37. Gavin
GAVIN
Violet has to leave for the airport around the same time they’re ready to take me down for pre-op. She looks as nervous as my mom.
“Jane is waiting downstairs. I will come over to see you as soon as you get back. You’re going to do great.” She squeezes my fingers, but I think she’s reassuring herself more than me.
“Have a safe flight. I’ll see you back in Valley tonight.”
“Okay.” She glances to see if my mom is looking and then presses a quick kiss to my lips.
I think it’s hilarious that Violet’s scared of my mom. I capture her with an arm around her back and deepen the kiss. She reciprocates for barely a second before pulling away. Her face is red.
As soon as she’s gone, I sink back into the bed and blow out a long breath. “Okay, I’m ready.”
Mom follows me as they wheel me out of the room and down the long, quiet hallway. “Violet seemed nice. Really pretty too.”
“She is nice,” I say. “And smoking hot.”
The nurse laughs as Mom gives me a side-eye.
“Don’t look at me like that. It’s a compliment. Violet’s great.”
In the pre-op room, they get me all ready to go. Mom’s phone is buzzing constantly as she stands next to the bed.
“Thanks for coming,” I say. “Are your girls freaking out?”
“They’ll be fine. The assistant coaches have it covered.”
“I bet they’re freaking out.” They have a game tomorrow night. I think it’s only the second time she’s missed a game in all the time she’s been coaching, and the last one was for Pop Pop’s funeral.
She puts her phone away. “They’re fine. And you’re going to be too.”
God, I hope she’s right. My stomach is a mess.
“Good morning.” Dr. Chase steps into the room, wearing scrubs that somehow make him look even less like the other doctors than the polo and dress pants he had on yesterday. He smiles when he sees my mom. “Kelly, it’s good to see you.”
I look between them. “You two have met before?”
“We traveled in the same circles once upon a time.” She gives him her full attention. “Hey, Theo. How’s Lexi?”
“She is doing great,” he says. “Or so I hear. We got divorced about two years ago.”
“I’m sorry. I hadn’t heard.”
He nods his appreciation and then steps up to the side of my bed. “Nervous?”
“Yeah.” I swallow the lump in my throat. “But I’m ready.”
I doze on and off as the anesthesia wears off. I have weird dreams where I’m shooting hoops with my dad in the driveway, something we probably only did a few times.
When I’m fully awake, I’m groggy, and my mouth feels like I swallowed cotton. Mom says Coach came by before the team headed back to Valley. My chest constricts as I think about them leaving without me.
I lie my head back and try not to fall into a self-pity spiral. Athletes get hurt all the time. I can come back from this. And if I can’t, then I can still do what I planned and get a degree in sports journalism.
Mom takes a phone call and Dr. Chase reappears, this time dressed like he’s heading to the country club.
He takes a seat on the end of the bed and angles his body to face me.
“I already talked to your mom, but I wanted to stop in before I left to let you know the surgery went really well. I was able to repair both the patellar tendon and collateral ligament. A colleague of mine has an office in Valley. He’s successfully rehabbed a lot of knees.
Listen to what he says, don’t slack off or push too hard, and I think you’ll be dunking basketballs for many years to come. ”
The relief that washes over me makes me feel as light as a feather. My voice is gruff when I thank him.
“My pleasure.” He stands. “If you have any questions or problems in the next week, give me a call. Your mom has my card. Day or night. Okay?”
“I will. Thank you again.”
As soon as I’m discharged, they wheel me out to Mom’s SUV. A couple of nurses are helping me into the vehicle when my gaze snags on a man across the parking lot. He’s standing in front of a black SUV staring this way with a stuffed animal in his hand. A frog? An alligator? It’s something green.
The guy looks kind of like my dad, but I’m probably still out of it.
I don’t know if my dad has ever bought me a stuffed animal or a toy that wasn’t basketball-related in my entire life.
I blink a bunch and try to clear my head as I stare harder, but a van drives by, blocking him from view before I can tell for sure, and then the nurses helping me step in front of me to say their goodbyes.
“Ready to go home?” my mom asks, putting the SUV in reverse.
“Ready.”
As she pulls out, I look across the parking lot for the man again, but there’s no one there.
Noah, Jenkins, and Tommy are at the door welcoming me home when Mom and I pull into the driveway of The White House.
They follow me as I crutch to the living room.
“Do you want some help up to your room?” Jenkins asks.
“Nah.” I lower myself onto the couch. “I’m good here for a beat.”
I think the pain killers are wearing off because my knee’s screaming. Being in the car for six hours probably didn’t help either.
Mom is a whirlwind as she comes in behind me with bags, and calls out instructions to the guys. Before I know it, I have a fresh ice pack, my pillow from upstairs, and anything else I might need is in reaching distance.
She disappears into the kitchen and the guys take seats around the living room.
“How’d it go?” Noah asks.
“Good, I guess. The doctor said I’ll be able to play again.”
“How long?”
“A few months, at least.”
“You’ll be good as new by the time the season starts in the fall,” Tommy says with a chin tip.
“I hope so.” I really, really hope so.
