Thick & Thin (Thin Love Book 3)

by Eden Butler

I never understood how she could be so callous. How she could walk away with no promise of coming back. To her, it was just a game. To me, being the primitive champion the game demanded, I was invincible, unstoppable. That made it so much more than a game.

  Only, I wasn’t invincible or unstoppable. Not anymore.

  If this went the way I suspected it might, then I’d become a failure. I’d be a statistic that no man ever wants to read about. My body, my size, the years I spent practicing, learning, growing, improving, would all fall by the wayside because of one bad tackle from a rookie offensive lineman eager to rack up his stats.

  The room was cold and the shiver on my skin moved around my limbs, coating me in chills, giving me the sensation of a fever that would not break. Outside the room, there was no noise at all. I was in a hospital that catered to an NFL team. Yet there was nothing outside that door. No more coaches. No teammates. No doctors. Nothing but my godfather and his partner, pacing and fretting until the doctors confirmed what was on that X-ray.

  It was then, in that silent, freezing room, that I realized how much I’d entangled my life with this game. My job, my home, my service projects, my friends, they all centered around my team. Even my damn housekeeper came to me from the team support staff. A kid called Jeff who made sure our towels were clean and our water bottles were filled had sent his auntie to me. She needed a job and I needed a housekeeper. Everything, absolutely everything I was, connected me to the team. It hadn’t always been that way. Once, not so long ago, Aly had been the center I returned to. She was the anchor that kept me from drifting too far from shore. Now even she was gone.

  Nearly three hours I lay there, thinking about how damn bad my head hurt, how my ankle throbbed like a blister, how I wanted to be home, how I might not have a home to go back to if I couldn’t play anymore. And if I couldn’t…then what? Who would I be away from that field?

  It felt like a death. Maybe it was. Maybe I felt weak, wounded because I had been injured far worse than I ever had been before. Maybe because I was older, I wouldn’t heal as fast. Maybe I stood outside myself and watched the beginnings of illness, like a corpse who had not yet died but damn sure was on his way to it. My career was now a malnourished body, too wrecked, too damaged to fight the illness killing it

  Jesus, I sounded pathetic.

  Still, I knew, despite what I’d told her over the years, all those times she tried to tell me what the game would do to me, Aly had been right. It was her warning that I ignored and it was my ignoring it, disregarding her worry, that made her leave.

  So all of this, how I sacrificed her, was fucking pointless. In the end, I’d be without a Super Bowl ring, without a championship and, worst of all, without my woman.

  Fuck.

  “Sweetie?”

  Eyes tight, I didn’t want to open them. If I did, the truth would topple me. My mother’s voice was soothing, but still scared me. If she was there, in Miami, then things had gone as bad as they possibly could.

  “Baby?” she tried again and I moved my arm from my eyes, tilting my head to watch her as she walked further into my room. That suspicion of things being bad was confirmed when Kona followed behind her.

  “Aw, shit,” I mumbled, covering my face with my hands.

  “Keiki kane,” Dad started, leaning over me with Mom at his side when they made it to my bed. He rested his hand against her back and she didn’t look annoyed by that touch. At least they were getting along now.

  “What’s the verdict?” I asked, letting my mom look me over, dote on me like I’d lost a limb and not stupidly let myself get knocked out into another concussion.

  “The doctor’s coming in with Kenny and your defensive coach.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “It could be worse.” Mom sat at the foot of my bed with a death grip on my hand. “But Ransom.... this is the third one.”

  “Yeah, Mom. I’m aware.” She sounded like Aly. Well, what I imagined Aly would sound like if she were there. There would be no reason for me to ask why she didn’t come. Why would she?

  Mom scooted closer, avoiding my busted ankle to sit next to me on the bed. Kona watched her, eyes guarded and tight before he looked down at me. “Don’t you think this is a good opportunity…” The tone of her voice, that sad, small placating timber made me feel sick. Pity wouldn’t help. I didn’t want anyone’s pity.

  “I don’t know what the hell I think right now, Mom. I’m a little…shit.”

