by J. Nathan
He ground his teeth, the tick in his jaw prominent as I lifted my phone to my ear. “Hey Coach…yeah I’m feeling good…Yup. He just showed up. Said he’s taking me back…I hope you don’t mind, but I offered to take Finlay back with us…Yeah…I will.” I looked to my father and held out my phone. “He wants to talk to you.”
He took the phone and walked out into the hallway.
His wife stared at me with the same disappointed look my own mother would’ve given me. “He’s been really worried about you.”
“That’s funny. I was under the impression he only worried about himself.”
She closed her eyes for a long moment, clearly needing strength to deal with me. “He made a mistake years ago, Caden. We both did. But we’re together now. We have a family. Can’t you just look beyond the past and let him be part of your future? Let us both be part of it.”
My eyes narrowed on this woman who destroyed my family. Everything about her perfect hair and pant suit disgusted me. “Do you want to know why I can’t look past it? Why I will never have a relationship with that man or you? Because I have this thing called loyalty. And it’s to my mother. Not him. And certainly not you.”
She nodded, a million thoughts playing across her face. “It must be nice to live in your world,” she said softly. “A world where everything is so black and white.” She paused for a long time, before she pinned me with her eyes. “Be sure to say hello to your girlfriend for us. Leslie, isn’t it?” She didn’t bother saying another word as she turned and walked out of my room.
It was as if I’d been leveled by a freight train moving at full speed. By the realization. By the fact that she had to be the one to point out what I already knew.
I’d been treading a very fine line with Finlay. A line that—had I crossed it—I never would’ve been able to return from it. I’d spent the last ten years swearing I’d never be my father. And there I was nearly following in the same damn footsteps. What started off innocent had become much more serious. How had I not realized it? How had I let it happen?
The one thing I had going for me was I wasn’t my father. I wouldn’t cross that line. I was better than him. And if I wasn’t, I’d make damn sure to change that.
I grabbed for the room phone beside me and dialed, lifting the large corded receiver to my ear. She answered on the first ring. “Hey, Leslie.”
“Oh my God, Caden. You haven’t been answering your phone.” She sounded so relieved. “How are you?”
A knot formed in my gut, twisting my insides. “I’m okay.”
“It looked really bad. They kept talking about it and replaying it.”
“Yeah, well, it’s just a pulled quad muscle. I’ll play next week,” I assured her, though I wondered if I was trying to assure myself.
“They’re making it sound like a career ending injury.” It wasn’t a question, but it might as well have been.
“Nope. I’ll be fine.”
“Thank God,” she sighed.
I wondered what she would’ve done if my injury was career ending. If I was just an average college student who didn’t play a sport. If my future career was an accountant or a banker who couldn’t afford those million dollar homes her daddy sold and she kept thrusting in my face. Why was she with me in the first place? Was it because I was the starting quarterback? Was it because I might’ve gone pro? We really had nothing in common aside from a great sex life. Why hadn’t I realized that before?
“When are you coming home?” she asked.
I pulled in a deep breath, staring at the muted television playing in front of me, still reeling from my stepmother’s words. “Not sure.”
“Well, I miss you.”
A heavy silence descended. It was a sobering moment to realize—with much certainty—that I hadn’t missed her. I never missed her when I was away. But the short time Finlay had left me alone in my room, I’d been wondering when she’d return. I knew I needed to be honest with Leslie. I needed to be honest with myself. If I didn’t come clean, I would’ve been just as deceitful as my father. “Listen, Leslie.” I somehow stopped myself from following it up with, ‘we need to talk.’
“What?” She sounded apprehensive.
“I need to say something, and I know you’re not going to understand. And I’m sorry.”
“Okay, you’re starting to scare me,” she said through nervous laughter.
“I can’t do this anymore.”
“Do what?”
I paused to garner my nerve. “Us.”
Silence filled Leslie’s end like I knew it would. I was stupid to do it over the phone. But after seeing my father. Seeing his wife. Thinking about the hurt they caused. The destruction they’d done. I knew it wasn’t fair to be spending time with Finlay and thinking about her the way I increasingly was. It just solidified that what Leslie and I had wasn’t right.
“Uh, huh.” She sounded unconvinced. “I’ll play along. Why? Why all of a sudden are you deciding this?”
I dropped my head back against the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. “It’s just not right.”
“Not right? What’s not right?”
I stayed silent, trying to decide how to make it clear to her without hurting her more than I already was.
“Caden. Are you on medication? Because this sounds like the medication talking.”
“It’s not.”
“I don’t believe you. This is coming out of left field. Why would it be the first time you’re mentioning it?”
I hated hurting people. It wasn’t in my nature. But I needed to make it so she had no doubt. If I didn’t, her fucking inquisition would’ve never ended. “I have feelings for someone else.”
She gasped. I could almost see the claws coming out. “Who?”
“What?”
Her disbelief quickly transformed to anger. “Don’t give me that bullshit, Caden. Who the hell is she?”
