Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
DREW
Suzanna reaches for my empty plate. “I’ll get dessert.”
These occasional dinners with them are never an enormous amount of fun. They’re just something I have to get through if I want to maintain any sort of relationship with my dad, which I do.
I just wish it wasn’t this relationship—one where it feels like neither of us wants to be here but we are anyway, one where I expend untold amounts of energy being cheery and bright, and one that results in me shedding at least a couple of tears after almost every interaction.
I’m not asking for the world, not for a sitcom parent who laughs and jokes and hugs and kisses me, and we all live on a pink fluffy cloud of I love you s. I’d just like to be able to relax around him and not constantly feel like I’m taking a test that’s impossible to pass.
You’d think by age thirty-two I’d have given up trying to make this better. But isn’t there some unshakable thing in all of us that wants to be certain our parents love us? Or at least like us? If I could stop myself searching for that, my life would certainly be a whole lot easier and less upsetting. But I can’t. Maybe it’s my competitive nature. I’m no more willing to admit defeat with my one vaguely present parent than I am with trying to get a player to understand the importance of a deft first touch of the ball.
“I can help.” I tell Suzanna.
Her hand is on my arm before my butt is barely off the seat to follow her to the kitchen, rather than be left alone to face the prospect of an awkward conversation.
“Wouldn’t hear of it,” she says with a gentle smile. “You stay here.”
I consider claiming a sudden need to visit the powder room to enjoy the new and impressively floral wallpaper again, but that might be a bit obvious.
I take my napkin from my lap, wipe my hands and spend some time folding it into a neat square as Suzanna’s back disappears around the corner and silence hangs between me and my father.
“Want me to drop the blinds a little?” I offer, in an effort to find myself something to do. “It looks like the light is right in your eyes.”
I turn to see the gorgeous sunset over the city behind me from their thirty-seventh-floor apartment. Although the seat across the table looks out at this fabulous panorama of the skyline, I always sit here, with my back to it, as if facing it would be too greedy, expecting too much, like I don’t deserve the view.
It’s silly—it’s not like anyone else needs the fourth seat. But this is how it’s been since they moved here when they got married twelve years ago. This is where I sat the first time I came for dinner, and where I’ve sat ever since. I know if I took a different spot it would be a whole thing, and the emotional energy that conversation would require isn’t worth the view.
“It’s okay. I can just move,” Dad says, shuffling his chair out of the shaft of yellow light and a little closer to me.
I fight the instinct to shuffle mine the same distance in the opposite direction.
“So, I hear you want to start a youth academy.” He peers at me over his steepled, drumming fingers.
Oh, Jesus, here we go. If he still wants a say on how the club’s run, he shouldn’t have sold it. And damn whichever of the Fab Four told him my idea. It has to be one of them. I know they’re in touch and have given him an open invitation to the owners’ box for any game he likes.
I turn the hem of my napkin back on itself and slowly roll it up. “Just trying to think about the future. The longevity of the club. And how we can develop and nurture our own talent.”
He makes a huh noise. I dread to think what his face is doing so I force my eyes to focus on the slow, tight rolling of the napkin.
The table shifts a little as he leans forward on it. “How could the club ever afford it?”
Has he forgotten he sold to four guys with the combined wealth of half a continent? “We’re the only team in the league without one. So I don’t think it’s something we can afford not to do. And the guys seem open to investing in it.”
“Financial suicide.” He picks up his glass and drains the remaining red wine from it. “I can’t see a condo guy, an actor, a prince, and whatever the hell it is Leo does wanting to throw good money after bad like that.”
I dig my nails into the napkin as I look over at him. I expected his eyes to be hard and combative, but they’re not. They’re more tired. Perhaps I mistook his tone.
He looks less like he’s worried I’m trying to misspend the club’s cash and more like he’s sad he’s not involved any more.
Does he regret selling? But he knows he had to. His cardiologist threatened to stop treating him if he didn’t get rid of it.
“They love the club,” I tell him, feeling the need to reassure him that he’s left it in good hands. “I mean, obviously not in the same way that you and I do.” And here I go again, searching for a connection, trying to convince him we have things in common, throwing it out there like a lifeline I hope he’ll grab the other end of. “But they appreciate that nothing instills loyalty in a player like training there as a kid and growing up on the youth team.”
My napkin roll gets tighter by the second. “The connection you have when you’ve spent your formative years around a club is like nothing else.” And if anyone knows that, it should be me. That place was like my third parent—or actually my second, since I guess my mom doesn’t count.
“I know if we can get great players young, they’ll have the Commoners running through their veins the way I do. The way Ryan Giggs was Manchester United to the core, and Paolo Maldini was AC Milan through and through.”
“Is that what you’d prefer to do, coach a load of kids?” Dad asks. “Do you think they’d be easier to manage than a bunch of men?”
