Free Calling It by Jen Doyle

really caring enough to fix it. It had also exposed nearly every raw nerve he’d been dealing with for years, starting with his own parents’ broken marriage thanks to his father’s drinking and infidelities.
    Maybe this irrational attraction to Dorie was more about what he’d never really had as opposed to what he wanted from her .
    Or, hell, maybe it was just a simple rebound thing. That was the most likely explanation. Whatever it was, he’d made every attempt to resist it last night by deliberately not giving in to the temptation to go by her place again last night and instead heading directly back to his mom’s.
    After tossing and turning all night, when it was finally light enough to stop pretending he was asleep, he’d opened his eyes and been more than a little unsettled at how much he’d missed seeing her. Especially since she’d spent most of yesterday afternoon running errands with Fitz—an excuse, he was pretty sure, to avoid him after whatever it was that had happened between them in the morning.
    Putting that out of his head, he took out his phone. There were nearly a dozen emails, the most urgent of which, of course, was from Pete about management. They wanted to “discuss NateGate.” They weren’t happy that it hadn’t gone away—as if he was over the moon about it. But there was good news, too. Pete’s contact at the police department said they’d be releasing a statement today that would officially clear Nate of all charges. To be honest, that was more of a relief than he’d like to admit. He hadn’t been drunk—he knew that without question—and he’d wanted to believe he hadn’t been at fault. But he had almost no memory of the accident itself, so knowing for sure that he hadn’t caused it was a huge weight off his chest.
    Except now Alexis, his publicist, wanted to put out a statement ASAP and Mark, his agent, was already lining up new endorsements for a star reborn, none of which he wanted to deal with in any way.
    Nate sent a note to Pete that if the GM really wanted to meet with him, he’d be available Sunday morning at ten. Sure, it was a diva move, but he was pissed off and he wanted to make them work for it. Yeah, he got how important it was for a brand-new team to start off clean, but he had absolutely zero control over this situation and wasn’t sure what they expected him to do about it. And, honestly, he’d known the people involved for a long time—it would have been nice if they’d been a little more supportive, even if only behind the scenes.
    He threw his phone on the table and tried to concentrate on the beauty of the sunrise again, but to no avail. After an hour’s run that only had him doing more useless thinking, he jumped in the shower and then got himself the hell out of there.
    Half an hour later he was on Main Street. Telling himself that he was just there to check up on Jules, he headed to her café. She looked up when the door opened, her smile an indication that they were on their way back to being okay.
    It took almost half an hour for him to walk from the front door to Jules, thanks to all the well-wishers. Which was...good. Not unexpected. He’d always had unequivocal support from the people in town and, it appeared, that hadn’t changed even with the whole NateGate thing. At the same time, it was exhausting. If he had to shake one more hand as he confirmed to yet another acquaintance that, yes, it sucked to have this going on, and, no, he wasn’t worried about his knee...
    Inspiration was hands down a better place for him to be than Chicago was right now, but it still wasn’t quite the escape he’d been seeking. Except when he was with Dorie. Her apartment, the library...Inspiration felt pretty good then.
    When Nate finally got to the counter, Jules brightened her smile. “Nate, hi. Do you remember Barb O’Reilly? Her husband coaches the boys’ basketball team.”
    He turned to the woman standing across from his sister. “Coach is doing a