by Lexi Ryan
“Can I go home now?” I ask on my way back up front.
The officer who’s spent most of his day with me nods. “If you want. But if you’re willing, Mr. Wright has asked to have a few words with you.”
I stop in the middle of the hallway.
“He’s in there,” the officer says, pointing to another room.
All this time, I’d valued Coach more than my own damn father. But today I learned which of the two really puts me first. “No thanks,” I say. “If that’s okay, I’d rather not talk to him right now.”
“Not a problem,” the officer says. “It’s understandable.”
“Thank you.”
I leave the station, climb into my car, and drive home.
It’s surreal, driving home when you thought you’d be spending the night in jail, and as betrayed as I feel over what Coach did to me, that’s nothing compared to the weight that’s been lifted from my shoulders. My albatross thrown into the sea.
When I pull into the drive, Chris’s car is parked up front beside Mason’s. For almost five months, I’ve prepared myself to lose my friends if the truth ever came out. Today, even when Trish confessed and explained I wasn’t at fault, I still wasn’t sure how they’d feel. But here they are, letting me know before I can even worry about it that they’ve got my back.
I find the two of them in the living room huddled in front of the television.
Mason grabs the remote and turns up the volume. “Coach is about to give a press conference.”
Dad walks into the room from the kitchen. He looks to the screen and then to me before coming to stand by my side.
It’s a live feed from in front of the courthouse, and Coach Wright steps in front of the microphone.
“Today,” Coach says into the microphone, “I’m officially resigning from my position as the head coach of the Blackhawk Hills University football team. It’s a position I’ve been proud to hold and a group of young men I’ve been blessed to lead, but I’m no longer fit to be their guide.” He unfolds a piece of paper and smooths it flat on the podium. “On New Year’s Eve, I got the phone call every father fears. My daughter had been in a terrible accident.” He swallows hard. “But the difference between my call and the one Mr. Mendez and Mr. and Mrs. Barrett were getting around the same time was that my daughter was okay. She was physically unharmed. And she was home—calling me from the front yard where she’d parked my SUV.”
Dad puts his hand on my shoulder and squeezes, and I’m so damn grateful to have him here by my side. I take a deep breath and listen to what the coach has to say.
“She was in a panic because she’d hit two boys on Deadman’s Curve. Every father wants to believe he’ll do the right thing faced with a moment like that one. And I told myself, as I went outside and pulled her out of the car, that I was doing the right thing.”
“Like hell you were,” Chris mutters from the couch.
“She’d been drinking,” Coach continues. “She shouldn’t have been driving. But I knew what she’d face if she turned herself in.
“Her friend Arrow Woodison was passed out in the passenger seat. In a misplaced sense of fatherly duty, I decided I’d cover up what my daughter had done, but I had a choice to make about Arrow. To further remove my daughter from the crime, I pulled him into the driver’s seat and let him stay there for almost two hours before I woke him and told him he’d driven there. I proceeded to take a series of steps to cover up my daughter’s crime. I shot a deer and smeared its blood on the damaged front end of my car, then called the police to file a report that I hit the animal to explain the damage to my Cherokee.” He draws in a long, slow, ragged breath and lifts his tired and tormented eyes to the camera. “And when Arrow woke up, I told him he’d been driving the car that hit those boys.”
A barrage of questions surge from the audience and his pause is filled with the click click click of cameras.
Mason looks over his shoulder at me and my dad. “I can’t believe he’s saying all this in a press conference.”
“I’m sure his lawyer is shitting himself,” Dad says.
“Why not just say he’s stepping down and be done with it?” Mason asks.
Drawing in a long breath, Chris looks at Mason, then steadies his gaze on me. “Maybe he needed to be heard. I think it’s brave.”
