Chapter 35
Thirty-Five
August
After dinner, while the women claim the living room couches and a new bottle of wine, the Luck men head for the outdoors.
This division isn’t the norm. But this is the first time Jan, Dad, March, and I have been together since both my draft and Jan’s accident.
It feels necessary to be together alone to talk over football and our lives in the cold quiet of the night.
In the backyard, close to the placid gray waters of the lake, there’s a circular stone patio centered around a large round firepit.
Jan sets up a couple logs and then starts a fire.
Flickering orange light dances off his features as he stares down at the flames and gives the fire a poke with tongs.
The logs settle with an impatient hiss and crackle.
March and I watch alongside him the way men are compelled to do whenever any sort of fire is involved, but as soon as he sets aside his tongs and sinks into an Adirondack chair, we follow suit.
The night is crisp and cold with enough bite of frost to fog our breaths. But the fire does its job, spreading a blanket of warmth over our legs and faces.
For a long moment, we sit silently. Well-fed brothers with nothing to do but watch the stars. The sound of footsteps has us turning. Dad carries a tray of beers lined up like frosty soldiers.
“Boys.”
We each take a beer, and he keeps one for himself, setting the tray aside and taking the chair on the other side of Jan.
“Nice night,” Jan comments, sipping his beer.
“Good company,” Dad says.
We clink bottles and fall silent again. The fire crackles and settles. Light from the full moon turns the lake water silver and limns the edges of the dark and murky tree line that slope toward the water.
“I’m thinking of selling the place,” Jan says idly.
Dad pointedly says nothing. But March and I exchange a glance.
“Why?” I’m slightly surprised. “This is a great setup. I envy it, honestly.”
Jan’s mouth curls but he keeps his eyes on the fire. “The only reason you never liked your spot is that, in your heart, you wanted to live in Pen’s house.”
“What?” It comes out in a startled half laugh.
He quirks a brow. “Oh, come on, brother. Who are you kidding? You’ve been wanting to be in that house for a good long while. Longer than you think, I’m guessing.”
“Oh, my God.” March exhales. “He’s fucking right!”
Holy shit, he is right.
On some level, the desire to be there and only there with her had bloomed long ago.
Dad leans forward so he can catch my eyes. His brow furrows. “I thought the engagement was fake.”
“Dad,” this from both my brothers. Both of them quietly exasperated.
Dad’s gaze darts over us. “What am I missing?”
“A clue,” March says under his breath.
He’s saved from being heard when Jan says louder, “Not fake if Augie has his way, Pops.”
I busy myself with taking a long drink of cold beer.
“Huh,” Dad says thoughtfully.
Manfully, I do not squirm. I do however keep my tone neutral. “We were talking about you selling and why.”
Jan makes a noise of amusement but then shrugs. “My time here is done, and I’d rather not stick around the area I used to play in.”
Our shared silence at that takes on weight.
Jan plows through it. “I was thinking of moving to LA.”
“Really?” Again, I’m surprised.
“March is graduating and will likely move on to somewhere else. You and Pen are there. The weather is good. A lot of opportunities for me.” He shrugs. “Got to start over somewhere.”
Silence stretches, as every Luck man except for Jan tries their best to look properly supportive instead of sorrowful. A fact that is painfully obvious to all.
Jan sighs expansively and shoots us a repressive glare. “Stop acting like I’m Job.”
“Who?” from March.
“The biblical guy who had it all and then lost everything—you know what? Never mind. Just don’t feel sorry for me.”
Dad gives him a hard look. “It isn’t pity, son. When you hurt, I hurt. That’s just how it goes when you love someone. And I know a part of you is hurting.”
Jan picks at the label on his bottle.
I swallow thickly, feeling compelled to explain. “I don’t—fine, I do a little. I can’t help it. It’s like Dad said, I know you’re going through some things, and it hurts me that you hurt.”
Jan sighs. “Well, that’s okay, I guess.”
March raises his hand and Jan narrows his eyes. March grins in response. “Okay, I’m the asshole because I absolutely felt sorry for you.”
“Little shit.”
“But I won’t anymore!” He puts a hand over his heart. “Swear!”
I swat March on the head. Sadly, his reflexes are already pro, and he easily evades, giving me the finger.
Jan huffs like he’s trying to laugh but can’t quite manage it.
“The truth? I don’t know . . . maybe I’m in denial or mentally numbed by shock, but what I mainly feel is a strange kind of freedom.
It’s like a weight I never knew I carried has been lifted.
