Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Marco
The pain was worse than I’d expected.
Not just worse, it was a constant, grinding presence that radiated from my foot up through my entire leg.
The seventeen pillows elevating my foot, the ice packs étienne swapped out with military precision, the boot immobilizing everything…
nothing helped. It hurt. It hurt when I was still.
Shifting position made it worse. Even breathing wrong sent sharp jolts through my foot, which didn’t make any logical sense, but my body didn’t seem to care about logic.
And I was trying very, very hard to hide it.
“How’s the pain?” étienne asked for maybe the tenth time since he’d gotten me settled on the couch after breakfast. He was getting ready for practice, hair sticking up on one side. My fingers itched to fix it.
“Fine,” I said, which was a lie. “Manageable.”
He gave me a look that said he knew exactly how full of shit I was. “Your pain med is due in twenty minutes.”
“I know.”
“I’m setting an alarm on your phone. Take it.”
“I will.”
“Marco.” He crouched down beside the couch, bringing himself eye-level with me.
This close, I could see the flecks of green in his hazel eyes, could smell his body wash—something clean and woodsy that I’d noticed way too many times over the past three years.
“Don’t be a hero. Take the fucking pill. ”
“I said I will.”
“You say a lot of things.” He reached out and adjusted the pillows under my foot, and even that small movement sent a fresh spike of pain through me. I couldn’t quite hide my wince.
His jaw tightened. “That’s what I thought. Promise me you’ll take it.”
“I promise.”
I didn’t mention that the pain med scared me almost as much as the pain itself.
Yesterday, it had made me loose. Made my thoughts fuzzy and my filter nonexistent. I’d caught myself staring at étienne more than once, caught myself almost saying things I absolutely could not say.
You’re so good to me. You’re beautiful when you’re worried. I don’t know what I’d do without you.
Things that were true but I could never say out loud.
Things that would ruin the friendship we had.
But étienne watched me with a stubborn set to his shoulders, and I knew he wouldn’t leave for practice until I agreed. So I nodded.
“You need to use the bathroom before I go?”
The question should have been embarrassing. Should have felt like too much, like crossing some unspoken boundary between friends. Instead, I just shook my head. “No, I’m good.”
“You’re sure? Because it’s going to be a few hours—”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay.” He seemed satisfied enough to grab his bag and head out.
“Call if you need anything,” he said from the doorway. “Anything at all.”
“I’ll be fine for three hours.”
“I mean it, Marco.”
“I know you do.”
After he left, the house felt too quiet. Too empty. Which was ridiculous because I’d lived alone for years before étienne had moved in. I enjoyed solitude, the freedom of not having to hide who I was. I should have been comfortable with the silence.
Instead, I felt his absence like a physical thing.
I lasted maybe twenty-five minutes before the pain drove me to take the medication. Swallowed the pill dry because opening a fresh bottle of water felt like too much effort, then settled back against the pillows to wait for it to kick in.
My phone rang just as the edges of my world started to go soft and fuzzy. I grabbed it off the coffee table.
My mother. Of course.
“Hi, Mama,” I said, and even to my own ears, my voice sounded strange. Distant.
“Marco! Finally! I’ve been worried sick. I’ve been calling you for days. I saw the game—I saw you get hurt. Why haven’t you been answering your phone?”
Because I’d been in the ER, then medicated, then too busy trying not to reveal myself to étienne to think about calling home.
“It’s only been like twelve hours, Mama. It happened fast and I haven’t had a chance to call or answer my phone. I’m fine. It’s just a broken foot.”
“A broken foot! Marco Antonio Morelli, I am your mother. I worry about you. I—”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry. It’s been a lot.”
“I’m getting on a plane. Today. I’ll take care of you.”
Every muscle in my body tensed despite the medication trying to relax me. “Mama, no. You don’t need to do that.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You have a broken foot. You can’t take care of yourself.”
“I’m not by myself. étienne’s here.”
“Your teammate? That’s nice, caro, but you need family, you need minestrone soup, you need—”
“He’s taking good care of me. He’s got it covered.” The words came out firmer than I meant them to, probably because the pain meds were stripping away my ability to perform the dutiful son. “Really. I don’t need you to come.”
The silence on the other end was loaded.
“You don’t want me there,” she said finally, and there was hurt in her voice.
Guilt twisted in my chest. “It’s not that. It’s just—I’m thirty-two years old. I can handle a broken foot without my mother flying across the country.”
