Chapter 18
Caleb
I don't call Christian until almost midnight, after Jasmine's gone home, and after I've spent three hours pretending the ceiling has answers scrawled across it.
He picks up on the second ring, which means he was awake, which means he's been lying in the dark worrying about stuff a nineteen-year-old has no business worrying about.
“It's midnight,” he says. “Who died?”
“Nobody died. Why's that always your opener?”
“Because you call at decent hours when it's good news or when you want to talk to the rugrats. Midnight's for the other kind.” There’s a rustle, a door easing shut. He’s stepping into the hallway so he doesn't wake the girls.
Still a kid himself, and he already moves through a house like a grown man.
Doing the job my father should be doing.
“Courtney made honor roll, by the way. She's been telling anyone who will listen. She’s very proud of herself.”
“And she should be. I’ll call her tomorrow at a decent time. Maybe she’ll finally pick up the phone when I do.”
“I’ll tell to or she’s on dish duty for a week.” A pause. “Caleb, you didn't call at midnight to chat about Courtney’s report card. You've got your bad-news voice on. I've known that voice my whole life. Spit it out.”
I've been the one holding this family up since I was sixteen, and our dad decided we were too heavy to keep carrying.
I send the money. I take the good news and the bad news, and I sort it so the kids only ever get the good half.
I do not call my little brother at midnight to whine and bitch about my life.
That's not the deal. The deal is I'm fine.
The deal has always been I'm fine. But I need to talk to somebody, and it can’t be anyone on the team, so it has to be him.
“I think I'm going to blow it,” I say.
The line goes quiet.
“The Carolina thing. The contract. I think I'm going to torch it, Christian, and I can't make myself feel bad about it the way I'm supposed to.”
“Okay.” His voice shifts. It sounds careful, like he’s older than he is. “You've wanted this since you were twelve. Why would you torch the opportunity of a lifetime, and what’s the reason why you don’t give a fuck if you do?”
“There's a girl.”
“You’re kidding me?” He laughs once. “A girl. There's a girl?”
“Don't be a dick.”
“I'm not. It's just,” he stops. “You’ve never once said that sentence in your life. There's been many girls but not one girl. I didn't think you had it in you.”
“Yeah. Neither did I.” I drag a hand down my face in the dark. “It's the coach's daughter.”
“The coach? The one that barely likes you? That coach?”
“That coach.”
“Caleb.”
“I know, bro.”
“You're telling me you went to Vegas, home of a million hot women, and could only fall for your coach’s daughter who I’m assuming is hands off?” he scoffs. “You had to have done that on purpose, dude. Sabotaging yourself, again.”
“I didn't do anything on purpose. That's the whole problem. I never do.”
So I tell him. All of it. I tell him every single special thing about Jasmine.
Every date we had. All of her jokes. Her quirks (at least the ones she’d be comfortable with me telling).
I tell him she's the first reason I've ever wanted to stay anywhere. I tell him she’s the best sex I’ve ever had.
I remind him that the job is in Carolina but she's here, and how her father is calling her into his office tomorrow to talk about how the season ends.
I tell him how I've got a feeling I can't shake, like the floor's already gone out from under me and I just haven't fallen yet.
Christian lets all of it land. He doesn't interrupt, which isn't like him, and when I run out of words, the line stays quiet long enough that I check it's still connected.
“Can I say something?” he says finally. “And you don't get to hang up on me for it.”
“When's that ever stopped you?”
“You're going to fuck this up. I can hear you winding yourself up to it from here.
You're scared this girl's going to pick her dad over you, so you're going to beat her to it.
You're going to blow it up yourself first, so you get to tell yourself you chose it.
So it doesn't count as one more person disappointing you.”
I don't say anything.
He’s too damn smart for his own good. He should be back in college, not working his life away.
“That's the move, right?” He speaks gentler now.
“It's always been the move. You did it to the Chicago thing.
You did it to that Billet family junior year, the ones who actually wanted you to stay.
The second something gets real, you find a way to set the thing on fire.
You leave first. You've been leaving first since Dad walked, because if you're already gone, it can't get done to you.”
“That's a hell of a read for a guy who failed psych,” I say, because I swallow what he’s trying to feed me.
“I didn't fail psych, asshole. I dropped it to pick up a shift, so our sisters wouldn’t get teased for their ratty ass bookbags.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, I’m not saying that for you to be sorry.
I’m telling you that we’ve both been dealt a shitty hand, but you have borne the brunt of it more than I.
” He takes a breath. “I know exactly what you look like right before you torch something good, and I'm telling you, as somebody who loves you. Don't. Not this time. Not her.”
My eyes are doing something I'm glad he can't see over a phone.
“You don't get it,” I say. “If I keep her, I lose Carolina, and Carolina solves all our problems. If I keep the girl, I lose the thing that takes care of you.”
“Did she ask you to?” Christian says. “To pick her over it?”
“No. Just the opposite.”
“Then she's not the one making you choose. You are.” He lets it sit.
“And you're choosing wrong, man. Not because you ought to pick her over us.
Because you already decided you can't have both, and you decided it before you even tried, because somewhere down there you don't believe you're allowed one good thing, let alone two. There will be other teams, Caleb. Caroline is not the be-all, end-all.”
“You don’t know that.”
“We can figure out a way to pay the bills. You won’t find another Jasmine. You’re not that damn lucky.”
“When'd you get so smart?” I manage.
“Had a good teacher. He left, but the early lessons stuck.” A pause, and I can hear him smiling, sad with it.
“I'm kidding. You raised me. You know that, right?
Whatever you think you are, in this house we know you raised two girls and me on a teenager's paycheck, and not one of us came out like dad…or mom.”
I sit with that in the dark for a second.
“There's a meeting in the morning,” I say. “She’s scared.”
“Then here's what you do.” Nineteen years old, telling me what to do, and I let him.
“You go to that meeting too. You don’t let her deal it alone.
Whatever happens in that room, you do not do the thing where you leave first, so it feels like you decided.
You let her choose. If she picks you, you've got the only thing you've ever actually wanted in your life.
If she can't, then at least you can go to Carolina with a broken heart but a clear conscience.
You make him take it from you. You don't give it away. You hearing me?”
“I hear you.”
“Say it back so I can go the fuck to sleep. I’ve got to work in the morning.”
“I let her choose. I don't leave first.” It comes out rough. “I don't burn it down so it feels like my idea.”
“Finally.” The relief in his voice is plain. “Now go to sleep, and you call me after. Whether it’s good news or bad, you call me. You don't carry this shit alone, okay? Just because you’re older than me doesn’t mean you have to. That's the part you keep forgetting.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Okay.”
“Love you, Caleb. Now get off my phone.”
“Love you too, Chris. Give Bean a kiss for me and tell Courtney honor roll's the standard now. Adams are winners.”
“I’ll tell her, big head.” And he's gone.
I lie there a long time after, holding a phone gone quiet, feeling a thing I don't have much practice feeling. For maybe the first time in my life, somebody knows the whole of it, somebody who loves me. And the world didn’t end just because I told him. In fact, I feel like a weight has been lifted.
I let her choose.
I don't leave first.
I say it to the ceiling a few more times, like a guy walking through a play he's never once run in a game.
I really did mean to remember it. That's the part that's going to take me apart tomorrow. That I knew the right thing. That my little brother handed me a clear blueprint at midnight, no charge, and I still walked into that office and reached for the only trick our bitch ass father ever taught me.
But that's tomorrow.
Tonight I'm just a guy whose brother stayed on the line until he quit panicking.