Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
STEVIE
M y hand was empty.
I flexed my fingers, my gaze dropping to my palm. My hand was empty. It shouldn’t be empty.
Where was Maverick?
I spun around, searching every corner of the room at the hospital where a nurse had brought us after Meredith had...
Died.
She was gone.
Her heart had given out at the football game.
All this time, we’d known the end was coming, but it still felt as if someone had punched me in the stomach. Had stolen every bit of air from my lungs and I couldn’t breathe. I was lightheaded, but there was this incredible weight shoving down on my shoulders.
And now my hand was empty.
I’d let go of Maverick’s hand for just a minute when Mom had come over to give me a hug. I’d held on to her for only a moment, stealing a bit of her strength, before I’d let go .
Maverick was supposed to be in this room, holding my hand.
“W-where’s Maverick?” My voice was hoarse from crying.
I’d tried not to break. To keep it all inside. To be strong and keep the tears from escaping. But when the doctor had come in here and explained what had happened, the tears had started and they hadn’t really stopped. Every time I thought I was out of tears, they’d swell again and fall down my cheeks.
Maverick had held onto me, to my hand, and let me cry into his chest.
It was supposed to be the other way around. I was supposed to be the one comforting him. Letting him cry on my shoulder. And now he was gone.
I spun in another circle, making sure I hadn’t missed him, but it was impossible to miss a six-foot-four man wearing a football uniform.
“I don’t know.” Mom’s eyebrows came together as she looked around the room too. “The bathroom?”
“Maybe. I’ll go check the hall.” On the way to the door, I passed Monty and Mabel holding each other with Bodhi pressed between them, their faces tearstained.
Dad was talking on the phone in the corner, keeping his voice low.
My parents had made some sort of arrangement with the Houstons that they’d coordinate the funeral. Meredith hadn’t wanted Monty to fuss over the details, so she’d delegated them to Mom and Dad.
The door creaked as I opened it and slipped from the room. It was noisy, chatter drifting this way from the nurses’ station and the emergency rooms. Outside that waiting room, the world was still spinning, oblivious to the loss it had suffered today. A nurse rolled an empty bed past me, giving me a sad smile. One of the wheels was rattling, the sound so loud it made me tense.
I checked left, then right, searching the hallways for Maverick.
When he’d spotted me at the game, he’d sprinted down the sideline, tearing off his helmet. I’d met him at the gate, and without a word, we’d both run for my Jeep in the parking lot at the fieldhouse.
We hadn’t been far behind the ambulance that had brought Meredith. We’d parked beside Mom’s Escalade. Met everyone in the lobby. We’d all come here together. So where was he?
He couldn’t have gone far, right? He didn’t have a truck. He was still in his cleats and pads.
I went to the closest men’s bathroom, pushing the door open a crack. “Maverick?”
Nothing.
“Is anyone in there?”
Still nothing.
I went to the next bathroom and did the same, this time getting a reply from a man named Gary. When I couldn’t find Mav, I headed for the lobby, scanning empty seats in the waiting area. Then I walked out of the double sets of sliding doors and outside.
It was dark already. Part of me felt like we’d only been here for minutes. The other part, decades.
We’d had to wait for news on Meredith. Then, after the doctor had come to tell us what had happened, we’d waited as Monty had gone into her room to say goodbye.
Mabel had wanted to go too, but he’d told her no. That Meredith had left specific instructions that neither Mabel nor Maverick were to see her body.
Just Monty.
She wanted her children to remember her living and breathing.
I slapped a hand over my mouth as a new wave of tears filled my eyes, spilling down my cheeks. A sob was lodged in my throat, like a lump of burning coal. But I swallowed it down, burning the whole way, and wiped my face.
“Get it together, Stevie.” I took a deep breath, then another.
Where the fuck was Maverick?
I looped the parking lot, checking every bench, wondering if he’d come outside for air. When I didn’t find him, I lapped the entire building. The night air was cold, biting through my thin tee. My legs were pimpled with goose bumps by the time I finally retreated inside, making my way back to the family room. I pushed the door open, expecting to find him inside. But he was still gone.
“There you are,” Mom said, touching my arm. “You’re freezing.”
“I can’t find Maverick,” I whispered, not wanting to worry Monty and Mabel, who were seated at the small table against the wall, filling out paperwork.
