Sorry that it's been so long. This is all I have written right now, as I've been physically ill (like doctor's appointments and IV fluids) and terribly uninspired. I've already rewritten this chapter about three times, and I still don't like it but decided that I don't need to go into as much depth with this part of the story as I had originally had planned to. I think the situation is satisfactorily explained here.

Chapter 29

Kevin was feeling much better the next day and was able to make his New Year's Day games. He had such fun with his broadcast partner that he momentarily considered staying. A wave of nostalgia hit him as he went into his office the morning after the National Championship Game to begin working on his interview assignment. He had spent almost three years here, and in that time he had become one of the premiere journalists in the country. Surprising himself and everyone else, he had actually won two Emmy awards. The show he anchored was the top rated in the country. He'd had a really good run, but he knew it was time to move on. He pushed his mind back to Jake. The travel plans were complete, but every time he started to write questions or create a direction for the piece, Beth came into his mind. The only questions he could think of revolved around what she had been like in college and how a relationship with her had changed Jake's life. He wanted to see if she had the same effect on everyone. It was doubtful that this is what his viewers wanted to hear, but it was all he wanted to know.

When he got home that night, Beth had already packed her bag and was working on his. He told her that he would finish himself, but she said that a pizza was on the way, and she didn't have anything else to do. She had changed her work hours and had been going earlier so that the two of them could actually be home at the same time. She found that she had vacation time to burn, so she had taken off the entire week even though they would only be gone for a few days. She sat on the bed and talked to Kevin while he moved around the room gathering things for the suitcase. He asked Beth about her day and half listened as she gave a detailed account of her beauty salon experience. His awareness of the situation returned long enough for him to compliment her hairstyle. These were important things to her and he would be in trouble for not commenting. Her hair really did look good even though he had an eerie feeling that it wasn't all for his benefit. They were both wound pretty tightly in the face of what they were about to do, and that fact really amazed Kevin. Beth had met Lilly without incident, and she had even gone to parties at Rebecca's house before. He tried to think of Jake as just some guy that Beth dated. His mind wouldn't let him.

Christopher Jason "Jake" Plohal, the NFL's Offensive MVP for three years running, was widely considered the best wide receiver, possibly ever, to play the game. All Kevin had were some pipe dreams of a college baseball career that may or may not have panned out. By all rights, Kevin was the one of the best in his business, but he hadn't actually proven himself on the field like many of his colleagues. He had gotten nervous about his first few big time one-on-one pieces, but he'd met basically everyone in every professional and amateur league and didn't get starstruck anymore. Beth was still talking, prattling really. He sensed that she was feeling pretty much the same way. He interrupted her discourse.

"Beth."

"I'm sorry. I'm talking a lot."

"You're nervous. So am I, but we're doing this together."

"I love you for admitting that."

"No, you love me because I'm so handsome and intelligent and funny and..."

"Modest."

"Hey, that's my punch line!"

"I know. I've heard it before."

Kevin decided to change the subject. "Did you get the mail today?" Bath scratched her head and then shook it, indicating that she had forgotten. Kevin turned to go back downstairs. "I'm gonna go get it. You want anything from downstairs?" Beth said no but decided to follow him down anyway. A few minutes later he met her in the kitchen. He threw a heap of junk mail on the table and handed Beth an envelope addressed in beautiful calligraphy.

"What's this?" she asked.

"Look at the return address."

"Seattle? Who do we know in Seattle?"

"Beth, it's from Andy. It's a wedding invitation. Andy's getting married."

"Oh, wow! That's so exciting. I can't wait to meet his fiancée."

"It will be good to see him."

Suddenly Beth had an idea. "Hey, Kev? We're going to Denver tomorrow. Do you think there's anyway we could add Seattle to our travel plans?"

"I don't know. Possibly, but you don't just show up at peoples' houses without telling them."

"I didn't mean that. We can call him and see what's going on, if it will work out."

"Sure, I'll find his number and we can talk to him as soon as were done with Jake, okay?"

"Yeah."

The doorbell rang and Beth paid the pizza guy. Kevin set the table and retrieved the salad Beth had tossed earlier in the evening from the fridge. She sat across the table from him and plopped the cardboard box in between them. "I slaved all day, hope you like it," she grinned. He grabbed a slice and took a bite.

