Chapter 15 #4
“You need a ride home?” I clarified as we went out the door to the parking lot where my Escalade was parked.
It wasn’t even close to winter, only four weeks into the season and barely October, but I’d taken to driving the SUV every day so I could shuttle family members back and forth between my house and the hospital.
They were all staying in the apartment downstairs now because I was close to Mass General and they all lived twenty miles and untold time and traffic away on the North Shore.
Her step almost faltered when I asked, as if she’d just realized I hadn’t planned to take her.
“If that’s a problem—”
“No problem.” Like hell it wasn’t. But then maybe I needed a test of my resolve. Let’s see if I can drop her off and not get out of my car and follow her inside to her apartment. Let’s see if I can let her out of the car without kissing her.
She smiled. My jaw muscle twitched with my effort to not react, to not lean down and kiss her right then and there, before we even reached my car. I kept my mouth shut and we got in. I even managed to open her door for her without touching her.
Neither of us had anything to say on the ride to her place.
Not a long ride, thank God. Ten minutes on back streets.
Between the lousy game I’d played and the coach’s lecture, I was strung tight, ripe to either lash out or—and this would have been my preference if I became unleashed—kiss her senseless with ravaging greed, and that was just for starters.
But I didn’t do anything except drive, perfectly under control, even if I felt my willpower being stretched. Well, almost all of me was under control. My cock was taut and vibrating and not in anyone’s control except Mia’s.
When I pulled up to the curb in front of her building, I stayed put. My cock was too stiff for me to comfortably get out of the car even if I had the bad sense to attempt it.
“Thanks for the ride.” She looked at me and paused. “I would ask you to come in, but—”
I stared at her, willing her with my limited mental powers to tell me why she wasn’t going to ask me in, maybe willing her to ask me in anyway.
“Is something wrong, Gabe?” She waved a hand. “I mean, besides losing the game.”
Maybe it was the way she dismissed the game, the loss, like it was fucking meaningless, that snapped my tension, that rescued me from the verge of giving in.
“In my world, playing the way I did tonight is just about the wrongest thing there is.” My voice was firm and hard enough to convince her.
I was convinced. Pretty much. My cock was still on Team Mia.
Then I added, because she looked distraught, “Plus I’m still worried about my mother.
” It wasn’t a lie, even though she was doing better.
“I understand,” she said, looking resigned. She opened her door.
I should tell her now that we were over, that I couldn’t see her, that there couldn’t be a relationship between us, no more lovemaking, though my cock wanted to murder me at the thought.
But I couldn’t bring myself to cut her off even though there was something terribly wrong with keeping her.
Like I’d be letting go of football if I were with her.
I couldn’t let go of either of them. It felt like I’d walked to the edge of a precipice to a deep cavernous void and she was on the other side of the divide while I stood on the side of football.
I couldn’t see a way to get to her without falling into the void if I jumped.
However concerned Mia might be, she couldn’t be surprised, because I’d warned her. Denise had warned her.
“Maybe you can give me a call tomorrow, after practice,” she said.
I didn’t respond. Couldn’t make the promise, couldn’t speak over the warring in my soul over needing her and needing football. But I had football. Knew football. I was already riding this unicorn and needed to keep riding it as far as it would take me. I wasn’t abandoning football now.
She got out of the car and said, “I’ll call you.”
I would talk to her, but I needed to get my head on straight first. Needed to talk to my dad.
Monday night after a late practice, instead of seeing Mia, I texted her to let her know I was visiting Mom at the hospital.
It was late enough so that I knew Mia wouldn’t be there to join me.
I didn’t like the way I’d left things with her.
It felt wrong. but I needed time to sort through and figure out what was right, if there was anything right about us having a relationship.
It was well past visiting hours, but I’d used my notoriety to get past the rules. When I walked into the room with a bouquet of pink roses, her favorite, I wasn’t surprised that no one else was around. They would have all gone home.
“Gabriel, my favorite bambino—don’t tell anyone else.” She put out her arms, perking up from her resting spot on the pillow.
I went to her, slid into her hug and hugged her back, careful, trying not to notice her frailty. She wasn’t skinny and that might be part of her problem, but she’d lost strength and I could feel it in her arms around me.
“Everyone gone for the night?” I asked as I straightened and sat in the bedside chair.
“Finally.” Her smile glowed at me, adored me, and my chest squeezed at the idea of losing her.
“What is it, honey? Tell me what happened to make you play that way?” Her words were gentle, nonjudgmental, and knowing. I shrugged.
“I’m worried about you,” I said.
“There’s no need to worry. I’ll be back to normal in no time. The doctor fixed me all up. My heart is good as new.” She sighed and I smiled, eating up her words, believing her.
“Except you’re going to break my heart right now, looking at your face. Tell me why you’re so sad.”
“I don’t know, Ma, maybe it has something to do with that sucky game I played.” Me trying to be funny, forgetting my mother was better than me at reading people.
She shook her head.
“No. I know girl problems when I see them.”