Once it was complete, we could go.
Monty’s hand was visibly shaking as he held the pen. The sorrow on Mabel’s face was heartbreaking, so I focused on Mom instead.
“He probably just needed a few moments alone,” she said.
It was more than that. Something was wrong. I could feel it. Maverick wasn’t here, in the waiting room. In the hospital .
“You’re probably right. I’m going to see if I have a sweatshirt in the Jeep.” I picked up my keys and phone from the side table where I’d left them, then I eased out of the room again, taking another hard look down both sides of the hall.
Would he have gone to see Meredith?
It was possible, but Monty had been adamant earlier. We’d all heard the steel in his voice. She did not want that, her wishes were perfectly clear, and I doubted Maverick would go against them. Not today.
I pulled up his name in my phone, pressing it to my ear.
“Hey, it’s Mav. Leave a message.”
“Damn it.” I ended the call and took off for the Jeep. There was a sliver of hope that I’d find him by my vehicle, but when I reached our row in the lot, my Jeep and Mom’s Escalade were alone.
The door’s handle was cool beneath my fingers as I climbed inside, the seat cold against my legs. Noise and touch, it all felt sharper, like the world was fighting to keep me from going numb.
I fumbled for the ignition, my fingers shaking, and when the engine hummed to life, I couldn’t seem to wrap my hands around the wheel.
There was a very real chance that I was being paranoid, that the stress from today had frayed my rationality. If he was still here, if he’d found a quiet corner of the hospital to mourn alone, then I was leaving him.
But that gut feeling was impossible to ignore.
Damn it. This was my fault. I’d let go of his hand.
And he’d floated away.
I cranked the heat, then pushed my doubts aside and drove away from the hospital, taking the dark roads that led toward the stadium. I scanned every sidewalk, every path, for a tall, heartbroken football player. But the sidewalks were empty on the quiet roads to the stadium.
The crush from earlier today was gone. The blockades they’d put up around the stadium had been taken down, stowed until next week’s game. People had gone home. Most were likely eating dinner or spending time with their families.
The world kept on spinning, even when it should have stopped.
The streetlights blurred as my eyes flooded, but I kept driving, blinking away tears, both hands clutching the wheel.
It wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t fair that people just kept living while our family had been shattered tonight. That the man I loved was out here, alone, and I couldn’t find him.
I fumbled with the phone in my lap, calling his number again.
Straight to voicemail. “Hey, it’s Mav. Leave me a message.”
“Maverick, where are you?” My voice cracked as I spoke. “Please call me.”
He wasn’t going to call me.
The parking lot outside the fieldhouse was mostly deserted, a sea of black asphalt and white lines. I drove up and down the lot twice, searching for Maverick’s truck.
He would have parked here earlier, when he’d come to get ready for the game. I was certain of it. Which meant he’d either gotten a ride to campus from the hospital. Or he’d walked.
“Shit.”
I fired off a text to Mom, telling her I’d left the hospital and would call her tomorrow, then I drove toward the Houstons’ house, hoping I’d find him there.
The windows were black, the house still. Like it was grieving too. Like it knew that half of its heart wouldn’t be returning home tonight.
Mom and Dad wouldn’t let Monty come here alone. Neither would Mabel. So I weaved through the neighborhood, making sure Maverick hadn’t stopped at the park.
Where would he go?
“Think, Stevie,” I told myself as I came to a stop sign.
Top Five places. He’d go to his Top Five.
I went to McDonald’s next because it was on the way to his house. I parked in the pickup space and rushed inside. He wasn’t in a booth or at a table, so I ran back to the Jeep, setting off toward his place.
His truck wasn’t in the driveway beside Rush’s Yukon, but I stopped and hurried to the front door anyway.
Rush answered before I could ring the bell, his gaze drifting over my head. Like he was expecting me to be with Maverick.
“He’s not here, is he?” I asked.
Rush shook his head. “No. I haven’t heard from him since he left the game. Did Meredith...”
I nodded, unable to say it out loud.
“Fuck. I’m so sorry, Stevie.”
I bit the inside of my lower lip so I wouldn’t start crying. Then I drew in a fortifying breath. “Maverick left the hospital and didn’t tell anyone where he was going. Can I check his room?”
“Of course.” He stepped out of the way, pointing toward the hallway past the kitchen.