"Yes, you've really outdone yourself this time," he joked back. Their trip would be fine. Awkwardness was a given, but they would get through it together, and the more he thought about it, the prospect of seeing Andy cheered him up a good bit, too.

He ate half of the pizza before excusing himself to his study to finish up he prep work and question list. Beth told him not to be up too late as she moved to clear the table. When she finished she pulled some work from her briefcase and sat at the table with her papers spread in front of her. She worked until past 11 when she could no longer keep her eyes open. She stopped to check on Kevin on her way up to bed. He was still working, and she asked him to come to bed with her. He said that he really had more to do and that he would be up as soon as he could. She was fast asleep long before he joined her under the covers.

In the morning, Selene drove Kevin and Beth to the airport. She dropped them at the terminal and wished them a safe trip. They made their way to the gate and were seated in the first class section. Gretchen, their section's flight attendant had introduced herself to the passengers who would be flying to Denver and on to Los Angeles. Kevin worked on his notes while Beth watched one of the in-flight movies. The trip passed quickly, and before either of them could get too settled in, the captain announced the imminent landing. A driver from the team met them at the arrival gate and collected their luggage before leading them to the waiting car. He dropped them at the hotel and made sure to tell them that he was at their disposal for the duration of their stay. Kevin thanked him as Beth checked into the room. She met him in the lobby as he waited for the bellhop to obtain all the luggage from the car. Finally, they were on the way to the room.

Kevin checked the time, finding that it was not quite noon. They had planned to meet Jake for dinner that evening before the formal interview and taping process was to take place over the next two days. The team was to have had a home playoff game at the end of the week, but had unexpectedly suffered a loss to a lower seeded team and had been eliminated. This was good news and bad news for Kevin. There would be more time, as well as a new direction for the interview, but Jake was sure to be in a less than talkative mood. Beth claimed the shower first, so Kevin waited, still sifting through his endless pile of notes. He still had no idea what he was going to ask. He knew that he only needed a couple of really good questions to get the whole thing going, but at least it wouldn't be live, and they would have a chance to clean up any messes that might be made.

Beth came out of the bathroom and kissed the top of his head. She could see the worry around his eyes even though he tried to smile at her. He didn't move, and she motioned toward the bathroom. He rummaged through his bag and found the things he needed before leaving her in the bedroom to finish getting ready. Perhaps a shower would clear his head, and he would be able to think about anything other than what was about to happen to him. But it wasn't just him, it was them.

When it was finally time for the couple to leave for their reservation, Beth was dressed in a skirt and sweater, not too dressy or fancy, but incredibly sharp looking. Kevin noticed her beauty tonight, even though everything else so far had been a blur. Thankfully, the car and driver were waiting at the front entrance. Beth held his hand during the ride. She had ceased to be nervous and was now only exhibiting excitement, which she was unsuccessfully trying to conceal.

"Maybe you should meet with him first, for old times' sake or something."

Beth turned to look at his face. The alternating shadows and street light streaming in through the windows of the moving car made it impossible for her to discern his expression. "Kevin, come on, it's not going to be that bad. He's a really great person, and a really fun date. I'm sure everything will go swimmingly."

"Swimmingly?"

"It'll be fine. I promise. Trust me?"

"What else can I do at this point?"

They arrived downtown a few minutes late for the seven o'clock reservation. The maître'd confirmed that Mr. Plohal was waiting for them at the bar and offered to seat them while another waiter showed Jake to the table. They thanked him and moved through the main dining room to a table, nicely secluded in the back of the room where they would have privacy. Kevin's place was positioned so that his back was to the bar area, but Beth was facing out into the expanse of the dining room. They had given drink orders when, just a few seconds later, Beth stood. Without warning or thought, she walked toward the man who was now approaching the table.

They met about ten paces behind Kevin, who was turning to see. Jake Plohal embraced Beth and kissed her lightly on the cheek. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him a little too tightly for Kevin's liking. Jake quickly released her and covered the distance to introduce himself to a visibly uncomfortable Kevin.

"Hi, you must be Kevin? I'm Jake," he managed, hand extended.

"Yeah, I'm Kevin, and we all know Beth." Kevin shook. Both men laughed.

