Calling All the Shots by Katherine Garbera Page B

understood why Wayne McKenzie, the tackle who’d
brought him down, called him once a year. The other guy had guilt. Until this
moment Jack had thought it was because of the injury that he’d sustained but now
he knew it was because life for Wayne had gone on and for Jack it was changed
forever.
    He heard a very soft sound as PJ cleared his throat.
    “Thank you. If you hadn’t acted so quickly, I’d be dead.”
    “You’re welcome,” Jack said. PJ would never know how glad he
was that he’d been there to help him. And if Jack was completely honest he was
glad that he hadn’t been the one to take that first wave. “I don’t have enough
friends to let one go easily.”
    PJ laughed, and it was a genuine sound that made Jack feel a
little better about his friend’s chances of recovering. “That’s because you
think you’re all that.”
    “I do,” Jack admitted. He realized that PJ and Willow would get
along very well because both of them thought nothing of taking shots at his ego.
That bit of insight made him realize that Willow was indeed different from other
women in his life. She might be the first real person he’d been involved with
for a long, long time.
    “Doc’s coming in to look at his handiwork. I lost the leg,” PJ
said.
    “Ah, man. I’m sorry,” Jack said, even though he’d known the leg
was gone before he’d left L.A. The injuries had been too massive to save it and
he’d sat in a tense waiting room with Rhia while the surgery had been
performed.
    “It’s cool. I’m already trying to figure out how I’ll be able
to surf one-legged. Maybe I’ll invent something new that will set the world on
fire.”
    “I’m sure you will,” Jack said. PJ wasn’t the kind of man to be
kept down by anything.
    “Later, man.”
    “Later,” Jack said as he hung up the phone.
    PJ’s attitude was good but Jack remembered his own operation
and waking up with a scarred leg. His injuries hadn’t been as severe as PJ’s of
course, but those first few days he’d just been happy to be alive. Then as time
went on and he physically recovered he realized that he’d never be able to play
again. He made a note to check in with PJ again soon because he had a feeling
once his friend left the hospital things were going to get a little too real.
And Jack had been there.
    He stood up as he got ready to head to the restaurant. He had
been there and he always survived. Whatever happened with Willow he’d come out
on the other side and move on. He wished he could feel differently or believe
that maybe they could have forever, but that wasn’t the kind of guy he was. He
never had been.
    Which reminded him that he’d done something to her in the past
that she hadn’t been able to forgive. He needed to find out what that was. Maybe
he was back in Willow’s life to help her with something before he moved on.
    He tried to tell himself that his attitude toward life and Fate
was healthy but a part of him ached at the thought of not keeping Willow as his
own for the rest of his life.
    He shook that off as he left his apartment and headed to the
restaurant where he was meeting Willow. Live for the moment was his mantra until
he saw her walking toward him. Then he wanted to change his life and his beliefs
because he wanted to keep her.
    * * *
    Willow was glad that Jack had left when he had because
it gave her a chance to get back to normal. Yeah,
right. She’d left normal the moment she’d gone to the airport to pick
him up.
    She didn’t know what she was going to do. Her plan for revenge
was out the window because at this point she couldn’t be cold and walk away from
him. She didn’t know if she ever had been able to do that. She wondered if she’d
used anger as a protective buffer to keep him at arm’s length until now.
    Unable to figure out what else to do she picked up the phone
and called Nichole.
    “Yo dog, what up?” Nichole said.
    “Huh? Why are you talking like a wannabe white rapper?”