They have to head out a few minutes later to go to practice. It sucks to watch them go without me, but Violet arrives shortly after.
She drops her backpack on the floor and takes a seat next to me. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired, but happy to see you.” I lean over until my shoulder touches hers.
“You should rest,” she says.
“Help me up to my room?”
“Are you sure?”
“I want to sleep in my own bed.”
My mom comes out of the kitchen and the two of them get me upstairs in bed.
“I’ll bring up some food in a couple of hours,” Mom says. “I need to run to the grocery store first.”
“Thanks, Mom.” She closes the door behind her.
“You should get naked and nap with me,” I say to Violet. She’s across the room, sitting on the edge of my desk.
“You need to get some rest.”
“Sexy striptease to lull me to sleep?”
Laughing, Violet lies down next to me. “You’re too much.”
I place a hand on her thigh and slide my fingers under the hem of her dress.
“Your mom is downstairs.” She pulls the dress down and bats at my hand.
“I missed you.”
“I missed you too.” Violet turns and snuggles into my side.
“How about just a little under the bra action?”
“To be continued,” she says with a chuckle.
My eyes squeeze shut as I yawn. “I’m going to hold you to that.”
For the next day and a half, I don’t do much but sleep, watch movies with Violet, and play video games with the guys.
The team left this morning for the Final Four.
It was hard to watch them go, but I smiled and wished them luck.
Now I’m staring at my Spanish homework. It isn’t due until the middle of next week, but I’m bored and restless.
Violet has class all day, and Mom’s been on conference calls with her assistant coaches and players.
She needs to get back, I know she does, but she said she wasn’t leaving until she made sure I had everything I needed here.
I’ve read the same paragraph at least three times when I hear voices downstairs. I toss the book to the end of the bed. Thank fuck. If that’s Violet, maybe I can convince her to spring me from this room or to make out with me. Or maybe make out first and then spring me from this room.
“Gavin?” My mom calls from the other side of my door as she knocks softly. “Are you awake?”
“Yeah,” I call back and adjust the pillow propping up my knee.
She comes in, but hovers near the doorway. “Feeling up to some company?”
“Definitely. I’m so bored.”
“Good because there’s someone here to see you.”
“Who?”
She glances behind her and my dad steps into the room, carrying a gift bag.
Nobody speaks. I feel cornered and trapped, but also curious as to what the hell he’s doing here.
“Are you two good?” she asks, looking between us.
I nod.
“I’ll be downstairs if you need me,” Mom says before leaving us alone.
Dad walks across the room, looking around and taking in my space.
“I like the artwork,” he says.
“Violet brings a new one every day.” I glance at them again—the posters that hang on every wall say things like, Go Valley #31 and Gavin Leonard MVP. They’re cheesy and covered in glitter, but they bring the biggest smile to my face every time she hangs another one up.
“What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see how you were feeling, and I brought you this. You’re too old for toys, but I didn’t know what to get.” He pulls something from the gift bag he walked in with and tosses it at me.
I stare down at the small, stuffed dinosaur. “It was you. You were at the hospital the day of my surgery.”
He nods and stares at the floor. “I was there. Yes.”
“Why?”
His head lifts, and his brows furrow in confusion.
“My season is over, maybe my career. There’s no headline left that makes you look good.”
“I didn’t come here to fight with you about basketball. It’s your future, do with it what you want, son. I just didn’t want you to have the regrets that I do is all. But that’s not why I’m here.”
I’m not sure I believe him for all the pushing he’s done before now, but I’m curious. “Okay, then why are you here?”
“Because I don’t know you and I’d like to.”
“What?” I’m so thrown, I can’t stop the question.
A rough, sardonic sound leaves his lips.
“When you’re young, you think you have all the time in the world to do all the things you want to do, but it goes by so fast. I thought after I retired, I’d be able to make up for all the time I was gone.
Instead, I realized we were strangers and you didn’t need me.
You had your mother, your routine; the two of you had created a life, a family, without me. ”
Anger builds in my chest. I start to tell him we had no choice, but he holds up a hand. “I’m not blaming anyone but myself. Your mother is an angel I never deserved.”
“That we can agree on.”
He glances at the floor.
“I don’t understand you. You walk in here claiming you want to get to know me, and that Mom is an angel, but you spent my childhood using ball as an excuse to stay on the road and cheat on her every chance you got.
You missed birthdays and school events. I know more about you from reading the tabloids than I do from any conversation we’ve ever had. What kind of bullshit is that?”
“I know. Trust me, I know. I have spent the past year in therapy, trying to work through it. All I can say is I think I carried that need to prove myself and be seen as this hotshot pro-player that stemmed from my father’s disapproval of me for most of my adult life.
Pathetic as that is, I’m still struggling with it.
I’m embarrassed that I let it overshadow everything else. ”
“And you still want to get to know me, even if I never touch a basketball again?”
“Of course.”
“What if I can’t forgive you?”
He looks up at the posters on my wall again before meeting my gaze. “I’d say I probably don’t blame you. I’m not sure I’d forgive me either.”