The burden of all this expectation, the drive to always be perfect, always win is just .
. . poof! Gone. Now that it is, I feel lighter. ”
My beer is empty, and I set the bottle at my feet. “That’s healthy.”
Dad rests his wrists on his knees. The flickering firelight dances over his sharp features in flashes of gold and black. “I dreaded retirement. But when I got there? Son, I felt exactly the same.”
“Damn,” March whispers at my side.
It’s clear he only wants me to hear it. And the truth is, knowing that both Jan and Dad felt relief over no longer playing the game we’ve all professed to love with our whole hearts is a little unsettling.
Fate willing, March and I have years of play ahead of us.
Will it wear down on us too? Hell, isn’t it already? And if that’s the case, why go on?
Frowning, I run a hand over my mouth and watch the flames. For the past half a year I’ve felt at a crossroads at a time when I thought I’d be gunning to live the hell out of my life. Football, Pen, neither of them feel completely settled.
“What I’m trying to say,” Jan continues, “is that I understand the pressures you’re under, August. I lived them.
But, where we differ, and what I hate, is how you’ve been forced to live under my shadow.
The press, all those talking dickheads, they can’t help but compare us and hold you up to my record.
It’s life. But it’s also shit and unfair. ”
“I didn’t know you’d thought about that.”
“Of course I did. Fucking pissed me off. I didn’t want that for you. Then again, they held me up to Dad, and March’s performance will be compared to ours as well. That’s what comes of being in a football family dynasty.”
“Damn my excellent genes,” Dad deadpans. Then shrugs. “He’s right. It’s a hell of a thing, but no escaping any of that mess.”
Thoughtfully, I nod. But then look around at them slowly. “I wouldn’t change it even if I could. I love you knuckleheads.”
Jan laughs shortly. “I love you all too. Probably don’t say it enough, but I truly do. If it helps to chase my record, puts a fire in your belly, then use it. If it doesn’t? Then fucking ignore it. There’s no clear way here.”
At his side, Dad slings an arm over Jan and gives him a rough squeeze before kissing him on the temple. I know Jan’s accident and all that came after has been hard on him. Dad is a fixer.
I don’t want to add to his worries, or pile guilt on Jan, but it’s already out there anyway, and honesty feels like a balm in this quiet spot by the lake.
Linking my hands over my stomach, I take a breath and confess, “I think I’ve been fucking up because your shadow hovered over me.”
Jan waits a beat. “I think so too.”
“It’s not the fear of failing so much as the need to do right by your legacy.”
“It is a pretty awesome legacy.”
Though he sounds smug, I give him the credit he’s due. “Yeah, it is. But now that I can fully look it in the face, I’m going to use it. Not chase it, but hold what we are, all that awesomeness, close. I’m going to win and lead because I can.”
“Fucking right, you can.”
“That’s my boys,” Dad says proudly, earning a couple of eye rolls. He merely beams with happiness before turning serious. “If you want to move to LA, Jan, then do it. No point wavering.”
Jan nods then winces, his gaze moving back to the flames. “One more thing . . . It’s going to come out soon anyway. There’s an unauthorized tell-all article coming out about my accident.”
A horrible ringing sounds in my ears. Jan’s whole life was upended in that crash, and now someone is going to profit off it? I swallow convulsively. Several times.
“Is it Laura?” March grinds out.
“No,” Jan huffs without mirth. “Her boyfriend is singing his song for a buck.”
I jerk upright. “Boyfriend?”
He gives his beer a sour look and sets it down. “As in the asshole she was fucking while supposedly being in love with me.”
I slump back, deflated.
Jan shrugs with an unaffected air, when I know he’s anything but. “We were arguing about it. That night in the car. She’d decided to tell me then.”
“Fucking hell,” March says.
“Eh. I had it coming.” Jan surges upward and grabs the fire tongs to poke at the dwindling logs. His long body looms stiff and bunched against the night. “I was never around. Always traveling, practicing, doing something for football.”
“Bullshit,” Dad snaps.
“Dad, it’s true. She was always on me for more attention. I didn’t have it in me to give it. My head was on the game, only the game. Laura just faded. And the thing is? I didn’t much care.”
His profile is stark as he stares at the flames.
“That night . . . she picked me up from the airport, and I realized that I didn’t want to be with her anymore.
It was too hard and too much. So, like a colossal asshole, I blurted out the truth, and she shot back that she already had someone who appreciated her.
We got into a huge fight. When that drunk weaved into our lane, neither of us saw him coming. ”