  “It’s not the end of the world.” Kona rested his arms against the bed railing, trying his hardest not to act as panicked as he looked. “Football isn’t everything. You have other talents…”

  “And other opportunities,” Mom added, giving me a genuine smile.

  I didn’t need my Mom and Dad fixing my problems. My problems were mine to own, mine to handle and just then, the day, the circumstances overwhelmed me. There was a blanket of hopelessness that fell over me, something that made my chest feel heavy and the listless, uncontrollable urge to lash out and wound came over me. I hated feeling so weak.

  “Have you two already got my life mapped out for me because I’d love to hear it. Honest. I mean, I have no idea where I’ll be in a month, but please, go right ahead and tell me what I should do.”

  That stung. I saw that my rudeness had landed hard, hard enough that my mom stood up from the bed, shuffling to the foot of it as though she needed a moment to contain her disappointment.

  Kona, however, had no such problem. If I was being an asshole, he was the first to call me on it. “For starters,” he said, standing straight enough so he could look down at me, disappointed. “Maybe you can give up the whiny attitude and stop taking shit out on us.”

  “Kona…” Mom tried, but the small plea died on her lips when my father jerked his chin at her.

  “You’ve always babied him too much,” Dad said, frustrated.

  “Maybe you haven’t babied him enough,” she countered.

  “Keira, he’s twenty-eight. He’s a grown damn man.” He looked back at me, shoulders still stiff. “Something like this happens, keiki kane, and you decided how you’ll handle it right from the beginning.”

  I hated them bickering, especially over me. I hated that the sinking weight in my chest had only grown heavier the louder my parents’ voices rose. “And you’re going to tell me how?”

  “No. I’m not. Neither is your mother.” Kona got a little closer, leaning one hand on the mattress next to my head. “You’ve got to figure that shit out for yourself. You either take these lumps and deal with them or you lay on your back and bitch about how unfair life is.” He stood then, crossing his massive arms over his wide chest. “But I gotta say, I can’t believe you’ll take up the second option. Not with how your mother raised you. Not with all that ass kicker blood you’ve got running through those veins. We don’t run, keiki kane. That’s just not who we are, is it?”

  That stare was steely cold, meant to boost my confidence, meant to call me out for being a little punk. But that weight felt like forever, as though not even my father’s words ringing true could ease it.

  Still, I wouldn’t have him see me weak. I’d get no pity from him, I knew that. “No,” I answered, nodding once when my father watched me. Then came the small voice, nearly silent but firm, the one that reminded me who I was. The one that surfed above the doubt, the anger to tell me I could survive this.

  I just had to be willing to try.

  The door swung open and my gaze stayed on my coach and the two team doctors that followed him into the room, with my agent trailing behind. Whatever those men had to say would change things for me. And it was up to me to figure out what to do with that change when it came.

  You kill your darlings

  Because it is easy.

  Because you like the bristle of sabotage.

  Because you hurt yourself

  Wanting only the solitude that you

  Pray

  Breeds absolution.

  In the end<
br />
  There is only

  The sinner you made of yourself.

  Ten

  “So Kiki Jefferies works at Tulane now. Admissions.”

  “The redhead with the…”

  “The one and only.”

  “And?”

  “And what?” My cousin didn’t bother hiding his smile. Even with the quick shrug that was supposed to make me believe he didn’t care about running into his freshman year crush, the knucklehead grinned like an idiot who had never heard of subtlety. “I’m busy as hell.”

  “Man, you should never be too busy for that.”

  He stopped rolling the wrap around my ankle to shift his attention to my face. There was too much shock, too much humor staring back at me. “Says the man that hasn’t had any in how long?”

  A quick lift of my middle finger and that asshole laughed. Tristian hadn’t aged much, despite the hectic schedule he kept, working through his internship. There were no lines around his eyes, even at twenty-six, even though I knew he didn’t get more than four or five hours of sleep a night. He still had way too much energy and even when he wasn’t running around like a dog at the hospital, that insane man was at the gym exerting himself enough that he could manage to get his brain to switch off and land a few hours of sleep.

