Chapter 35 #2
I placed a hand on Theo’s thigh to drag his attention back to me, cutting off his long, disjointed rant as he became increasingly animated. He cut off mid-sentence and looked over at me questioningly, his bright irises darkening as his pupils dilated.
“Baby, are you feeling okay?” I asked quietly so only he could hear me.
“Yeah yeah, of course, why? What’s up? Do I not seem okay?” he spit out rapidly. I shivered at the sudden chill that blanketed me, but I forced myself to stay calm, hoping to project some of it onto him.
“Yeah, I just wanted to make sure you weren’t getting sucked into the conversation and forgetting to eat,” I replied with a light smile, even as my stomach turned over uneasily.
Luckily, it distracted him enough that my family continued talking and Theo turned back to the meal.
When I caught my mom’s worried gaze, I knew I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed Theo’s off-putting behavior and that she was probably remembering our talk from last night.
My eyes slid to Dani’s and saw the same concern mirrored there as well.
“Dawson?” Grandpa called across the table.
“Yes sir?”
“Did you ever call Mike Hancock back like we talked about?”
My skin itched uncomfortably and I tried not to squirm in my chair. “Uh, no sir. I haven’t really had time.”
He shot me a disapproving look. “That’s a poor excuse and you know it. I’m sure you found time to run around with your friends and boyfriend, so you had time to call him.”
“Who’s Mike Hancock?” Theo asked, and the underlying jealousy in his tone made me balk. Where the fuck did that come from?
“He’s just an agent that came to my game last weekend,” I hurried to tell him.
“An agent that I personally asked to go watch your game and speak with you as a favor to me,” Dad interjected.
“Champ, you can’t be this cavalier with your responsibilities this close to the end of the season.
And when I called Coach Walker the other day, he said that you hadn’t even met with the two agents he brought in to speak with the seniors last month. ”
“This is no time to drop the ball and screw around. You need to start getting serious about your career because it will be here before you know it,” Grandpa scolded me.
“This isn’t the time to be discussing this and you two are hardly being fair,” Mom tried to defend me, but Grandpa was on a tear.
“Well, life isn’t fair. He needs to act like an adult rather than some careless teenager. Lincoln and I won’t always be there to hold his hand, and if he can’t get his crap together now, then how will he be expected to handle the demands of a professional athlete?”
“He’s not going to be a damn athlete!” Theo snapped. The room went silent and my eyes went wide in alarm.
“Theo, don’t—”
“You two are so worried about signing him off to some agent or talking his ear off about the stupid draft, but you don’t even notice that he doesn’t want that life. Have you even stopped to ask Dawson what he wants?”
“Now son, this really isn’t your business—”
“Dawson is my business,” Theo interrupted Grandpa. “He’s mine to take care of. Have you never really noticed how miserable he is out on that field?”
“Dawson is a top-tier athlete in a division one football program, what does he have to be miserable about? Your dramatics aside, we understand you care about him, but we are his family and know what’s best for him.”
“I don’t just care about him, I love him. He’s everything to me and I won’t let you two steamroll him just because you can’t accept he wants something different than you want for him!”
“Theo honey, calm down. It’s okay,” Mom tried to reason with him, and even Dani tried her to best to diffuse the situation.
“Maybe we should all take a minute to chill out before this gets any worse…”
“What is he talking about, Dawson?” Dad’s gruff voice reached me through the blood rushing in my ears. I tried to explain and give him an answer, but no sound came out. Like usual, my words failed when I needed them most, but no fucking guitar song would get me out of this.
“I’m talking about all the pressure you’ve put on him since he was a kid.
It’s done nothing but stress him out and made him feel like he has to be perfect to earn your approval,” Theo said angrily.
“You both set this insane bar for him to reach before he was even born, deciding his future without thinking about what he wants and what makes him happiest.”
“Hey kid, take a breath…” Don’s attempts to get him to relax were useless as Theo seemed oblivious to anything else.
