Training Ground by Kate Christie

Author:Kate Christie [Christie, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780985367732
Publisher: Second Growth Books
Published: 2016-06-17T03:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

JAMIE GLANCED AROUND baggage claim, keeping an eye out for Emma. This was her first time flying into Seattle, and the airport was significantly larger than Oakland. She’d had to check a bag with all her gear for the Portland tournament, and now as she looked around the baggage area, she hoped a sign would point her toward the correct carousel. But all she saw were milling passengers and the people who were waiting for them.

Then the fluorescent lights caught on a white US Soccer baseball cap, and she did a double take—Emma, scanning the crowd, too. With her hair tucked under the cap and a navy fleece hiding her curves, she didn’t look like her usual fashionably girlie self.

“Emma,” Jamie called, willing away the butterflies that had taken flight in her gut. The way Emma’s eyes lit up the moment she saw her didn’t help a bit.

Quickly they crossed the short distance, and then Emma was flinging herself at Jamie. She dropped her carryon and stumbled back a bit, absorbing the other girl’s weight. She was taller but Emma was broader—good Scandinavian peasant stock, she’d joked more than once—not to mention curvier. Jamie grasped her tightly and lifted her off her feet briefly, hugging her as hard as she dared.

“You’re here,” Emma murmured against her shoulder, and Jamie could feel the hitch in her breathing.

“Good thing. Clearly you need someone to look after you.” Emma laughed a little, at least Jamie thought it was a laugh. But then she felt tears on her neck and squeezed Emma tighter again, murmuring softly, “Shh, I’ve got you. I’m right here.”

The whole last week, Jamie had wanted nothing other than to be in Seattle. As it was, she’d had to content herself with the usual phone calls, emails, and text messages in between studying for mid-terms. It was almost unreal to finally be here holding Emma in her arms instead of listening to her cry over the phone.

Not that there had been much crying since the previous weekend. The day after Emma had texted about viewing her father’s body, visitors had begun to descend upon the Blakeley house—first a plethora of local friends with flowers and casseroles followed shortly by the first of the relatives and friends from Minnesota, Virginia, and Boston. Emma and her brother had stayed home from school all week, but she told Jamie school would probably have been better than being stuck at home with the influx of hospital staff and family friends with their sorrowful expressions and protestations of shock. The visitors didn’t seem to realize that rather than offering comfort, mostly they were reminding the family of what they’d lost.

“Honestly,” she’d told Jamie the night before her flight, “it’s not that different not having him here. But every time someone comes by to check on us, I remember he’s not just away. It’s starting to feel like people want to gawk at the bloody aftermath. You know, like rubbernecking? Only in this case my mom and brother and I are the smashed cars in the median.

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