“I can have Ellie do some research. She has connections with the charity division at the Aces, and they’ll help you set it all up and get it off the ground. We could start with this idea of therapeutic sports and even add in other aspects to it later. I’ll look more into it. And you can be as hands-on or hands-off as you want to be,” she says.
“I’d like to be involved,” I say as I think about Bella and other kids I could help with this program. Football gave me a reprieve from what I was going through, and I want to provide that for other kids. Maybethatis the legacy I want toleave behind. Making life a little easier for someone who’s been dealt a shit hand.
“Are there any other charities you’d like to get involved with?” she asks.
I clear my throat. “Alzheimer’s research.”
She’s quiet for a beat, and then she asks, “When was your mom diagnosed?”
“Six years ago. She was on the younger side, but life expectancy is usually only four to eight years.”
She makes little circles on my chest with her finger. “Are you close with her?”
“She was all I had when I lost Christina. I leaned on my mother a lot that first month after the accident, and then I threw myself into workouts. It was my first season with the Cowboys, so football became my life. Training. Studying. Analyzing. Anything not to have to think about her.”
“And it turned you into the player you are today,” she murmurs.
“I suppose it did. But it also turned me into the asshole I am today.”
“You’re not an asshole,” she says softly.
“Oh really? Didn’t you once call me a divisive asshole?”
She giggles as she taps on my chest. “Yeah, I did say that, didn’t I? No wonder why you hated me.”
“I didn’t hate you,” I say softly.
“Yes, you did.”
“Okay, I did,” I admit. “But the feeling was mutual.”
“It was.”
“And it had more to do with you being forced on me and then finding out you were Dex’s sister,” I say without thinking. The truth is that maybe I’ve come to accept that she was forced on me, but the fact that she’s Dex’s sister won’t ever change. If push came to shove, would she choose me or her family?
For a split second, her father’s casino comes to mind. I’m not sure why it chooses that moment, but it does, like it’s some sort of foreboding omen that we started with her family coming between us, and there’s a danger that it could possibly spell our end as well.
That’s just the way my mind works. I’m always looking for how everything has the potential to fall down around me.
“I can’t change who my brother is,” she says quietly.
“I know. And it doesn’t matter.” I press my fingers into the flesh of her arm.
“Doesn’t it? Or will he break another rib someday, and you’ll take it out on me?”
Before I get the chance to answer that, her phone starts to ring. She shifts to glance over at it, and her brows dip down. “It’s my best friend. She usually texts—”
I hold up a hand. “It’s fine. Answer it.”
“Penny?” she answers. She listens, and then she says, “Oh, God. Take a deep breath, babe.” She listens some more. “Shit. Are you okay?” She paces in front of the windows. “I’m so, so sorry. What can I do?” She pauses in her pacing and glances over at me. “Of course you can. I’m here for whatever you need. I’m in LA but returning tomorrow.” She resumes pacing. “I love you, Pen. You’re going to be okay. Promise.”
She says goodbye and hangs up, and my brows crinkle together as I study her. “Is everything okay?”
She shakes her head a little, and she stares out the window. “My friend was at home with her boys, and her husband is out of town on a work trip. She got a message from a friend with a video in it from an hour ago that’s already going viral, and the message was like, ‘Isn’t that Brent?’ She watched the video, and sure enough, her husband was making out with some other woman at a Bulls game. He’s not even out of town. He’s cheating on her.”
A text dings on her phone, and she opens it. Penny shared the video.
She sits on the bed, and together we watch as the first few seconds of the clip show the basketball game, and then the cameras cut to a couple passionately making out in a suite. The announcer says something about how there’s more action in that suite than on the court. The clip switches to what’s clearly a little later in the game, and the cameras pan back to the same suite to see the man and woman drinking margaritas.
