Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
DREW
“Fuck yeah!” Oliver spins around and pumps a fist in the air, jerking a finger back at the bowling lane where all ten pins are scattered on the ground.
“Beat that, assholes.” Dropping down on the cracked vinyl booth surrounding a table covered in drinks and bowling alley food, he reaches for his Coke and takes a long sip.
“You are freakishly good at bowling,” Cam says, studying Oliver. “Like, it’s weird right?” He looks at the rest of us for confirmation.
“So fucking weird.” Jack rolls his eyes and grabs another slice of pizza. “He’s been like this since we were kids. No one understands it.”
“He cleaned up on the birthday party circuit.” Tyler stands and rolls his shoulders, shaking out his hands like he’s preparing for the World Series of Bowling instead of a friendly game in an empty bowling alley on a Monday free from practice and games and all other adult responsibilities.
“It killed me that I could never beat him.” Tyler grins at Oliver.
“But I made it to the Renegades before he made it to the Lightning, so I beat him where it counts.”
“Did you?” I ask, raising an eyebrow at Tyler.
“Didn’t Oliver get drafted when he was like eighteen?
” I say it mainly to get a rise out of Tyler because irritated Tyler is fun Tyler, and I’m in a fantastic mood after sharing a bed with Caitlin for so much of the last week.
Talking and laughing and sharing little bits of ourselves with each other.
And I’m hoping I can share a bed and more of those bits with her tonight too.
I just need her to text me back first. I resist the urge to pull my phone out of my pocket and check for the thousandth time to see if she returned the text I sent first thing this morning because I am a full-grown adult with patience and shit.
Or something like that.
Tyler scoffs, pulling me back to the conversation. “Drafted doesn’t mean anything. I had my first professional start before him—ergo, I win.”
Cam snorts out a laugh. “Ergo?”
“That’s a pretty sophisticated word, Little Ty Ty,” I say with a smirk. “Are you sure you’re using it correctly?”
Tyler tilts his head, giving me a guileless smile. “I’m not so sure a guy who sucks at bowling as much as you do gets to throw shade at me.”
Jack laughs and elbows me in the side. “He’s not wrong, my dude. Why do you even own a bowling alley if you’re a worse bowler than little kids with those bumper things in the gutters?”
Because I haven’t bowled since I was one of those kids with the bumpers, I think immediately.
My mom loved to bowl, and she used to take me when I was little.
Even though I hadn’t bowled since I was seven, when I saw this place was on the verge of shutting down last year, I bought it.
Just one more business to add to the portfolio I like to call Reminders That Not Every Part of My Childhood was a Shitshow.
“You okay?” Cam asks in a low voice.
I snap back to the conversation, realizing I never answered Jack. Pasting on a lazy smile, I toss my arm over the back of the booth. “Just trying to do my part to contribute to the local economy.”
“Well, I dig it.” Oliver chooses a chicken finger like he’s selecting a precious gem and then dunks it into honey mustard, biting in with a grin. “Hanging out here today was inspired. I love a chicken finger before noon, especially when I don’t have practice and there’s no game until Thursday.”
Cam rolls his eyes. “Like you didn’t already work out at five this morning. I thought this one was bad,” he says, tipping his head to Tyler. “You take dedication to your sport to a whole new level.”
“Nah.” Oliver grabs another chicken finger.
“It’s just that you and Drew probably don’t remember what it’s like to be young and energetic and at the top of your game.
” He flashes us a shit-eating grin. “On account of all the hits to the head and also the fact that you’re old and retirement is probably looming. ”
I wait for the shot of anxiety I get at the word retirement, but to my utter surprise, it doesn’t come.
I don’t know if it’s the fact that Caitlin and I are…
whatever we are or the fact that I’m sitting with Cam and the rest of my friends doing something that has nothing to do with football, but for the first time since I started playing seriously, the idea of not playing doesn’t scare me nearly as much as it usually does, and the thought of what comes next after football isn’t a giant void.
I think maybe it could be like this. A random early afternoon at the bowling alley because everyone’s schedules aligned and waiting for my girl to text me back so I can see her face later too.
Hold her. Touch her. Fuck her. Hear whatever brilliant and fascinating thoughts are in her brain.
My girl.
It feels good to think those words.
Settling in a way nothing ever really has been before.
Cam smirks at Oliver with his I’m about to fuck shit up look, and I know what’s coming before he says it. “I’m energetic enough that I fucked your sister twice this morning before breakfast.”
“Come on!” Oliver groans. “I don’t want to know that. When we’re hanging out with bowling and chicken fingers, you’re Friend Cam. Tyler’s teammate Cam. Not in love with my sister and soon to be brother-in-law Cam.”
