Chapter Six
CHARLES
Home has always been an elusive thing for me.
I’d never felt at home in my childhood house with religious parents who spent years making sure the truth I knew about myself wasn’t something they’d accept.
When I’d gotten the scholarship to college, I left and never looked back.
The closest thing I’ve ever had to home was my long tenure playing in San Diego, since I signed with them right out of college.
But it never felt quite right, despite the team and the mortgage I had.
But I’d say Hope Island is starting to feel more like home than any other place ever has felt.
It’s Tuesday afternoon and I’m doing my best to clean the house in preparation for my lesson with Tucker later tonight.
In San Diego I’d had a housekeeper, but that only made sense while I was working.
Now that I’m retired, it doesn’t make much sense.
I’ve always been pretty self-sufficient despite the amount of money sitting in my bank account.
My phone rings halfway through my cleaning session. Cupcake’s head perks up from where she lies by the fire, her head quirked to the side. That shows how often I get phone calls these days. I’m not remotely surprised to see it’s my former agent.
I’m going to keep dodging that call for a little while.
I finish cleaning up the house while listening to a random playlist on my phone. My knee aches a little today, probably from pushing myself too hard on the run over the weekend combined with physical therapy on Monday.
Sometimes the disappointment of the end of my career being from an injury slams into me.
Grief is a river, I have learned in time.
It feels silly to feel grief over the loss of a career, but I guess it’s more grief that I didn’t get to go out on my own terms. Instead, I was taken out by an injury that I hadn’t ever expected.
Could I train and return? Maybe. But I’m almost thirty-seven, which is practically ancient in football years.
I’m not Tom Brady. I’m Charles Augustin, four-time Super Bowl winner and gay man who’s ready to live his life out of the spotlight.
Despite Rafe’s previous call, I’m not too interested in coaching.
Although it’s nice to be wanted, my football days feel very done to me at the moment.
I wonder if Tucker will eat something if I cook it?
I’m hungry anyway, and it’s an hour until he arrives, so I spend a little while making sautéed vegetables and pork loin.
Dinner is ready just as the hesitant knock at the door arrives.
I prepare myself for Tucker’s pink hair so that I don’t look like an idiot this time.
I wasn’t lying, it does look good on him.
I just hadn’t expected it considering his cherubic blond curls were how I’d been picturing him in my head.
The pink is lighter this time when I swing the door open.
He’s got his guitar slung over his shoulder, that forest-green cardigan wrapped around himself again. Ink peeks out from under the collar of his T-shirt, but I can’t make out what it is from just that small snapshot.
“Sorry, I’m a little late. Pop was talking my ear off,” Tucker explains as he slides past me. He slips off his shoes on the mat, revealing rainbow socks that are far more endearing than they have any right to be. “Not that it matters.”
“I was cooking dinner, so I didn’t notice. Are you hungry? I made a bunch.”
Tucker looks disappointed and sad all at once. “No, I ate already. Thank you, though.”
Huh. Okay. “Well, I need to eat real fast, then we can start.”
Tucker waves me off and heads into the living room.
I watch for a moment as he takes out his guitar, then sets it aside when Cupcake wanders over to him for pets.
He’s far less hesitant now than he was the first time they met.
His fingers are still exceedingly gentle as he scratches the top of her head. I wish I could see his face.
I hurriedly eat a plate of dinner, all the time wondering about the man in my living room.
Tucker is still softly petting Cupcake’s head, who has her eyes closed and head tilted onto his knee like she’s in heaven.
I hate to interrupt them, but we have to get on with the lesson or I’ll find an excuse to keep Tucker here, lesson or not.
“Sorry, guys.” I pat Cupcake’s back and smile as she curls up at our feet instead of returning to her bed by the fire. “Ready?”
Tucker clears his throat. “Yep. Have you been practicing your chords?”
“Yes, I’ve mastered a few of them.”
Tucker sends me a small, pleased smile. “Show me.”
I go through the handful of chords he’d tasked me with memorizing, using my thumb to strum the strings. Tucker looks happy when I glance back up, and I can’t help but return his smile. Pleasing him feels really good, and I can’t quite explain why.
“You did great! How are your fingers?”