“Have you ever seen the way Dawson lights up when he plays his guitar? Or have you really listened to him when he sings and heard the fucking emotion he pours into it? Music is his life and what makes him who he is and you can’t force him to—”
“Music is a hobby, not something you can build a life on. He is not throwing away all that natural talent and years of training to go play a piano for tips,” Dad grumbled.
“Daddy, you’re not getting Theo’s bigger point,” Dani argued.
“You aren’t trying to understand what Dawson wants his own future to look like.
When he told me he wanted to quit football, I honestly wasn’t surprised because, let’s face it, he’s never once said the NFL was his goal.
You and Gramps always pushed it on him.”
“Young lady, we don’t need more fuel added to this fire,” Gramps bit out. “This is between your father, brother, and me.”
“Lincoln and Bill, please calm down,” Mom begged. “We are all talking about Dawson as if he isn’t sitting right here. And no matter what he decides, it’s up to him and no one else.”
“So you’re okay with him giving up a successful, prestigious career for some childhood hobby?”
“If you really think that music is just some childhood hobby for Dawson, then you don’t know him as well as you think you do!”
“I appreciate you standing up for my son, Theo, but I think it’s time he and I discussed this in private,” Dad said firmly, his eyes cutting into me with all the hurt and disappointment that I had dreaded from the very beginning.
I hadn’t even realized I’d stopped breathing until my lungs burned as I pulled in a breath, and I nodded to him.
“But you don’t understand...”
“Stop, Theo. Just stop,” I barked. “You’ve done enough.”
The color drained from his face as he stared at me, shocked and gutted by my outburst. Dad carefully pushed his chair back and stood, a somber expression on his face as he stiffly walked out of the room.
“Dad, wait,” I called, shoving out of my seat to follow him.
I ignored Theo’s own voice calling out to me, but I only made it as far as the foyer when a hand clamped down on my elbow, tugging me to a stop.
“Baby, I’m sorry, but I was just trying to help,” he explained frantically.
“Why couldn’t you leave it alone?” I gritted out. “I told you that I would tell them after tomorrow’s game, but you ran off at the mouth and messed everything up.”
“You were letting them sit there and attack you! What was I supposed to do?”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, they weren’t attacking me. They were being annoying, sure, but they would have stopped eventually—”
“How do you know that? It seemed like they were just going to keep pressing and pressing until you probably agreed to sign in blood with Mike Cockbag or whatever just to make them happy!”
“Do you even hear yourself? You’re jumping to these insane conclusions and not even listening to me. I know my family. I would have calmed them down and been able to tell them in my own way like I’d planned if you had stayed out of it. Now everyone is either upset or pissed, and it’s your fault.”
“How is it my fault?” Theo cried. “I was only telling them the truth because you refused to.”
“It wasn’t your truth to tell! How do you not get that?
” I stormed. Theo shrank back, but I was too angry to care.
“Do you really not see how you were tonight? You were talking so fast, it was like you were on speed and you completely ignored me and everyone else who tried to chill you out. Then you pulled that crap with Dad and Gramps and made things harder for me, not better. God, I knew—I fucking knew that this would happen when you started skipping pills.”
“Knew what would happen?”
“That you’d go fucking crazy again!”
My heart lurched to a stop when the words clicked in my head and I saw Theo pale. His face went blank, all emotion wiped from his features as he retreated into himself.
“Wait, I didn’t mean that…” I started, but Theo shook his head. Anguish tore through me as he stepped away from me.
“I’m sorry, Mercury,” he mumbled, his gaze meeting mine for one heartbreaking moment before he walked away. I heard the front door close a few beats later and I steadied myself, unable to worry about fixing things with him right now. I needed to smooth things over with Dad first.
I made my way up the stairs towards his office and tried to ignore the twisting, queasy feeling in my gut that only grew with every step I took farther down the hall and away from Theo.