Chapter 35 #2
A scathing laugh breaks free. “It’s my fault, when you think about it. If I had waited to tell her when we got home, she wouldn’t have been distracted and—”
Dad stands and pulls Jan into a hug. “No more of that.”
Jan wavers then clutches him like a lifeline. “It’s my fault.”
“It’s life.” Dad holds him close, rubbing Jan’s back as though willing the pain to leave his son. He squeezes Jan hard, then cups the sides of his face. Jan is now an inch taller than him but, in that moment, he seems smaller. Dad meets his gaze with a look of resolve. “Just life, son.”
Blinking rapidly, Jan nods once, stiffly, and Dad gives him a fierce kiss on the forehead before rubbing him on the head, mussing Jan’s hair. They both step back, gathering themselves.
March rises slowly, his mouth a thin, pinched line, but he quickly puts on an expression of ease. “My ass is cold. Come and show me how to work these high-tech showerheads you got installed here, Jan-Jan, because I need a hot shower.”
Jan takes the escape route offered, and they’re soon walking back up to the house, leaving me and my dad alone by the dying fire.
Dad waits until they’re gone before turning my way. Firelight is supposed to soften hard edges, but he looks older, deep grooves winging out from the corners of his eyes and bracketing his mouth. Fatigue, worry, or both—I can’t decide. But the expression in his eyes seems almost gentle.
“I can see you thinking over there, August. Thoughts going a mile a minute.”
He’s not entirely wrong.
“Dad—”
“You’re not your bother,” he says. “Your life’s your own.”
Dully, I nod, wrung out by everything. He starts to pass me, but pauses, laying a heavy hand on my shoulder.
“At the end of the day, football is a highly personal thing. What you feel about it will never be exactly the same as anyone else does.” He laughs wryly. “Kind of like with women. There will always be that one.
“You should know, when it’s real and true, you’re never going to go looking somewhere else for something more. Because you’ve already found it.”
With that, he gives me a squeeze and walks off, leaving me alone in the dark.
And I can’t bring myself to call him back and explain what I’ve known for most of my life.
That I found the real thing years ago, and it isn’t the finding that matters; it’s the keeping.
And that’s the part I have zero control over.
Pen
With a sigh, I flop back on the deep cushy sectional couch in Jan’s den. “God, I can’t take it anymore. I’m literally stuffed with meat.”
“Penny, Penny, Penny.” March tuts from the doorway. “When are you going to remember that you can’t go around saying things like that in this family?”
Laughing is too painful, so I wave my hand weakly in his direction. “Sorry. I’m too full of meat to think properly.”
His gaze narrows. “You said that on purpose.”
“He’s quick,” I tell the ceiling. “Very quick.”
“Brat,” March says fondly while strolling into the room. He plops heavily on the couch next to me. It’s enough to send me rocking.
I groan, holding my stomach. “Bastard.”
His hair is damp and carries the fresh scent of shower. “It’s a good thing I’m heading back to campus on Monday. I can’t eat like this again until after the Thanksgiving game.”
“Ugh. Don’t mention food. I beg you.”
“Poor Penny,” March croons with an evil grin. When I give him the stink eye, his smile grows. “Don’t kill me yet. Look what I brought you.”
With an enticing little shimmy, he holds up an icy can of ginger beer.
The sight of stomach-soothing soda has me crab-crawling back up to a somewhat sitting position. “Gimme!”
He chuckles and hands me the can. The snick of it opening has anticipation surging through me. I take a long, cool drink and sigh. Right before an oh so elegant burb erupts.
March bursts out laughing. I’m so full, I don’t even care.
“Thank you,” I say. “I needed that.”
“No, no . . .” Pale jade eyes crinkle with mirth. “Thank you for the entertainment.”
Humming, I lean back and cradle my food baby protectively. “Where is everyone?”
By “everyone” I mainly mean August. I lost track somewhere between finishing dinner and hanging out with the girls.
They’ve since dispersed to their respective rooms to sweat out their own food babies, but the Luck men had gone out to sit by the lake.
We’d let them be, understanding they might want a moment alone with Jan.
Apparently, none of them have spent any amount of quality time with him since the accident; he wouldn’t let them.
March sits next to me. “Jan’s gone to bed. I left Dad and Augie out by the lake. They’ll probably be up soon.”
Though he’s good at hiding it, I know March well enough to notice the strain around his eyes and mouth. “Something wrong?”
He takes sudden interest in the textured weave of the couch cushions, tracing one with the blunt edge of his fingernail. “I’m only telling because I know August will do the same when he gets the chance.”
