Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
DREW
“Uncle Drew!”
The second I walk into Cam’s house, his eleven-year-old son Ethan comes skidding into the entryway with a grin. “Hey, dude.” I hold up a hand for him to slap. “How was your game today?”
At the mention of hockey, Ethan’s grin widens and he practically vibrates with excitement. “I scored twice! Oliver and Jeremy taught me this new snap shot, and I finally got to use it today. They’re awesome and it was so freaking cool.”
I chuckle at his enthusiasm. Maddy’s dad Jeremy is a former Pittsburgh Lightning center, her brother Oliver is a current Lightning center, and Ethan has been hockey obsessed since he was five, so he pretty much worships the ground they walk on.
“You know, once upon a time you thought I was the coolest athlete you knew.”
Ethan shrugs, his grin turning to a smirk. “That was before I knew Jeremy and Oliver. Maybe if you played hockey, I would think you were cooler. Everyone knows hockey players are the superior athletes. Football players are lazy by comparison.”
I snort, wrapping an arm around his shoulders because I love this kid.
“By comparison, huh? Come hang at one of our practices and you’ll see just how not lazy football players are.
” The word lazy tastes bitter on my tongue, my brain suddenly flooded with memories of the way it was hurled at me like a slur.
Whiny, lazy little shit.
In my days, it wasn’t football practice unless you were throwing up and half dead by the end of it.
If your mother was around to see what a lazy player you turned out to be, she would die all over again.
With my dad’s voice in my head, the aches in my muscles from practice this week seem more acute, and the ribs I bruised in a hard hit in the last preseason game throb.
Acid churns in my stomach and I do my best to shove the memories away, down into the pit of my stomach where they live behind a door with a lock that seems to get looser every year.
Every football season. Every hit and injury and exhausted day and sleepless night.
The other voice that’s hard to ignore. The one that gets louder every season.
The one that says, I don’t want to do this anymore.
Even as I have the thought, my stomach churns because it’s football that saved me. Football that made me. And without it, I have no idea who I am. What I am. What I have.
Trying to ground myself, I look around Cam’s house.
At the cozy living room furniture and family pictures decorating the walls.
Cam and his kids. His late wife, Lainey.
The ones of him and Maddy, the redheaded former hockey player who came to work for the team and brought love back into my best friend’s life.
And the ones that include me. Cam and I have been friends for almost two decades, and it’s still startling to see myself up on his wall. A part of his family.
Cam likes to tell me I helped bring him back to life after his wife died when Ethan was a newborn and his older daughter Riley was a toddler, but the truth is, it’s Cam who gave me a life.
Who gave me the first real family I’ve ever known.
Who gave me friendship and shared his kids with me and showed up for me in a way I’ve never experienced before.
Who stayed, when no one in my life ever had.
There’s so much of me that’s broken. A gaping hole inside me I’m not sure will ever be filled. But seeing pictures of me through the years on my best friend’s wall is proof that, despite everything, there’s at least one thing in my life I’ve gotten absolutely, consistently right.
I have all this because of football, and thinking about what happens to it if I walk away from the game is more than my overstimulated brain can contemplate.
“You coming?” Ethan’s question yanks me out of my head, and I shake away the darkness because this house—this family—is only light. “Dinner is in ten minutes. Dad’s making tacos because Maddy said her day was shit and shit days always require tacos.”
“Ethan, language,” Cam scolds, strolling into the entry way, smiling when he sees me. “Hey, man, did I know you were coming?”
I shake my head. “Nah, just figured I would stop by and see how Ethan’s game was, and I have something for Riley,” I say, holding up the bag I’m carrying.
Even though that’s not the whole truth, it’s definitely a truth.
The other truth is my head is a little fucked after seeing Caitlin earlier this week.
Kissing Caitlin earlier this week. I can’t stop replaying it, and I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing, but either way, I had to get the fuck out of my house before I did something ridiculous like go back to her office so I could kiss her again.
“Ethan said you were about to eat dinner, though, so I can just drop it and run.”
“Hey, Drew.” Maddy appears in the doorway, walking straight to Cam’s side.
Cam wraps an arm around her, tucking her into him and pressing a kiss to her head.
The easy way they are together makes my chest ache a little.
