Page 12

Jamil

“How much longer do I need to keep this on?” I asked Olivia.

She and Maggie were sitting on either side of me.

Tommy was stretched out in the chair next to the bed as the four of us watched a movie in my hotel room.

Olivia and Maggie had begged me and Tommy for a movie night once we’d checked in and then produced face masks when they showed up at my door.

“Just a few minutes longer,” Olivia told me, her words stilted as she tried not to make any sudden movements with her face.

Tommy had his eyes closed and looked like he was enjoying a nice spa day. “This is ridiculous.”

“You sure look like you believe that,” Maggie told her boyfriend.

“I stand with Canon. You look like you’re enjoying this more than the rest of us,” I told my best friend. Tommy simply lifted one hand with a single finger extended in my direction. But I watched him open his eyes enough to toss a wink at his girlfriend before he closed them again.

“So, are you going to tell us about that reporter?” Olivia asked me as she peeled her face mask off.

I rolled my head over so she could see the look on my face. If I told Olivia about the history Harper and I had, even limited as it was, she would launch herself off a cliff to make something happen.

“There’s nothing to tell,” I replied nonchalantly.

Tommy coughed next to me, and I shot him daggers, willing him to keep his mouth shut. He knew as well as I did that Maggie and Olivia would be relentless about this.

“It definitely didn’t look like nothing the other day after the game.” Olivia’s smile was like a cat that had cornered a mouse for dinner.

Maggie’s hand slipped into mine to give it a quick squeeze. “She is really pretty, J.”

“You two are terrible,” I muttered as I leaned my head against the wall behind the bed.

“I knew I never needed to say anything. They would get it out of you one way or another. They always do,” Tommy added.

“What’s her name?” Olivia continued.

I sighed, realizing that there was no way out of this situation. “Her name is Harper Nelson.”

“That’s a pretty name,” Maggie replied thoughtfully.

Olivia cocked one eyebrow at me. “And how do you know her?”

“We met back in Florida.” I didn’t need to tell them that between the ocean breeze on my face and the way I’d smiled fully for the first time in months, that night had been one of the happiest moments in my recent past. Those pieces I could keep for myself.

“Did something happen between you two?” Maggie asked cautiously.

“Oh, boy, did it,” Tommy said quietly. Maggie snagged a pillow from behind her head and whipped it at him.

“You knew? You knew and didn’t tell me?” Tommy barely batted the pillow away before it connected with his face. “I thought he was just smitten with the new reporter!”

“I don’t tell you all of Jamil’s escapades. I didn’t think I needed to share this one.”

“Even after she showed up as a reporter at the game?” Maggie crossed her arms over her chest. The look in her eyes had me worrying for the well-being of my friend and I felt obligated to bail him out since I was the cause of him potentially seeing Maggie’s wrath.

I threw my hands up to silence everyone. “Before this gets out of hand, I have a question for you, Olivia.”

She pointed an accusing finger at me. “You do not get to change the subject, J.”

Instead of addressing her comment, I forged on with my mission. “Do you think Derek would sit down for an interview with Harper?”

The room went silent.

Tommy and Maggie glanced between me and Olivia like a tennis match as the tension in the room grew.

Not only had I brought forth even more questions about Harper, but now I’d dropped Derek Allen, the tight end for the Chicago Bobcats, into the mix.

Over the past year, Olivia and Derek had grown into fast friends, but to everyone except Olivia, it was obvious that Derek was pining after her. She just refused to acknowledge it.

“Why are you asking me if he would do an interview?” Olivia crossed her arms over chest defensively, ignoring the way Maggie had pressed her lips together tightly to keep any giggles from escaping.

“Because you’re friends with him .?.?.?” I cautiously replied, afraid that I had lit a stick of dynamite with my question.

Olivia stared at me for a few seconds before she picked up her phone. Her thumbs moved quickly over the screen before she set it back down. “I asked him.”

I caught Tommy trying to hide a smile out of the corner of my eye.

“She must be important if you’re doing something like this for her,” Olivia volleyed back at me.

The room went silent once more as they waited for my response.

Part of me wanted to defend my actions and push my friends’ questioning stares away. But how was I supposed to explain that I was doing something like this for someone I barely knew? “I’m just helping her out.”

A laugh saved me from having to endure any more of Olivia’s stares as Tommy bent over in the chair next to us, clutching his stomach. “You keep telling yourself that, J.” Tommy stood up and reached for Maggie’s hand. “Let’s wash these face masks off and grab some dinner.”

Once each of us had used the bathroom, we made our way down to the lobby.

Any more questions about Harper had been pushed to the wayside, as everyone discussed the upcoming Chicago Bobcats season.

That was until we walked into the hotel’s restaurant, and I spotted the subject of all my thoughts sitting at the bar.

My steps slowly came to a halt as the rest of my group continued to an open table. Olivia finally realized I wasn’t behind her and turned to find me still staring at Harper sitting at the bar. A knowing smile spread across her face once more. She held up her phone to grab my attention.

“Derek said he would do it,” she called across the dining room. Then she tilted her head toward Harper before sitting down to join Tommy and Maggie.

