Chapter Seven
Gabe
It was easier to be at my parents’ house during the day as if the memories it carried only sharpened their edges enough to pierce my skin at night.
Right now, with the sun out and shining through the kitchen windows as I filled a glass from the faucet, it almost felt like any other house.
Just a countertop and cabinets instead of where my mom had made me early dinners as a kid on weekdays before practices.
Always something simple, like frozen chicken tenders with broccoli or mac and cheese with hot dogs, because she’d never been as good a cook as my dad, but she’d wanted me to have home-cooked meals, and practice started before he got home.
I was glad Dad had gone with takeout last night after I’d shown Aubrey the gym. Seeing him in the kitchen without Mom peeking around his arm and asking what he was doing would have stabbed deep.
Maybe for him too. More frozen meals filled the freezer than fresh ingredients did the fridge. I knew he still cooked on holidays, but maybe more than that was too painful.
“What are you doing here?”
I held in my sigh and turned off the tap. Maybe one day, that wouldn’t be the first thing my brother said to me.
He glared at me from the doorway.
“Dad invited me over.”
“What for?”
“Game night!” Dad called from the stairs. He clapped Evan on the shoulders as he joined us in the kitchen. “We needed a fourth.”
Game “night” was a loose term, given it was eleven thirty in the morning.
They’d been in the actual evening growing up until Aubrey got her first job at a restaurant, and then Saturday game nights had turned into to Sunday game afternoons.
I’d already gone pro by then, so I hadn’t been here for as many, but Aubrey still came every week.
My skin buzzed as if I’d downed two energy drinks, just knowing she’d be here soon. Somehow, it also grounded me.
Being around her calmed the restlessness of being home, made it easier to sit in the here and now instead of drowning in the past. Especially now that our friendship had taken a new step.
Yesterday’s conversation had solidified it into something I could grip almost as fully as the cool glass in my hands.
It hadn’t been that way before. She and Evan had been inseparable since the day they first met, not just like brother and sister but more like twins.
The kind of connection that didn’t need words.
She sat right next to him in my childhood memories, a flash of blond hair and big teeth whose bubbly laughter followed wherever they ran.
She’d always been a little shy around me as a kid and had definitely had a crush on me at one point. I’d found it cute. Had liked having her around, brightening the room with her smile.
But I’d never seen her as my sister. Maybe because I’d always associated her as Evan’s.
Not like she belonged to him, but like they belonged to each other.
He was her family, so she became mine—all of ours.
And the role I took on was looking after them both.
Making sure no one picked on them. Helping her open up by making her laugh.
Making sure she knew she had a place with us.
Now it was like I was finally getting a piece of her that was mine. Not one that relied on Evan tying it together. As much as we’d already had that from our texts, getting to have it in person made it feel real.
“We play with three all the time,” Evan challenged, not sharing Dad’s enthusiasm at my presence.
Dad waved him away. “It’s always better with four.”
Evan’s face told a different story, but he didn’t bother arguing.
I gestured to Dad. “Before I forget, Diego will have tickets for me this week. Let me know how many you want.”
Diego had agreed to let me into the tournament, but my spot wouldn’t be final unless I sold fifty tickets for the event.
Not all the fighters had to do it, but my name wasn’t as big a pull now that I’d been out of the game for a while.
They needed to know I could still put butts in seats, even if it meant me hunting them down myself.
“I’ll tell Rudy and the guys. They’ll probably all want one.”
“Tickets for what?” Evan asked.
Out in the hallway, the front door clicked, and I caught a flash of dark blond hair. My pulse stuttered before taking off at a run.
“Gabe’s fighting in a local tournament,” Dad replied, all enthusiasm.
My eyes were glued to the hallway behind them.
“Wait. Like a boxing tournament?” Evan said. “I thought you retired?”
Aubrey stepped into the kitchen, and the rest of the room shrank away to nothing. She squeezed behind Evan, a plastic container of cookies in hand.
Sable cookies. I knew without seeing them.
Probably filled with chocolate, like the ones Mom used to make.
Pretty much the only recipe Mom could pull off since it was one her own mom had taught her.
She’d bake them every game night, with chocolate filling instead of jam, specifically for Aubrey, who’d eat more than her nine-year-old frame should have been able to fit in her stomach.
Her eyes brightened when she saw me, and she lifted her hand in a small wave.
All I could think of was that hand gripping my sweatshirt, her head on my shoulder, while I breathed in the scent of her coconut shampoo, feeling more at home with her in the silence of my old gym than I had at any point in the past two years.
