“We’ll have to be super carefularound you now, won’t we?”
“If you can’t trust your friends,who can you trust?” he says with a sly look. He pats me on the back.
“Oh my God!” I hear Tad say behindme.
I turn around. He stands at thetop of the stairs, wearing an old football jersey. He rushes down and throwshis arms around Debra.
“So glad your mom’s scans cameback negative again,” he tells Debra. “Congratulations!” He pulls away and sheappears flustered by his excitement. She hasn’t seen him in so manymonths—since she started seeing her new girlfriend—and I can tell she’s caught off-guardby how happy he is.
“Thank you so much,” she says asshe runs her finger through her hair. She still doesn’t have a clue that Tad’sthe reason her mom got into that experimental procedure.
“Come on in, come on in,” he says.“Make yourselves at home.” He leads them into the kitchen.
“Nice house,” Darren says.
“Thanks,” I say. “We kept goingback and forth between this and a place about three miles away. The pool’s whatsold us.”
“And the quiet of the woods outback,” Tad says. “I like the idea of quiet, and the ’burbs seem just right forit.”
“I can’t even imagine,” Darrensays, seeming horrified by the prospect and surely surprised that someone whohas lived a life as grand and loud as Tad has could want anything other than busynessall the time.
“How’s business going?” Darrenasks.
“Great. I got a few morecontracts. I was thinking about opening up an office downtown and hiring someguys to help me out.”
Since Tad resigned from the NFL,he’s started an online marketing company, promoting everything from books toodd-ball inventions that typically wind up on late-night infomercials. WithTad’s former life of selling himself to the press, he has a unique, intuitiveability to read what will make products more appealing to audiences. He alsohas a roster of celebrities who are happy to endorse whatever he asks them to,and he doesn’t have to deal with being in the public eye anymore.
“What about you?” Tad asksDarren. “Any new lovers in your life?”
“There’s this guy I’m kinda seeingat the office,” he says, the grin on his face suggesting it’s more thankinda.I’m relieved to see him so playful about it. It’s so distant from that memory Ihave of him when he was wasted and complaining about how Tad always goteverything and everyone he wanted.
We catch up some more before Tadstarts the grand tour of the place while I finish up the appetizers. Then Ijoin them before we hear the back door downstairs open. Kiernan must be donewith the ribs.
“What time is it?” Tad asks. He checkshis phone. “Oh, come. We’ll miss the coin toss.” But when I check my phone, Inotice we have a good ten minutes before anything really happens. I assume hejust wants to get downstairs early for whatever surprise he has planned.
When we enter the living room,Kiernan has the ribs placed on the coffee table in the middle of the appetizersI prepared. Kiernan, Darren, Debra, and I sit on the couch while Tad grabs theremote off the console before our wall-mounted 50’’ flat screen. He turns onthe TV and changes over to the game. Just commentators chatting with eachother. Tad mutes the TV and turns to us like he’s about to offer apresentation.
“I want to start off by thankingeveryone for coming by today. You all mean so much to me. You were there in atime when I was trying to figure out who I was. And I just…I want you all toknow how much that means to me.”
His smile is as big as it is afterwe fuck. It reminds me of how at-ease he’s become over this past year. How he’sbeen able to relax and enjoy our time together.
“I obviously owe a special thank-youto the man in my life. The man who not only rescued me from a bunch of psychos—”
“That would be me,” Kiernan says.
Everyone chuckles, despite themorbid nature of the joke.
“Of course, Kiernan,” Tad says.“But I also owe a big thank you to another guy who helped me see that I didn’thave to keep on heading down the path I was on. That I could make a U-turn andfind my way toward something that really made me happy, not just because Ichose it, but because I had the freedom to try something new and enter a newchapter of my life. A chapter with a man who I was lucky to meet undercircumstances that might not have been the best in the world, but after allthat happened, if it hadn’t been for that awful part, I never would have methim. And to have never met him, that would have been the real tragedy.”
I won’t fucking cry if that’s whathe’s trying to do. Although I do notice that I am getting a little flustered.
Fucking asshole.
“Now,” he says, heading around therecliner beside the couch. He retrieves a box wrapped in brown packaging paper.
A present?
He hands it to me.
