Hard to Score

by K. Bromberg

  “Apparently I was known for being quite the devil at times too. Along with being quite the scaredy-cat.” I shrug. “But I digress.”

  He chuckles and grabs his bottle of beer from the end table beside him, takes a long sip of it, and when he sets it down, stares at it for more than a beat before finally meeting my eyes.

  “You’re upset,” he murmurs, his tone reticent. Concern etches the lines of his face. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m trying not to be hurt that we’ve been dating each other this long, that we went through the three weeks of getting to know everything about you gathering, and yet I didn’t know about this. About her when obviously, you guys are super close. About . . .” My voice fades as I look at her and a lump forms in my throat. “About your life before.”

  I wait to gain control of my emotions before I meet his gaze again. His nod of acknowledgment is so slight, so resigned, but it’s there, and it kind of kills a little piece of me.

  “There’s a lot you don’t know still, Brex.”

  “But why?” I ask, realizing this is going to be an interesting conversation with a sleeping child in between us. “Do you not trust me?”

  “This has nothing to do with trust,” he asserts.

  “Do you not think that—”

  “You simply wouldn’t understand.”

  “Have you tried seeing if I do? Because we’ve talked about everything about me. My mom dying. How I felt after I had to withdraw from the Olympics. What it’s like working for my family. We’ve talked about everything and yet here you are still keeping secrets from me. That’s a hard one to swallow and not be hurt by.”

  His sigh is long and loud and feels as heavy weighing on him as it sounds.

  “What is it you want to know, Brex? That our world fell apart? That since the day my dad walked away from the NFL my family has never been the same? That my dad no longer seems like my dad? That he became a shell of the man he was?” His voice is calm but there’s devastation to it that I think only hints at the damage underneath. “That Maggs fell into a bad crowd and got hooked on drugs because she didn’t have any guidance? That, for her, it was easier to be high than to deal with our house where we all walked around like nothing happened when our lives had been torn apart because everything did? Will it make any sense to you that I turned to football—to the very sport that ruined him—and he’s never forgiven me for it? Almost like I betrayed him for being good at something that rejected him? Is that what you want to know?” Despite stroking his niece’s hair, he is bristling with anger. It looks like it’s directed at me, but that can’t be the case.

  What the hell did his dad do to his family?

  And poor Maggs. Where is she now?

  My heart hurts for him right now. For the teenager who went through it all alone and for the man now trying to live with all of it behind the scenes without anyone knowing.

  I move toward him, needing to touch him, needing to comfort him. With Charley in his lap—her soft snores between us—I drop to my knees in front of him, take his hands in mine, and press a kiss to one of his palms.

  “Drew . . . I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

  “No one knows. No one fucking knows, and it’s been ingrained in our heads for the past fucking decade that no one can know. Our life is private and anyone who knows will use it against us.” He shakes his head. “At first it was the notion that just one fucking story, one reminder of the past, would shatter the perfect world we all pretended to live in. And now it’s if a story gets out, the stress of it all will make my dad’s health decline rapidly as stress is a trigger with ALS.” He pulls his hand from mine and runs a hand through his hair. “Is that the part of me that you need to know? The deep, dark secrets. Is that enough to make you happy?”

  “That’s unfair. I just want to know you, Drew. All of you.”

  Because I’m in love with you.

  It’s the first time I’ve allowed myself to think those words, to admit those words to myself. I stumble over the confession because there’s so much unspoken between us—the blame he somehow lays at my family’s feet—that has me fearing he’d never accept the words even if I did put a voice to them.

  “Well, that’s it. You happy? Every damn day I’m trying to keep all the plates spinning—my sister sober and alive, Charley feeling loved and oblivious to her mom’s addiction, my dad proud of me when all he’s ever done is shun me for playing a game that shut him out, and my mom in fucking la la land so that the nervous breakdown she’s always teetered on stays at bay—so none fall off and shatter. It’s exhausting, but if they all stay spinning, maybe, just fucking maybe, I’ll get a chance to be me, to do what I need to do to be happy. To have my own fucking life.”

