Hard to Score

by K. Bromberg

  “How did you even remember this? I didn’t.”

  But I do now. How the owners poured concrete and we all waited until the workers left for lunch before running out and sinking our hands into the slowly-drying slab.

  “I remember because I was jealous that your mom would do it and mine wouldn’t be caught dead getting cement under her nails.”

  I smile softly, but I’m filled with bittersweet memories. The next closest person I had to a mom was Brenda Bowman. She’s the one I needed when my mom died. She’s the one I wanted to hold me tight when my tears coated my cheeks and words wouldn’t come.

  Because with her I would have been able to express my grief, my sadness. I couldn’t do it around my dad. He was already devastated enough that I held it in, that I pretended, but there were so many nights I cried myself to sleep, muffling my sobs in my pillow and wishing I had someone to console me. Someone who understood what my mom meant to our family. To me.

  We’d already lost so much and then we lost them too.

  I wonder what things would have been like if Gary’s scandal didn’t happen when it did. Or at all. Would Brenda have stepped in to be a pseudo mother to us? Would having had her in our lives saved Dekker the heartache and headaches that came with growing up way too fast and trying to be the mom for us?

  Such a significant ripple effect—whatever happened. Why the secrecy after all these years?

  I won’t, can’t, let the what-ifs spoil this moment. This memory. She was alive here. Warm, loving, filled with joy.

  And that has to be enough for me.

  “This is the best gift anyone has ever given me. One I never knew I needed. By the blubbering idiot I became, you can guess I loved it.”

  “I’m just glad it was still here.”

  I pull out my phone and take a picture of the memory and have Drew take one of my hands fitting in my mom’s. “I think we should go before we get in trouble for being here.”

  “They knew we were coming. I was able to find their number and ask if it was still here.”

  “You did that for me?” I ask.

  He just gives me a shy smile and helps me to my feet in response.

  BREXTON

  “WHAT WAS IT LIKE AFTER your mom died?”

  I look up to meet Drew’s gaze from where my head is resting in his lap. The pebbled sand is warm beneath us and kids are still splashing in the water about ten yards away. The beach is still busy despite the afternoon’s sun slowly beginning its descent from the sky.

  How do I answer that question? How do you explain what it’s like to have your heart ripped out the week after your sixteenth birthday so that you fear you’ll never feel again? So that you throw yourself into situation after situation—even if that means getting your heart broken time and again—just to prove to yourself that you can still feel. That your heart is still beating when it feels like it died.

  I twist my lips and hold those blue eyes of his before speaking. “It was like trying to find a new rhythm that you knew would never feel normal no matter how much time passed. It was like being thrown off a cliff without a parachute and being told to figure out how to land. Even if you didn’t think you’d still survive and the pain would be unbearable.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago,” I say and shift so I can see him better.

  “But we weren’t around for you guys. We could have been.”

  “Your world was busy falling apart too, Drew.”

  He physically rejects the words with a shake of his head. “The lake feels smaller now. It used to feel massive when we looked out at it from here as kids.”

  The sudden shift in topic couldn’t be more obvious, and I struggle with how to navigate this. Let him change the subject and brush it under the rug or just flat-out ask him?

  The fact that we’re here—that we’ve come this far figuratively and literally—means I have no choice but to ask.

  “Why are you so afraid to talk about what happened with me?” I shift so that I can sit up and meet his eyes.

  “Talk about what?” He averts his gaze and I grab his hands in mine.

  “Your family. What happened. Anything and everything that is keeping me in your blind spot.”

  He stares at my hands, his shoulders sagging with what seems like the weight of the world. “My dad is sick,” he whispers. “The other night when I landed, when I canceled on you, I’d received a frantic phone call from my mom that he’d been admitted to the hospital.”

  “Drew.” I gasp the name out, terrified for him.

  “He’s fine. It’s fine now. He had a reaction to his new meds and I don’t know . . . it was total frantic chaos and she needed me.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me that? Why . . .” I’m at a loss over what to say. Why the secrecy? It shouldn’t be that hard to tell someone who’s known you for a long time that a family member needs you. It’s what family does. “All you had to do was tell me.”

  “I don’t know.” He traced a fingertip over the top of my hand. “I felt like telling you was betraying him.” I open my mouth, and with a shake of his head, he stops me before I can speak. “I know it doesn’t make sense to you, but it does to me. No one knows he’s sick. Not a soul and it needs to stay that way. And the last person I think he’d want to know is Kenyon’s daughter, especially after everything that happened.”

  I force a swallow as I try to comprehend what it is that Drew thinks my father had a hand in. What did Gary tell his son to displace the blame to make him appear in a different light?

  And as much as I want to shout from the rooftops that my father had nothing to do with Gary’s scandal, it’s not the time nor place to. In this moment, there’s nothing I’m going to say to Drew that will undo a lifetime of being told the sky is green when it’s actually blue.

  My eyes well with tears, and unfortunately, I can’t blink them away before he looks up and finally meets my gaze. The problem is the emotion in his—the worry, the confusion, the discord—only makes me sadder.

