Chapter 47 What the Jersey Means
PENNY POV
She almost didn't come.
That was the truth she wasn't telling anyone, not even Simone. She'd stood in front of her dresser that morning with the jersey in her hands for a full four minutes, arguing with herself like two different people lived in her chest and couldn't agree on anything.
One of them said: You already did the hard thing. You filed the report. You unpacked the bag. You stayed. You don't have to do this, either.
The other one said: Put it on.
She put it on.
The bleachers were packed by the time she got there.
Marcus's girlfriend waved her down from the third row, saved seat, end of the aisle, exactly where Lily could see the field without craning her neck. Penny slid in, and Lily launched herself sideways from the next seat with zero warning, dinosaur ears bouncing, and wrapped both arms around Penny's middle.
"You're HERE," Lily said, as Penny had just returned from another country.
"I'm here," Penny said.
"Jake said you might not come."
Penny looked at the field.
"Well," she said. "I did."
Lily climbed fully into her lap, which she was maybe a little old for, but nobody was going to say that, and adjusted her green dinosaur tail so it wasn't poking Penny in the leg. Then she pointed at the field where the teams were warming up.
"He's number seven," she said seriously, like Penny didn't know.
"I know, Lily."
"You're wearing his number."
"I know that too."
Lily looked up at her with those big, solemn eyes. "Does that mean you like him?"
Penny pulled the hood of her shirt up over her ears because it was cold and absolutely not for any other reason.
"Watch the warm-ups," she said.
In the first quarter, she focused on the game.
She actually knew football now, which had happened slowly and without her permission, the result of living with a quarterback and a six-year-old who asked Jake to explain every play at dinner. She could read a basic formation. She knew what a first down meant. She knew when a throw was good before the crowd reacted.
Jake's throws were good.
He was calm out there the same way he was calm in the kitchen when something broke, or Lily was crying and needed handling. Like the louder things got, the stiller he got. She'd noticed that about him back in October. She'd filed it away under things that are not your business, Penny.
She had a lot of files like that.
First quarter ended. Westbrook is up by seven. Lily had eaten both their snacks and was now braiding the fringe on Penny's sleeve without asking.
"He looked over here," Lily announced.
"A lot of players look at the stands," Penny said.
"He was looking for you," Lily said. She said it the way only a six-year-old could be completely certain, no drama, just fact.
Penny said nothing.
She watched the field.
Second quarter. Five minutes left before halftime.
There was a flag on the far side of the field. The ref was sorting it out, and the players were just standing there, waiting.
Jake turned.
She saw it happen the exact way Lily had described, like he wasn't planning to look, like his eyes just went there because they'd decided to without telling the rest of him.
He found her in about four seconds.
Three hundred people in these bleachers.
Four seconds.
He went still. His chin came up slightly, just slightly, and he looked at her for a moment that lasted longer than it should have in the middle of a football field in front of everyone. Then, almost to himself, he nodded once.
Like: okay.
Like: good.
Like something he'd been holding loosened just enough to breathe.
Penny looked at the field.
Her heart was going very fast.
She blamed the cold.
Halftime came and went. Westbrook 21, visitors 7.
Lily fell asleep on Penny's shoulder sometime in the third quarter, mouth open, dinosaur ears lopsided. Penny didn't move. She sat with one arm around Lily and watched the game and told herself she was here for Lily, which was true, and told herself the jersey was just a jersey, which was less true, and told herself that the one nod from a football field away didn't mean anything, which was not true at all, and she knew it.
Final whistle. Westbrook won.
The bleachers went loud all at once, stomping and cheering, and someone behind her was setting off a noise horn directly next to her ear. Lily jolted awake and immediately started clapping without knowing what she was clapping for.
"Did we win?" she said.
"We won," Penny said.
Lily threw both arms up. "JAKE!"
Down on the field, the team was piling on each other, helmets off, coaches reaching in to grab players by the face. Marcus was at the center of it, hollering something at the sky. And Jake was standing slightly to the side of the pile with his helmet in his hand, and he was looking at the stands again, and this time when he found her, he didn't just nod.
He smiled.
Not the careful, controlled version. Not the one he used at school or around his dad or when he was performing okay for the world. The real one. The one she'd only ever seen in the kitchen at midnight and on the porch steps and in the dark during a power outage.
Penny felt it in her whole chest.
She smiled back before she could stop herself.
Lily was already screaming his name and waving with both arms. Jake pointed at her I see you, Lily and Lily absolutely lost her mind.
Penny was still smiling when Marcus appeared at the railing at the edge of the field, waving at them to come down.
"Family section," he called. "Coach lets family on the field after championship wins."
Lily was already scrambling off the bench.
Penny stood up.
Family.
She turned that word over once. Didn't know what to do with it. Tucked it somewhere she'd deal with later.
She followed Lily down the steps toward the field.
She was three rows from the bottom when Marcus's girlfriend caught her arm and leaned in close.
"Hey," she said quietly. "Don't freak out."
Penny looked at her.
"About what?"
The girl hesitated. "Marcus got a text during the fourth quarter. He didn't want to say anything until the game was over."
Penny's stomach dropped before she even heard the next word.
"What text?" she said.
"From an unknown number." She pulled out Marcus's phone and turned the screen toward Penny.
It was a photo.
Penny's face. Jake's jersey. Taken from somewhere in the bleachers tonight.
And under it, sent to Marcus's number, were three words.
Tell her I'm watching.