Chapter 41
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
DREW
“Drew, you had the best game of your career today, with three touchdowns and three hundred six receiving yards, which is the fourth highest single game receiving performance in NFL history. What do you think contributed to this historic showing?”
I lean forward in my chair, elbows resting on the table and leg bouncing underneath as I listen to the reporter’s question, eager to get this media circus over with.
The whole fourth most receiving yards in a single game in NFL history thing kind of made it inevitable, but Caitlin is somewhere in this building, and I need to get my arms around my girl.
“Just had a lucky game,” I answer. “Sometimes all the pieces come together in exactly the way you need them to, and that’s what happened today. ”
“So, it didn’t have anything to do with you jumping up into the stands before warm-ups or the woman you were spotted kissing? The crowd of people you were talking to before the game?”
Looking over at the reporter who asked the question, I can’t help but grin.
“I definitely had some people in the stands to impress.” The words are the absolute truth.
Playing with Caitlin and her family in the stands and my sister there watching too was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.
Knowing they all came for me made me feel like I could fucking fly.
The feeling of being loved and supported, accepted, seen like that is going to stick with me for a long time—maybe even forever.
But those feelings are for Caitlin and me alone.
This part of my life isn’t going to belong to the media. Not this time and not ever again.
“Can you tell us anything about her? I’m sure the public would love to know about the woman who finally stole the heart of Pittsburgh’s most eligible bachelor.”
I shrug, leaning back in my chair with a lazy smile. “I’m not sure how she could steal my heart when it’s only ever belonged to her. All the public needs to know is I’ve never been happier in my life.”
“So it’s safe to say Drew Ellicott is off the market?”
I grin out at the room, seeing the cameras flash from every angle. “Drew Ellicott is definitely off the market. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for me to go find my girl. We’ve got some celebrating to do.”
With a final smile at the assembled reporters, I stand from the table and head out into the corridor.
The hallway outside the media room is empty, and I’m guessing the rest of my teammates have long since either headed up to the family room Tampa provides for the visiting team or to eat dinner before we’re scheduled to head to the airport.
Knowing Caitlin and everyone else is in the family room, I head in that direction through the vacant lower level of the stadium, my brain concocting an argument to lay out to my coach to hopefully convince him I need to fly home with Caitlin whenever she’s planning to leave Florida instead of taking the team plane because over my dead fucking body will he make me leave her when she flew all the way down here to be with me.
But that’s probably the wrong argument to use, I think with a wry smile, happiness still bubbling cheerfully in my chest, making my whole body feel like it’s filled with glitter. Fuck, have I ever been this happy, this light after a game?
One hundred percent no.
I could get used to feeling like this, although I don’t have much time to get used to it because I only have two months left of my football career—three if we make the playoffs—and for the first time in all the years I’ve been playing, the thought of the end fills me with hope and excitement for everything that lies ahead.
“Nice game, son.”
Son.
The word stops me in my tracks.
The gravely tone that for years I’ve been hearing in my dreams.
I careen to a halt, my feet stopping so fast the rest of my body keeps moving, and it takes every ounce of strength I possess to keep myself upright.
I squeeze my eyes tightly shut and my heart slams against my ribs, my head shaking slightly as if trying to dislodge the voice.
To convince myself I didn’t actually hear what I’m sure I heard.
“I’m just here to talk.”
Just here to talk.
Every muscle in my body locks up tight, my stomach roiling.
I almost laugh without a single ounce of humor because sometimes I think it’s the words, rather than the fists, that hurt the most. The bruises faded with time.
But the words. The words stuck with me. Embedded themselves straight into my soul and defined me for decades.
The fists bruised. But it’s the words that broke me to pieces.
Slowly—so, so slowly—I turn in the direction of the voice, opening my eyes and, for the first time in almost twenty years, seeing the man who did the breaking back in front of me. I study him with an almost dispassionate gaze, taking him in, and I know it’s him but it’s also not.
The years have not been kind to Henry Ellicott.
He’s swollen, deep bags living under brown eyes that have gone dull with time and age.
His face is ruddy, broken capillaries fanning out under his dull, flaky skin, and wrinkles framing a mouth that looks like it’s spent a lifetime turned down in a frown.
The jeans he’s wearing bag at the hips, dirty Renegades T-shirt hanging off his bony frame.
The look in his eyes is a regret I’ve never seen before and definitely don’t trust.
He lifts his hands and my entire body flinches, that single small move yanking me out of my thoughts and throwing me back years, back to a time when those hands meant pain.
I shrink away from him as if I’m no longer a full-grown man, but the boy whose childhood he stole.
Whose life those hands irreparably changed.
My heartbeat thunders in my ears, my lungs trying desperately to pull in air as I clench my trembling hands into fists. “What do you want?” I force out, my voice sounding weaker than I wish. So much more boy than man.
“To talk, Drew. Just to talk. You haven’t responded to any of my texts, even though I could see you read them all, which makes me think maybe you want to talk too.”
“Why?” I force the word out of my throat, nails biting into my palms so hard the sting spirals up my arm.
My dad takes a step forward, and I step back so quickly I nearly stumble, the idea of being any closer to this man than I already am abhorrent as all the things that happened when he got within arm’s length play in my head like a fucked-up movie reel.
The crash of his fist against the wall by my head.
Spittle spraying my face as he screamed unintelligible words.
A hand slammed to my shoulder, slapped hard against the side of my face.
A kick in the shins. A fist to the stomach.
A push. A shove. The click of a lock from outside the room as I’m enveloped in darkness.
Regret evaporates in an instant, his eyes flashing at my movement, and dread curls into my stomach because I know that flash. I’ve seen it before.
Nothing good ever comes from that look in his eyes.
My breath comes in ragged gasps, my vision blurring around the edges as an oily panic winds its way through me and starts to take hold, a tight fist around my spine.
I resist the urge to lean down and put my hands on my knees to stop the dizziness, staying upright through the sheer force of will and the knowledge that this man has seen enough of my weakness. He doesn’t get any more.
“Because I’m your father,” he bites out, his own hands curling into fists, all signs of contrition gone.
“And I came all the way here to talk to my son. Bought a ticket and everything. You’ve kept me at arm’s length for years, and it’s time for me to get what’s mine.
You’re a big, famous athlete now, but you never would have gotten here without me.
I made you, son, and you owe me. You’re going to give me what I’m due. ”
Move.
My brain writes a check my body can’t cash, my feet glued directly to the floor.
I know somewhere deep inside me there’s no actual danger here from this broken and worn-out man, but no part of me gets the message, terror snaking its way through my veins.
I can’t move. I can’t speak. I’m eight years old all over again.
I can only stand here, my body on the highest alert, eyes darting up and down the empty hallway, willing someone to appear.
But no one does.
No one will.
It’s me. Alone. The way it’s always been.
The way it’s always destined to be.