I should have known the way to Maverick’s bedroom. A girlfriend would have gotten over herself and spent time in her boyfriend’s room.
Instead I’d been too busy worrying about stupid shit, so I hadn’t visited one of his Top Five.
Never again. I was never getting hung up on his past again. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. All that counted was finding Maverick.
The door was open. The scent of his soap and shampoo and cologne and Maverick was faint in the air. The lights were off. His bed was made.
Empty.
I called him again, wondering if I’d hear his phone ring or vibrate, but the room was silent.
“Hey, it’s Mav. Leave me a message.”
His voice fit in this room. If I closed my eyes, I could hear him laughing or talking. He had a picture of his mom on the nightstand beside his bed.
I skipped leaving another message and left before I could start crying again.
“If he comes home, would you call me?” I asked Rush.
“Sure.” He dug his phone from his pocket. “What’s your number?”
I rattled it off, receiving a text from him a moment later. Then I was out the door, driving back toward campus and the stadium that just hours ago had been so happy. Kicking myself that I hadn’t checked when I’d come to the fieldhouse earlier.
If Maverick wasn’t at home, then maybe he’d gone to a different Top Five place. After his house, the stadium seemed the next option to check.
After parking in an illegal space, the spot closest to the field, I raced for the nearest gate, pressing my face against the chain link. “Maverick!”
Even if he was hiding out on the field and heard me, I wasn’t sure he’d answer. But I shouted his name again and again and again until my voice was raw. Would Maverick ever be able to play here again?
It hurt to breathe, to think, and that weight on my shoulders seemed to get heavier with every passing minute. I tilted my face to the sky, to the stars, and closed my eyes.
“Where is he, Meredith?” My chin quivered, and I clenched my teeth together, my molars grinding as I fought to keep from crying.
His truck was in the Top Five, and if he was spending the night driving around Mission, I’d never find him. But before I gave up and went home, there was one more place to check. So I ran back to the Jeep, buckling my seat belt as I put it in drive and made my way to the mountains.
To a meadow bathed in frost and moonlight.
I let my headlights shine toward the trees, my stomach sinking as I stared into the night. Into nothingness.
Maverick wasn’t here.
And I was out of options.
I’d let go of his hand and now he was alone. All I could do was wait until he found his way back to me instead. So I turned around and drove to town, taking the roads carefully and on constant alert for any deer that might jump into my path.
I called Maverick three more times on my way home, each call going to his voicemail.
Mom had left a message while I’d been in the mountains and out of service. She sounded worried, wondering if we were okay .
She assumed I was with Maverick.
She expected me to find him.
Meredith and Mom used to tell people the story of how our dads had lost Maverick when we were three. Dad and Monty had been doing a project in the garage and left the overhead door open. Mom and Meredith had taken Mabel and me upstairs for a bath, leaving Maverick with our dads. They’d been building the firepit and had been carrying cut bricks to the backyard while Mav had been banging some tools around in the garage.
Two minutes. They swore they left him alone for maybe two minutes. And during those two minutes, Maverick had taken off down the sidewalk. When our dads had realized he was gone, they’d searched everywhere, about to call the police. Until I’d run down the sidewalk, sprinting in the direction of the park.
Meredith had followed me, and we’d found Maverick on the slide in the playground.
I’d found him when we were three.
Why couldn’t I find him tonight?
A choked sob, hopeless and hurting, escaped as I turned onto my street. I reached for the button to open my garage, only to pause, hand in midair, when I saw a truck in my driveway.
Maverick’s truck.
The air whooshed from my lungs as I hit the garage door opener, parking and hurrying inside.
He’d used the keypad to get in the house but hadn’t bothered with a light. It was so dark I nearly tripped on the jersey and pads and pants that littered my bedroom floor.
Maverick was on his half of the bed, lying on his side, hands pressed beneath his cheek as he stared at my empty pillow.
I toed off my shoes and climbed into bed, taking his hand from beneath his face, threading our fingers together so mine wasn’t empty.
He blinked, like the touch had pulled him from a fog. Pulled him back to reality. Pulled him back into the nightmare. His eyes flared with pain, then tears before he curled into my arms, pressing his face into my throat. “Stevie.”
“I’ve got you.”
His entire body began to shake.
Then, with my hand clamped around his so I wouldn’t lose him again, I held him all night long as he broke apart.