  His voice breaks on his last words and he slides out from beneath Charley’s sleeping head and me sitting at his feet and moves about the room to abate his restlessness.

  I watch him pace as I turn where I am and sit there. He’s hurting and I don’t know how to help. He’s hurting and I’m afraid he doesn’t want me to help.

  “Drew,” I say softly. A plea. An attempt at comfort.

  “Don’t you know that’s you?” he whispers as he turns and faces me. “You’re my chance, Brex. Taking the goddamn field in a game is my chance. And I’m fucking terrified that if I get an opportunity at either, that I’ll screw them both up royally and never get a shot again.”

  There are tears in his eyes when they meet mine. There is a gravity, a somberness, to his expression that owns my heart in ways I never knew imaginable.

  “I don’t even know what to say.”

  “I’ve fallen for you, Brexton. Can’t you see that? So you tell me what I’m supposed to do about it. I’m stuck in between a rock and a goddamn hard place when all I want to do is be with you.”

  I stare at him, eyes wide and heart soaring.

  He loves me.

  He’s in love with me.

  He drops to his knees in front of me. As I sit there stunned, he frames my face with his hands and whispers, “I’m in love with you, and fuck if it doesn’t feel like maybe I have been my whole life.”

  And when his lips meet mine, it’s the softest, most innocent of kisses, but it means more than any other kiss I’ve received in my lifetime.

  He leans back to meet my eyes as if to make sure I’m okay with everything he’s just said, and it’s only then that I realize I haven’t responded to him with words.

  Right as I start to speak, Charley’s little voice speaks up beside us. “Uncle Drew,” she murmurs in a groggy voice. “Can you not kiss her? That’s gross.” We both chuckle. “And can I go to my bed now?”

  “Of course,” he says as he leans over and presses a kiss to her temple before carrying her up the stairs.

  I startle and then smile when I hear them on a baby monitor I never even noticed on the kitchen counter. Her murmured good nights, his sleep tights.

  What man has a baby monitor for when his niece decides to spend the night? Come to think of it, a room for her too? But now that I think back to how Charley talked about her Drew and Charley date, this seems like a pretty regular thing.

  God, what a good man.

  And in case everything Drew just said to me didn’t make me love him, the way he is with Charley did.

  I’ve almost drifted off on the couch when he comes down the stairs. He stands there and stares at me, his expression one of disbelief.

  Is he regretting what he told me? Is he going to make excuses and take it back?

  “I don’t have much to give you, Brexton,” he says as he makes his way across the room and sits down on the couch beside me. “I have a family who’s fucked up. I have a career that is mediocre if not embarrassing at best. I have a shit ton of baggage that I can’t unpack any more than I already have. And I have parents who might never accept the fact that I’m in love with you. I’m so . . . torn. To have worked my whole life to try and make him happy and finally the first time I feel happy, it’s with you. A Kincade.
” He laughs, but it’s self-deprecating at best.

  I cringe. There is so much in that last statement, how he thinks his career is mediocre, embarrassing. That’s rough enough. But that bit about his parents? They used to think of me as one of their own kids. That was how our families were together. Would they really think of me like that? With disdain? That his choice of me is a poor one? Do I deserve that?

  I crawl into his lap, rest my head against his chest, and simply hold him tight.

  “I’d never ask you to pick between me and your family,” I murmur knowing I never could either.

  “I know. I just . . . I know how I feel and it’s the scariest, most fucking real thing I’ve ever felt, and it’s overwhelming. I thought if I held all of this back from you, it would let me keep my distance, it would keep this a little less everything . . . but I can’t. This is me, Brexton. Warts and all.”

