Chapter 17 #2
Aidan was being nice, but Aidan also didn’t know what he’d had to face just a few days before this game. What he’d discovered about Simon. What he was going to have to talk about with Alex tonight.
Maybe if he’d just let it go, maybe if he’d just accepted the plea deal, he would have nailed that fifty-nine-yard kick.
“No, but—” Dawson tried to argue, but before he could, Aidan interrupted him.
“No buts,” Aidan said firmly.
“It was fifty-nine,” Cam said softly next to them. “And yeah, a yard longer than his personal best.”
“Not your fault,” Aidan said, nodding over at Cam. “Listen to the rookie.”
“He didn’t say it wasn’t my fault,” Dawson muttered as they walked through the tunnel, down the corridor towards the locker room.
All the people who were watching them—the various staff that always were hanging around, they’d see that Dawson was upset.
They’d see Cam on one side and Aidan on the other.
Like he was fragile, and he wasn’t. Not anymore.
He was so tired of being a problem to fix.
So fucking tired of trying to fix himself.
“Yeah, he didn’t need to, because I heard what he wasn’t saying, and so would you, if you were thinking clearly,” Aidan said bluntly.
It wasn’t that Aidan’s tough love wasn’t welcome or convincing, it was humiliating that it was needed at all. Even as he craved the comfort of it and desperately wanted to believe in the truth of it, he still didn’t want to touch it.
“You shouldn’t be doing this,” Dawson said. “You should be, I don’t know, licking your own goddamn wounds. Not mine.”
Aidan laughed. “Dude, we’re six and one. I’m not going to cry about it. It was bound to happen. And honestly? We were in that game. It was that close. I get you ten yards closer, give me another ten seconds on the clock? And that game’s going to overtime.”
“You think it would’ve?”
Aidan scoffed. “Dude, you saw the kick. It barely missed. Ten yards closer? You’re money. I’d bet on you every single fucking time.”
Aidan did sound very sure. His certainty was reassuring. But then, he didn’t have the whole story.
They entered the locker room. It was quiet, but not deathly silent the way it could get sometimes after a bad loss. This was a frustrating loss, but Aidan was right about a lot of things: they had been in it, right until the very end.
Dawson just wasn’t sure Aidan was right about everything. How could he be, when he didn’t have all the information?
He turned to Cam. “I’m good,” he told him. “I gotta—I’m gonna talk to Aidan for a minute.”
Cam nodded, heading towards his locker to start stripping off his equipment.
“What is it?” Aidan asked under his breath. “You are okay, right?”
“I’m . . .well, I guess I’m okay.” He’d told Cam the other night, when he’d found out about Simon, that he wasn’t. He’d had a few days to come to grips with the knowledge. He’d be hearing Alex out later tonight.
“Some shit happened that might have divided my focus, kind of like happened last season,” Dawson admitted.
“What shit?” Aidan didn’t sound accusatory. Only calm and curious.
“I talked to the prosecutor on my ex-father-in-law’s case, and it turns out that even though my lawyer kept insisting everyone wanted my stamp of approval on the plea deal, they didn’t want that at all. They wanted the opposite.”
“So your lawyer lied to you,” Aidan said, pursing his lips together. “Seriously?”
“Lawyer and agent,” Dawson said.
“Shit. Daws.” Aidan put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him in for a quick hug. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Here it came. Aidan was going to say, why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t I know that before we sent you out there to kick the field goal that would’ve possibly won us the game? I should’ve just gone with the Hail Mary. Better chance, if your head wasn’t in the game.
“I don’t know,” Dawson said, shrugging awkwardly.
But he knew. It was because he’d wanted so badly to believe he could do all of this anyway.
That his focus and his skill were back on the same page and they were within his grasp again.
That he could call on them when he needed them again, like he always had before.
“You had Cam, I get that. But, Daws, I’d have still wanted to know.”
Dawson tried not to feel bitter about Aidan’s words, but that didn’t work very well.
“Sure, I get it,” Dawson said sarcastically, beginning to pull out of Aidan’s grasp.
“Wait, no,” Aidan said, confusion creasing his face.
And then it was even worse when the comprehension dawned.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I meant, I would’ve wanted to be there for you as a friend.
I would’ve still sent you out there to make that kick.
You didn’t miss because you were distracted from what happened with Ackerman’s case this week.
You missed ’cause it was a really fucking long field goal, and frankly, it was this close to going in.
What happened with your lawyer and your agent?
I don’t think it had anything to do with what went down today. ”
Dawson wanted to believe it so badly. But it was hard, when last year was right there, hovering in the back of his mind, as irrefutable evidence.
