2: Not My Circus

Jay POV

*The night before*

"Ken, you're disappointing me again. What am I supposed to do with all these girls?"

"Jay, I'm so sorry  I might get into town late. How about we host a party tomorrow instead? I'll bring in all the girls you like," Ken said over the phone.

One of them was sitting on my lap like she'd been assigned the seat. I looked around the room six, maybe seven of them, dressed for a night that technically hadn't started yet and felt the particular exhaustion of being wanted by people who didn't actually want you. They wanted the name. The jersey. The idea of me that got posted online.

"Okay, see you soon, bro." I hung up before he could apologize again.

"You can all go. We'll do this another time." I said it the way you'd cancel a dinner reservation  no malice, just done. They filed out, already texting each other about wherever they'd land next.

Once the room emptied I let myself have the drink I'd been pretending not to want, and scanned the bar out of habit more than interest.

That's when I saw her.

Red dress. Swaying slightly in a way that wasn't dancing. Eight years, and I still knew her face before I'd fully processed what I was looking at.

Sofia.

I hadn't let myself think her name in months. I was good at that filing her away under things I'd decided didn't matter anymore. One look and eight years collapsed into nothing. A hallway. A slammed car door. A promise I'd kept and she still believed I'd broken. I didn't have time to sit with any of it, because two guys had already closed in on either side of her, and I clocked the wrongness of it before I could name it one hand low on her back, steering more than holding, the other watching her like something on a menu he'd already paid for.

I didn't decide to get up. My legs just did it.

"Hey, baby." I kissed her cheek like I'd done it a hundred times before. She turned, and the smile she gave me had nothing behind it gone somewhere past drunk. Up close, a small tattoo along her collarbone. Numbers. A date. Not a birthday  too specific, too deliberate for that. The kind of thing you get to remember, not to decorate.

One guy backed off. The other held his ground, weighing whether I was worth the trouble. I've been in enough fights to know when one's not worth starting.

"If you'll excuse us, we'll be taking our leave." I got an arm under her and lifted her out of the chair. Not graceful she stepped on my foot with a heel sharp enough to file a police report over, and we both went down into the chair again. Half the bar was watching by then. Second try worked better.

Outside, she peeled off my arm and made a run for the nearest corner. Whatever calm I'd been holding onto disappeared.

"What are you doing," I said, pinching my nose against the smell.

"Stay there. I'll get you water." I propped her against a stranger's car, went back in for a bottle, came back out to find her already asleep, head tipped against the window like the car belonged to her.

I got her into mine. Her phone lit up on the seat between us  XOXO and my stomach dropped for a second, wondering if I was about to explain myself to a boyfriend. I answered anyway, because getting her home mattered more than whatever came next.

"Sofia, where have you been, why aren't you answering, you scared me"

"Slow down. This isn't Sofia."

"Who is this? What are you doing with my friend's phone?"

"The better question is why your friend was alone with two men who looked like they were doing math on her." I stopped myself. Not my circus. "Send me your address. I'll bring her to you."

I hung up before she could argue.

"Sofia," I said, mostly to myself, looking at her slumped against my window, mouth slightly open. "Careless girl." The address came through a second later.

I sat there a while before I finally pulled out, just watching her sleep, trying to convince myself none of this was as strange as it felt. Last time I'd been this close to her, she'd been sixteen and crying at a table I couldn't get to fast enough. Now she was twenty-four, drunk, and had no idea whose car she was in.

Her roommate was waiting on the curb, already moving before the car stopped. I helped get Sofia inside, didn't stay for thanks, drove home. Ken still wasn't there.

I told myself to delete the whole night from memory. She probably wouldn't want someone like me anywhere near her life again, even if she'd known who I was and she still didn't, and I intended to keep it that way.

Buzz buzz.

Coach: Boys, be on the ice on time tomorrow  the new interim coach will be introduced.

I put the phone down, already half asleep, already unaware of exactly how much that message was about to matter.

*****

"Jay." Ken's voice pulled me out of sleep.

"What's up, bro," I said, eyes barely open.

He held his phone out instead of answering. I opened it without really deciding to.

The first photo didn't land right away a kiss on someone's cheek, my face angled off enough that it could've been anyone. It was the second one that did it: the chair, her hand fisted in my shirt, my arm locked around her waist like we'd done it a hundred times. No angle to hide behind. Whoever had taken it had gotten close enough to see the exact moment we both went down.

I sat up fast, Ken's eyes still on me.

"What's going on?" Not accusing. Just trying to catch up.

"I" I couldn't find the words. Seeing Sofia in a photo with me wasn't something I'd ever planned for, let alone one already sitting in Coach Peter's inbox.

My phone rang before either of us could say more. Coach Peter's name on the screen, and my stomach dropped before I'd even answered.

"Jay. What is all this online? And why wasn't I told the two of you were involved."

"Coach, it's not what it looks like. I was helping her out, that's all it was."

"It doesn't matter what it was. Management's already seen it, and this isn't the first time optics with a female coach have come up this year you know that as well as I do. There's a board meeting, now."

That last part landed harder than the rest. I hadn't known that. Apparently there'd already been noise about Sofia before either of us had done anything wrong.

"You've got some explaining to do," Ken said, a different look settling on his face one I could read without him saying anything else. But there wasn't time to sit with it. I had thirty minutes to get to Coach Peter and clear this up with the board.

This wouldn't be a problem. We were both adults. We were allowed to have a private life.

I almost believed it on the drive over.