Beth blushed, realizing that she had made a bit of a scene. It mattered little to her. Kevin had made a joke, and even though it was at her expense, she was very glad that the introductions had been finished. Beth took her seat opposite Kevin, and Jake sat between them at the table designed for four. Jake winked quickly at her. She smiled and took a sip of her water. Kevin turned to Jake.

"Is this the awkward silence?"

"I think so. But hey, I'm just the dumb football player. You're the reporter. Aren't you supposed to be the one who breaks the ice and asks all the life changing and soul-probing questions?"

Kevin chuckled. "I guess that I am, only, if we're being truly honest here, I have no idea where this thing is going to go. I haven't decided on a direction. I was hoping that you might have some insight into what would be interesting. Beth had a few suggestions, but I thought we'd talk about what you do with your pants are on, if that's ok?"

This time Jake laughed. "That's funny, but Beth doesn't kiss and tell. At least she never did to me. Believe me, I asked plenty of times, but all I got were closed doors."

At this point in the conversation, Beth broke in. "Ok, we're not in the locker room. We're at a very nice, very expensive restaurant, and we're going to talk about adult topics like the weather and real estate and maybe even some politics. We're going to keep the conversation out of the bedroom and the gutter, okay?"

Both men nodded. Kevin looked a little flushed, and Jake noticed that neither of them was drinking anything stronger than iced tea. He had already taken the liberty of ordering a bottle of Pinot Noir, and like Kevin in the preceding days, was a little put out when Beth declined to try it. He knew that she preferred white wines, yet he expected her to at least taste his choice. He wished they would just get on with it. She smiled. Oh, man, that smile still did it for him. He forgot about everything that had been on his mind just moments before.

She began asking him questions about the past few years. Somewhere in the middle, they ordered dinner, but before the meals had arrived, Kevin was called away from the restaurant by a problem in the studio. She started to leave with him, but Kevin insisted that she stay and Jake was more than happy to see that she got back to the hotel. She kissed him goodbye and turned to Jake.

"Stop sending them, okay? Kevin got really upset when he found out."

"I know that I shouldn't have, but I just kept hoping that you would show up. I just wanted to see you."

"Didn't you catch the hint when I didn't even go to Pete's funeral? Brandy was one of my best friends in the world. She was going to be my maid of honor, for goodness sake. It killed me to not be here with her, but I didn't want to make it about us. You know that the media would have had a field day. The day was about Pete and his life and his family. I couldn't do that to them."

Pete Tisdale had been Jake's best friend in both high school and college. Together, they had won football scholarships to Arizona State and had anchored the team, leading them to the National Championship their senior year. Pete had carefully weighed his options following college. He was a questionable NFL prospect and ultimately decided to become a policeman in his and Jake's hometown of Chicago. He served five years on the force before being killed in the line of duty. The close-knit college community, as well as their friends and family from home, banded together to support Pete's widow, his college sweetheart Brandy, who was a very close friend of Beth's. It had been an agonizing decision for Beth to not attend the funeral services. She had regretted the act ever since she had not performed it. She had contacted Brandy afterward, but she still felt that she had let down her friend in her greatest time of need.

Jake answered her now. "I thought maybe you just didn't care anymore. I guess all the things I remembered about you have changed."

"What are you talking about?"

"You don't drink wine anymore? Or does he just prefer that you don't drink at all?"

Beth was livid. "I'm pregnant, asshole."

Jake's cheeks flamed. He had meant to make her angry, but this wasn't the response he was expecting. He saw his dreams of a life with her fade away again. It had been a tremendous long shot, but one had to respect his persistence. Seven years was the longest he had ever done anything in his life, but he had steadily pursued her and kept in close contact with her life, even if he wasn't in contact with her.

Beth wasn't done with him, though. "I loved you once, Jake, but it was at a very up in the air time in my life. When I settled the issues that I was dealing with, I realized that we could not be happy together. We never wanted the same things no matter how hard we tried to make them work. The idea of the two of us together was a lot nicer than the reality of the relationship. You can be an amazingly caring person, but you rarely showed that side of yourself to me. I needed more. The whole Kevin thing just kind of happened after I left you. It was an unbelievable task to sort through our history, and to be honest with you, we're still sorting.

