“What if she’s never ready?” God, her voice sounded so small I wanted to wrap my arms around her and hold her to my chest. Anything to take away the pain she hid. Anything to make her happy.
“Mallory—”
“I should go. I’ll…I should go. Bye, Aaron.”
I opened my mouth, but she’d already ended the call. Why in the fuck did I go there?
Chapter Fifteen
Thanksgiving at my house was not a small affair. It was the only time the entire family sat around the same table. My aunts and uncles, along with my younger cousins, drifted back to Chicago and Cedar Rapids for Christmas, but Thanksgiving we’re always together. The grandmas liked to race to our house first thing in the morning to see what they could do. Grandpas Len and Vincent long ago gave up trying to convince Grandma Eddie and Grandma Jean that Mom didn’t need their help. Never stopped their competitive spirit. Neither did the annual pumpkin pie debate. Both grandmas would bring three pies apiece, and nothing was ever left over.
I spread out on my bed, like I did every year to avoid the overcrowding situation. Our house wasn’t small until Thanksgiving. Then it was microscopic. Thank God nobody tried to spend the night. The local hotel with indoor pool was too inviting.
“Hiding, boy?” Dad leaned against my doorframe, smirking like he just ate one of Grandma Eddie’s pies all by himself.
“You know it, old man.”
Dad stepped into my room and glanced at my trophy shelf. He stepped over to them, touching the plaques I’d gotten for being team MVP my sophomore, junior, and senior years. “How’s the knee?”
“Good.” I sat up and bent my knee a few times to show him. My brace was still necessary, but the pain was nothing more than a mild discomfort now. Seth was a genius.
“Doc seemed mighty concerned about it last time we spoke.” He refused to look at me, and my stomach turned into a whirlpool filled with boulders. “Didn’t think you were healing quite right.”
“Yeah.” My palms were slicker than oil. “It wasn’t going well, but I took another week off putting pressure on it and started being more careful. Followed my PT routine, took all my meds. You know, giving myself more time to get to class and making sure I didn’t do anything stupid like running.”
“You were running?” His head snapped toward me, and a blaze of anger flashed through his normally calm eyes.
I held up my hands in surrender. “Once. Not on purpose, but I was going to be late for Monroe’s class, and he’d dock me for sure. I strained it pretty bad.”
The fire dissipated as fast as it flared. “But you’re doing better now?”
“Great. I may even be ready for the season.” I tried to smile, but this entire conversation set me on edge. Did he know something? I didn’t bring anything with me, so there was no way. But Dad tended to know things without knowing things. It was some kind of weird sixth sense or something.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Aaron.” He sighed, and the weight of life pushed him beneath his six-foot frame. “Nothing’s worth sacrificing your health or your education. The scouts look at your integrity, too. See if who you are will fit in with the organization.” He bent his knee, and it crackled like a fresh log on a fire. “Trust me on this.”
“Yeah, Dad. I trust you.” I bit the words as my heart slammed against my ribs. What have I done?
He nodded and shuffled out the door.
I fell back on my bed and stared at the smooth white ceiling. The fan didn’t spin, just collected dust. I closed my eyes and dug deep for answers. Why did I start juicing? Because I wanted to play. Because I wanted to heal. Because I wanted to get drafted. Because I wanted to succeed where my father had failed. And because I wanted Mallory to watch me from the stands, proud of her man. But she wasn’t mine. Not yet. And she wouldn’t be if I got busted.
I’m done. No more.
Seth told me to stop by Thanksgiving. I’d dump the stash when I got back. I bent my knee to my chest, feeling the strain of the stretch but no pain. I don’t need that shit anymore.
Our youngest cousin Angela kept Chels trapped in her room, because Angela wanted to try on makeup. The best part was that it was easier to avoid Chelsea. She’d been trying to pin me down since Mallory called. It was not a conversation I wanted to have with her. Fortunately, she had enough sense to avoid the topic around my parents. Unfortunately, she also had an attack plan. By the time we sat down to eat around two, there were about thirty people crowded into the dining room, kitchen, living room, and family room. Chelsea planted herself right next to me. Thank God, she had let her hair return to its natural blond.
