28. CADE
CHAPTER 28
CADE
O ut of an abundance of caution, the team physicians decree that everyone who’s down with the cold should stay home for a week to ensure that we fully recover, and don’t pass this along to the rest of the team.
It’s great. I haven’t had this much free time in years. Even during the offseason I’m too busy training to catch up on TV shows or whatever. I now know the name of every season winner of The Great British Baking Show. In theory, I should also be able to bake a very flaky pastry, but I don’t want to try. My expansive but empty kitchen feels sadder than ever, and I’ve been avoiding it with all my might. Just go in, quickly heat up leftover soup, and dash to my couch to keep watching the show.
Or to text Hope.
In my defense, she’s also been bored out of her mind now that she’s read her kinesthesia books and gone through every photo album at her dad’s place.
We FaceTimed once more, a couple of nights ago. Even though she sounded a lot more congested than the first day, and her features were more haggard, her eyes were as bright as two jewels as she told me about her mom.
“She had a total thing for skirts,” she said, openly amazed. “In every single picture she’s wearing one. The only exception was shorts at the beach in Margarita during their honeymoon.”
“What’s Margarita?” I asked, pronouncing it in such a Texan way that it made her laugh.
Once her amusement subsided, she said, “It’s an island in my parents’ home country. But anyway, seeing her pictures…” She trailed off to bite her lips, and I really struggled with focusing on her next words. “It just made me wonder how I would’ve turned out if she’d raised me.”
I remember having to sit up at that point, concluding that maybe lying down on my bed while talking on camera with the woman I have a thing for is probably not wise. At least going by the very red blooded reaction of my body to just seeing her bite her lip.
Fortunately, my brain replayed her words and they annoyed me enough to snap me out of the haze. “Why is there some implication that you turned out wrong?”
“No—well.” She shrugged, not noticing that the collar of her oversized T-shirt slipped off her shoulder. I did notice. “I might’ve just turned out girlier, is all. Then maybe the whole dating thing wouldn’t have been so hard.”
“Listen to me, Hope. There’s nothing wrong with you not being girly.”
“But—”
“Nuh uh. Don’t make me mansplain how wrong men are.”
That made her smile, which, with her hair wildly spread over her pillow, the bare little shoulder, the pink nose—shit, it did something to me.
A few more minutes of conversation followed and then we hung up for the night. And that was it. For over a day.
The problem is that she stopped responding to my texts two days ago and either she’s grown bored of me, or something’s happened. I’m annoyed at being so professional that I don’t have her roommates’s numbers to check in. I’m sure it’d look weird if I ask her boss for her digits. And if I ask Lucky and he does have it, I may blow a fuse.
So I wait for a whole day until today, my first day back to the facilities for light training. I speed walk across the parking lot and the building like it’s also going to accelerate time until I can find out if she’s okay.
“Welcome back,” someone from the back office says as I walk in, carrying my duffel bag.
“Thanks, Joe. Everything good with you?”
“Yeah, also survived the cold.”
“Good, good. Well I hope you have a good day.” Mentally I wince at my inability to be more eloquent, but I’m really in a hurry here.
“Take it easy, man. We really need you this season.”
That trips me up—literally. I manage to not faceplant by sheer athleticism alone. But dude’s already walking away, taking words that were usually said to Ben Williams with him.
“Huh,” I mutter. Shaking my head, I set course for the training area to see if I catch sighting of a certain Latina.
The second I walk into the locker room, I’m greeted with, “Hey man!”
“Welcome back.”
“Missed your pretty face, Starr.”
“I didn’t. Your face annoys me.”
The latter comes from Logan Kim, so I ignore him.
Lucky greets me with a handshake and a smack to my back. Pulling away, he says, “Bruh, I missed you so much that I got you a present.”
“It’s not a whoopee cushion, is it?”
“No, it’s just socks.” He pulls a roll of socks from his back pocket and places it on my hand. Already by the color I can tell that they’re not normal.
Keeping my face straight, I unfurl them—and unfurl them some more. The things have to be knee high, if not higher. And… A few guys from the team burst out laughing.
“Remind me how old you are again?” I ask him.
He jams his hands in his pockets and gives me an innocent look. “Thirty, why?”
“Shouldn’t you act a bit more serious for someone who claims to be my older brother?”
