The Comeback Route Read online

  “I thought maybe I had hallucinated that you were here,” Nico commented. “I drank too much last night.”

  “It does seem like a dream,” I agreed. “Isn’t it amazing?”

  “That wasn’t exactly what I meant...”

  Tatum and Nico are meant to be.

  They’re perfect for each other! Just ask anyone, except maybe Nico, because he doesn’t seem very thrilled that Tatum has shown up uninvited at his new penthouse apartment, in the new city where he lives after being traded away from the Woodsmen football team. The city that’s five states away from where they had known each other before…and by the way, she’s moving in.

  But he’s been acting off ever since he moved away—acting in ways that are going to sabotage his pro-football career, and Tatum is going to help him. She’ll be his life coach, even if he doesn’t think he needs one. Or wants one, or even wants Tatum in his life at all.

  No matter what, she knows that they can make it work, through legal problems, family problems, teammate problems, anything. Because in his heart of hearts, Nico loves her.

  Now he just needs to realize it too…and with Tatum there to nudge him along the way, they’ll find their happily ever after!

  The Comeback Route

  Jamie Bennett

  Copyright © 2020 by Jamie Bennett

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author, except as used in a book review. Please contact the author at [email protected].

  This is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  Book cover by Angela Haddon Book Cover Design.

  Chapter 1

  Close your eyes and ask, “What will I accomplish today? How can this day be better than the one before it?” Then visualize yourself on a path to making it happen! [Make sure to open your eyes before you actually walk on a path.]

  Yours in safety, Mysti

  “I’m leaving!”

  There was no answer from the house.

  “I mean it!” I threatened. “I’m really leaving!”

  It was totally silent, except for a bird that flew by, squawking in the freezing air. There wasn’t one single sound from inside. Well, fine. He would see how much he missed me, because this shit was real—I was out. He would see that most of the things he was claiming to be furious about were just mistakes, not a big deal at all. The failed classes? I could make those up. Eventually. The damage to the car from when I had misjudged the distance to the tree, the other car, the other car again? Already fixed, all of it! The whole thing about the insurance would eventually die down. And the rules I had broken, all the house rules, well, they were just dumb. No one else would have followed them either, not any adult, anyway. I was 24 years old, well past the age of having to abide by anyone’s ridiculous regulations.

  But we had both made mistakes. He was afraid of his, but I could own up to mine! For example, there’d been a boob flashing incident on the TV news last summer that hadn’t been a shining moment for me: I could freely admit to that one. They had blurred out my nips but it really hadn’t been a good look when I had started to shimmy at the camera. I hadn’t meant for it to go viral—it wasn’t like it was my choice for that to happen!

  The problem was, I hadn’t thought very far ahead. Like how now, when you searched my name, the first thing that showed up was that particular video (and the versions in slo-mo were way, way worse). At the time, it had seemed like a good idea, and anyway, it sure made an impression. If I ever wanted to go into adult entertainment, I already had an entrée. Not that I was interested in pursuing porn as a career, but there was a positive side, that was all I was saying.

  Whatever, that had been six months ago, plenty of time for a person to forgive and forget. And I was owed some apologies and explanations as well, even if he didn’t want to admit to it. “Did you hear the car door open?” I hollered. I skidded on a patch of ice as I walked closer to the house to make sure he could get the import of my words. “I’m just about to close it! And leave! Drive away for good!” I waited. “I’m serious, I’m really going!”

  And nothing. I shrugged my shoulders angrily. “Fine,” I muttered. “Fine!” And I got in the car and went right to the airport.

  “I would like a ticket to Miami, please,” I announced at the check-in counter. “One way!” I slid over my credit card. I had been thinking about doing just this for weeks; what had happened this morning was exactly the kick in the ass I had needed to finally step on the gas.

  “Tired of the snow?” the airline lady said sympathetically, and I nodded. “There’s nothing direct from Traverse City to Miami, so you’ll connect through Detroit or Chicago.”

  “Whatever is fastest.”

  “Ok, let’s see what’s available.” Her fingers tapped away at the keyboard. “We could put you through O’Hare, arriving at Miami International at 3:22,” she announced, and kept going on about different flights and connections.

  “Whatever gets me there the fastest,” I repeated, and pushed the credit card toward her.

  “Because this is a same-day purchase, the fare is quite steep,” she warned me.

  I edged the card even closer. “That’s ok. I really need to get to Miami.”

  She took it and it disappeared behind the counter, but then she frowned. “This card has been declined.” She placed it back in front of me with a little click.

  “What?” I stared at her for a moment, then reached into my purse for my wallet again. She was mistaken, but I wasn’t going to argue. “Here.” I put down another card and she ran it.

  “I’m sorry, this has also been declined.” She put it on top of the first one.

  “There must be something wrong with your machine,” I said, puzzled.

  “Let me try again.” She did, with both of them. “No. Sorry.” She made a sympathetic face.

  I didn’t know what to say—it had to have been a mistake. “Ok. Ok, thanks.” Well, I could pay with my debit card. I never used it, but I had to have it around somewhere. There was plenty of money in my account at the bank, I was sure, even though I rarely paid with cash or checked my balance. But money went in there, I knew. I dug around in my wallet for the other piece of plastic.