Jack snickers and Oliver shoots him a glare.
“Don’t even think about it. You’re in the same damn boat as me.
I might not have been at that game last week, but no one in this family can keep a secret for shit, and I know this one was staring at Cait—your twin sister—from the field like she was going to disappear or something.
” He points a thumb in my direction, and I grin because yeah, I did that and I regret nothing.
Not the staring or the fucking. Not anything when it comes to Caitlin.
“Sarah told me there was pointing and blushing and something about hand holding outside the locker room after the game and Cait leaving with him. So what’s the deal? ” he asks, his attention on me.
“Yeah Drew, what’s the deal?” Cam asks with a grin.
“You mean the deal where Drew is head over heels for our brilliant lawyer cousin/sister/bestie? Tell me everything because we need a new love story around here.” Tyler practically rubs his hands together with glee, and I can’t even say anything snarky because head over heels is exactly what I am, astonishing as that still seems to me.
“I think maybe I’d like to hear that from Drew.
” Jack looks at me thoughtfully, and though with his blue eyes and blond hair Caitlin’s twin doesn’t look much like the woman who has consumed almost every thought in my head for weeks, the expression on his face is the same I know everything there is to know about you so don’t even consider lying to me I’ve come to know well.
Taking a fortifying sip of my root beer, I’m preparing to tell Jack exactly how much his sister means to me when my phone vibrates against my hip.
Caitlin. My heart pounds, and everything inside me lifts when I tug my phone out of my pocket, anticipating whatever snarky thing she texted in response to my Bet you didn’t sleep well without me message from early this morning.
The message was the only way I could think to tell her I didn’t sleep at all without her last night.
That after a few nights of the best sleep I’ve had in years, I’m beginning to think the only time I can sleep is when she’s right there next to me.
But when I glance at the screen, the message waiting for me isn’t from her at all.
Dad
I was thinking about coming to one of your games this season. A buddy of mine works at the stadium and can get me seats. Maybe if I do, we can talk afterwards.
I’ve missed watching you play.
My stomach churns as my brain is assaulted with memories of the last time my dad watched me play.
The afterwards.
Lazy piece of shit, can’t even hold onto the ball.
You think I’m paying for that expensive school so you can embarrass me like that?
It’s time we toughen you up, son.
I flinch as I hear the crash of his fist hitting the drywall next to my head like it’s happening now and not almost two decades ago, a flash of a memory stored somewhere deep in the recesses of my brain, and I’m not thirty-five years old anymore sitting in a bowling alley with my friends, but sixteen, standing in my childhood home, fingers curling into fists and my entire body on alert while I wait for him to land his next blow.
“Hey, Drew.” Cam’s voice cuts through the memory and my head jerks up, my inhale sharp as a cold sweat drips down my spine.
“Where did you go?” His voice is soft, eyes filled with worry.
I glance around the table and see his expression mirrored on the faces of my other friends, and the weight of their worry is too much to bear.
“Sorry,” I mutter. “I have to…I mean I need to…” I take a deep breath, trying to calm my racing heart.
“You guys stay and play. As many games as you want and order more food. It’s all on me, but I gotta go.
Sorry,” I say again, jumping up from the booth and making a beeline for the door without looking back.
As soon as I’m outside, I lean over with my hands on my knees and drop my head, taking deep gulps of the cool, late-September air.
I immediately regret running out on Cam, Jack, Tyler, and Oliver the way I did, but the idea of going back in there and explaining to them what just happened feels worse, considering I have a hard time even explaining it to myself.
Why I still let my dad get to me. Why I don’t block his number so he can’t contact me anymore.
Whether, despite everything, there’s still a part of me that wants to hear what he has to say.
That, I think, is the worst part of all.
When my phone vibrates again, my heart shoots into my throat and I have the violent urge to hurl it against the brick wall behind me just to see it shatter.
If it’s broken, he can’t contact me. But the vibration doesn’t stop which means it’s a call, not a text, and my dad never calls.
Typed words are his preferred method of attack.
It’s better than his fists. I’ve got some experience with that.
I tug out my phone again, but this time when I look at the screen, all my anxiety melts away, my breath gusting out in part anticipation and part relief as I swipe to answer the call, bringing the phone to my ear.
“Hey, Princess, miss me?” I hear Caitlin blow out a shaky breath and I’m immediately on alert again, my spine snapping straight and my fingers tightening on the phone. “What’s going on, Catie?”
“Hey,” she says slowly, her voice uncharacteristically flat. Uncertain almost. “I’m sorry to interrupt whatever you’re doing on your off day, but do you think you can maybe come and get me?”
Caitlin is asking for help.
Me.
She’s asking me for help.
I’m in motion before she’s even finished speaking the words.