“Who’s Mallory?” she whispered the minute after Grandpa Len finished saying grace.
I ignored her and continued to butter a homemade roll. Grandma Eddie and Grandma Jean might’ve fought every year about who made the best pumpkin pie, but they learned a long time ago that nobody could beat Mom’s homemade rolls.
“You can ignore me all you want, Aaron, but I’ll keep pestering you until you break.” She snatched the roll from my hand. “You’re already hot and bothered over her. Just tell me who she is.”
“My tutor,” I said through gritted teeth.
Chelsea’s laughter drew too much attention from the other end of the table.
“What’re you two whispering about down there?” Mom asked. Everyone’s eyes turned toward us, and I wanted to sink under the table.
Chelsea, however, had always been a superior liar. “Aaron was just telling me about his physical therapy. He called his therapist a sadist. I thought it was funny.”
The conversation turned to my knee injury, not that I thought for a moment my sister had given up.
“How’s the knee doing, young’un?” Grandpa Vincent heaped a pile of potatoes higher than Kilimanjaro. My arteries clogged at the sight. They damn near became impassable when he scooped a lump of butter and doused it with gravy.
“Good.” I couldn’t take my eyes off the trainwreck of food. Any red-blooded American boy loved mashed potatoes, but this was something Pastor Walters would question. Gluttony at its best.
“Gonna play?” Grandpa Len asked. He shook his head at Grandpa Vincent and took a respectable serving of potatoes.
“I hope so.”
“Aaron will be fine. He’s a smart boy.” Dad slapped the table and changed the subject.
“Good,” Grandpa Vincent said before shoveling the potatoes into his mouth. “Think you’ll get drafted?”
“Of course he will,” Mom said as she passed the green bean casserole to Grandma Jean.
“Scouts will know how long it took you to recover.” Grandpa Len stared at me through his too-thick lenses. “You sure you’re good? I’d hate to see you go and get hurt again.”
“If he says he’s fine, he’s fine,” Dad snapped. “He’ll get drafted, Dad. Don’t worry about that.”
My gaze darted around the room. Do they know? Do they suspect anything? Panic welled in my chest. It was impossible, but I couldn’t stop the thoughts from ricocheting around my head.
Grandpa Len stared at my father with doubt and regret. He knew how close his own son had come to the pros. And I knew he didn’t want the same shit to happen to me.
Dad knew it, too. He quickly changed the subject. “Did I tell you about the Harpers, Dad?”
“No, you didn’t.” Grandpa Len smiled at the gossip. He was as bad as Mom and Grandma Eddie. And Chuck.
I finished my meal ignoring my cousins and my sister. It was easier than answering her constant barrage of questions. It was easier to keep my head down and pray they didn’t see the guilt in my eyes. Unfortunately, by eight, everyone was gone.
The first thing I did was check my phone when I got to my room. Nothing. No text. No missed call. Zilch. I thumbed in a quick message and waited. And waited. And waited. I was still staring at my phone, willing Mallory to respond to the text I sent almost twenty minutes ago, when Chelsea piped up.
“Why don’t you just call her
?” Chelsea stood in my doorway, leaning against the frame like Dad had done earlier in the day. My little sister had Mom’s looks and Dad’s imposing stature.
“Don’t you ever knock?”
“Why start now?” Chelsea moved into the room and sat on the edge of my bed. “When’d you start crushing on your tutor?”
“Is it that obvious?” I still wouldn’t look at her, but I wasn’t going to lie, either. She could read me like a billboard. Besides, she had all the fibbing skills in the family.
“The minute your phone rang yesterday, I knew. Does she?”
I nodded. After what I’d said on the phone yesterday, Mallory had to know. I’d all but told her. I wasn’t sure if she’d let herself love me, though. Or if she even wanted to.
“So what’s the holdup?”
I poured my heart out to my little sister. Nothing stayed hidden. It felt good to get it off my chest. And Chelsea wasn’t a kid anymore, no matter how much I wanted her to stay the little girl in pigtails. We’d never lied to each other, that I knew of, and I needed someone to tell me what to do, because I sure as hell didn’t know.