And there’s the dagger, glinting in the sunset and poised right over my soul. I’m not even sure he knows he’s doing it. But that doesn’t stop it from hurting. And there’s only so much of it I can let go for the sake of family harmony.
The napkin springs away from my fingers, unfurling along with my clenched insides.
“I have absolutely no problem managing a bunch of men.” Despite every effort to not sound defensive and keep my tone calm, there’s a quaver in my voice. “It has nothing to do with that. That’s never even crossed my mind. I wouldn’t run the academy, anyway. I’d put a manager in there. And I can do two things at once—have an overview of the academy and coach the team.”
“Of course she can,” Suzanna says, walking around the corner carrying a tart atop a stack of three plates. “Your daughter has coached women her whole career.” She stands tall as she strides over and places everything on the table along with three forks and a large knife. “You don’t think women are as hard to manage as men?”
“It’s okay, Suzanna.” The last thing I want here is to be the cause of a marital dispute. All I want to do is eat a polite amount of that lemon tart and get the hell out of here.
“Not at all,” she says, picking up the knife. “Your dad’s never managed women in his life, have you, Brent?”
“Well, I…” He shifts in his chair.
“All I can tell you”—she inserts the pointy tip in the dead center of the tart—“is that in my thirty-five years at Cross and Co, I consistently found men to be considerably easier to manage than women.”
Suzanna was a vice president at the biotech giant, and I can’t imagine her having trouble managing a herd of raging buffalo, never mind a bunch of women.
“I don’t know what it is.” She makes two swift, clean cuts and slides the knife underneath the slice. “Maybe it’s because the women always had more thoughts of their own than the men did.”
Her eyes meet mine for an almost imperceptible moment before she eases the perfectly cut segment of lemon tart onto a plate.
“Everyone at the US women’s team was full of their own theories and thoughts, that’s for sure.” I feel the need to back her up for showing me this kindness and support. “And in Portland. And Dijon.”
“Well.” Dad leans back in his chair and folds his arms across his chest, his mouth turning up slightly at the corners as he gazes at his wife while she cuts two more crisp-edged slices. “The women in my life have always proved pretty challenging.” He turns to me. “So maybe you have a point.”
I’ll take that for now.
“Excellent,” Suzanna says, putting down the knife and placing one of the plates of tart in front of the empty seat opposite me. “Come move over here, Drew. I never understand why you always sit with your back to the view.” She pulls out the chair. “And you need to enjoy it while you can.”
“What does that mean?” Are they moving? I can’t imagine my father living anywhere other than Boston. It’s like he wouldn’t be himself if he weren’t in the city.
“It’s one of the reasons we invited you over,” she says. “That and we love seeing you, of course.”
Dad concentrates on cutting off the point of his lemon tart with the side of his fork.
“We’re selling this place and moving full time to the house on Cape Cod,” Suzanna says with a tone of victory befitting the battle she’s undoubtedly fought to get him to agree to it .
Suzanna got the Cape Cod house in her divorce from her first husband, who was something big in finance that I never understood. I remember her telling me once that the oceanfront home was the only thing she cared about getting in her settlement from “the bastard.” It’s her favorite place on the planet.
And it’s easy to see why. I’ve been there a few times, and somehow the wide-open space, the sea air, and the private path to the beach take you away from everything mentally as well as physically.
Even my dad relaxes around the edges there. I remember one evening during my final summer break from college, we dug out an old game of Monopoly and the three of us played on the deck. Way too much wine was consumed and we had a surprisingly good time. Suzanna was absolutely terrible and went bankrupt twice, the second time after she’d stolen money from my dad when he went to the restroom. There was one point at which even he had to wipe a tear of laughter from his eye.
It might have been more than a decade ago, but it’s those rare moments of light and fun that make me think there’s a chance things could be better between us and stop me from giving up on him.
Anyway, being there full time has to be better for his health than staying in the city. Good for Suzanna for fighting for it. Maybe when you don’t find your person till later in life, you do whatever it takes to make the rest of your life last as long as possible.
“With the sale of the club we can both completely retire,” she says. “It’s all invested wisely, though, to be sure you’ll be well looked after when we’re gone. And for us, we’ll never have to worry about a thing.”
“Oh, I’m not concerned about an inheritance. It hadn’t even crossed my mind.” With the club out of the picture, I don’t care about anything else. “But I think it’s a great plan for you to move out there. Another brilliant female idea,” I tell Suzanna.
“I’m not so sure,” Dad says. “I might feel like an old cow being put out to pasture for its final days. It’s a big change. It’s nice to go out there every few months, but my brain might rot without the buzz of the city.”
“And your heart might explode with it.” Suzanna points her fork at his chest.