Coach starts speaking again, and we return our attention to the television. “I committed a horrible crime when I covered up what my daughter did. And I knew I’d have to live with that. What I wasn’t prepared for was to live with the guilt of two young people who’d have each done the right thing had I not been there steering them in the wrong direction. I watched my daughter turn into an alcoholic, a cutter, a young woman who’d rather experiment with drugs than live in the moral hell I’d trapped her in.”
“Jesus,” Mason whispers. “I didn’t know she’d gotten that bad.”
“We didn’t want to see what we didn’t understand,” Chris says. He shifts his gaze to me and grimaces. “And that goes beyond Trish.”
Coach takes a long, deep breath. He looks like he might disintegrate into tears at any moment. “I watched Arrow Woodison, a man who was like a son to me, take up drinking and drugs and throw away his football career while he tried to punish himself for a crime he didn’t commit.” He wipes the tears off his cheeks. “When you make a decision like that as a father,” Coach says, “you tell yourself you’re acting out of love. The truth was, I was acting out of fear. I was afraid for my daughter, and I was afraid for myself and how lonely my life would be if I lost her. If I’d truly been acting out of love, when she called me and said, ‘Daddy, I’ve been in an accident. I think I need to call the police,’ I’d have listened to what happened and agreed. Then I’d have stood by her side while she told the truth and did what was right. But I’ve let fear lead my whole life for the last four months. I can’t apologize enough for what that did to my daughter and what it did to Arrow, who was innocent in all of this.”
Dad’s hand tightens on my shoulder, and I realize he too has tears streaming down his cheeks. I wonder if he’s half as overwhelmed as I am. I’m swamped in relief—the final shackle of this hell being unlocked.
“I know an apology will never be enough,” Coach says. “But I want to give it anyway. So that when this community sees my daughter in court or sees Arrow in the streets, they can understand the part I had to play in all of it.” Clearing his throat, he folds his paper and tucks it back into his pocket. “That’s all. Thank you.”
Dad squeezes my shoulder one last time before excusing himself, and Chris and Mason turn to me.
“We should have known there was something more going on with you,” Mason says, his voice thick.
“What can we do?” Chris asks.
I shake my head and gesture to where they’re sitting on the couch. “You’re already doing it.” The front door opens and I look over my shoulder to see Dad stepping outside. “I should go talk to him.”
“We’ll be here,” Chris says.
Mason offers his fist and I bump mine against it. “Thank you, you two. You have no idea what this means to me.”
I find Dad sitting on the front porch smoking a cigar. I close the door behind me and he nods to the chair beside him. I take it but shake my head when he offers me a cigar.
“You’ve had quite a day,” he murmurs.
“I’m sorry about everything, Dad.” I lean forward, propping my elbows on my knees. “It never even crossed my mind that Coach would have lied to me like that.”
“I’m glad the truth came out.” He releases a mouthful of smoke. “It has a way of doing that.”
“I guess it does. Eventually.”
“Gwen left today.” He says it as if he’s telling me there’s leftover spaghetti in the fridge. “Don’t look at me like that. She wasn’t happy, and everyone knew it. She thought she wanted the grumpy old man for his money, but it turns out I’m not worth it. She tried to forbid me to go to the station to help you, and
you can imagine how well I handled it.” He sighs heavily. “Anyway, she took Katie and went to her mom’s.”
“I’m sorry, Dad.”
He shrugs. “Me too, but I’m not sorry she left. Just sorry we weren’t right together.” He takes another puff and leans back in his chair. “I miss your mother.”
I swallow hard. Other than our anomaly of a conversation yesterday morning, Dad and I don’t have talks like this, and we definitely don’t talk about Mom. “You do?”
“She was my heart.” He swallows hard. “Love like that is rare, but assholes like me fuck it up anyway.”
“I don’t want to fuck it up with Mia,” I say, studying my hands. “I love her.”
“Then be with her.” There’s something comforting in how simple he makes it sound.
“I keep pushing her away. I don’t know if I get another chance at this point.”