“Sounds like you really do care about her,” Chelsea said softly. “What’re you going to do?”
“Be patient, I guess. But I don’t know how much longer I can last.” Finally, I glanced up. Chelsea had a faraway look in her eye. “How long is long enough?”
“I wish I could tell you. She’s obviously got some serious problems to work through first.”
My phone dinged a text message. I stared down at it, not wanting to appear like a lovesick fool in front of my sister, but apparently it was already too late for that.
Chelsea laughed. “She’s really gotten under your skin. The minute you got that text, your whole face changed.” She stood and moved toward the door. “If it were me, I’d leave tomorrow morning and head back to school. If I were her, I’d be thrilled the guy came back early for me.”
“When’d you get so smart about this kind of shit?” I asked, a bemused smile covering my lips.
“You aren’t the only one who’s got a thing for someone, Aaron. But you’re the only one of us who can make it work.” She closed the door behind her before I could even ask what she was talking about. My little sister? With a major crush? That didn’t seem possible.
Glancing at my phone, I opened the text, rereading the simple message I’d sent earlier.
Me: Happy Thanksgiving.
Mallory: Thank you. I hope yours went well.
I started to tap out a response and stopped. Chelsea’s first question came back to me. I’d never called Mallory. There wasn’t any reason other than texting was just easier. I pulled up her number and hit send. The line rang several times before she finally picked up.
“Hey,” she answered.
Everything inside me lightened at the sound of her voice. The near disaster at dinner, the doping weighing on me, the look Grandpa Len gave Dad. Everything disappeared.
“Hey,” I said. “So, tell me, what did you do today?”
Mallory detailed her own disaster of making a turkey. “I just… I wanted a real Thanksgiving this year. It’s…been a while.”
“You should’ve come here. We have enough leftovers to feed the entire campus.”
Mallory laughed. “I’ll bet.”
“Maybe next time,” I said. “Just throwing that out there.”
“Maybe,” she said without hesitation. “I…I’d like that.”
We talked for the next hour about turkey, Thanksgivings past. Mallory didn’t bring up her parents, but she did share details about her life with her grandmother. They had a great relationship. I made up my mind then to go back the next day. I needed to see her and to clear the air once and for all.
Chapter Sixteen
Mom tried to get me to stay home longer. I let her lull me in for a big breakfast of sausage, biscuits, and gravy, but finally broke free just after ten in the morning. She muttered under her breath the entire time I packed my clean laundry. She muttered as I hugged her and Chelsea good-bye. She even muttered when Dad offered to carry one of my duffels as he walked out to the truck with me. We tossed the overloaded bags in the back and slammed the tailgate closed. Mom stood at the screen door in her bathrobe, chewing on her nails. Guilt dug at me. Mom hated watching me leave, but she did it anyway. I yanked open the driver’s door, and Dad grimaced at the screech of the metal. I really needed to get that door fixed.
“Your mother’s freaking out that you’re getting ready to flunk out of college now,” he said.
I’d made the excuse that I needed to meet with my tutor to go over my paper one last time before turning it in. Truth was Mallory had already read it and sent me revision notes. “I’m not. Not even close, but I do need to make sure I pass this course. If I’ve got a chance to play, academic probation is the last thing I need.”
Dad shook his head. “Whoever she is, boy, I hope she’s worth it,” he said with his face drawn into a frown. “And I hope she doesn’t… Don’t let some girl ruin your dreams.”
“That’s not going to happen, Dad,” I said, forcing myself to stay calm. He didn’t need to go there.
“And I hope you know that your mother will never like her.” Dad grinned, breaking the tension.
I laughed, knowing he was partially right. Mom wasn’t going to like anybody. As if I was going to let that stop me. “As long as you do, old man, we’ll be good.”
He smiled then and clamped his hand on my shoulder. “I’m not the one who has to, boy. Remember what I said, don’t let this girl derail your life.”