I paused. I didn’t want to bring it up. I just wanted to bow out as respectfully as I could without hurting her, but she was making it damn near impossible.
“I asked you a fucking question you son of a bitch.”
Her words couldn’t hurt me as much as the realization that I almost headed down a path like my father. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters.”
“She doesn’t even know. It’s just…I shouldn’t be thinking about anyone else while I’m with you.”
There was silence. Had she hung up? Was she crying? “You’re not thinking straight,” she said, breaking the long silence. “We’ll talk about it when you get back and you’re not so out of it.”
“Leslie,” I said, this time sterner. “Would you rather me drag this out? I want to be up front with you. Can’t you respect that?”
“I’ll see you when you get back.” And just like that, she disconnected the call.
I closed my eyes. Of course it wasn’t going to be that easy. It had been a rash decision to do it like that. It wasn’t the way I wanted it to go down. But it needed to end. Her push for us to buy a house together after dating for six fucking months, my father’s unwelcome visit, and his wife’s words pushed me over the edge. And even though Finlay and I didn’t even have a real relationship, I knew it was wrong to stay with Leslie. I wouldn’t be my dad. I’d never be him.
“Hey.”
My eyes sprang open.
Finlay stood in my doorway with her backpack on her back and two smoothies in her hands. It looked like she’d tamed her dark waves while she’d been gone. She didn’t need makeup. She didn’t need much of anything. She was the girl-next-door and that was hot as hell. “Am I interrupting something?”
I shook my head as I hung up the phone, a calmness sweeping over me now that she’d returned. “Nope.”
She walked in, placing a smoothie on the nightstand beside me. “Your dad’s talking to your doctor. He told me to give you this.” She pulled my phone from her pocket and handed it to me.
“Thanks.” I grabbed the s
moothie. “How do you know what flavor I like?”
“I Googled it.” She dropped down into the chair. “You can find out a lot about a superstar like you on the Internet.” She sucked down a long sip of her smoothie.
I laughed, my eyes mesmerized by her damn lips puckered around the tip of the straw. “Oh yeah? What’s my favorite color?”
“Red.”
I laughed. “Lucky guess. Do I rock boxers or briefs?”
“So easy,” she said with a knowing smirk. “Briefs.”
“That’s really on there?”
She shook her head. “I’ve seen your ass more times than I care to admit in the locker room. And don’t act like you don’t do it on purpose to give me a show.”
I laughed as I sipped my own smoothie. Strawberry. My favorite. I lifted my phone and tapped the screen, searching a couple sites then dialing the number I’d been looking for. When the person on the other end answered, I rattled off instructions while Finlay stared at me, her eyes ready to burst out of her head. She wanted to strangle me. Was it weird that I might’ve enjoyed it? I disconnected the call.
“You can’t do that,” she said, a cross between awe and fear in her voice.
“Watch me.”
Her lips tightened into an angry thin line as she shook her head. “I can’t do that.”
“Of course you can. Just blame me. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Seriously? Do you want the list?”
I smiled. She was fucking adorable when she worried like that. And I suddenly couldn’t wait to spend the next nine hours with her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Finlay
He was freaking nuts. That’s what ran through my head as I stood in the hospital lobby with keys to a rental car in my hand. We were going to be in so much trouble. Not only would his father call Coach, but what the hell was I going to do for almost nine hours in a car alone with him? It was bad enough sleeping next to him all night, inhaling his amazing scent. Listening to the soft hum of his breath. The rhythm of his heartbeat.
But now?
How was I supposed to remain unfazed by his charm? His good looks? Him?
The elevator doors parted and a pretty nurse pushed Caden toward me in a wheelchair. Of course he’d get the pretty one. She probably paid one of the older nurses for the privilege. But the smile on his face wasn’t directed at her. It was directed at me. “Can you seriously not walk?” I asked when they stopped in front of me.
He grabbed the crutches that lay across his lap and stood, using them to support his body while babying his right leg. “It’s sore. I just need to stay off it and keep it extended.”
“So, you’re going to sprawl out in the back seat while I cart your ass across state lines?”
He grinned. “That’s the plan.”
There was a lightness to his words. To his features. To his eyes. It was as if something had changed now that he didn’t have to spend hours in a car with his father.
“Well, you might want to get moving,” I said. “Your dad’s probably almost finished with lunch.”
He laughed as the entrance doors slid apart and he hobbled outside on his crutches, stopping at the maroon four-door sedan parked at the curb. He glanced over at me. “Aren’t you gonna get the door?”
I walked around to the driver’s side. “When hell freezes over.”
“Don’t sound so high and mighty. You’re my accomplice.”
“Your unwilling accomplice. That’s what I plan to tell Coach.” I slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
“Did I use a weapon?” Caden asked, maneuvering himself into the backseat.
“Several.”
He laughed as he closed the door and settled in.
I pulled away from the curb, clearing the parking lot and heading out onto the main road.
“Thanks for doing this,” he said, the sincerity in his voice taking me aback.
“Don’t thank me yet. I failed my driver’s test three times.”