I’m so happy for Cam and his second chance at love, and Maddy is one of the best people I know, but seeing them together reminds me I’ve made it practically my life’s work to keep people at arm’s length because if no one gets too close, no one can hurt me when they leave.
But sometimes the loneliness is a lot to bear.
You weren’t lonely when you were with Caitlin.
“You okay?” Maddy asks, interrupting my moment of introspection and studying me in that quietly intense, slightly creepy way of hers.
The way that says, I can see straight into your brain and I know everything so don’t even think about lying to me.
It’s the thing that makes her an incredible team psychologist, but this isn’t her office, and the thoughts in my head are for me and me alone.
“Always,” I say lightly, forcing my lips into a grin. “Stopping by to say hi, but I’ll just leave this for Ry and head out so you guys can have dinner.”
“Hang on,” Maddy orders when I set down the bag and turn towards the door.
When I look back at her, she’s holding out her hand to me, the understanding on her face setting my emotions churning.
“It’s taco night. Ethan wasn’t lying when he said my day was shit.
Riley is making a blanket fort because Wright family tradition says when someone is feeling big feelings, tacos eaten in a blanket fort are practically a requirement.
You’re here now, which means you’re now part of taco night. Stay, Drew.”
I don’t know how Maddy knows this is exactly what I need, but I just nod, gratitude for her rushing through me. I nod, taking Maddy’s hand, and join my best friend’s family for dinner.
“Ugh, do I have to?” Cam’s fourteen-year-old daughter Riley says with a huff. “What’s the point of geometry anyway? I’m going to be an actress, and geometry has no correlation to acting.”
Cam stands, lips tipping up in a smile. “Maybe not, but it does have a correlation to graduating high school, so get studying, Ry.”
Riley gives her dad the most dramatic eyeroll I’ve ever seen. “Fine, but let it be known I’m doing this under protest.”
“Your protest is noted,” Cam says with amusement. “Now go.”
With a groan, Riley turns and stomps up the stairs, and ten seconds later, the sound of a bedroom door slamming reverberates through the house.
Cam blows out a breath and Maddy just snickers. “I love teenagers. The drama delights me.”
Cam chuckles, crouching down and tipping Maddy’s chin up, kissing her softly. “Good thing you’re here, Wildcat, because Ry and I probably would have killed each other a thousand times by now without you.”
Maddy grins. “Here is the only place I want to be. Now you better go check on the almost-teenager. I’m pretty sure I just heard a puck hit the net in the basement, and he definitely hasn’t been down there long enough to finish that English essay.”
“I fucking hate homework,” Cam mutters, standing and glancing down at me. “You good to hang?” he asks. “It should only take, like, half an hour to convince Ethan that English is more important than perfecting his wrist shot.”
I grin, stretching my legs out in front of me and leaning back on my hands, relaxed after an hour with Cam, Maddy, and their kids. “Better you than me. I’m cool to stay.”
With a nod, Cam heads down to the basement, and I’m just about to say something to Maddy when my phone buzzes. Thinking it might be Avery, I pull it out, but the second I look at the screen, I know I shouldn’t have. My good mood vanishes the instant I read the message.
Dad
Drew, I wish you would talk to me, son. I have a lot of things to say to you.
Snorting, I toss my phone away where it lands face down on a pile of pillows because things to say? Fucking forget it.
“Everything okay?” Maddy asks, and when I turn to her, she’s studying me with that all-seeing expression again.
I sigh, and I don’t know whether it’s the warmth of this house, or the time spent with a real family or the kiss I still can’t get out of my head, but words push up from my chest and are tumbling out of my mouth before I can stop them.
“I kissed Caitlin.”
I freeze, a little stunned, because those are not the words I thought I was going to say, and from the surprised look on Maddy’s face, she wasn’t expecting them either.
“Shit, sorry,” I mutter. “That’s a really weird fucking thing to tell you.
First of all because you’re her best friend and I probably should have let her tell you.
Unless she already told you and you were pretending you didn’t know.
But none of that really matters, I guess, because it was no big deal. ”
Liar.
I don’t know what I’m expecting, but it’s not the huge grin that splits Maddy’s face. “I knew I wasn’t imagining it!”
Grabbing a throw pillow from the floor of the blanket fort, I hug it to my chest, almost like I need a shield for whatever this conversation is about to become. “Imagining what?”