I shook my head and slipped the truck into reverse. There wasn’t anything I could say to get it through his head that the only thing that would stop me was death. I was going pro.
Two hours of thinking lay ahead of me, along with the smell of Mom’s leftover Thanksgiving dinner as an added distraction. I turned up the radio as loud as I could. Marshall Travis’s voice bounced around my cab, wailing about his lost love and how he found her in time to lose her once again. As much as I loved the song, I couldn’t listen to it much longer and switched over to a sports station. The debates about who would trade whom over the course of winter kept my mind off everything but baseball for the rest of the drive.
I pushed eighty and shaved twenty minutes off my usual time. Probably not smart, but I knew where the cops liked to nail speeders. No way they were going to bust me as I hauled ass back to Madison. I needed to see Mallory, to tell her exactly what I wanted, what I needed. There wasn’t anything else on my mind. Just her. I parked behind the Jeep outside Mallory’s house. That Marshall Travis song wormed back into my head. It almost made me second-guess myself. Almost.
The lights were on in the living room. It was a quarter after noon but dark as dusk. The chill in the air promised the threat of an early snow. She’d hung a Christmas wreath on the front door since the last time I’d been here. The only time I’d been here.
Do you really want to do this, Aaron? Do you really want to tell her? Are you willing to risk losing her?
Yes, the answer was yes to all three questions. A tiny bit of fear dug its fingers into my heart. I couldn’t keep pretending. I couldn’t continue to let my emotions, my intentions, slip out only to have her ignore them. She didn’t always ignore them, though, did she?
It was time to throw it on the line once and for all. I needed to get this out of my system, to get her out of my system, regardless of how it played out in the end.
I climbed out of the truck, careful not to tilt the two complete meals my mother packaged up. She didn’t ask why I wanted two, but she grumbled under her breath. Maybe if my mother met Mallory… No. Dad was right. Mom was going to hate her if they ever met.
If. Such a tiny word with huge implications.
I opted to knock instead of ringing the doorbell. After waiting for several minutes, the tension causing my heart to hammer so hard in my chest it felt like I was being pushed toward the door until it finally opene
d.
Jason Carter stood in front of me with the look he’d give an ump who called a strike when it was clearly a ball. His jeans hung off his hips and the championship T-shirt stretched over his chest like it was a size too small. What he didn’t have on were shoes and socks. This was not how I wanted to meet my favorite ball player.
And it was not where I expected to ever meet him.
“Can I help you?” he asked, crossing his arms and taking on a defensive stance.
I closed my eyes to compose myself. There was no way I was leaving without at least seeing her. Not now. Not after Jason fucking Carter opened her door. I knew I was being irrational. I knew there was a logical explanation to this, but I couldn’t stop the jealous rage rolling through me. I couldn’t stop the idea rooting in my brain that she was the mystery girl that kept him coming back to Madison. Why didn’t she tell me she knew him?
Son of a fucking bitch.
I held out my hand, willing it not to quake. “Aaron Betts. Is Mallory home?”
“Jason Carter,” he said as he shook my hand in a firm grip. There may have been an extra hard squeeze. A meow sounded at his feet. Mickey flicked his tail as he wove a figure eight through Jason’s legs.
“There you are,” Mallory said behind Carter. Mallory peeked around his large frame with Mickey in her arms, her eyes going wide when she saw me.
“Hey, Mal,” I said, knowing the nickname would set her off. I shouldn’t have, since I told her I wouldn’t call her that anymore, but Jason Carter was in her house. It was the nicest way I could tell her I was furious without pissing off the pro ball player making himself comfortable in her house. Too comfortable.
“Aaron? What’re you doing here?” It was an accusation. I could hear it in her voice. Like this was all my fault. Like I was the one who’d lied.
As much as I wanted to say, “getting my heart ripped out through my nose,” I smiled as politely as I could. “You mentioned not having a proper Thanksgiving dinner, so I thought I’d bring you one.” My eyes darted toward Jason before settling back on her. I shoved both plates toward her. “Guess I misheard you.”
Full Count (Westland University) Page 13