“Hurts a little, but I’ll get used to it.” I hold out my hand for him to inspect and bite the inside of my cheek when he takes my hand in his own. He flips it over, inspecting my palm and the tips of my fingers. “See?”
Tucker drops my hand like he’s been burned. “Yeah, you’re good. One of the easiest songs to play and master strumming is ‘American Pie.’ Do you know that song?”
“Probably if I heard it.”
“I’ll show you,” Tucker says while grabbing his guitar.
He sets it carefully on his lap, then starts to play.
And I was right. The song is easy to recognize.
One of those classic songs that most people know.
Tucker plays like he’s been playing his entire life, shoulders loose, fingers confident as he expertly plays each chord and strums each verse.
“Very easy. Now, to start out, it’s easier to play with what we call tab. ”
Tucker pulls out a few pages of paper, placing them in front of me on the couch.
He points at the page that contains the lyrics and letters above them.
“This tells you the chords to play and with which word, so you keep the beat and melody. You can learn to read music later on, if you want, but to be an expert player, you don’t really have to read music. ”
“Do you?”
Tucker looks confused. “Do I what?”
“Do you read music?”
“Well, yes, but I play piano, so it’s a requirement.”
“Gotcha.”
“Now, I want you to practice this for an hour every night. Minimum. Practice playing the chords as you sing, not so much on strumming. Then once you have that down, we’ll move into strumming. Okay?”
“Yep.”
“Go ahead now.”
I stumble through it the first few times, but it gets easier as I go on.
Tucker is a great teacher. He shows me how to do the next step, but doesn’t do it for me, and he also doesn’t get frustrated when I fumble.
By the time the hour session is over, I’m easily playing through the entire song.
I’m actually excited to give strumming a shot on my own the next few nights.
Tucker’s stomach growls as we’re packing up, and he looks away in embarrassment. I thought he said he ate?
“I have leftovers if you’re hungry.”
“I can’t. I have allergies that make it hard to eat what others cook.”
“Oh,” I say stupidly. “What allergies?”
Tucker looks frustrated and wary as he stands with his guitar slung over his shoulder. “I have celiac disease. It makes eating what others cook difficult.”
I knew his parents cooked gluten-free, and they’d mentioned it was for their son but never said why.
I’ve never heard of celiac disease, and I’m sure if I pressed, Tucker would stumble through explaining it to me.
But he looks really uncomfortable, so I don’t press.
Instead, I walk him to the door and watch him walk out into the night without another word.
Cupcake stands beside me, head cocked to the side like she’s thinking the same thing, that Tucker doesn’t need to be pressed. I head into the kitchen to grab a beer.
With the beer in my hand, I take a sip and lean against the counter as I research celiac disease.
Damn. Well, that’s an easy fix. I spend the rest of the evening ordering new pans and cooking utensils, then I scour my fridge and pantry for items that might contain gluten.
That shit is in everything. I had a teammate who went vegan for a season, and suddenly I have an understanding of just how hard that must’ve been.
Going gluten-free for a while will be a nice little experiment to better understand what Tucker might go through on a daily basis.
I mean, it’s a small change, and if it’ll make him feel more comfortable, it’s not a hard task.
Me: Can I come over and work on a car with you?
Brent: Sure, son. Stop by whenever.
I pause and wonder if I should ask about Tucker. But Brent seems to read my mind when he replies:
Brent: Tucker is on the mainland tonight for that church service
Right. I change into outside clothes, walk Cupcake quickly, and get her comfortable in the living room before heading out.
It’s the end of August now and the days are getting cooler.
I much prefer the cooler South Carolina days to the ones I grew up with in Nebraska.
There’s nothing like a fucking Nebraska winter, freezing your ass off and stuck inside with people who would hate your existence if they really knew you.
Because I’m having an off day with my knee, I drive over to Brent and Mark’s house instead of making the walk like Tucker does most nights.
Their house is so cute, smaller than mine, more of a cottage than a full-fledged beach mansion, but it gives me all those cozy feelings that a house should inspire in someone.
Brent meanders out of the garage with his hand shielding his eyes at the sound of my truck parking in their driveway. His smile is kind and warm under his wild beard. He gives me a tight, back-slapping hug that I return with a bashful smile.