Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
TAI
Do I want to be up early, heading into work instead of spending the day with Hawke?
No fucking way. But if there’s one thing I’m committed to, it’s keeping me and Dad afloat, and Hawke showing up isn’t going to change that.
The training I run during the summer makes up for a large portion of my income, and every year, I have more and more kids signing up.
Walking into the cafe, I picture what it would be like if I took Hawke up on his offer to give me money. Realistically, I know he could do it, and I know it would make everything about my life so much easier, but I also know that as fun as it is to dream, I’d never take it.
He’s worked hard for what he has, and I’m not entitled to a cent. Not even if we’d never had our falling-out. And especially not now that we’ve sucked each other’s cocks.
It’s been three days, and while we’ve both been too busy to catch up, we’ve been texting, and everything feels normal. Normal. Except for how often I relive that moment.
I place my order, throwing a few dollars in the tip jar, and then step aside to wait.
The cafe hasn’t changed in all the years that I remember it.
White and red checkered floors, high ceilings with a large fan in the center, and on shelves around the large space are miniature figurines of cows that the owner, Belli, collects on her travels.
There’s something comforting in the familiar, the same way it is with Hawke.
Today’s Kasen’s first training since I saw him on the weekend, and I have no idea if Hawke is going to show up for it or not. I also have no clue how Kasen would react if he did. I’m hovering right on that line of trying not to take a side, and it isn’t going well.
I’ll support whatever Kasen decides, but I really want this to work out for them both. I have no idea what that will mean when Hawke goes back to St. Louis, but that’s his problem to solve.
“Tai,” Belli calls, coming through from the back. She’s late forties, with gray-streaked dreads and kind brown eyes. “Do you have a second?”
“Sure do.” I have all the time for her. When Dad first had his stroke, Belli wordlessly kept our fridge stocked with meals for months.
“I was talking to your dad yesterday,” she says. “He was in here with his walking group.”
“Oh, yeah?” That’s nothing new. He has a group of friends he walks with a few times a week, and the cafe is the perfect halfway spot for them to stop at.
But if yesterday was an average day, I doubt she’d be wanting to talk to me.
Instinctively, I tense, flashing back to all those times post-stroke where Dad would have a breakdown, or his temper would flare, or things would get too big and overwhelming for him.
All those calls have stayed with me, and while his emotional regulation will never be what it was, he’s worked to control the things around him so that those moments don’t happen as frequently.
I brace myself for what might have happened.
“Yeah, he, uh … asked for a job.”
I’d prepared myself for a conversation about his health, so this … it catches me off guard. “A job?”
“Yes, a job.” She smiles, picking up on my shock.
“Nothing permanent. Actually, he asked if he could pop in and help when we’re busy, but I absolutely will not be taking advantage of him like that.
So I suggested a Thursday morning might be a good pace for him to work an hour or so clearing tables. ”
“He … wants that?” Dad’s never said a thing to me about working. Some people can manage their jobs just fine after a stroke, and they have few long-lasting effects, but that wasn’t Dad. It was probably one of the hardest things for him to come to terms with.
“I think it’s a great idea,” Belli says, an edge to her tone I haven’t heard before. “He was really excited about it.”
“But … what if he can’t show up one day? Or he has to leave early? Or he gets stressed and doesn’t handle it—”
Her hand on my arm cuts me off. “Those are the things I get to worry about, okay?”
“Belli, I—”
“You’re a very good man, and you’ve done so much for him. But I’m not asking your permission.”
I finally place what that tone is. She’s prepared to fight for this, and I don’t know if I should be glad that Dad has someone in his corner or pissed that he didn’t come to me first.
“I know this is a big change. I’m not diminishing that, but if Ben wants to give this a try, I’m all for it.”
My name is called, but I don’t make a move to grab my order. My throat feels thick, like the words are too sticky to make it past, and I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be saying something. Thanking her, maybe. But I go on staring like a fish.
Then she says the only thing that will make any of this better. “I promise I’ll look after him.”
“Thank you.”
She gives my arm another squeeze and disappears out the back, but it still takes me a moment to gather myself and grab my coffee.
The whole way to the rink, my gut is in knots. I want him to do this. I want it to go well and for Dad to get that little bit of his life back.
But I’m so scared it won’t. What happens if all this does is prove to him that work isn’t an option? What if he fails and it sends him into another spiral where he refuses his antidepressants, and we go back to that dark, scary place where he stops trying?
Sure, the canvases clogging up the house are inconvenient, but they’re also hope.
That’s something we both need.
I’m so focused on my conversation with Belli that I completely forget to worry about seeing Hawke again.
Until I pull up in the parking lot and find him leaning against his rental. He’s wearing branded St. Louis athletic gear, strong legs extended from his shorts and hands tucked into the front pockets of his hoodie.
He looks incredible, as usual, and some of the twisted anxiety threatening to overwhelm me settles.
I park next to him, turn off the car, and climb out. “Kasen’s class isn’t until three,” I tell him.
“I know. Figured your students would get a kick out of having a professional player stop by.”
“You’d be right.” I predict that there will be more jersey signing than training today. Considering how my brain seems to have leaked out of my ears, I can’t say that’s a bad thing. “So you’re going to hang around all day?”
His hazel eyes are slow to meet mine. “You’re a busy man. Can’t really be friends again if we don’t spend time together.”
It’s a relief to hear that it wasn’t only the orgasms talking the other night.
Hawke cocks his head. “You okay?”
“I’m …” I suck in a lungful of morning air. “Torn.”
“About me being here?”
I laugh. “Everything’s got to be about you.”
“I’m kind of a big deal.”
He really is, and joking or not, I hope he knows that. “Over Dad, actually.”
Hawke’s expression immediately tightens. “Did something happen?”
“No, not …” I’m about to sound like a complete idiot. “He talked to Belli about working in the cafe. It sounds like they’re going to take it slow, and I’m so fucking happy that he feels like he can do this, but I’m terrified that he really can’t.”
He whistles, long and slow. “What makes you think he can’t?”
“A decade of experience,” I answer dryly before I decide to get really honest. “I just know how this is going to go. I don’t doubt that Dad can do it, but I do doubt that people will give him the space he needs to adjust properly.
He gets frustrated and down on himself so easily, and I know he won’t be able to brush it off if he fucks up. ”
“Maybe he won’t fuck up.”
I stare Hawke down. “How did he look to you the other day?”
“Like Ben.”
“Really? Exactly like the Ben you knew?”
Hawke sighs and surprises the shit out of me by pulling me into a hug.
His strong arms hold me tightly against him, and at first, I want to struggle against the restricting feeling that consumes me, but then I process his scent, his warmth, and my brain catches up with the fact that he used to be my safest person in the world.
The tension eases out of my muscles, and my hands find his lower back.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs.
“Yeah, me too.” I stay there, face on his shoulder, until the worries don’t feel like they’re going to strangle me. “It’s hard to let go.”
“I bet.”
“He’s the most important person in the world to me, you know?”
“I resent that.” He loosens his hold on me, and when I pull back, he’s smiling. “But I guess I can give Ben a pass.”
I chuckle and finally put distance between us as I reach into my back seat and pull out the gear bag. “Are you saying I’m your favorite person? I think Gigi would murder me in my sleep.”
“Please. She’d throw me under the bus for Mom and Dad.”
“There is no way.” I might have avoided anything to do with the Hawkes since he left, but I know she would have missed him.
“Agree to disagree.” He takes one of the bags from me. “Now, let’s forget about sacrificing siblings and parents having their own lives, and go train some snot-nosed kids.”
“As long as you promise not to call them snot-nosed kids.”
“I make no such promises.”