  I lift my face so he can see me, so he can hear me. “I’ve fallen for you too, Drew Bowman. I think I’ve been falling for you my whole life. It’s only now I realize that I’ve compared everyone I’ve dated to the man I thought you’d grow up to be. Little did I know, that man was even more incredible than I’d imagined.”

  DREW

  “I HAVE TO GO,” BREXTON whispers as I hold her tightly against me.

  “No,” I groan.

  “Yes. Little Miss Charley is going to get up soon and wonder why Uncle Drew’s friend Brexton is sleeping in his bed.” She chuckles and fuck that sound makes me harder than I already am. “Remember, boys and girls aren’t supposed to have sleepovers together.”

  But she has a point. One I’d like to ignore but a good one nonetheless.

  I sigh. “Don’t go yet. It’s still dark out. Just five more minutes?”

  She snuggles into me, her hand on my chest. “Okay, but no funny business.”

  “Promise,” I murmur against the crown of her head as my finger traces letters on her hand.

  It takes her a few seconds to catch on to what I’m doing. To try and figure the letters out.

  “ILYB?” she says, looking up at me with her nose scrunched and her eyes narrowed in the most adorable of ways. But I see the minute she gets it. The four words. Her expression softens and a smile crawls onto those gorgeous lips of hers.

  “I love you, Brexton,” I say, surprised that I confessed my feelings to her last night but more so now that I’m just as comfortable saying it again to her.

  “Take that, Ginnie Huber,” she jokes. “I’ve got four letters to your two.”

  BREXTON

  MY COFFEE IS STRONG AND the morning air is crisp with the first real traces of fall. The summer has had an extended stay in New York this year and as I sit with my knees drawn up to my chest on the rooftop of my building, I’m more than ready for the seasons to start changing.

  This rooftop.

  I smile with a shake of my head and think about how Drew and I made love here almost two weeks ago.

  Yes, we made love.

  That’s what it was. Because words hadn’t been exchanged yet, but our hearts had already decided.

  It feels surreal.

  It feels perfect.

  And yet, why do I feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop?

  I take a sip and let the potent liquid scald my tongue as I debate the one thing that’s been weighing on my mind: I’m hiding Drew from my family.

  I’m in love with a man. A man who loves me, and the very notion I haven’t told anyone or talked to anyone about it other than Jules, given she saw us at the farmer’s market, is utterly fucking ridiculous.

  But why aren’t you, Brex? Why do you feel the need to keep things so private?

  Is it because you’re afraid Drew might be right? That Dad might have had a hand in whatever happened to Gary Bowman? If that’s the case, it would shed a different light on the man you’ve put on a pedestal your whole life. Make you look at him differently.

  The thought staggers me.

  Then I immediately reject the notion, but it’s already out there, the epiphany lingering.

  Is that why I’m hesitant to say anything? Do I really think he knows more than he’s letting on? Is it a possibility?

  Drew certainly thinks so. He may not have said it outright but it’s there, unspoken and hanging between us.

  I snuggle back in my seat, my eyes taking in the city laid out before me but not really focusing on anything. I’m at a loss for words.

  Because for the first time, I completely understand how Drew feels.

  The rift is there, and we’re both at fault for not confronting it.

  The question is, how do we go about healing it? I’m not sure our past can stay in the past if it causes conflict, both now . . . and into the future.

  DREW

  3 years ago

  I SHOULDN’T BE HERE.

  I’ve had enough whiskey tonight, had too much time to think, and I fucking shouldn’t be here.

  And yet still I push open the door and walk into my parents’ house. It’s bright and airy and a goddamn farce to the weight I feel every time I step foot in this freaking tomb.

  “Drew.” My dad’s head jolts when he sees me standing there.

  “There’s the man of the hour,” I say. I don’t give a shit that I sway as I walk into the family room where he sits with his reading glasses near the tip of his nose and his iPad in his lap.

  “Drew?”

  I chuckle as I shake my head and ask, “Do you know what I did today?”

  He raises his eyebrows. “Apparently, drink.”

