Chapter 8 #3
“You went to see him?”
“I went to take care of him,” I said. “He was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a liar. He was very, very sick and he needed somebody. He complained about me driving away women but he never really wanted any of them to stick around, either. In the end, I was the only one left standing.”
“That’s…” He paused. “Shitty.”
“It’s just how life is.” Before my dad had gasped his last few breaths, I’d thought that he was going to say something—maybe something important.
I didn’t expect an apology because I knew that he didn’t feel as if he had anything to apologize for, and maybe he hadn’t.
Anyway, it didn’t matter now and I wasn’t sure why I was talking about this.
I had never told anyone and especially not someone who was waiting to get very important news the next day, news that could have been life-changing or heart-breaking.
“You know what? We should do something happier,” he said. “Do you like baseball?”
“Um…”
“Something else, then,” he offered. He turned on his TV. “Something funny. Do you know this guy?”
It was a comedian I’d never heard of but Ronan seemed to enjoy his act.
I finished the beer in my hand and realized that it was my third—it seemed like that was a lot and it had made me sleepy.
Besides having nice pillows, his couch was also very comfortable and he didn’t mind if you stretched out on it.
It was a lot better than when I’d slept on Kiya’s. ..
Yes, I fell asleep on another sofa. I woke up early (like I always did), still comfortable but now alone and covered with a blanket.
I also woke up to the smell of cumin. I was aware that it was my fault, so I decided to clean the kitchen before I left.
I made a knot of my hair at the back of my neck and tried to work quietly because there was no point in anyone else waking up early, just to have more hours to kill before the news about the roster came out.
I checked to see if Kiya had written again but she was still silent, and so were my two other lunch friends.
It was entirely possible that we wouldn’t be lunch friends anymore, if they all got mad about her Cado.
“Hey.”
I turned in the direction of the deep voice. Ronan was shirtless and I’d seen him that way before, but this time he was also sleepy-looking with his dark hair a little rumpled. It felt kind of intimate to see him like this.
“Hi. Good morning,” I said. I turned my eyes to the sink. “I was trying to get rid of the spice smell.” I picked up my keys.
“Yeah, it was a lot last night. I took out the trash but it seemed to linger.” He went to the fridge and grabbed his water bottle. “Are you taking off now?”
I nodded. “I’ll go home.” What I would do there was a question, and fretting was the obvious answer. I needed a hobby. “I’m sorry about last night.”
“I don’t care about the cumin. Or did you drool on my couch?”
“I’m sorry about how I acted,” I said. “I came over here to make you feel better about the tryout but then you ended up comforting me instead. I didn’t mean to be a b—”
“Don’t say anything about being a bitch,” he cut me off, wincing. “I hate hearing that. You weren’t and I wouldn’t ever call you that, anyway.”
No, he wouldn’t. “Do you want to do something today, if I promise that I won’t make it about myself? Something as a distraction?”
“Yeah, I definitely want a distraction.” He had the idea of going for a walk in the big sand dunes that edged Lake Michigan, and I readily agreed. We met up at my apartment a little later, where I was waiting in the parking lot when his brown/silver car-ish vehicle pulled in.
“Are you going to sit outside in the winter, too?” he asked me.
Maybe I would. “It’s very quiet in there,” I said.
“You could get a roommate.”
“No. No, I’m happy to be on my own. It’s just quiet,” I explained.
“How about a cat? They get boisterous, don’t they? I honestly don’t know much about cats except I have seen a movie where one came back from the dead. It definitely stirred things up.”
“There are no pets allowed and I don’t need one,” I said. “Let’s go.”
The sand dunes here were amazingly pretty, and so was the expanse of dark blue water that lapped at the shore far below us. It was a beautiful day, too, perfect for being outside.
“You want my hat?” Ronan offered. “It’s bright.” He put the Junior Woodsmen baseball cap on my head. “You’re getting a lot of sun.”
“Thank you. I should have come up here before,” I said. “Last winter, I was sitting in my apartment with nothing to do and this was here, waiting to be explored.”
“It’s a little different when there’s snow, but there’s still a lot to keep you busy in the winter.
Have you ever tried snowmobiling? Cross country skiing?
Downhill?” I shook my head. “Well, you claimed to be unfamiliar with golf, which I then learned was a lie. What other outdoor things? Camping? Biking?”
“No, none of that,” I said. “Before this year, I was either working on school stuff or working at a job and when I was a kid, I usually stayed inside. A lot of the places we lived weren’t safe.
” We were in motels and job sites with men from all over, separated from their families and other constraints on their behavior.
“I shouldn’t have been wandering around by myself. ”
“You can wander here with me…oh, shit.” He took his phone out of his back pocket and looked at it. “I just got an email from the defensive coordinator.”
“What does it say? What?”
But he was still staring at the notification. “Do I want to know?”
“Yes! I mean, take your time.”
He did take another moment, which seemed to last for an hour or two as I tried not to fidget or grab the phone from his hand.
But finally, he opened the message. “I think this was sent to everyone who tried out,” he reported.
“It thanks us for our efforts and says that we all know how hard it is to play Woodsmen-level football.”
Judas Priest, that sounded bad. “Is there anything else?” I could hear that my voice had gone higher and was maybe a little too loud.
“Next season’s roster is attached.” His face was set, like a marble statue. “Come here and look with me.”
I stepped to his side as he opened the document. The Woodsmen logo was at the top and underneath was a list of alphabetized names, beginning with Adiang, Seyram, OL for offensive line. It stated his height, weight, age, and years of experience.
Slowly, Ronan started to scroll. “There are a lot of B names,” he noted. “Baines, Bodine…” He stopped. “Everett Ford made it. He was our QB last year for the Juniors. I knew he would.”
“Keep going! I mean, please keep going,” I said, with less volume.
He moved down through the roster and it felt like there were a million guys listed. He flicked his thumb faster, and then faster, but he stopped at the group of P names. “Myles Pham isn’t here,” he said, and I felt a big twinge of disappointment. “I’ll call him.”
“In a minute. Can you keep looking?”
He did. And finally, he reached the end of the alphabet. My heart seemed to freeze—so did everything around us—
“‘Wilder, Ronan. Defensive end. Six-six. Two hundred seventy-three pounds, age twenty-five. Rookie,’” he read.
I stared at the screen, needing confirmation. His name was right there, in the bright orange of the Woodsmen. Wilder, Ronan.
“Hell’s bells.” His voice shook. “I’m a rookie again.”
“You made it,” I said. My own voice was now a whisper.
“I made it.”
The phone jiggled and I realized that his hand was shaking, too, so I put my palm under his for support. “You did it,” I told him. I looked up and watched a smile spread across his features, and I knew that I was reflecting it back at him.
“I did it.” He bent and kissed me.
Ronan was kissing me.
It only lasted for a few seconds before he pulled back. “Cate, I’m sorry. Sorry. I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I don’t know—”
“No, that’s ok. It was shock. You’re in shock,” I said quickly, and he nodded and echoed the words back to me.
“I’m in shock.”
“And you’re a Woodsmen,” I added, and his smile grew again. He picked me up in a hug and we spun across the dunes.
He was a Woodsmen.