  “So is this the battle we face? The rift that will always be between us?” I ask.

  The muscle in his jaw pulses as he tries to figure out his answer. “That’s why I said from the first night that the past is off limits.”

  I blink away the tears wetting my eyelashes and shift to stare at the lake beyond. The breeze has put ripples in it while some spots remain still like glass. Just another reminder that we’ve both been touched differently by the same events.

  He scoots up behind me so that his legs frame mine and my back is to his front. His chin finds my shoulder and his arms pull me against him.

  “I’m working on figuring it out, Brex. You—this—is unexpected and awesome, and I have to undo years of being protective of shit I don’t even know the whole story of. So bear with me and don’t let it ruin whatever this is, because just like you needed seeing those handprints today to bring you back, I feel the same way about you.” He presses a kiss to my bare shoulder. “There’s something here, something worthy of first dates even when we’ve already had sex.”

  I slide my hands over his and close my eyes. Sure, the scenery before me is gorgeous and inspiring, but so is the man at my back. I have to have faith that we’ll figure this all out.

  “You said your dad was sick,” I murmur.

  “ALS.” There is no emotion to his voice but those three letters are devastating in and of themselves. He clears his throat and clarifies further. “Sporadic ALS.”

  “I’m sorry.” Two words he said to me about my mom, and even though I know from experience that they mean so little in the face of loss, I hope he knows that I am sincerely sorry that he will experience such loss with his dad. My knowledge is limited on the disease, but I do know that there is no full recovery from it.

  “It’s slight right now. The tremors. But it’s like jumping over that cliff you were talking about—even with a parachute, you know the end is going to be fast and painful.”


  I nod, because I understand what he means. I’ve already gone through the hell of losing a parent and he’s diving headfirst into it. The question is, is it better to be blindsided by it or to see it coming at you?

  He presses a kiss to my shoulder and unexpectedly begins to tickle me. There’s nothing like fingers on a ribcage to break up a heavy conversation. I wiggle out of his arms and laugh like a hyena.

  “Stop. Please stop.” I giggle as he holds me in place with one hand while letting his fingers dance over my skin with the other. “I’ll give you anything, anything, to stop.”

  “Anything?” he asks as his hand stops, his chuckle suggestive. “I’m trying to be on my best behavior here. Don’t tempt me.”

  “Yes. I forgot,” I say in my primmest voice. “My apologies, kind sir.”

  He chuckles and presses a kiss against the back of my head. “How about this instead?”

  “What?”

  “This.” Drew proceeds to draw something on my back with his finger.

  “What are you . . . ” But my smile is automatic when I figure out what he’s drawing. Does he really remember that conversation like I do? The one about initials on football helmets and hands during homecoming and trying to get past first base or is this just some crazy coincidence? He traces the two letters again. DB.

  What was the term he used that day way back when? A sap. Yes. That’s it.

  “Are you becoming a sap, Drew Bowman?”

  “Me? A sap? I don’t exactly think that’s a word one would use to describe me.” He laughs.

  “Sap or not, you’ve got it backwards. It was me who was desperate to have my initials on your hand after that conversation. I was so jealous of Ginnie whatshername. You wore her initials and you were trying to get past first base with her.”

  Drew throws his head back and laughs. “Damn that Ginnie Huber. I do believe you and I have long since passed first base.”

  “I still want the initials on your hand,” I tease.

  “Here,” he says and holds out his hand. “It’s all yours.”

  I hold a hand to my chest and feign excitement. “For me? The dreamy football player is going to wear my initials?”

  “He is.”

  I take his hand and trace BK on the top of his hand a few times, a ridiculously silly smile on my face the whole time.

  “Feel better?” he asks.

  “I’m on cloud nine now.”

  “Apparently you’re easy to please.”

  “Shh. Don’t tell anyone,” I say before relaxing back against him.

  Is this what it feels like to be with Drew? Relaxed? Mindful of the past, but not disconnected completely?

  Of course I still want to know the truth about the past, the answers concerning what ended our dads’ friendship, but maybe this is what it feels like for us to move forward? Maybe this middle ground we’ve found is enough for us so we can find our own normal.

  Because isn’t that what today feels like? A step in the right direction? The beginning of what could be an us?

  The best part? I truly feel like he wants there to be an us too.

  This has been the most perfect of days in so many ways and as we sit here, I revel in that notion as kids play, moms scold, and dads gripe about all of the crap they have to carry back to the car.

  It’s so perfectly normal and I love it.

  “At the wedding, you told me I was too afraid to step into the limelight—”

  “I was just pissed about—”

  “He’s my reason,” he states matter-of-factly. “If I’m in New York, then I’m near my dad. That allows me to help out when things get bad. And I’m not naïve, Brex. They will get bad. I don’t ever want to regret not being there.”

  “You’re too good to be second string, Drew.”

  He chuckles self-deprecatingly. “I know. And maybe I’d forgotten that. Maybe I’d let that get lost in my duty to my family, but hearing you say it, knowing you believe it, has made me realize how much I put aside my own wants and desires.”