“I did retire,” I answered Evan, keeping my scattered pulse hidden behind an easy tone. “The tournament is a one-time thing.”
“And you think jumping back in after two years away is smart? What about your shoulder?”
Aubrey’s smile faded as she picked up on the tension from Evan. I shifted my gaze to my brother.
“It’ll be fine as long as I’m careful. I have eight weeks to train.
That’s plenty of time to get ready.” I’d stayed in decent shape during retirement, still running most days and regularly serving as a sparring partner for Noah and some other fighters while I was an assistant trainer for Coach Peters.
I had a lot of work to put in the next couple of months, but I wasn’t starting at zero.
Evan didn’t seem to think so. He shook his head. “Whatever. I’m going to set up the cards.” He marched out the door to the dining room.
Aubrey shot me a sympathetic look. I wanted to pull her in for another hug and stay there for the next hour.
“What do you say, Aubrey?” my dad asked. “Been a while since you and I were partners. Will you do me the honor?”
She flashed him a warm smile. “Sure.”
“We’ll have our work cut out for us. Evan and Gabe were always a dangerous combination.”
I almost laughed. Right now, the only one in danger was me.
Evan threw his last card—a three of clubs—on the pile, which Aubrey quickly collected to her side of the table along with her other tricks.
“Dude, you’re not even trying,” I said. He’d bid four tricks and hadn’t gotten a single one. He had the cards for it too. Just played them in the worst possible combination like he had every other hand so far. Which he knew because he’d been a Spades shark since he was ten.
He shrugged. “Thought you had a higher card.”
“When I only bid one and already played an ace?”
He shrugged again and pushed from the table. “I’m getting a drink.”
I slid my own seat back and followed him to the kitchen. “I’m trying here.”
“No need,” he said, grabbing a seltzer from the fridge. “It’s just a card game.”
“You know that’s not what I’m talking about.”
He popped the lid of the can. “What I know is the only reason you’re here right now is because of a boxing tournament. It’s the only thing you’ve ever cared about. We may as well all stop pretending otherwise.”
“That’s not true.”
“It’s not? You mean you didn’t pick boxing over Mom when she got sick? I somehow missed you sitting next to me in the hospital room when she died?”
I clenched my teeth. It did nothing against the burn in my stomach.
“Yeah,” he said in response to my silence. “Then you picked it again the second the funeral was over. Screw what Dad needed. You couldn’t get out of here fast enough. Not when there was a fight to win.”
“I didn’t know about this tournament when I decided to come back,” I said. “It’s not why I’m here.”
Nothing I said could justify what happened with Mom.
No words could get him to forgive me when I didn’t forgive myself.
When I racked my brain every day about the different choices I could have made, asked “what if?” about a thousand variables, and wondered if any one of them would have gotten me back in time.
When I still struggled to breathe through the guilt of knowing she’d died without her whole family around her—that having us all together meant more to her than anything in the world—and I’d robbed her of it in her last moments with my selfishness.
I hadn’t known how to face it after the funeral. I could hardly face it now. So I’d run. Retreated into boxing the way I knew how and let it take me as far away as it could.
But I was trying to be here now.
“So drop out,” he challenged.
“I can’t.”
He looked ready to punch me. I almost wished he would. Get it all out so maybe we’d both feel better.
“You can,” he insisted. “You choose not to. Even though it’s reckless and fucking stupid, and you’re going to put yourself in the hospital. But if it brings you glory, go for it, I guess.”
“It has nothing to do with glory. I’m trying to win the money to buy Coach Lou’s gym.”
He raised his hands in retreat. “Whatever, man. Do what you want. I’m done trying to keep up.”
Aubrey stepped into the kitchen. “We still playing?”
Evan set his mostly full seltzer on the counter. “I just remembered I have something I need to do for work. You want a ride back to the city?” he asked her.
Her shoulders sank. “Evan.”
He raised his brows like a child challenging his babysitter.
“I really think you should stay,” Aubrey said.
“Going alone it is.” He made for the door.
“But I’m the one who bails?” I called after him.
“Guess we know who I learned it from.”
Aubrey’s gaze caught mine, indecision warring across her features. She waited another beat before letting out a growl and spinning on her heel. “Evan, wait up.”
It was the decision I knew she’d make. The one I wanted her to. Their friendship would always be important to me because it was important to her. To both of them.
I was just glad she thought me worth considering at all.