I loved her. That was the complicated part—I loved her despite everything. Despite her meddling and judgment and constant need to be involved in every aspect of my life.
She’d supported my hockey career from the beginning.
Driven me to practices before dawn when I was barely old enough for skates.
Sat in cold rinks for hours watching me play.
Worked overtime to afford equipment, camps, private coaching.
When other mothers complained about the cost and commitment of hockey, mine had just worked harder.
She’d believed in me when I was nobody, and she’d been there in the audience, crying, when I got drafted.
She loved me. I knew that. Had sacrificed for me, been proud of me, wanted the best for me.
But she could be utterly smothering.
Even now, eighteen hundred miles away, living my own life, playing in the NHL… she still called constantly. Asked if I was eating properly, dating a good Catholic girl, going to mass. Wanted to know every detail of my life, still couldn’t accept that I was an adult who could make my own decisions.
“But this teammate of yours—”
“His name is étienne. His apartment building had a fire, so he’d been staying with me anyway.
And he’s been great. Really. He’s got everything organized, he’s keeping track of my meds, he’s—” I stopped myself before I said too much.
Before I revealed how much I needed étienne here, how the thought of him leaving made my chest tight, how he was the only one I actually liked having in my house.
“He sounds very dedicated,” Mama said, and there was something censuring in her tone.
“He’s a good friend.”
“Okay,” she said finally. “But if you change your mind about me visiting—”
“I’ll call you. I promise.”
We talked for a few more minutes—she filled me in on family gossip, my sisters, the latest drama at the parish.
“Oh, and speaking of the parish,” she said, her voice dropping low as if imparting a secret. “There’s been quite a bit of talk lately. Apparently, the Castellanos’ son—you remember Dominic, don’t you? He was a few years behind you in school. Well, there’s a rumor going around that he’s… gay.”
My blood ran cold. I stopped breathing for a second, and my hand tightened on the phone.
“Really,” I managed, my voice flat.
“Can you imagine? Poor Mary is beside herself. She won’t even come to mass anymore, she’s so embarrassed. And Carlo… well, you know how he is. Very traditional. Very… disappointed.”
“That’s… unfortunate.” The words tasted like ash in my mouth.
“It’s more than unfortunate, Marco. It’s a tragedy. They raised him in the Church, sent him to Catholic schools, did everything right. And this is how he repays them?” She sighed heavily. “Father Michael says we should pray for him. For all of them, really. The whole family is suffering.”
“I’m sure they are.” My voice sounded distant to my own ears.
“Anyway, Gia was asking about Thanksgiving…”
She moved on to other topics, oblivious to my discomfort.
I made appropriate comments at the appropriate places, though I didn’t feel them.
I didn’t feel anything except a growing numbness and the sick certainty that this was what my mother would say about me if she ever found out. Disappointed. Embarrassed. A tragedy.
By the time we hung up, the pain pill had fully kicked in, dulling my anxiety, and I felt like I was floating three inches above the couch. The pain had receded to a distant throb, and my thoughts had gone loopy and unfocused.
This was dangerous. This loose, disconnected feeling that made it hard to remember why I needed to be tight-lipped.
I should text étienne. Tell him everything was going okay. Ask him to pick up… something. I couldn’t remember what.
No, that was a terrible idea. Texting while medicated was how you said things you couldn’t take back.
I closed my eyes instead, letting the medication pull me under into sleep.
I woke up to étienne’s hand on my shoulder, gently shaking me.
“Hey. I’m back. How are you feeling?”
I blinked up at him, my brain still cotton-wrapped and slow. He was beautiful in the early afternoon light streaming through the windows—hair slightly damp from a post-practice shower, dressed down in joggers and a T-shirt, looking at me with concern creasing his forehead.
“You’re beautiful,” I heard myself say.
His hand stilled on my shoulder. “What?”
Oh God. Oh God, I’d said that out loud.
“The weather,” I said quickly, desperately. “Beautiful weather. Out there. Looked beautiful when I was—before. Earlier.”
It was possibly the least convincing save in the history of saves.
étienne gave me a smirk that I couldn’t read. “Right. The weather.”
“How was practice?”
“Fine.” He was still watching me too carefully. “Did you take your pain med?”
“Yeah.”
“How long ago?”
I tried to think. Time had gone weird. “Few hours? I don’t know, right before Mama called.”