Chapter 28

Leslie and I spent the rest of the morning with me inserted somewhere. She did a wonderful job of getting me clear to the edge and stopping. The one time I came, she immediately took me in her mouth and got me hard again. She left a little after 8 a.m. and Tom got back just before 9.

"I think I hate you," he said. "My dream girl and you stole her. Dude, what were you doing while I was talking to her?"

I told her I had no idea what he was referring to.

"Leslie is a married woman, Tom," I said seriously. "No one outside of you and I can ever know."

"Please," he said. "First off, no one would believe you'd do such a thing. Secondly, if I start telling your secrets, it means you start telling mine."

"Let's just say I heard your whole conversation from below the desk," I said and then I drifted off to sleep with a smile. It would be a few days before the feelings of guilty would seep in.

We left the hotel at 2 o'clock and there was a line of people waiting for us. Some were family, but a lot were locals who turned out to congratulate us.

Leslie was standing in the middle of the pile with two kids.

Tom elbowed me, but I made sure I stopped a couple of places before I stopped to talk to Leslie and her children.

"I picked up my kids early just so they could see the team," she said. "This is SuYi and Bai-Lin."

She told me her children's names during our early morning chat. I knew her daughter, SuYi, hated her name and her son preferred soccer to football.

"SuYi is such a pretty name," I said as I bent down to talk to her. "It matches such a pretty girl perfectly.

"You must be Bai-Lin," I said to the boy who was a little older than his sister. "It's nice to meet you. You might consider putting your soccer skills to use as a kicker or punter."

Tom handed me a couple of footballs and I signed them for the kids. I asked for another and asked Leslie what her husband's name was.

"His name in Yun," she said, then reading my autograph aloud, "Yun and Leslie, you have a wonderful family. May you have nothing but happiness always."

I saw a photographer from the Herald-Leader taking pictures and I couldn't pass up another opportunity.

"Leslie, here's my e-mail address," I told her as I wrote it down. "I'll get the pictures of your children and e-mail them to you if you want me to."

She told me that would be perfect and I whispered "thank you" when she gave me a hug.

Bailey called exactly one week after classes resumed. I still didn't know what to say to her, but I decided to meet her anyway.

I had been thinking a lot about what Judy had said about Bailey. Leslie had told me my life would be better if I quit worrying about getting hurt.

"To live is to hurt," she said. "You saw this week how joyless life can be without love."

We met outside of Bailey's dorm and took a walk.

"I was worried about you," she said. "I must have called the hotel 100 times. Some woman who didn't speak English said she would talk to you."

I wasn't going to lie to Bailey.

"I know," I said. "I heard her tell you. By the way, she speaks perfect English, she just talked to you that way because you were on her nerves."

"I'd hoped you would have called to let me know you were alright," she said.

I told her I would have, but I didn't learn about what they said on TV until it was after 2 a.m.

"Leslie — the woman you spoke to — convinced me to let her give you a message that I was fine and to call me this week," I told her.

Bailey told me Leslie had pissed her off.

"You might change your mind when I tell you the only reason I'm speaking to you is because of Leslie," I said. "She convinced me I was wrong to keep away from you before we'd gotten the chance to clear the air.

"Bailey, if I'd have known I was doing something wrong, I would have tried to change it. What hurts the most — outside of losing you — is the fact you didn't talk to me about how you were feeling. I cared about you and I would have done whatever it took to make you happy. If I thought you'd be happier without me, I would have left gladly."

"You don't get it, R.J.," she said. "I don't know what will make me happy, so I can't expect you to. I felt like I went from my dad's daughter to being your wife. You made me feel safe and protected, but you also made me feel stifled. I underestimated your reputation here. During the summer you were my boyfriend. Here I was your girlfriend.

"You already knew who you were before I came into the picture. I just need time to try to figure out who I am, to see how I handle being Bailey Stenstrom instead of being R.J. Hartley's girlfriend or Jack Stenstrom's daughter. I wish there was a way I could figure it out and still be both, but if there is, I can't find it. If you know of a way, I'll be happy to listen.

"I got a pretty big dose of just being me over the holidays. I didn't really like what I saw. I was a mopey, whiny, kid who had no idea what to do without asking someone else first. But I also got a taste of what my life is going to be like without you in it. I wasn't real fond of that, either."