  The airline lady peered over my shoulder. “Do you mind stepping aside so that I can help another customer?” she asked.

  I glanced behind myself at the line, at the next guy with about 14 overloaded bags. “Sure. Thank you for your help.” I got out of the way. There was an ATM by the exit—I would just withdraw a bunch of money and pay for the plane ticket with that.

  “What?” I said it out loud, and the woman nursing a baby in a chair next to the ATM looked up. “This can’t be right,” I told her. “It says I have five hundred dollars.”

  “That’s a good amount,” she said. Her baby came off her breast with a pop and it made both the mom and me smile. But then I returned to the cash balance, the one that was way too low.

  “It is a good amount,” I said slowly. A good amount, like, to spend on shoes at one time. But not what I thought I would have—there should have been thousands, tens of thousands. I didn’t get it.

  I looked again at the airline agent, but $500 wasn’t enough for the same-day plane ticket. And if I spent it all right now, then what would I do? I had never been one to budget. I sat down next to the mom and her baby to think, but that got boring. “Where are you guys heading?” I asked conversationally.

>   “To see my sister in Des Moines,” she told me. “She hasn’t met TJ yet. Thomas John.” She touched his cheek and he grinned up at her and blew a milk bubble.

  “Oh, he’s beautiful!” I exclaimed. “I love that name, too.”

  She smiled at me. “He’s named after my grandfathers. What about you? Where are you going?”

  “Well, I was trying to go to Miami. To see my ex, he lives down there now. He used to play football here, for the Woodsmen, but he got traded to the Cottonmouths.” The trade had been the biggest news of the United Football Confederation’s off-season.

  “Wait a minute. Are you talking about Nico Williams? The wide receiver? He was your boyfriend?” Her mouth fell open. “Seriously? That guy is a god!”

  I nodded. “Right?”

  “Didn’t he just get into some trouble with his new team?” She put baby TJ on her shoulder.

  “Yeah, he’s having a few problems settling in,” I confided. “That’s why I’m going. To help him figure out how he’s going to fix the situation down there.”

  “But doesn’t he have an agent, and advisors, and all that? And if you guys broke up…”

  “I know. I know it sounds crazy, but I really feel like he needs me there. I had this dream that he was saying my name, talking about the good times. And there’s nothing keeping me here in Michigan, not anymore.” I frowned a little. Crap.

  “You know what my mom used to say about couples getting back together?” Baby TJ burped and she lowered him to rest against her chest. “She used to say, ‘There was a reason they broke up in the first place.’”

  “Your mom is generally correct. But isn’t there room for redemption and rebuilding bridges, stuff like that? I mean, I hope so, for myself!” Now that I had suddenly found myself in the middle of a mess of disappointments and recriminations, I hoped even more that things could be fixed. “I can’t afford a plane ticket. I’ll have to drive to Miami, I guess.”

  “You could take the bus. That was how I used to come home from K College downstate. It would probably take a long time to get to Miami with a bunch of transfers, but it would be a lot cheaper than flying.”

  “The bus,” I repeated. I’d never had to think about being cheap before, but if this situation with the bank account balance and credit cards didn’t resolve, I was going to have to start.

  “Oh, there’s my husband,” she said, and started gathering up her stuff. A guy pushing a luggage cart with a car seat falling off the top was hurrying towards us. “What’s your name?”

  “Liesl. Liesl von Salzburg.”

  “Nancy Daniels,” she told me. We shook hands. “I love your accent.”

  “Thank you. I’m from Austria.” I wished I were wearing the dirndl and Tyrolean hat that I had packed away in my suitcase.

  “So cool,” Nancy said admiringly. “Good luck to you, on your trip and with Nico Williams. I hope you’re right about him being able to redeem himself.”

  I hoped so, too. “Have fun visiting your sister. Auf Wiedersehen!” I waved at the baby and wandered out to the long-term parking lot where I had left the car, thinking at the time that I would never see it again. I wondered how long it would take me to drive to Florida and I put the route into my phone. I stared at the screen, perplexed. It was that far? Yeah, sure, it might take me 23 hours if I drove the speed limit, but what if I went 90 or faster? I did some calculations as I continued to walk briskly, pulling my big rolling bag behind me.

  Stall 52, 53, 54…wait a minute. The car was supposed to be there, in number 55, but there was only a blank space. Maybe I was at the wrong parking spot—no, because there was the gum squished on the pavement that looked like a blue, dirty flower, which had reminded me of my best friend, Daisy. Not because she was blue and dirty, but the flower part. So where the hell was the car? I turned in a circle, and looked up into the sky, like it could have flown away. Oh, shit!

  “Help, my car was stolen!” I shouted, pounding up to the booth at the exit, my bag bumping wildly behind me. “My car was parked here, and I came out, and it’s gone! Help! A red BMW, license plate H-O-T—”

  The attendant looked bored and held up a piece of paper. “Red BMW, plate said H-O-T-D-D-D-Y?” She squinted at the letters written there. “What is that supposed to mean, ho teddy, a slutty bear? Hot toddy, like a drink by the fireplace?”

