Smiling, I tap out a reply.
Me:Don’t I always?
He sends back an eye roll emoji. I think I spent too much time around Rex today.
Me:How are things there?
Rowan:Game is about to start, and I have a great seat. Should be a fun night.
He sent a picture, showing the football field where the players are warming up. But more importantly showing me he’s sitting right behind the cheerleaders. Lacey stands with her profile to the camera. She has her pom-poms in each hand and a smile on her face. Typical Lacey.
My chest tightens. I wish I were there. The thought hits me, and I’m surprised it’s true.
I send Rowan back a picture of me flipping him off. Dad is excusing himself to use the restroom as I pocket my phone.
Patrick takes a long drink of his beer then smiles at me. “Been a long time since I seen your dad. He’s exactly the same and so are you.”
From their stories tonight I gather the last time he saw me I was four or five, so I doubt that’s true.
“Hey, I have a question for you,” I say.
“Sure. Anything.”
“Why do we have your jersey hanging in the living room?” I ask him. Once I asked Dad, and he said it was a long story and wouldn’t elaborate more than that.
“He still has that thing on the wall?”
I nod, and he laughs, shaking his head. I’m not sure he’s going to tell me either, but then he says, “It was a bet.”
“What kind of a bet?”
His smile turns sheepish. “I said his marriage to your mom wouldn’t last, and he said it would. We bet that the loser had to hang the other’s jersey up in their house…” He trails off. “It was a shitty thing to say and even shittier to bet on it, but I was an arrogant prick, and your dad was young and in love.”
“Why didn’t you think it would work out?”
Patrick looks uncomfortable as he pushes his food around his plate.
“They were different. It didn’t feel like they wanted the same things.”
I stay quiet but quirk a brow, not really understanding, and Patrick sighs as if knowing I’m not going to move on without more of an explanation.
“Your dad fell hard and fast. He would have done anything to make her happy. And I worried that she liked the idea of them, the headlines and the attention, more than she did the reality of this life. It’s not easy to be married to someone who spends their days training and travels nonstop.” He shoots me a side glance like he’s checking to see if he’s said too much.
“You thought she’d make him give it up?” I ask.
“I don’t know what I thought, honestly. It was a longtime ago, and I was just out of a nasty breakup.” He gives me a rueful grin.
“Dad never talks about it. And my mom just says he never played better than when she was in the stands.”
He points his fork at me as he says, “That is true.”
“It is?”
“Oh yeah. When they first got together, everyone said she’d distract him and his game would suffer. She had this big, wild social life, and he’d always been quiet and focused on soccer.”
I’ve seen the pictures of them at parties and red carpets and the headlines Patrick is referring to. Dad never mentioned it to me or responded to it in interviews, but his stats the season after they got together spoke for him. I assumed that was intentional on his part, a silent fuck you to the media.
“When she was in the crowd, he found another gear. I got to where I was looking for her before each game as much as he was. I knew if she was there, we were in for a hell of a night.”