  “Bingo.” I snap my fingers. “Do you know what else I did?”

  “I don’t have time for this—”

  “I watched the team I was traded from, the team I was a starting QB on, win the fucking Super Bowl.” The words feel like I’m chewing broken glass to get them out.

  “It happens.” His voice is measured.

  “It should have been me.”

  He sets his iPad on the table beside him and sighs. “It could have been a lot of people.”

  “No, Dad. Me. Fucking me,” I shout. “But it wasn’t. You want to know why? Give you three guesses.”

  But he doesn’t speak. He doesn’t say a goddamn word other than look at me with that irritated look on his face. The one that says I should just get over it. I feel like I’ve been just getting over it for seven fucking years without an explanation why.

  “All because of something that I had nothing to do with but that has affected me my whole goddamn adult life.”

  “We’ve talked about this before.”

  “No. Actually, we haven’t. You stood there. You said you quit. You said it was never to be talked about again. Well guess what? I’m here to fucking talk about it, Dad.” I walk from one side of the room to the other, my hands itching to grab him and shake the damn answer out of him. “Did you do it? Did you fucking slip off that perfect throne you sit on every damn day, judging all of us, and actually do it? Because you walking away without a fucking word says you did. You pretending like—”

  “That’s e-goddamn-nough,” he thunders.

  “It’s never been enough. Not for Maggie, who’s a fucking wreck. Not for Mom, who stood by your side like a puppet on a string. Does she even know the truth? And sure as hell not for me, who you glare at every time I walk in this house. Why? Because you can’t handle the fact that I’m trying to live out a dream you fucking walked away from.”

  “You could never be me,” he shouts, knocking me back.

  I stare at him, completely stunned by his words.

  Hurt.

  Crushed.

  Sobered.

  I blink as I process and the realization of what it is he’s just said plays over the expression on his face. Anger. Disbelief. Awareness.

  “That’s not what I meant, Drew.” He pushes up out of his seat but I’m already heading toward the door. “Drew. It came out wrong. It—”

  “Don’t you fucking touch me,” I yell, as I yank my a
rm from his grasp and spin around with my fist cocked and no hesitation over willing to let it fly. A fury like I’ve never known before races through me. A debilitating feeling—one foreign to me—chases right behind the rage.

  “Drew. Please.” There are tears in his eyes, as if the ice man has thawed.

  But only from regret.

  Only out of fear.

  “I hope to God you are never like me,” he says, but it’s too late. He’s already said the words.

  “No worries there.”

  When I walk out and slam the door behind me, he doesn’t follow.

  I run down the middle of the street as fast as I can until I can’t breathe and double over on a sidewalk.

  They’re trading you out, Drew.

  Even though they found nothing on me, even though I’m innocent, the Tigers no longer wanted a name on their roster like mine. One that has accusations tied to it everywhere he turns.

  The Tigers win the Super Bowl. What an incredible game!

  The announcers’ declarations were like a taunt. Telling me what I missed. What I’ll never have.

  You should be happy Florida took you.

  How could I be happy when I’m so far away from my family?

  You could never be me.

  Where I’m relegated to sitting on the goddamn bench week after week.

  Alone.

  All fucking alone.

  Because of him.

  DREW

  I ROLL MY HEAD BACK on my shoulders as frustration eats at me. Another fucking game stuck on the sidelines.

  Another goddamn game where Hobbs’s inexperience screams loudly.

  And for what? For the Raptors to make sure they’re not wasting their fucking money in that huge contract they’re paying him.

  He’s a fucking flop. He has more talent in his pinky than most quarterbacks, so he needs to get past this block. His mental game is weak as shit. I know what that’s like. But I kept fucking trying, even when knocked off my pedestal.

  The Georgia crowd roars when his pass sails wide for the third time in as many downs. Thank fuck Georgia is playing just as poorly. The only reason we still have a chance is because they’ve made just as many mistakes as we have.