  The grin stuck on his face and I got that he had more to say, many more jokes at my expense that he wanted to toss my way, but another headache was starting at the base of my skull and my ankle throbbed and ached without the wrap on it. “Are you done yet?” I asked, nudging him with my good foot.

  “Deflection. Man, you’re never gonna change.”

  “Has the swelling gone down?”

  That made him refocus, moving my foot to the left, easing his thumbs against the tendons in the back along the ankle. “Down enough. We can try walking on it in a couple of days.”

  It didn’t matter really. I was stuck in New Orleans, away from my team indefinitely. It had been a week and the doctors had insisted. Rest. Heal up and come back in a few weeks when my thick head and my busted ankle were better.

  IR until then. Fuck me.

  “Whatever, man.” I sounded useless, pointless. I sounded, as my father had reminded me this morning when Koa and Mack kept screaming at each other during a game of Mortal Combat, like a whiny old man wanting a couple of rowdy kids off his lawn.

  “You know,” Tristian started, looking down at my foot and busying himself with the wrap, moving it over and over my ankle. “This attitude…”

  “Tristian, don’t start. I hear enough of it from my dad.”

  My cousin paused, sliding the Velcro clasp closed. “He giving you shit?”

  “Isn’t that what they all do?”

  “Dude, I have no idea.” Tristian’s grin widened and I had to fight the mild urge to smack him around a little. “Remember I was the overachiever. Did absolutely nothing to piss my folks off.”

  “What the hell ever. Please. I could give them a list.” Tristian hadn’t been a good kid whatsoever. He was just oddly efficient at covering his tracks. There were many times we’d gotten into shit so thick I was convinced we’d be stuck in it until we were old men. But Tristian, slick bastard that he was, always found a way to wiggle out of the messes we made.

  “Nah, they’d never believe you.” He looked up at me, smirking, an expression he generally reserved for women he was trying to do very filthy things with. “This face, dude, please, like a damn angel.”

  The house had been mostly quiet the whole time Tristian wrapped and iced my ankle. We hadn’t moved from the sofa as Dad and Mom corralled Koa and Mack into doing their chores so it was a little bit of s shock when Makana thundered through the room at the sound of the doorbell chiming.

  “I got it!” she screamed, elbowing Koa out of the way when he tried to beat her to the door. “I said I got it.”

  “Whatever, lolo. Damn,” Koa muttered, quickly disappearing onto the patio when I shot a glare his way.

  My mother joined Mack in the foyer, holding the door open a bit wider and I felt the blood draining from my face as she ushered Aly inside. “Shit.” The word was spoken low enough that only Tristian heard it over my mom and Aly’s friendly conversation and Mack’s insistence that Aly help her with some new bracelets she wanted to make.

  “Please,” my cousin started, sitting on the edge of the sofa glancing between me and Aly’s profile as she talked to my little sister. “Like you aren’t happy she’s here.”

  “I don’t need anyone’s pity.”

  Tristian whipped his gaze to me, head shaking. “Maybe not, but you’re a fucking liar if you say you don’t need everything else from her.”

  “Why don’t you stay out of my business and go call Kiki?”

  He deflected a pillow when I flung it at him and slapped my leg, just above my ankle, making me straightened up, ready to throttle him before he cleared up his bag and slipped out of my reach.

  “Hey beautiful,” he greeted Aly, lifting her by the waist when she reached in for a hug. “When are we gonna run away together?” She glanced at me long enough for Tristian to take advantage of the distraction to kiss her neck, earning a quick slap to the shoulder. “Come on, Aly Cat. You’re the daughter my mom never had and she likes you more than me. Besides, when I land a position at Tulane or some other hospital that can’t be without me, I’ll be totally loaded. Forget the lawyer or, a,” he nodded toward me, “other less than worthy mortals and let’s go make babies.”

  “In your dreams, Bankston.” Aly patted his face, slipping from his hug before my mother returned to the kitchen with Tristian following after her.