I chuckled, looking at the floor. I hadn’t wanted to bother Mom about this, but she was determined to have this conversation, I knew her.
“Okay, I won’t deny I have girl problems. That’s why I played like shit. And my shitty play is what’s got me down.”
She laughed, reached up and stroked my unshaven chin like she used to when I was a boy, when my chin was smooth and innocent.
The way she had after my best friend had died right before my eyes.
One minute he’d been skateboarding, the next minute a car had smashed him, sending him flying into the air and crashing onto the windshield, broken, bloody. And lifeless.
I turned away. I never thought about him, and especially not about that moment. Not in years. And now the nightmare scene was popping up out of nowhere. What the fuck?
“You’re thinking about Derek, aren’t you?”
“No.” My mother was too good at reading me for my comfort. “It’s . . .” I was confused. “Derek wasn’t my best friend, wasn’t the one—”
“You loved him,” she said.
“But he stole Laura.” I squeezed my mind, details floating around, evading me.
“Laura? Your first girlfriend? I haven’t heard her name in years. Derek stole her? You never told me that.” She studied me, must have seen my confusion, because for the life of me I couldn’t remember right now, couldn’t remember Derek being my best friend.
“You must be thinking of Kevin,” she said.
The stab of pain shot through me like an icepick through my heart. I swiped a hand through my hair.
“That’s right. You remember better than I do.” I gave a shaky laugh, managed to shove the soul-tearing confusion aside, locked Derek and Kevin and Laura back up where they belonged in a black vault inside my soul. I squeezed her hand in mine. It felt cold. I squeezed harder.
“You forget, I’ve known you since before you were born,” she said. “No one will ever know you better or love you more, except . . .” she trailed off, looked thoughtful. It was a familiar refrain.
“So you’ve been telling me. Until I meet my special girl someday.” I tried smiling. Thought of Mia. Pushed her away. Stood up and paced.
“You’ve met her, haven’t you? And you’re afraid.”
“Afraid?” I scoffed, foolishly pretending I didn’t know what she meant. She smiled. I rolled my eyes. All the posturing, the pretense did no good. I couldn’t even fool myself anymore.
Because Mom was right.
I swore under my breath, thought of leaving. The clench in my gut was enough for me not to want this conversation.
“Don’t leave, Gabriel. We need to talk about this. You need to face your fear.”
“What fear?” I honestly didn’t know.
“You’re afraid of losing someone close. You’re afraid of losing football because it saved you from drowning in your sorrow.
You’re especially afraid of losing football to a woman you know will come before the game, before your family, before me and your father and everything else you hold dear, those things you’ve counted on all your life to make you happy.
You’re afraid to let go of your allegiance to all those things for a woman who’s untested, who you’re not sure will make you happy. ”
Clenching my teeth against the automatic shiver of that fear she’d so accurately pinpointed, I stared at her, unable to look away.
I had lost Derek that same summer I had lost Laura.
The memory snapped into clarity as if I’d turned it on like a television.
I remembered everything about her and Kevin.
And Derek now. Laura, my first crush, was forever linked to losing my best friend, to that horrific bloody accident.
She’d been there with me, in the street when the accident happened.
She never spoke to me again afterwards. Somehow over the years I’d conflated the loss of Derek, my jealousy of Kevin and desertion of Laura.
And how football had saved my life so that I didn’t need her anymore, so I would never think about how I lost my best friend.
How had everything gotten so confused in my head?
“I’m an emotional wreck.” I said aloud, quiet, but she heard me and frowned.
I’d been unable to deal with the losses so I hid it all away, leaned on my family, but most of all relied on the crutch of football to change my focus and never dealt with my grief.
At least that’s what my rational adult brain was telling me.
My gut still felt the same churn of uncertainty and confusion.
Mom tried to protest, to speak up, but instead coughed violently. I knelt by her bed, kissed her forehead, felt my heart stutter at her fragility and swore at myself for letting her use her limited energy on me and my stupidity.
“Mom, don’t worry. I’ll be fine. You rest.”
“You’ll talk to Mia?”
My heart stopped, then raced ahead. I took a breath and nodded. I needed football. I had no idea if I needed Mia, or if she would have anything to do with me. She above anyone else knew what an emotional coward I was. She’d been brave yesterday.
It was about time I got some courage.
“I will. I’ll talk to her. See how she feels. See if there’s . . .”
Mom squeezed my hand and closed her eyes. The heart monitor was steady. She was asleep. I left her that way.
Throwing on my leather jacket, I left the room, slipped past the nurses’ station with a wave, and went down the back stairwell and out the back door. I hadn’t wanted to talk to Mom about this, to bother her with it, but I was glad I did. She was wiser than Dad. Easier to talk to.
Having no idea what I would say to Mia, I started my car, the roar of the engine giving me energy and false bravado.
I slipped out my phone and texted Mia that I was coming over.
It was nine o’clock. Not too late. I knew she’d be home.
It was probably cowardly to text instead of calling. One step at a time.
My next step would be a doozie. I had no idea what I would say or do.
Understanding the problem was a far cry from solving the problem.