CHAPTER 8 BEN
“How long you planning to sleep on my couch, boy?” Gramma asks me.
They aren’t the first words I want to hear to begin my day, but they’ve been the words she’s asked me every morning for the last week.
I can’t sleep on her couch much longer. It’s too damn small for me.
Besides, training camp begins in a couple weeks. I should start workouts. I need to get back into season shape. I need to stop sulking. I need to confront Tatum. I need to pick myself up and attempt to move forward with my life.
But I can’t seem to move my ass off Gramma’s couch.
She brings me food I’m not hungry enough to eat and fawns over me. I think she secretly likes having me here, and it’s sort of like I’m hiding out. I watch film and cartoons on my phone, and I’m still connected enough to the world, but nobody knows where I’m hiding out.
I like it that way.
Jack called me twice, but I didn’t answer either call.
I’m sure he called to yell at me some more.
I can’t handle the abuse right now.
He texted to let me know everybody is out of my house. I guess that means I could go back, but I can’t go back. I can’t keep picturing the pain in Kaylee’s eyes as I told her I had to end things with her because she’s too young for me and she’s my best friend’s little sister.
God, I’m an asshole.
Maybe I’ll just sell the damn place.
George took care of Buddy the first two days I was gone, and then he offered to drop him by Gramma’s place (despite her protests about dog hair being all over her clean house), so now I have everything I need here.
Except Kaylee.
There’s a constant ache in my chest that not even an entire box of cereal can help, and I’m not sure how I’m supposed to go back to Vegas to play a game with her brother when I’ll only see her when I look at him now.
I guess this is what he meant by a relationship between the two of us potentially causing issues in the locker room.
I need to do something. I keep thinking that maybe if I confront Tatum, if I get that stupid towel back, I can figure this out.
A little twist in my stomach jabs me painfully, and I grunt at the feel.
It’s happened a few times over the last week, and I think it’s my body refusing the fact that Kaylee and I are through. I haven’t had sex in over a week, and I guess my stomach is wondering why.
I don’t want to have sex if it isn’t with Kaylee.
I keep feeling that twist when I think of her and what she’d be like as a mother. The thought pops into my head unsolicited more often than I care to admit.
And once or twice, I’ve even found myself transported back to when I found out Tatum was pregnant.
I was excited.
It took me some time to get there, but I was ready to be a dad.
Until I had to face the grief of losing the baby on top of what she did to me.
Could I be excited again? Could I give Kaylee everything she wants?
It’s like playing the slap hands game. When the person’s hands are on the bottom and they’re threatening to slap your hands when you’re on top, you get nervous and pull your hands back to protect yourself, giving them a free slap shot.
I’m nervous. I’m retreating back.
I’m afraid of the free slap shot to my heart—which probably wouldn’t be any worse than what I’m putting myself through right now anyway.
I think of my dad’s words to me about fear when I was first scouted at a high school football game, and again when the draft was only days away, and at other times in my life when I was scared. He’d told me how I shouldn’t let my fear of what could happen allow me to make nothing happen.
He was right then.
He’s always right.
I wonder if he was scared when he found out my mom was pregnant. I wonder if he wanted kids.
I’ve done the math. They got married when my mom was pregnant with me. Did they get married out of love or obligation…and was that at the root of their divorce, too?
All questions I should ask him, I suppose.
Maybe Gramma’s right, and I’m just trying to act like some hero that I’m not. Or maybe I am doing the right thing. Who knows?
Ellie texts me the newest Billy Peters video, and the headline mentions that what we had must’ve been real. Fucker. I can’t bring myself to watch it.
I spend more than a full week escaping the world with Gramma and Buddy, and eventually it’s time to face reality.
I have to get back to Vegas at some point.
I have to face Jack.
I should face Kaylee, too. I was such a dick when I ended things. I never should have used what I knew would hurt her the most, but I didn’t know what else to do in my desperation to protect her.
Before I head back to Vegas, though, I need to confront Tatum. I need to try one more time to get her to give me that stupid towel so I can lift this bullshit blackmail she has over me. It won’t bring me back to Kaylee, but maybe it’ll help lift some of the burden pressing down on my shoulders.
It’s with that thought that I kiss my Gramma on the cheek, scratch Buddy behind the ears, and hop in my truck to head over to Tatum’s house.