I told Bailey I wasn't sure if I could be a very good friend to her.

"I still have a lot of anger," I said. "Rightly or wrongly, I blame you for shutting me out, and I blame you for ruining my trip to Arizona. I'm not saying it's completely rational but it's the way I feel right now."

"I watched SportsCenter every morning," she said morosely. "There was a running debate about whether you had suffered brain damage. One morning dad and I watched as they showed you and me dancing at the U.S. Open and then showed you standing stone-faced answering questions.

"Dad started crying. Can you believe that? He didn't speak to me the rest of the day. When he did talk to me, he apologized for not teaching me the responsibilities that go with loving someone.

"I told him I knew the responsibility, but when I broke up with you my purpose wasn't to hurt you. I guess I wanted to shock you. I thought we'd stay close friends and get back together when I was at a better place. But when you told me you didn't need a friend like me, I realized I made a huge mistake.

"I still think I have. I know I want to be your girlfriend again. But I know if it's now I'll end up feeling the same way in a few months. I also know if it's not now that you'll probably be gone before I get my shit together."

"So what you'd like is for me to be a boyfriend who doesn't want to do anything with you or talk to you. Do I have that right?" I said with a smile.

"Exactly," she said. "If you'd be willing to wait around for me for, I don't know, say a year, I think I'll have myself on the right track."

She was joking, but I wasn't when I told her, "Call me when you get your life to how you want it. I don't promise to wait around forever, but you're worth waiting for, for a while. If I find I'm getting serious about someone, I'll call you and let you know. It's about all I can offer."

"I'm going to stay out of your hair as much as I can," I told her. "But I'm always a phone call away. I don't think I can be your friend while you find yourself, because I'll never move on if I try. But I'll be someone you can count on if you're ever in a bad place."

I gave Bailey a kiss on the cheek and walked away. I hoped she'd find herself quickly and maybe she did. It was a thousand miles and a few years before I heard from her again.

The day after I talked to Bailey big news hit the UK campus. Coach Brown had accepted the head coaching job with the New England Patriots of the NFL. I was going to start my senior year with a new coach and probably a new system. I guess it could be worse.

I was wrong. It got much worse. The athletic director had retired a month earlier and still hadn't been replaced so the Kentucky Board of Regents jumped the gun and force fed an idiot to the UK athletic department. I don't mince words often, but I don't hurl pejoratives randomly either.

The new coach was a bona fide Grade-A moron. Ed Hemphill was hired shortly after Coach Brown announced his decision. UK literally could have hand-picked any coach it wanted and instead the university chose to hire a high school coach with no collegiate experience.

That collective groan you heard on Feb. 2 wasn't the reaction to Punxsatawney Phil seeing his shadow. It was the UK faithful when they learned who the new coach would be. To top it off Coach Hemphill brought his son, Alex, who graduated high school in December. Alex was his father's quarterback in high school. He had given a verbal commitment to Louisville but came to UK when his dad was hired.

The first thing Hemphill did was fire all of Coach Brown's assistants and hire his own — only a few with any collegiate experience, mostly at Division II.

The week before spring practice began he called me into his office for one of his now famous "Come to Jesus" talks. He told me he thought his new offense might require different skills than I possessed.

"There's a lot more movement than you're used to," he said in his hillbilly twang. "I just don't know that you're enough of an athlete to carry the load."

I nodded and said, "Let me guess, your son is more the type of quarterback you're looking for."

"Now hold on," he said. "Alex has had success in the offense before, so I think he's better suited to run things at the moment."

I nodded again.

"Coach, I'm a straight shooter," I said. "So I'm gonna tell you like it is. First, if you demote me and start your son, they'll be a riot and you won't see the first game this fall with this team. Second, if you try to install some rinky-dink high school offense here, this team — with or without me — is going to get the shit kicked out of it every game next season.

"But I'll absolutely guarantee that if you take a national championship team that's losing three starters, and turn it into a 2-9 laughingstock again, you're never going to get another head coaching job. You're a high school coach; your offensive coordinator came from a D-II school. You forget I won a national championship at D-II and I'll tell you flat out, you won't win games up here with a D-II offense.