Dad stamps out his cigar, stands, and pats me on the back. “Then you should go to her and beg for one. That’s what your mom would tell you. Life’s too short.”
I yank on the pant leg of my jeans to show him my ankle monitor. “House arrest.”
“I think you can figure this out, son.”
I swallow hard, both hopeful and terrified at the prospect of holding Mia in my arms again as soon as today.
He opens the front door and then stops. “Ask if she’d be interested in coming back. Katie will be with me half the week, and I’ll need help around here.”
And I need her. “You have to give her a raise.”
“Already done.”
“And have her sit with us at family meals, and hire someone else to cater your parties. No treating her like the help.”
“Understood.”
I nod. “I’ll ask her, then.”
Dad goes into the house, and I pull my phone from my pocket and dial my probation officer.
I am wrung dry and I am filled up.
I am confident and I am terrified.
I am lost but I know exactly where I am.
Bailey lies beside me in the grass across from Dad’s trailer. From under the big maple, we stare up at the sky, watching the stars twinkle through the leaves.
“You have room for one more?” a deep voice asks from our feet.
My heart skids to a halt and then accelerates again all before I can take a breath. Arrow.
“Holy shit,” Bailey mutters. She props herself on her elbows. “Aren’t you on house arrest?”
“I told my probation officer what happened today and that I owed some apologies.” He looks at his watch. “I have an hour.”
Bailey hops up and brushes her hands on the back of her jeans. “I’ll just get out of your way, then.” As I sit up, she winks at me and then strolls away.
Arrow takes a step toward me, but before he’s close enough to touch, he stops and shoves his hands into his pockets. “Gwen left Dad.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
He looks over his shoulder toward the house. “You know, I think it’s okay. I think he was sick of falling short on making her happy.”
I shake my head. “That’s where they went wrong. It’s not his job to make her happy. It’s hers.”
He gives a sad smile. “Yeah, someone told me something like that once.”
I lean back on my elbows and study the starlight through the broad branches of the old maple tree. “She was wise.” I swallow hard.
“Do you remember when you told me about your mom? About the fire and the sun?”
My stomach twists. I tried so hard to justify ignoring my feelings for Arrow. “It was just a metaphor.” It was a false binary that didn’t work in a world where two guys who were best friends were both so important to me.
“I like metaphors,” he says, sinking to sit in the grass beside me. “But that one’s never worked for the way I feel about you. I don’t want to be your fire or your sunshine.”
I can’t pretend to look at the stars anymore. I turn to look at his face and see he’s watching me. “You came here to tell me again that you don’t want me in your life?”
“I didn’t say that. It’s just not the metaphor I like. It’s too simple to describe what I feel for you.” Reaching over, he brushes my hair behind my ear. “You’re not the hot, burning fire, because you’re there even after a long, hard rain.” He swallows and takes a breath. “You’re not the sun, because you’re there in the darkest night.” He traces my lips with his thumb.
“Arrow . . .”
“You can’t be the wind—beneath my wings or otherwise”—he laughs and then his smile falls away as he traces his thumb down the column of my neck—“because you keep me warm during the deepest winter.” He closes his eyes, lifts his hand from my neck, and clenches his fist.
“Are you okay?”
He opens his eyes again and gives me a crooked smile. “I’m not done, but I really fucking want to kiss you right now.”
The butterflies in my stomach burst into raucous applause. “That would be okay with me.”
He strokes my cheek, and traces my lips again. “I need to finish first.”
I bite back a smile. “Then hurry, because now that I know how this conversation ends, I’m pretty anxious to get through it.”
His gaze lands on my lips for what feels like a thousand desperate beats of my heart before he meets my eyes again. “For a long time I thought you were gravity. Always there. Always pulling me your way. But that can’t be it either, because you don’t pull me down. You lift me up when there’s no reason I should be able to stand.”