“You don’t have to,” I assure. “I’m not going to pry.”
“That’s why I don’t mind.” Brow furrowed, he runs a hand through his hair in a gesture so like August’s that he might as well be his twin just now. “It’s Jan . . .”
I listen quietly as March tells me about the accident, Jan’s ex-fiancée, and their breakup.
“It’s just a shock, you know?” he concludes, unhappily.
“I thought my big bro had it all together. The girl he loved since college, the top of his game—for fuck’s sake, he’s a three-time Super Bowl winner and he isn’t even thirty.
” Wide eyes implore me to understand. “You know how fucking cool that is?”
“I do.”
“And here he’s telling us that it’s a relief to be free of it. All of it.” March shakes his head softly as though to clear it. “August and I looked at each other like, What the fuck? He’s what we’ve strived to be. And now he’s telling us that wasn’t what he wanted!”
His words settle over us in a heavy blanket of quiet. Gently, I reach out and hold his hand. He takes it immediately, which tells me he’s more than flustered: he’s upended.
“It just does my head in,” he whispers. “Makes me wonder what’s the point in dreaming.”
It hurts to see happy-go-lucky March, the sweet boy who never left me out of anything, distressed like this. After all these years, I never fully accepted that he’s my friend too. Just as much as June and May. January too. They’re my family. Not by blood but by love.
I grip him more firmly, and our fingers thread. “Does that mean you’ll quit football?”
“No!”
The immediate and emphatic answer has my lips curling upward. “Even though Jan found it a burden?”
March scowls down at his jean-clad thighs. “I’m beginning to think Jan took too many knocks to the head. How the hell could football be a burden?”
“Well, that takes care of that.” I squeeze his hand, then let it go. “I know Jan has been your hero, and I think he still is. Thing with heroes, though. We tend to forget how human they are under all those feats of greatness.”
March worries his lip then blows out a hard breath. “You’re right. I know you’re right. Hell, I shared a bathroom with that fucker for years. If anyone knows he’s human, it’s me.”
“Well, that’s an image.”
He flashes a quick grin. “The things I could tell you, kid.”
“Let’s not.”
March hums thoughtfully, but his smile lingers.
“That only leaves relationships,” I say. “You in one we don’t know about?”
“God, no.” This too is emphatic. And not exactly flattering to those in current relationships. March’s scowl returns. “That’s one road I’m sticking clear of. Jan was right there. Football takes so much out of you. What’s left for someone else? I don’t know what he was thinking getting engaged—”
A look of embarrassed horror breaks out. “Shit, Pen. I didn’t mean—”
“To imply that August and I are stupid to get involved?” I supply blandly. He isn’t saying anything I haven’t worried about myself. August warned me not to fall in love with him because of football. The problem is, it’s useless to warn someone of the danger when you’ve already fallen.
March shifts to turn more my way. His expression is a little wild as though he’s worried his words might make me do something rash. “No, Pen. It’s different with you two.”
“How so?” I’m genuinely curious. “Jan was with Laura since sophomore year. That’s far longer than August and I have been . . . involved.”
March huffs. “Laura and Jan latched on to each other because Jan was the hot ticket and Laura was hot. Every time I visited them, they seemed more interested in who they were around than being together. It’s like they were together because it was the expected thing to do.”
“August and I got together because he needed a fake fiancée.”
March makes a face. “Pen, come on.”
“It’s true! And you know it. Okay, we’re together for real now. But our relationship started on less than Jan and Laura’s.”
Sighing, March ducks his head, sending inky strands of hair over his brow. When he lifts his gaze to mine, his is troubled. “I know we all make jokes about you having a crush on me when you were younger.”
“And I laugh every time. Internally.”
“Because it’s hilarious.”
“Hilariously overstated, if we’re being honest.”
“I think we’re the only ones who realize that.”
Before I can ask him to explain that more, he grows solemn and says, “The true question people should be asking is why I never went after you.”
“Was that ever a question?”
“It should have been. Because, Pen, you’re totally hot in that subdued librarian sort of way.”
Flushing, I glance away. God, I don’t want to hear this. I have never disliked my looks. There are days I feel downright pretty. But being told that I’m “totally hot” feels like putting on an ill-fitting overcoat.
Deflection, however, comes easy. “I don’t know why people always assume librarians are subdued. In my experience, they’re a fairly wild bunch.”
“Sure, sure. Let’s just go with the cliché, all right?”
“Okay, but it’s a tired cliché.”