"But Jake, he is my better half. I know that sounds stupid, but he completes the parts of me that are empty. He makes me a better person, and I hope that I do the same for him. We didn't go into this marriage lightly. We waited almost five years before we were married. Then I got pregnant right away. The baby was in my Fallopian tube, and the pregnancy had to be terminated. I felt like such a failure. How could I be a good wife, a mother to his children if I couldn't even keep them alive long enough to be born? In time I came to realize that the situation wasn't my fault, but I was still very fearful of trying for a baby. Kevin wanted one so badly. I finally talked him into at least thinking about adoption while we sought the opinions of our physicians. Well, in the meantime, I got pregnant anyway. I guess it's supposed to be, because we shouldn't have been able to conceive like that once, much less twice, and this time I was taking birth control, too. Kevin got a new job in D.C. This is his last assignment with ESPN, and I asked to come with him to close what remained between you and me. Jake, you are a wonderful memory from my past, and that's where you have to stay."

He hung his head, not really able to look up at her. He knew that she was right. Suddenly, his actions seemed so foolish and even more futile than they had ever been in his mind. He had loved her, too but knew that the two of them could have never been happy together in the long run. Their entire belief systems were so incongruent. They fought constantly in the latter days of the relationship, and he had always felt that she had accepted his marriage proposal out of fear of the unknown aspects of her future as well as unresolved issues in her past. There was no way in hell a good, lasting marriage would have come from that situation. Still, she had believed in him for as long as she had known him.

In college, Jake had played quarterback, but NFL scouts said that he had almost no chance of making the league in that position. They encouraged him to try out at Combine as a wide receiver to sweeten his stock, so to speak. He had been insolent, not wanting to put the extra time into the preparation in fear that he would embarrass himself if he tried the new role. Beth was right there whispering encouragement in his ear, reminding him of how good his hands were and how well he could run and cut. "An NFL quarterback wouldn't necessarily need those skills depending on the offense he would be required to run," she'd always say. He gave in to her encouraging words and now found himself on the absolute top of the game in a position he had played for so few years. He always wanted to credit her with his career success, but it had seemed inappropriate to mention her name to reporters. He valued her privacy and respected her choice of Kevin. Of course, he hoped that she would decide on her own to leave, but Jake didn't want to be the cause of any strife. The tickets were simply a gesture of goodwill, he rationalized. But deep in his mind and in his heart he knew that his motives and actions were not altruistic.

Beth found that she had lost her appetite and asked to return to her hotel in hopes that Kevin would already be back. Jake didn't protest but signaled the waiter to bring their check. She clutched the bag containing Kevin's meal tightly as she rode in the front seat of Jake's very nice car through the same streets she had just traveled a few hours earlier. He pulled into the hotel's drive and started to get out of the car. She stopped him. The doorman opened her car door instead.

"Do you know what time you're to meet Kevin in the morning?"

He said that he did and she got out of the car. She did not look back, and the doorman closed the car door. Jake watched her hips sway slightly as she walked away from him. He touched his forehead to the steering wheel in a sign of disgust with himself before he put the vehicle in gear and drove home.

Beth was alone in the room. She undressed and showered before Kevin made it back to settle in for the night. He ate his dinner as she sat on the bed painting her toenails. She asked if everything was ready for tomorrow. He admitted that all seemed to be in order with the exception of his line of questioning. She turned to speak and stopped. He asked her what she was going to say. She shook her head and turned back to her toes. After she finished, she kissed Kevin and climbed under the covers. A few minutes later, he joined her.

He was gone when Beth woke up. She hoped that all went well. The evening before had been tense enough with the three of them there. Beth expected that it would go more smoothly with just the two of them talking about mostly sports. She hoped that they would talk mostly about sports, but she just wasn't sure. She glanced over at the desk where he had been working. He'd left her a note containing Andy's number in Seattle. She picked up the phone and made the call.

A little after noon, Kevin arrived back at the hotel and declared that the interview was over. The day's session had gone so well that he would not require another day of taping. Beth said that was great, since Andy and his fiancée would be meeting them the next day for dinner in Seattle. Kevin looked a little surprised at Beth's initiative, but he just started packing. Beth was intrigued by his silence.

"So? How did it go?"

"It went okay. We talked about a lot of stuff. Pete, high school, college, positions, the NFL, the trade to Denver, all sorts of things."

"Me?"

"Briefly, but just for my benefit. You won't see yourself on TV."

"Oh darn, I was hoping to become a star."

Kevin laughed and continued packing his things into his suitcase.