My stomach twists in knots of hope and worry. Of love and insecurity. I’ve spent too much of my life not saying what needs to be said. When Mom left, I didn’t tell her how much that hurt me. When Dad reacted to Nic’s death as if he’d lost his only child, I didn’t take away his booze and tell him he still had a daughter who needed him. I can’t be like that anymore. “Arrow, you pushed me away when I wanted to stand by your side.”
He slides a hand into my hair and scoots closer. His mouth is a breath from mine; each word could almost be a kiss. “But that’s exactly it. You’re too important to be brought down by me. To me, you’re everything. And this morning when I told you I wanted you to be free of me, know that I meant exactly that. I’ve never wanted to be free of you, only the other way around.”
I shift and our lips brush. The contact is electric, and I want to do it again and again, but I make myself back up an inch. I’m going to try to say this without hiding behind analogies, a lover of metaphors stripping bare. “It’s always been you. And I know you think you need to free me because our past is complicated, but I’m here to tell you that if I’m free, if I can choose, I’ll be right by your side. Because I love you.”
He exhales slowly, then slides his hand behind my neck. “I love you, too. You are the most important pieces of my heart.”
When he finally kisses me, I melt into him.
One week later . . .
The sun is shining and my friends lounge around the pool, lazy thanks to full bellies and warm sun, and Mia’s in my arms. Mason cooked us burgers on the grill, and Chris cleaned up after, insisting that Mia gets her share of domestic duties through the week.
I used to lie in bed trying to rewrite the past in a way that would mean Brogan would still be with us. But after everything that’s happened during the past week, I’ve begun to accept that I don’t get a redo. What I get is today. What I know is that in a world that has proved to be too cruel to bear during some moments, other times prove to be impossibly perfect.
It’s a good day to be stuck at home.
Chris wipes down the table a final time before sinking into the chair next to mine and Mia’s. “I heard they lifted your on-campus suspension. Does that mean you get to play next year?”
Mia tilts her face up to mine, and I press a kiss to her grinning lips before I answer. “I’m finishing my house-arrest sentence. My lawyer thought he could get it reduced, given the circumstances, but I broke
the law, and I’m going to finish it. But BHU has said I can return to classes in the fall, and I’ll be able to do that within the terms of my house arrest. And when my sentence is over, I’ll be back on the field.”
On the other side of us, Mason pulls off his sunglasses and grins. “Hot damn.”
I shrug. “I’m not saying I’ll start. There’ll be some stiff competition this year.”
“You’ll start,” Mia says, rolling her eyes. “You’ll totally start.”
It’s so good to be here—with Mia and my best friends and waking up to days where football matters again. I tighten my arms around her and bury my nose in her hair.
“Would you two get a room already?” Keegan grumbles.
“Shut up,” Bailey says. “They’re fucking adorable. And at least someone’s getting some.” She tosses a pseudo-irritated glance in Mason’s direction.
Mason lifts his palms. “You know my terms.”
Keegan blanches and scrapes a hand over his face. “I don’t understand you, Mase. She’s hawt. Like H-A-W-T hawt.” He grins at Bailey. “If you need someone to keep your bed warm, I have no terms and no conditions.”
“And no chance,” Bailey says, and we all laugh.
Chris looks at his watch and groans. “I have to head, guys. I’ve gotta catch my plane.”
“Tell your mom we said happy wedding,” Mia says.
Mason smirks. “Gonna hook up with a bridesmaid?”
“At my mom’s wedding?” He gives an exaggerated shudder. “The bridesmaids are my aunt Cindy and my soon-to-be stepsister, so thanks, but I’ll pass.”
“The stepsister’s the one who’s coming back with you?” I ask Chris. “She’s staying with you and Mason for the summer, right?”
“I hope she’s hot,” Keegan says, and Bailey elbows him in the side.
“She’s a hot mess is all I know,” Chris says. He points at Keegan. “And the whole reason Mom asked me to have her stay with me is to keep her out of trouble—got it?”