  “Keira, I have mended your pathetic son’s little booboo. Feed me, woman.” Mom threw a cold, insulted scowl over her shoulder at Tristian and he quickly retreated, hands held up. “I mean…beautiful cousin, what’s in the fridge?”

  Aly moved around the living room, half distracted by Tristian and all the blabbering he did with my mother. My eyes wouldn’t leave her. The way she moved was like music—slow, subtle and before you knew it, the crescendo of her hips would sway into something that stuck in your head for days. Today she wore fitted jeans with black knee high boots and a maroon cardigan. I always loved that warm color on her. It reminded me of fall and the way Aly’s eyes matched the color of the oak leaves as they faded.

  She leaned against the sofa opposite me, as though she wanted to test me, see if the tiger would pounce if she got too close. “You feeling okay?”

  But I didn’t want to talk about how I felt. I knew why she’d come. There was something she wanted to say. That much I could still recognize in her pinched lips. It wasn’t Aly’s style to level a “I told you so” at me, but that didn’t mean she’d keep her opinion to herself. She was here to find out what I planned. She wanted to know if I was too stupid to see reason.

  “Ransom?”

  “I’m good,” I lied, leaning further against the leather sofa with my arm stretched out on the head rest. “How are you?”

  “I was worried about you. We were here watching the game when…”

  “Ah. Yeah, I figured. I remember Ethan inviting himself over.”

  Some magnetic field had always seemed to pull us together, but time and distance, had changed that. The pull had somehow weakened in the week that I spent in Miami getting second and third opinions. Last I’d seen her, we’d promised to try our hands at being friends. When I’d suggested it that day at the barbeque, I hadn’t realized what that would mean. Back then, it had seemed possible, especially since the option of being without her was unthinkable. So, I hadn't lied. I’d meant what I’d said: Aly was the light in the distance that pulled me onward, that drew me close to home. I couldn’t be without that. But now I also didn’t know if I was strong enough to watch her from a distance.

  “So? Are you still in pain?”

  “I’m good,” I lied again, ignoring how her lips had tightened even further, how she gripped the tassel on the sofa pillow.

 
“Ransom, you got another concussion.”

  “Yeah. I was there.”

  “And,” she continued, ignoring my smart ass comment, “it was the third one in three years.”

  “Again, not new information to me.”

  “What are you going to do?” She moved closer and when her hair brushed against my arm, I had to ball my fingers into a fist. The temptation to touch her was too great.

  “I’m gonna rehab, like I always do.”

  “You know that’s not what I mean.”

  “Why?”

  “What?”

  I adjusted in my seat, pulling back my arm in case our hands accidentally touched. “I said why as in, why do you want to know? It’s not your job, you know. You’re not the nanny anymore and I’m not Koa.”

  She didn’t hesitate. “It’ll always be my job to worry about you.”

  God how I wished that were true. I hated how quickly my heart sped at her words. I hated the small thrill I got when she moved closer to me. Aly wasn’t only offering comfort—she really did want my friendship. But I couldn’t take that. Not from her.

  “I don’t think so. We aren’t together.”

  “Maybe not but that doesn’t mean I don’t still worry, that I don’t still care.” She sat so close now that a few strands of her hair brushed against my shoulder. She smelled like vanilla again, but this time I noticed the gardenia scent I knew she wore in the fall. She’d change out her perfume along with her wardrobe and fall was my favorite. Dark colors that reminded me of bonfires and the turning leaves on the oaks around my parents’ driveway and gardenias, that sweet scent that always reminded me of home, family, of Aly.

  It was too much of a temptation. It was too much sentimental recollection I knew that couldn’t be mine and just then, I hated Aly just a little bit for dangling what I so desperately wanted under my nose. “It’s not enough, Aly.” Then, because I wanted her leaving, taking with her all the things I loved and could not have, I cleared my throat, making sure my glare was vicious. “I’ve got enough women who want to play nursemaid for me. I don’t need another one.”