“Bullshit.”
I shook my head. “Nope. Hit a curb the first time. Went the wrong way down a one-way street the second. And I nearly clipped two kids in a crosswalk the third.”
His laughter filled the car. “That’s fucking hysterical.”
“For you maybe. Having my br—” Shit. “Having my dad drive me around, not so much.”
“Well, if you just warn me before making an abrupt stop, we should be fine.”
I nodded. “I can do that.” My navigation instructed me to turn left and remain on that road for the next hundred and fourteen miles.
“I bet right now my father’s threatening to sue every person in that hospital.”
I glanced at him through the rearview mirror. “Do you care?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“Do you mind me asking what happened between the two of you?”
He paused for a long time, staring out the window at the passing trees. I wondered if he trusted me enough to tell me. To divulge his family issues. To let me in. “He cheated on my mom.”
My chest tightened around my heart. “I’m sorry.”
“Nothing for you to be sorry about. He did it. He broke my mom’s heart. And then left us.”
“You don’t talk to him?”
“Not unless I have to. Like today. But otherwise, it’s pretty easy to write someone off after they do something like that.”
I nodded, understanding—as mortifying as it was—his reaction in the pool even more.
“I’ll never be like him.”
Our eyes met in the rearview mirror and the honesty in them mixed with something else. Something he clearly wanted me to understand. My eyes jumped back to the rural Arkansas road in front of me. There was one thing I knew for sure. The road was a lot less dangerous than those blue eyes. And their owner.
Caden
“So…no boyfriend?” I asked from my spot in the backseat a little while later.
Finlay glanced at me through the rearview mirror, her green eyes locking on mine. “Do you think any guy could handle this?”
I smirked. “He’d be a fool not to try.”
I could see my words unnerved her in the way her eyes flashed back to the road and she readjusted in her seat. “Well, most guys don’t want an independent girl.”
“Not true. I enjoy a challenge.”
“Your girlfriend does seem pretty strong-willed.”
“Strong-willed? Is that your way of saying she’s a bitch?”
Finlay’s eyes widened. “No. I don’t even know her.”
I laughed. “I’m just joking. She was definitely strong-willed.”
“Was?”
“We broke up.”
Her head recoiled, her eyes still on the road. “Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
I shrugged. “It just happened.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Is it?” I stared into the mirror, waiting for her to look at me, to show some sign that the news affected her in some way. But her eyes remained on the road. “Like I said,” I continued, hoping she understood what I was saying. “I’d never cheat.”
Her eyes flashed up, our gazes colliding in the mirror.
I almost laughed at the fright in her eyes. But I couldn’t relent. Not yet anyway. “Do you think you can drive all the way through or should we find a place to crash at some point?”
Her eyes rounded. “Oh…uh…”
Oh, this was getting good. For someone so strong, someone who had a comeback for everything, I’d definitely tongue-tied her.
“I think I’ll be fine.”
“You say that now, but when it’s dark and you’ve been staring at the same, long, dark road, you’re gonna be seeing double.”
Finlay said nothing.
If I was being honest, her not jumping at the chance to spend the night with me in a hotel room—now that I’d made it clear I was single—definitely hurt my ego. But I guess it wouldn’t have been Finlay if she
didn’t challenge me and make me work for it.
Finlay
The sunlight on the horizon threatened to blind me with its fierceness as afternoon morphed into evening. I sang along to the country songs on the radio while Caden slept in the backseat. He’d been out for hours, clearly not getting much sleep in the hospital. I envied him, as my eyes stung from the hours staring at the open road. When my navigation announced our destination on the right, anxious butterflies danced in my belly. I could not wait to get there.
I pulled to an abrupt stop by the sidewalk, purposely jostling the car. Caden stirred in the backseat, the movement jarring him from sleep. “Are we home?” he asked, sitting up and looking out the window all sleepy and disoriented. “Wait. Where are we?”
I stifled a grin. “Topela.”
“Topela?” he asked, like he’d never heard of it. I was fairly certain he hadn’t.
“Yeah, Topela, Mississippi. Elvis’ birthplace. Thought we’d take the scenic route.” I had no idea how I managed not to burst out laughing as I pushed open my door. It was probably my desperate need to stand and stretch my stiff legs and find a restroom.
Caden’s door squeaked open and his crutches hit the pavement, assisting him out of the backseat. “Is that why we’re here?” He lifted his chin toward the statue in front of Topela City Hall.
“Yup.” I walked the hundred or so feet over to it with a huge smile on my face.
After the minute it took for him to catch up, Caden stepped beside me, his eyes moving over the tall bronzed statue of Elvis atop a large pedestal. It was an amazing replica of him leaning forward with his right leg bent and his right hand out, as if reaching down to his screaming fans. His lips were rounded as he sang into the old time microphone on the stand in front of him, it too leaning with his forward movement. “So you’re an Elvis fan?”
“Isn’t everyone?” I asked, having a little fun with him.
He shrugged. “Given all your singing, I should’ve known you liked country music.”