I hesitated for only a moment before I walked over to her. She was nursing a drink that I could only assume was a rum and soda as she watched the latest news on professional sports.

“Is this seat taken?” I asked as I hovered next to the open chair beside her.

Harper’s shoulders froze as she realized who was talking to her.

“It’s yours.”

My breath caught in my throat as I wished that were the case. The bartender came by as I settled in next to her and I ordered a burger with a water. I could feel Harper’s eyes on me the entire time.

“Did you just get in?” I asked her, suddenly clamming up. Something I seemed to do around her often.

“An hour or so ago.” Her shoulders were downcast as her finger traced the rim of her glass.

“Rough travel day?” I asked.

Harper shook her head. One shoulder went up in a shrug. Her eyes were back on the television when she let out a groan. SC News was on and was replaying the interview from earlier today that aired where Nate Rousch announced his departure from Chicago. I glanced between Harper and the interviewer.

“Is that one of your coworkers?”

She let out a sigh before she nodded her head. “He’s only been with us for a year. His dad is an executive.”

My brain slowly connected the dots by reading between the lines of what she was saying and judging from the fact that she was nursing a drink alone at the bar, asking her to elaborate wasn’t the smartest path to take.

So instead, I tried to lighten the mood some. “Derek Allen agreed to an interview.”

She immediately perked up. Mission successful. “He did?”

I nodded my head and watched that infectious smile of hers come back.

Excitement burned in her eyes. “We will have to hammer down the details with him. But once we are back from this stretch of away series, you can do a sit down with him. I think this would be the perfect chance for you to showcase your range and appeal to the entirety of Chicago sports fans. So much so, that SC News won’t be able to ignore it. ”

The wheels in Harper’s head were already turning as she started to think about what she would ask him, the interview on the screen forgotten. Then in a split second, her arms were around my shoulders as she pulled me into her.

“Thank you,” she whispered into my ear.

Without even a second of hesitation, my arms wrapped around her waist. My hands were itching to touch her again.

Every time I had the chance to, no matter how short, I was going to take it.

The voices in my head finally went silent and I was awarded peace for just a moment.

I also didn’t miss the way that my friends were watching us from behind their menus a few tables away.

“Of course,” I replied, trying to keep my voice light. “I will work on who else we can line up for you.”

The ringtone of my phone broke up the moment.

I reached into my pocket and froze when I saw who was calling.

It was the facility my brother was currently staying at.

The only times they ever called were if I was getting close to the next payment or if there was something wrong with my brother.

Sometimes it was even my brother calling from the facility’s phone rather than his own. It was never for something good.

“Excuse me,” I told Harper before I stepped back out into the lobby of the hotel to answer the call.

“This is Jamil.” The moment I was suspended in, waiting to hear the bad news every time I answered the phone for one of these calls, never got any easier.

“Jamil, this is Dr. Lanought.” There was a long pause before my brother’s doctor continued. “I have some bad news.”

My heart squeezed in anticipation for what he would say next, as if it could protect itself from breaking.

But it had learned long ago that when it came to my brother, there was no armor that would keep the hurt away.

There were scars decades old and some as fresh as a few weeks ago all over my weathered heart.

I wondered how it could still function at this point.

“What is it?” I asked when the silence lingered for too long.

Dr. Lanought cleared his throat. “Your brother is missing.”

“What did you say?” I asked, feeling all the blood drain from my face.

Not again, Jordan. Please don’t do this, I begged to the sky.

“His room is empty, and we logged a security guard’s ID being used last night without his knowledge.”

I took the phone away from my face, clutching it tightly. “Fuck!”

The desk worker looked over at me questioningly, wondering if they were going to have to intervene. Some of the guests glanced in my direction curiously, more interested in whatever drama was happening in my life than being concerned for the distress I was in.

“So, you have no idea where he is?” I asked when I brought the phone back up to my ear.

Jordan had only lasted two weeks this time. It was his second time departing the treatment facility. The first time he had been there for nearly two months before he had walked out and right back onto a riverboat to gamble the remainder of the money I’d given him when he first came to Chicago.

“No, sir,” Dr. Lanought told me.

“You told me this wouldn’t happen again.” Part of me knew that I shouldn’t be blaming him right now. The blame was solely with my brother, who wanted nothing to do with anyone who wanted to help him.

“Yes, sir. We did say that.” Dr. Lanought’s voice quavered.

I let out a long breath as I dragged a hand down my face. “Is anyone looking for him?”

“We have people out looking for him. We are aware you are out of the state right now, so we will keep our people on it until you return. Then we can reevaluate if we haven’t found him.”

I was tired. A younger brother wasn’t meant to be the one to keep the older brother in line.

He was meant to look up to his older brother.

To view him as his hero, his role model, his blueprint.

He wasn’t meant to be picking up the pieces that his older brother was destroying, hoping to put them back so his brother would be whole.

But this was the burden I carried daily.

“Okay. Thank you, Dr. Lanought.” I clicked off the call and pressed the phone into my forehead.

There were few moments in my life that I regretted the path that baseball took me on and the fortune it had brought me. It was hard to regret something that brought such abundance into your life and your family’s life.

But this was one of those moments.