He waves a hand. “Nah, that’d be boring. Anyway, put them on.”
“There’s a punch line coming, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but not until you’re wearing them.”
My eye twitches, but I know Lucky. He’s as relentless at robbing bases—and he has the team’s record to prove it—as he is with his practical jokes that belong to middle school. They’re usually in the form of a challenge, always benign, sometimes annoying, often funny. I wonder which of the two it’ll be this time, so I sit by my locker, remove my normal socks and push up the legs of my black joggers to the knees so that his absurd socks can be on full display.
“Pffff.” He presses a hand against his mouth once I’m done with the first one, and completely loses it when I’m done with the second one. “See, Cade? That’s what you get for skipping leg day!”
I groan as he guffaws, and some of the other guys join in. “Seriously?”
The only way my legs can look like as chicken’s is by wearing these white socks that have a cartoon chicken’s legs drawn at the front and at the back. I make a mental note of finding an even worse pair for him.
“Wait, wait, wait. Let me take a picture.” He produces his phone and I let him. “Guaranteed these pics will make chicks lose their minds far more than your SPORTY article.”
“What?”
“Chicks?” He grins. “That’s where I got the idea from.”
“No, the SPORTY thing. You know about it?”
“The whole team knows. Audrey Winters from PR came looking for you a few minutes ago. She’s waiting for you in Beau’s office.”
This annoys me even more than I already was at the constant distractions.
“Great,” I mumble, getting up.
O’Brian stops me with a hand on my chest. “Dude, are you going in with those socks?”
“Yeah, I’m gonna wear them until they have holes on their toes,” I grouch, never backing from a prank war with Lucky. If I remove these socks right now, I won’t have a right to retaliate.
“There goes your heartthrob reputation.”
Lucky hooks an arm around my neck and whispers into my ears, “The socks are also a reminder to not chicken out about other things.”
“What things?” I frown at him.
“Going after the girl you like.”
Every blink progressively sours my expression even more, especially when his shit eating grin widens more and more. He pats my chest and lets me go. No one else seems to have heard that, and if I don’t dignify it with an answer, I can pretend like I also never heard his words.
Of course, the moment I walk into Beau’s office and Audrey Winters looks up at me, the greeting sticks in her throat upon the sight of my brand new socks.
“They’re funnier without the sneakers,” I say in a deadpan.
She snaps her jaw shut and recovers. “Let me guess, Lucky Rivera.”
“Bingo.” I sigh and pull up the chair across the meeting table from hers. “Good morning, sugar. I heard you wanted to see me about this SPORTY gig.”
“I—Yes. May I suggest you don’t wear the chicken socks for the photoshoot?”
“I will consider it out of the goodness of my heart.” I lace my fingers together and place my hands on the table. “Can I ask you something else before we start on the topic of the photoshoot?”
“Sure.” She tilts her head, shiny blonde hair falling over her shoulder.
“How’s Hope doing?”
“Oh, it’s been touch and go—Did you just call her Hope?”
I lean forward sharply. “Touch and go?”
“Well, she had to go to urgent care last night because?—”
I jerk to my chicken feet so fast that my chair topples over. We both stare at each other in equal shock at my reaction. Clearing my throat, I pick up the chair and mumble apologies. When I meet her eyes again, there’s a weird little glint to them.
Winters leans back. “I heard you’re on light duty today, which is why I was hoping to hash out the specifics about the photoshoot with you but…” She shrugs most elegantly, if I may say. “I wouldn’t mind if you had to step away from the facilities for a personal emergency.”
My eyes narrow slightly. “Am I understanding this right? You’re giving me an excuse to?—”
“I know her dad’s address, if you want to go see her.”
I stand there, my heart racing under my sweatshirt, doing my best not to show outwardly how eager I am for this information. So I can go see her. And make sure she’s okay. Return the favor, even. Although I don’t know how to cook. But I could wipe her forehead with some wet cloth like they do in the movies, or something.
“And would that be okay?” I ask carefully. “Giving me her address.”
“I think so,” she says, bobbing her head with every word. “I have yet to meet a guy who is as kind and well mannered as you. But just so we’re clear, I’ll gut you with this pen if you hurt her.” She lifts up a fancy pen, holding it like it’s a knife.
“I respect that,” I say, meaning it.
“Good. Now, write it down.”