“I know you want to think that’s true,” Dawson started to say, but then Aidan smacked him, actually pretty hard, on his shoulder pad.
“No,” Aidan countered, “I do think that’s true. But I think the person you really need to convince is yourself.”
He patted Dawson again, more softly this time, and turned to go.
“Hey,” Dawson said, reaching out and catching his arm. “What do you mean by, You had Cam?”
Aidan rolled his eyes. “You cannot be this dense.”
“I’m not dense,” Dawson argued.
“You actually fucking are. He’s the first person you told, wasn’t he?”
“Well, we were out to dinner, so yeah,” Dawson said.
Aidan shot him a long-suffering look. “My point exactly.”
“Friends and hookups go out to dinner.”
“Not all the time,” Aidan said. “Listen, if you wanna lie to yourself, knock yourself out. But the moment it fucks up the rookie, I’m gonna be on your ass.”
“What, this isn’t you on my ass now?” Dawson asked sullenly.
“Oh, buddy, this isn’t even close,” Aidan said, patting him. “You wanna go out to Vault with us? I think Levi’s getting a group together. Thought I might talk to Nate, too, if I can get him alone.”
“Nah. I’m actually meeting up with my agent.”
Aidan raised an eyebrow.
“I already fired Simon. The lawyer. But Alex?” Dawson sighed. “We’ve been together my whole career. I don’t think this was his idea. Not that I’m really in a place to trust anything either of them say, but their stories were at least consistent about that.”
“So you’re gonna see him in person and judge,” Aidan said, always astute.
“Basically, yeah,” Dawson said.
“Well, good luck. If you want a drink after—you’re always welcome.”
“Sure. Yeah. You gonna take the rookie with you?”
Aidan shot him a look. “Oh, now you’re worried about him?”
“I never said I wasn’t,” Dawson argued, even though he knew it would only give Aidan more ammunition.
“Yeah, yeah, we’ll watch out for your boy,” Aidan said, nodding, a glimmer of a smile on his face as he turned to walk towards his locker.
He finished up, shower and a few questions for the media, before he pulled Cam aside, right before he was ready to head out and meet Alex.
“Hey,” he said, leaning against the wall of the corridor, “you going to Vault with the guys tonight?”
“Yeah, I was going to talk to my dad first and change. Then head out.”
Dawson felt a pulse of worry. Was Cam going to try to be a hero again? Try to prove that he could walk alone in the city when he didn’t need to do that? He wouldn’t be there to talk Cameron down if he had another panic attack.
Aidan probably could. Lane or Trevor or Mo. But Dawson selfishly didn’t want them to. Well, he didn’t want Cam to have a panic attack at all.
Which was the whole point of this conversation.
“Take a cab, okay? Or don’t walk alone. Let those guys pick you up.”
Cam smiled at him. “You worried about me, Daws?”
It wasn’t hard to be honest. “Yeah. I am. Last time—”
“Last time was different. I was . . .I was cocky. Stupid. Thought I could just get over it,” Cam admitted wryly.
There were still a handful of people in the corridor, but Dawson decided he didn’t give a shit. He reached out and cupped Cam’s cheek, and Cam, to Dawson’s delight, leaned into the touch. “If it was only that easy,” Dawson said.
“I do feel better. Like . . .a more healthy level of fear, if that makes sense?” Cam confessed. “Like, I went out last week to the farmers’ market. And that was fine. But you’ve helped. Helped me see the city as something not to fear, but as something cool and exciting, too.”
That hadn’t been Dawson’s only purpose in taking Cam out, but it was a nice side benefit. He was thrilled it was working.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Dawson said.
Cam tucked himself into Dawson’s side, and Dawson couldn’t help it—he put an arm around his waist, tugging him in closer. “It’s probably smart to be cautious,” Cam said.
“It is,” Dawson agreed. “I don’t ever want anything bad to happen to you, ever.”
Cam gazed up at him, dimples on full display. “That’s pretty sweet, Hall.”
“It’s how I feel,” Dawson said, shrugging like it was no big deal. But he knew it was. It was that feeling that he kept pushing back down, like if he pretended it didn’t exist, then it didn’t.
But that didn’t stop him from feeling it.
“Good.” Cam brushed a quick kiss across his cheek. “I’ll be safe, I promise. Even text you when I get there.”
“And text me when you leave.”
“You’ll probably be home by then,” Cam said, confusion crossing his face.
“Yeah, you can tell me when you’re coming home to me.” Dawson realized a second after he said it what that sounded like, but then decided fuck it, he’d already said it, hadn’t he? And he meant it.
Cam’s smile grew. “Sounds perfect.”