And he might be more into it than he’s letting on, because the tension in his face fades as his eyes lift from his plate and settle on Suzanna, a mix of gratitude and teenage crush behind them.
So it’s not that he’s not capable of love and appreciation.
Maybe it’s just that he’s not capable of loving me , of appreciating me .
Is that because of how I am, or because of how he is?
I always used to think there was something wrong with me. But now I wonder if there’s something wrong with him. Like maybe he should just never have been a parent.
“It’ll be good for you,” Suzanna says.
Perhaps she’s right in more ways than just his health.
She turns to me. “We’ll show you some pictures of the new landscaping around the pool once we’ve finished dinner.”
She taps the plate of pie across the table from me with her fork, and I rise from my chair to make my way around to face the view.
But was it just like what Hugo did?
No.
No, it wasn’t.
It was totally different.
Suzanna backed me up against my dad because she’s kind. Hugo barged in to defend me from Ramon because he has some sort of hero complex. They are not the same thing.
I squish the pillow into an even tighter ball and roll onto my side. The pub below fell silent long ago, and I refuse to look at my phone to see what time it is because it’s likely worryingly close to the alarm going off.
I slept for a couple hours when I first got into bed, but then I woke up and, while I was trying to pee while also concentrating on staying slightly asleep, it dawned on me that Suzanna had done something very similar to what Hugo did.
My father was being unreasonably critical, and she stepped in to set him straight and effectively tell him to stop it.
And with her, I was grateful.
But when Hugo set Ramon straight and told him to stop it, I was enraged.
After that realization hit me like a trash can lid to the head, all attempts to stay in a semi-sleepy state were lost as I tried to figure out that conundrum.
And that was…well, I have no idea how long ago it was. But I’m very awake and my heart has been beating well above sleep-potential rate for quite some time.
Maybe the difference is that Suzanna did it from a place of love. And Hugo did it from a place of assholery.
Taking a deep breath, I force all the muscles of my face to relax, then discover my eyes are screwed tight shut like I’m running into a sandstorm. As I release a long, slow exhale to try to calm my heart, a car splashes by on the street under my window. It must be raining.
Damn.
That means the field will be wet for training.
And that means Hugo might wear long track pants instead of shorts so the mud doesn’t splatter up his bare legs. Bare legs that are perfectly sculpted from years of training and with just the right amount of?—
“Fuck.” I slam onto my back, reprimanding myself out loud, and stare up at the crack in the ceiling.
Why can’t I get this man’s hotness out of my head?
Well, the fact that I’m still a little sore from the bar-top banging doesn’t exactly help with the forgetting.
But forget him, I must.
Lying here trying to figure out the difference between what he did and what Suzanna did is getting me nowhere.
Just as I’m curling into the fetal position and giving up, it dawns on me. As sure as the sun is rising in the sky, it all becomes crystal clear.
Dear God, that’s it.
That ’s why I yelled at him for defending me against Ramon, yet welcomed it when Suzanna did the same thing with my dad—it’s because there is absolutely no difference whatsoever between the two things.
The truth is they both did it with exactly the same motive—caring.
And I’m terrified of Hugo caring for me.
I groan into my pillow. There are few things more annoying than figuring out an answer and discovering it’s something you didn’t want to find.
Under that bravado-soaked exterior, Hugo is a caring, vulnerable soul. I saw that in the bar when he was asking me what we did in Paris.
Yes, it was smoking hot, burning with sexual tension, and if we’d gotten within two feet of a flammable substance we would likely have combusted, but he was asking me for the right reasons. He really did want to know what happened. Yes, he wanted to turn me on, but he wanted to know how he’d behaved, how he’d treated me.
And then he wanted to treat me better.
He was trying to treat me better.
He tried to find out what my morning drink was, and when he couldn’t, he brought me coffee with cream and sugar on the side in an effort to cover as many bases as possible.
Goddammit, the man was trying to treat me better.
Fuck.
And I repaid him by seeing the worst in him. And pushing him away.
I don’t doubt for a second that Ashanti would say that’s because I either don’t feel worthy of being treated well or because seeing the worst in him helps me convince myself he’s awful so I don’t fall madly in love with him and risk him breaking my heart.
She might be right on both counts. Damn her for being so smart and infiltrating my head with her analyzey ways.
I roll over onto my other side to face the nightstand and grab my phone.
Just as I pick it up, the alarm goes off and startles me so violently it falls from my hand and hits the floor with a clatter.
Well, isn’t this a great start to the day? Another night of Hugo-induced close-to-zero sleep, my phone making its irritating chime noise somewhere under the bed, and the realization that the most remarkable man I’ve ever met, who’s hotter than a ticket to a World Cup final, who gave me an orgasm I’m still recovering from, and for whom I’m developing feelings that are too scary to contemplate, was trying to be thoughtful and kind to me.