But I’ll never forget sitting down with Mark my senior year of high school, telling him I wanted to be done with football. I thanked him for everything, told him I appreciated everything he’d done, but I wanted to enjoy my college experience without the stress of always having to be number one.
I thought he’d be cool about it.
He’d always been cool about everything …
But I swear to God, the man’s eyes turned pitch black and he hooked a hand on my shoulder, squeezing until a shock of pain flooded my muscles, and he told me, point blank, that if I didn’t play football, he’d leave my mother.
I laughed at first.
I thought he was joking.
What would me playing football have to do with his marriage?
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized, he didn’t need her any more. With the help of my father’s life insurance money, he’d grown his little real estate business into a multi-million-dollar corporation—and his daughters weren’t babies any more.
He didn’t need my mother.
He could walk away a rich man, find someone younger, more exciting, less Xanax and wine flooding her system at any given moment.
It was me.
I was the reason he stuck around.
He wanted to live his shattered football dreams through me, and nothing was going to keep that from happening.
The bastard knew I loved my mother, that I didn’t want to see her alone and devastated from losing yet another husband. So I shut my mouth. I kept up with the coaching and the clinics and the practices. And I took my spot as the PVU Tigers starting quarterback the following fall without so much as a complaint.
“Can you believe it?” Mom says, sipping from her flute. “Richmond. Who’d have thought? Mark, we might have to buy a second place in Virginia. Maybe a little condo we can use during home games?”
Mark scoffs, his bulbous belly jiggling. “Condo? Hell, I think Talon here can drop a million or two on a place for Mom and Dad, don’t you?”
She chuckles, like he’s the funniest fucker on the planet, and brushes her hand along his arm. “Oh, stop.”
“I’m not kidding. We’ve probably invested half a million dollars into this kid’s career,” Mark says. His eyes twinkle like he’s trying to keep it lighthearted for Mom’s sake, but I know he’s as serious as the heart attack that ripped my father’s life from this world.
I ignore their bullshit banter and slide my phone from my pocket, checking my email.
Yesterday I asked Irie for one date. She told me she’d think about it, which I’m ninety-nine percent sure means she’s going to say yes—she just had to tamp down her excitement. God forbid she owns the fact that she wants me just as badly as I want her.
I press the ‘refresh’ button and watch the screen populate, mostly with junk emails and various campus alerts.
And then I see it.
An email from Irie.
“One date,” the subject line reads. In the body of the email she’s written, “Pick me up Saturday at seven. 472 Calle Blanco.”
“Talon, what are you over there grinning about, huh?” Mom asks with a wink, her words half-slurred. “Did Richmond decide to sweeten the pot? I bet it drives them crazy that you haven’t signed yet.”
I rise, tossing my cloth napkin on my plate before rounding the table.
“Nah,” I say when I get to Mom. “Nothing like that.”
“Well then what is it?” she asks.
I don’t tell her about Irie. Girlfriends were never a thing growing up. Mark didn’t allow them. He thought they’d be too distracting and he was probably right. After a while, Mom began to echo Mark’s sentiments because she believed he could do no wrong and therefore was never wrong about anything. My only taste of the finer sex was limited to house party hook-ups while Mark and Mom were on their monthly trips.
Despite the fact that I’m almost twenty-three, I’ve still yet to bring a girl home to meet either of them.
I might be a cruel bastard.
But I’m not that fucking cruel.
“Going to head back,” I say, kissing my mom’s glass-like forehead. “Thanks for … this.”
I glance at my stepsisters who haven’t said more than two words this entire night and then to Mark, who’s shooting me a look that suggests I’m an asshole for leaving his celebration early.
But fuck that guy.
Making my way to the valet stand, I give the kid in the red jacket my ticket and read Irie’s email one more time while I wait for them to bring my car around, and when he pulls up, I tip him a twenty—partly because I’m in a fan-fucking-tastic mood and partly because Mark’s only going to tip the poor soul a couple of bucks when he fetches his Rolls Royce SUV an hour from now.
“Thanks, man,” the kid says as he hands me my keys.