  I meter the surprise in my reaction when I meet his eyes. I want to feel relief over his sudden revelation, yet I know there is often a long distance between the epiphany and acting on it. “What do you plan on doing then?” I ask hesitantly.

  He shakes his head, his expression serious. “The Raptors won’t get rid of Hobbs. That means in order for me to be QB1, I’d have to be traded to another team. Regardless of how bad I want to be on that field, is that the right thing to do?”

  “I don’t think there is a right answer in this situation,” I murmur.

  “Our relationship—my dad’s and mine—it’s complicated to put it mildly. But he may only have a year left for all I know. Is me being selfish something I should own or will it be the one thing I’ll always regret?”

  I squeeze his hands in response and wonder how hard that would be. To settle for less professionally so you can give more personally.

  It can’t be an easy thing.

  Especially not on a man’s ego.

  Particularly when you know you’re talented enough to make it elsewhere.

  So many layers to this man. I’m guessing there are so many more I don’t even understand yet.

  “Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me,” I whisper and dip my head so I can press a kiss to his bicep. “I’m here if you ever need a sounding board. I won’t have the answers but at least you’ll have someone you can confide in.”

  His sigh is the only answer he gives.

  With his arms wrapped around me, we watch as the sun slowly sets into the trees surrounding the lake. We watch the first twinkling of the stars, the first sigh of night rustling through the trees, and simply enjoy the silence.

  Because we have each other.

  DREW

  “YOU’RE NOT COMING IN?” SHE does a double take as I stand outside her door, our hands extended between us.

  I try picturing something, anything, to rid the image of how incredible her body looked in that bikini earlier. I’m not sure if it’s harder or easier on me knowing that my hands have been on every inch of those curves.

  “I can’t.”

  “You can’t? I promise I won’t make you late for your game tomorrow.” She smiles coyly.

  “You’re not playing fair, Brex.” My chuckle is strained.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means it’s absolutely what I want to do, but I can’t.”

  Her eyes light up with confusion. “Why not?”

  “Because this is our first date, and I promised myself that I wouldn’t.”

  “Oh.” Her lips shock open into an O, and I have to tear my gaze away from them and where exactly I’d love them to be wrapped right now. “But my imaginary initials are on your hand.”

  “That doesn’t buy you more, Ginnie,” I say and laugh. But I’m still not stepping inside. “First dates end in kisses. They end in you shutting the door and me going home worrying if I made the right impression tonight.”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “I’m trying to be.”

  “You made the right impression, Bowman. No need to worry there.”

  I grin like a fucking teenager. “Good to know.”

  “Do I at least get a kiss?”

  “I’ve been working hard to earn one all day,” I say as I take a step forward.

  “You most definitely earned one,” she murmurs when I frame her face with my hands and give in to the temptation that is Brexton Kincade.

  I’m going to regret my promise the minute our lips touch. The moment my tongue coaxes her lips open. The second her soft moan hits my ears and rumbles against my chest.

  Goddamn this woman.

  Her kiss.

  Her defiance.

  Her beauty.

  Her compassion.

  Her passion.

  I have to force myself to drag my lips from hers. To step away.

  Because a man is only as good as his word, and I’m ab
out to go back on my promise if she tempts me much longer.

  Brexton groans in protest when I physically remove my hands from her body and brace them on either side of the doorjamb.

  “I should go,” I murmur.

  She nods as her teeth sink into her bottom lip and she looks down at my cock, which is hard and pressing against my shorts. Her eyebrows lift.

  “I really should go.”

  Her laugh is throaty when it hits my ears and does nothing to dissipate the desire.

  “Thank you for today, Drew. For remembering old memories and for making new ones with me. For talking. For laughing. For kissing me goodnight after our first date and being a total gentleman.”

  She steps forward on her tiptoes and kisses me again. This time it’s slow and sweet and like a pleasurable torture I can’t get enough of.

  “Goodnight, Bratty Brex,” I say.

  “Goodnight, Dreadful Drew.”

  And when she shuts the door, I rest my forehead against it, hands fisted against the jamb, and emit the longest sigh in the history of sighs.

  I told her about my dad.

  There’s gravity to that. An acknowledgment that I just let her in.

  A part of me feels . . . relief at the thought. I’m no longer completely alone.

  The rest of me is terrified. What if I’m betrayed?

  DREW

  6 years earlier

  “DO YOU THINK I DIDN’T know who you were, son, when I recruited you?”

  I look over to Roger Molleman, general manager of the Tennessee Tigers, and fight down the emotion that’s paralyzing me.

  “That I don’t remember holding you as a baby or tossing the football with you when you were four or five?”

  He twists the championship ring around on his finger, and that’s all I can focus on. I can’t meet his eyes.

  “I knew who your dad was and yet I still took the chance on you when the other coaches would have looked the other way.”

  My hands fist and jaw hurts from clenching it so hard. It drowns out the pain from being sacked more times than I care to count tonight. The aches from the physical hits have nothing on the pain I felt earlier.