, right?” Lauren watched a silent exchange between the two of them. Jackson’s face fell.
“I know I let you down, Coach,” he mumbled.
“You didn’t just let me down, Pope.” Will put a hand on Jackson’s good leg. “You let your team down. You let yourself down.” Then, over his shoulder to Rosa, “Not to mention the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“Oye, detente, hermoso!” Rosa flapped a kitchen towel at Will, and then motioned for Lauren to follow her into the other room. As curious as she was, Lauren knew this conversation was private. As she was leaving, she overheard Will say, “Look, I don’t tell you all this stuff for fun. You need to learn from my mistakes. You need to be better than me.”
His mistakes. The words lingered, and Lauren couldn’t help but wonder if she was one of them.
Chapter 10
“Gracias for letting Coach Will come.” Rosa ushered Lauren into the small kitchen.