Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Grant
Kenny Carmichael beams like he’s made of pure sunshine, points right at me, and boots the ball down the field.
He’s keeper for our soccer game, the first we’ve had this season, and I’m shocked I don’t see Finn out here. He’d been bemoaning the weather and how late in the year our season starts despite only just having snow-free fields, and now he’s missing our first practice?
“Get it together, Ryan.”
Ethan Carter shoots me a fake scowl. He’s a nice enough guy, and we’re glad to have him.
A few of the team who played last year couldn’t join us, and the three Morrison men plus their German clincher, Jonas Bauer, all defected to form a different team with their wives and old friends, the jerks.
All of these Silverton folk have the Juniper View contingent looking even smaller without my littlest brother.
So for now, our team is a smattering of Saint Security people, me, Finn, and Dec. Diego claimed he’d be joining, but he hurt his ankle snowboarding and didn’t want to risk this season.
We finish out the scrimmage, Kenny’s half of the team with the half-French wonder Luc and an embarrassing collection of insanely athletic people including Ethan’s brother Adam, Eddie James-Williamson, Wilder Saint, and Tristan and Winnie Donnelly crush us. I blame Finn’s absence.
“You guys nearly had us,” Kenny says, clapping his hand on my back.
“Right. Very nearly,” I say, not actually all that concerned about the embarrassing end score.
I haven’t been running so I was winded as hell, Dec’s ball-handling is solid, but he hasn’t played in years, and Jude’s son is teething so he’s downright exhausted.
Kieran’s insanely good but he can only do so much when the rest of us are gassed.
We’re down Finn, and we’re missing a few others who couldn’t be here, especially Wyatt and Warrick Saint, both of whom are big guys, and Warrick’s past life as an NFL player is always handy for speed and size and, well, everything.
When we all play on the same team, we’ll be in much better shape.
I try not to notice the Donnelly couple’s tender interaction by the bench, but just as soon as I turn away from them, I see tiny Eddie bolt across the grass toward a tall man exiting a black SUV who must be her uber-famous husband back from some far-flung place.
“Ohhh, Bri Bri’s back!” Kenny chuckles, then shouts, “Get it, Ed!”
I roll my eyes because he’s so much like Finn, sometimes I’m surprised when it’s Kenny saying something obnoxious and not my little brother.
“Hey, what’s going on with the missing person?” It hasn’t been far from my mind, and Kenny and the rest of the Saint crew are tapped into Silverton PD’s updates even more than I am.
“All clear. Turns out she had needed a ‘mental health break’ or something, but really, she had temporarily run away.” His eyes flare wide.
With a shake of my head, I sigh. “Better than the alternative, I guess.” Though it’d be great if instead of disappearing off the face of the earth, people would just use their words. Or maybe even post a social media update, if nothing else.
Wilder quietly agrees to this, then departs with a farewell, and Adam lost track of all of us when his wife pulled up to pick him up. Ethan’s packing his bag while chatting with the remaining people, including Kieran. I should bug him about showing up to family dinner again soon.
Dec waves as he heads out—he’s rarely one to hang around and chat, and we’ll debrief later. Or I’ll make him.
“Yeah, could’ve been worse for sure,” Kenny says, eying his phone.
“Odds of kidnapping in Silverton are pretty high, so yeah. It makes sense why that’d be the assumption when someone drops off the radar.”
I wait for him to glance up at me.
His expression is unamused. “Just say it.”
I shrug. “Say what?”
“Grant William Wallace Ryan, you know what you want to say.”
I snort a laugh. “My middle name is not William Wallace. He’s one of the most famous Scottish people ever.”
“Statistically likely based on every single person in your family.”
There’s no chance I’m admitting my middle name is, in fact, Liam.
I can’t give him the satisfaction even though it’s not short for William but technically for my great-grandfather Ulliam, and now, I’m not going to pull my punches.
“Again, Wallace is Scots, not Irish. And I’m just saying, the statistical likelihood here is that when in Silverton, beware of kidnappings. ”
He shoves me, and I laugh. Damn, it feels good to loosen up and be here. It’s one place I don’t tend to feel so bogged down with what I should be doing.
“Despite your attitude problem and your Juniper View superiority complex, I forgive you and I’m glad to see you.” He smiles, then his head snaps to the side and in a heartbeat, he’s running.
Not running, but sprinting toward a woman who’s exiting her vehicle. I recognize her as his wife, Liz, and she’s grinning just as widely as he no doubt is.
In seconds, he reaches her, hauls her into his arms, and kisses her. I watch for a beat longer than I probably should, then realize I’m being a creep and turn away.
“All this monogamy’s gonna make me ill,” Ethan mutters.
“You have a problem with monogamy?” Kieran, my typically broody, quiet cousin asks.
Granted, lately he’s been considerably less broody.
Ethan glances over at Kenny and Liz, still locked in an embrace. When he turns back, he sighs. “Other than envying it, I don’t suppose I do.”
Kieran and I exchange a look. Ethan tends to be rather sunny, so this tone from him is unusual.
“I get that.” Kieran slings his bag over one shoulder. “I certainly do.”
Ethan takes off, and Kieran does soon after, but not before I tell him he should come to Friday dinner.
It’s terrible timing for him since his primary work is bartending at his family’s pub and weekend nights are the busiest, of course.
But he promises he’ll try to make it over to JV soon, and with the woman who’s got him considerably less closed off.
And then it’s just me, loading up my bag, trying to ignore the pangs of longing and envy. I wouldn’t wish for Kenny or Eddie or Wilder or Adam or any of these people not to have their person.
I’m hit with the inescapable reality that I want that for myself. It rams into me, square in the chest.
In my time with Michelle, that’s where I thought we’d end up.
Neither of us was in a hurry. We were committed, but I didn’t realize we didn’t have a future together until she left.
And it wasn’t simply that we didn’t have a future—it was that I hadn’t actually planned for or even anticipated the future with her.
I’d taken it as a foregone conclusion and likely made her feel unwanted.
I kept thinking maybe after the next deployment, next leave period, in the new year…
at some future point, we’d reevaluate and make a plan.
We were so comfortable together, and committed, but not married.
Not everyone takes that step, but it’s also something I assumed I’d do one day after growing up with parents who were basically obsessed with each other.
I hadn’t recognized my desire for closeness and devotion like I see these friends enjoying until the possibility of it was ripped away.
Reeling from the death of my friends, having two kids I wasn’t sure I knew how to love, I looked up a few days into everything and asked her if she wanted to get married.
Like a complete idiot, I folded her into the mess instead of making her feel special, loved, and chosen outside of the crisis.
After that, my focus shifted to keeping two small humans alive and figuring out how to braid hair and pack lunches and hold the three of us together long enough to make it back to JV.
My watch beeps, notifying me of the time, and I pick up my pace. I can get a few hours of work in before it’s time to get the girls before dinner.
And in the meantime, I can practice being happy. Why should I be ungrateful and soppy when I have two amazing daughters who love me? Why would I ever feel so wistful when I’ve been given a life far fuller than I could’ve cobbled together on my own?