First and Ten

Chapter 3

                                                                    Blair

"How's the blog post shaping up?" Bri asked coming to sit with me for a second before the morning rush picked up again.

"I don't want to talk about it," I mumbled laying my head down on the table in frustration.

"That good?"

"Help me."

"I can help by distracting you. Come bake with me."

"Done!"

I jumped up and joined Bri back in the kitchen where she had our favorite jams of the early 2000s playing as we helped her amazing staff prepare for the remainder of the morning and the lunchtime to come. I buttered croissants and even made organic apple turnovers with the first of a delivery of freshly harvested apples from a local orchard.

As I began to chop vegetables for a soup Bri was making for the lunch crowd, she asked the question I had been hoping to avoid.

"Are we going to talk about the fact that Jax Elliot asked you to lunch?"

"Nope. It's one lunch so that he would stop his incessant droning on and on, and that's it."

"That's never it with a man that is that fine."

"It is for me. It would never ever work, Bri, and you know it."

"It very well could. What if I told you that Jax isn't the supermodel serial dater that everybody thinks he is?"

"You'd be lying. JB told me last night that he is furious with Jax because he told him specifically not to ask me out. I trust JB's opinion, and he says Jax would break my heart."

"I adore my husband, but he is not very intuitive when it comes to romance and may be wrong on this one. Jax for sure used to be a player on and off the field dating every Victoria's Secret model he could, but that was before he became a dad and started to grow up a little. Leena changed him and continues to mature him into a man who wants a relationship that shows his daughter what kind of qualities she should look for when the time comes."

"Wasn't he dating a Brazilian supermodel like a month ago? That pretty much cancels out your theory, Bri."

"I didn't say he was perfect, beyond his looks because those surpass perfection. I stand by what I said though. He's learning and growing as a dad and a person. Just go to lunch and try to enjoy it, Blair."

"Well, we'll see if he actually calls first. I'm guessing he won't."

"He went straight home last night and followed your social media. He'll call."

After helping Bri and talking with some of our favorite local customers, I sat back down at my laptop to try and produce something for my blog that wasn't utterly horrible. Within an hour of nothing, I pushed the laptop away in frustration as I heard my phone ring and looked down to see that it was none other than Jax Elliot. I stared at the screen for a second in disbelief that he was actually calling me but managed to finally snap out of it before it stopped ringing. "Hello."

"Hey, Blair. It's Jax."

"I know. Caller id."

"Right. Are you free tomorrow for lunch around 11:00?"

"Don't you have practice? Isn't that more important than lunch?"

"I have an early workout and then one last check up on an injury I had fixed in the offseason. I have time before I have to be back, and this lunch is just as important to me as practice."