Chapter 26
CHAPTER 26
LAW
Camp has been surprisingly good. We’ve had some other organized team activities before this—OTAs, as everyone calls them—so I’ve run plays with Jett and the offense already, but something has been clicking even more the last couple days.
Jett calls out a play, and I hide my smile. Given that the defense we’re up against already knows what we’re doing, there’s not a lot of stuff I can hide. Still, it’s a fun play. I put a cursory block on the defensive end—no one’s wearing pads, after all—and then roll out and run a route behind the line.
Jett passes quickly, before the D-end I hardly blocked gets to him. The pass hits me right in the breadbasket, and I run in the touchdown well ahead of the secondary. I let my grin out now, as Jett jogs up to me and pats my helmet.
“Nice!” he cries, giving me a high five.
“Perfect pass, man,” I praise him right back. My heart thumps with excitement.
I can hear Ivy in my head: How’re these thoughts serving you right now, Law? They’re making me eager—like, really eager for the first time since I heard I was being traded to the Pumas and not the Blues. Of course, I think the Blues quarterback is great, but he’s no Jett McCombs. I’ve been pumping myself up for the great things Jett and I will do together, but today I believe it. They aren’t just words.
We run a few more plays, some where I just do blocking and others where I catch some good passes. Pretty soon we break up for a short meeting to end the day. It’s the last day of the minicamp, and the next time I see my team in a practice setting like this, it will be for training camp in July.
I drive home still high on those great plays, smiling as I sing along to the playlist Ivy helped me make when I found out about the trade. It’s supposed to pump me up, and she even hired someone to lay over some audio of games where I made really good plays. By the time I pull into my street, I hope Carlie hasn’t been called in to work. I want to share my excitement with someone, replay all the great stuff from practice, and I want that someone to be her.
When I pull into my driveway, however, Malcolm’s car is parked on the far side of the cement in front of my three-car garage. My brother hasn’t visited since I moved to Houston, but he came a couple times when I lived in LA. I’m surprised that he didn’t let me know he was coming. We live a lot closer now, but Texas is still a huge state. I think the drive is something like twelve hours. I double-check my phone after I pull into the garage to see if I missed a call or text from him.
“Malcolm?” I call as I come inside.
“In the kitchen,” he answers.
I drop my bag in the hallway between the garage and the kitchen and head that direction. He rounds the counter as I come in and meets me, giving me a brief hug before standing back. He’s almost as tall as I am, but thinner, probably thanks to our careers.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, noticing that there are a few bags of food from a steak place nearby.
Malcolm goes back to them, opening them up and adding the food to two plates I notice that he’s set out. “Sorry for coming unannounced. I needed to get away, and I thought I’d come see what your new place was like. It’s nice,” he says, grinning at me. I can read the wariness behind that smile, though. “New contract must be a good one,” he teases.
I laugh with him. My contract was pretty big news, right behind the news of Jett’s huge one. Malcolm knows exactly how good it is.
“Had to get away?” I question.
He shakes his head. “Mom’s ramping up her arguments for me to think about a political career. I’m not ready for it.” He hands me the plate he prepped for me and some utensils.
I don’t tell him that I think that might be my fault. Maybe she actually believes me this time that I have no plans to follow in her footsteps. But Malcolm has always felt like I overshadow the things he does, even when he doesn’t come out and say it, and I don’t want to add to that.
“And just saying no wouldn’t work?” I make sure to smile in commiseration with him. Just saying no to our mom is a difficult task.
He gives a short laugh, and we move to the table.
“Law!” Ivy’s voice calls from the front hallway, and I freeze, my gaze going to Malcolm. He stands up, looking like he’s on autopilot, as his eyes go wide. My brother is smart, like crazy smart, so he had to have expected this, right? Granted, when I lived in LA, Ivy was still in Nashville, so after they broke up, he didn’t risk running into my best friend when he came to visit me.
But Malcolm knows that Ivy came to Houston with me. There’s no way he didn’t think this through. Maybe he thought he’d be here more than half an hour before she showed up, but still.
“Put your best suit on,” Ivy continues, her voice coming closer. “And I mean your very best suit, because I am eloping—” She comes into the dining room just as the last word echoes through the room. She stops abruptly, blinking at the sight of Malcolm standing at my dining room table.
I quickly push back my chair and stand as well. I have no idea what to say to break the tension that has unraveled quicker than an interception followed by a pick-six. Commenting on the fact that I think that Ivy just said “elope” will only make matters worse. Malcolm’s eyes might have widened even further. He’s gripping the back of the chair with one hand, and he swallows hard.
“Uh …” Ivy says, and she looks frantically to me.
Malcolm stays silent.
I let out a long breath. This is the first time they’ve seen each other since they broke up a year and a half ago, since Ivy stopped giving ultimatums, since Malcolm let her walk away and then pretended like it never happened.
“I didn’t realize you were in town,” Ivy finally says, her voice tight and devoid of emotion.
“I didn’t tell Law I was coming.” Malcolm looks down at the full plates of food on the table.
“I’ll let you two get back to your dinner.” Ivy nods and spins around, all but sprinting back to the front door.
“I’ll be right back,” I say to Malcolm in a low voice, and he nods, sitting back down as I jog after Ivy.
She’s almost to her car when I catch up. “Ivy! Ivy, wait!”
She stops and turns around, tears heavy in her eyes, but she swipes quickly at them. I reach out to hug her, but she shakes her head and pushes my arm away. “I should’ve texted or something,” she says, her voice trembling.
“You never text or something,” I point out.
She takes a deep breath.
I reach out and squeeze her shoulder. “I should’ve texted you when I saw his car, just as a warning, but you’ve been with Caleb so much the last couple weeks it didn’t even cross my mind.” She sucks in a breath at Caleb’s name, and I narrow my eyes. “Ivy, were you serious about what you just said, that you guys are going to elope?”
She shakes her head vigorously. “No, no. I mean, I actually was, but when I walked in and saw Malcolm, I just … It was like a smack in the face. In a way that said I was making a big mistake.”
“Ivy …” She spent a year waiting for Malcolm to propose, to commit to forever with her. I love my brother, but I can’t watch her do that again.
“I don’t mean that I think anything has changed—well, that he’s changed.” She waves her hand in front of her, and her next breath shudders slightly. “But I can’t do something crazy with Caleb—even if I think he’s amazing—when Malcolm can still make me feel like this.”
I look back to the house and clench my jaw. This feels like the first few weeks after their breakup, being split in two between them. Wanting to comfort Ivy, worried about my brother.
“I’ll call you later,” I promise.
She nods and gets into her car without saying anything else. I turn and see Carlie coming up the path from the community park with the girls in tow. She waves, but points toward the gate that leads into the main backyard and pulls her hand from Scarlett’s briefly to mime sleeping.
I nod and wave back, feeling a little bit sick about how much more complicated this just got.