  “Everyone always thinks that. The A didn’t fit between the first two Ds.” I gave her a minute to think. “Hot Daddy!”

  “Oh.” She paused, frowning. “That’s…”

  “Yeah, it’s gross. Where’s my car?”

  She shrugged. “Two guys came and drove it off.”

  “What? They stole it, you mean!” I was incensed.

  “It’s not stealing if you have the key. They mentioned that the car had been taken by a small, blonde woman,” and here she paused to frown at me and my hair, “and they wanted me to know that they were returning it to the rightful owner. I wrote down the license plate number so I could keep a record of all these shenanigans.” She gave me a long look. “Sounds like you’re lucky no one called the cops on you, miss.”

  He had taken back the car. I had no car? I had no car and I had barely any money. Oh, this was looking bad, but I could deal. I stood up as tall as I could. “Can you please tell me the best way to get to the bus station from here?” I asked the attendant.

  An hour later, I was sitting on a bus to Miami. Well, first I would go to Grand Rapids, where I had to switch to another bus. Then to Kalamazoo, Indianapolis, Nashville, and on, and on, then to Miami. With all points in between, and it did seem like there were a lot of points, so this trip was going to take a lot longer than 23 hours.

  Still, it was pretty exciting, going off like this, starting a new adventure. I settled into the seat. I would get to meet lots of new people, make new friends. And at the end of the ride, I was going to see Nico, so this was going to work out fine. We chuffed away down the street, and in my head, I said goodbye to Traverse City and goodbye to Michigan. Even though I wouldn’t actually cross the border into Indiana for several hours and one bus transfer, I felt ready to be a former Michigander and current Floridian.

  “It was funny how Nico and I met,” I told my seatmate when we pulled out of South Bend, ten hours into the trip. I had already met a bunch of fellow travelers on my journey south, like this lady, Elnora. We had been chatting since she boarded in Elkhart. “I went with my friend Daisy to work out and we ran into him. We lifted together and talked. Well, he lifted and we talked, and then he asked me to go out that night.”

  “That’s so romantic. Love at first sight,” Elnora said. She was on her way to visit a friend in Kokomo, and was knitting a little purple sweater for her friend’s dog as we rode along.

  I nodded at her assessment. “I think all those exercise endorphins helped. And of course, I’d liked him for years, but from afar. I mean, he’s totally gorgeous. There are giant fan clubs dedicated to him!” Elnora looked a bit disbelieving, because we had already established that she didn’t follow professional football so she didn’t know about Nico’s cuteness or his success on the field. I took out my phone and woke it up. “Let me show you his picture,” I told her. We both stared at the blank glass. “Hm. Hold on.” I shook it, and tried to restart it. Nothing. “I guess it isn’t working.”

  “Did you pay the bill?”

  I didn’t answer that. “You can take my word for it. Nico is really handsome, kind of my opposite. Dark hair and blue eyes. Tall!” I looked down at my feet, which didn’t touch the floor. My height was the bane of my existence. “He was one of the top receivers in the league last year when he played for the Woodsmen. They traded him to the Cottonmouths because his contract was so big, they couldn’t afford him anymore and get the new players they wanted to draft. The Woodsmen are going to try to remake their offense after they lost in the playoffs, again, but I think the trade was a terrible idea.” I smacked my phone against my hand to see if that might get it started, but it had g
one the way of my credit cards. Cut off.

  “You seem to know a lot about football! Did you follow it, back in Reykjavik?”

  I nodded firmly. “Everyone loves the United Football Confederation in Iceland.”

  “Why did this Nico go off to his new team without you?” Elnora asked me.

  “Well, he didn’t want to be a one-woman guy. He was kind of interested in playing the field.”

  “A tomcat.”

  “I guess,” I said. “I didn’t want that, so it was a mutual decision.” Her eyebrows went up. “Maybe more mutual on his side than on mine,” I conceded.

  “Then why are you on your way to Miami now, if he dumped you? Mutually,” she added, throwing me a bone.

  It was the question that every person who had sat next to me had asked, Bob who had gotten off in Cadillac, Nicole who had boarded in Big Rapids. “I had this dream…” I started to tell Elnora, but gave up with the dream stuff. She was looking at me like my eighth grade science teacher, the one who had demanded proof of every story. “I need to try somewhere new,” I said. “And I know things can work out between us.”

  “But what else is there for you in Florida, Sigrún?” she persisted. “In case it doesn’t work out, what will you do? I don’t think your parents on their sheep farm would be happy to hear about you running around some foreign country, chasing after a man. Have you thought about going home?”

  I looked at the Indiana landscape passing by the bus window. “I don’t really have a home anymore. I’ll get a job in Florida, and find a place to live. A new phone,” I said, kicking my purse with the dead one inside it. Elnora was still looking like she didn’t have a high opinion of my plan. “Anyway, it will all work out with Nico. We’re good together, and I’ll make him see that.”

  “How long did you two date?” she questioned me, but we were pulling into Peru, and when we left the station, I asked her about her friend in Kokomo and the dog who would wear the purple sweater she was knitting, and about her kids and grandkids, and we stopped all of the Nico Williams discussion.