“Linc, you have to let yourself off the hook,” he scolded me. I closed my eyes and allowed the rich timbre of his voice to wash over me. “You and I both know there was no way for you to be out. Hell, even now, there’s a chance people won’t accept Zach as a serious athlete once this news breaks. He’s a damn good player, but that may not be enough. We’re trying to make sure it is, and that’s something no one would’ve been able to do for you twenty years ago.”
That might’ve been the most Nixon had ever said at once. It did little to ease the guilt creeping into my mind, but it meant the world to me that he was still trying to remind me why I’d made the right choices back then. “So, what do you think I can do to help?”
“We need you to talk to him,” Nixon admitted. Bile rose in my throat and the mug in my hand started shaking. “Linc, Teddy only wanted me to talk to you because he thinks it fits with the theme of your presentation. I haven’t told him—haven’t told anyone…”
“I know that.” And I did. I trusted Nixon with my life, both literally and figuratively, but he was asking me to talk to a currently closeted player. At the request of the head coach. If Teddy wanted me to talk to him, that meant he had to know. “How?”
“How what?”
“How does he know?” Maybe he’d seen one of the few pictures of me online, out to dinner with men over the past few months. That was plausible. With Hunter off to college, I’d been testing the waters, trying to see if I could be bold enough to be seen in public without a woman on my arm. Okay, so maybe it was my own fault Teddy knew the truth.
“He doesn’t,” Nixon insisted. “At least, I don’t think he does. Like I said, as far as he’s concerned, you’re the best person for the job because you’re already going to be here talking to the players and you’re not connected with the team. We’re hoping you can make him see it’s okay to talk about what’s running through his mind. Zach’s burning himself out. Rather than talk to us about what’s going on in his head, he hits the gym. If the gym’s closed, he laces up his shoes to go for a run. I tried to talk to him today—”
Nixon cut off mid-sentence when I choked on my coffee. I coughed a few times to clear my lungs. “Sorry, I must’ve misheard you.Youtried talking to him?”
“Very funny, asshole,” Nixon scoffed, doing his best to sound offended. He failed. “Yes, Itriedtalking to him about how he’s feeling. I never said I succeeded. I figured…”
He didn’t finish his sentence. Didn’t need to.
“Okay, that sounds more like you,” I teased, trying to lighten the mood. This was why we didn’t talk anymore; with certain topics off the table, we didn’t knowhowto talk to one another. Now that I had a bit more information to go on, it made sense that Teddy wanted me to talk to Zach. After all, I was supposedly the expert when it came to finding a balance between professional and personal matters. “I’ll do it.”
“You don’t have to…you know… No one’s expecting you to tell him about yourself. Hell, you don’t even have to talk aboutwhyhe’s on a dangerous path as long as you get through to him.”
“I know,” I assured him, taking another sip of my now lukewarm coffee.
This was stupid. Nixon and I used to be friends. We talked all the time. I knew we wouldn’t be able to get that back, but talking to him now highlighted how much I missed having him in my life. I swallowed hard, trying to work up the courage to make a request. If he bluntly refused, there’d be no way for me to lie to myself, saying the rift was simply a matter of both of us leading busy lives. But I was forty-three years old, far too old to avoid conversations if I might not like the outcome.
I closed my eyes as I spoke, as if that would somehow protect me. “Nix, can we grab dinner or something while I’m in town?”
“I…I have to…maybe,” he stammered. At least he hadn’t refused to sit down with me. “Listen, I have to get out to the field. Call me later if you want and we can talk more about the situation with Zach, try to figure out how to talk to him without pissing him off even more.”
“Yeah, maybe.” If I called Nixon, we both knew it wouldn’t have anything to do with Zach Kendricks. I still wasn’t sure how to I was going to approach him, but Nixon couldn’t help me with that. “I’ll talk to you later.”
After disconnecting, I stared at the phone in my hands, wondering why I’d let my manager book a stop in North Carolina this summer. I’d known at the time it was a bad idea, and after talking to Nixon, there was no doubt in my mind it was going to be uncomfortable for both of us.
“Hey, I thought maybe you’d left,” Hunter said, yanking me off Memory Lane. I startled, realizing he was right next to me. I hadn’t even heard him step onto the porch. He crouched down in front of me, assessing my demeanor. “You feeling okay? You were pretty out of it.”
“I’m fine, Hunter,” I assured him.
He’d gotten used to me sitting out here every morning, thinking about the twists and turns my life had taken. This morning’s phone call left me feeling like I’d taken a turn at sixty miles per hour. But it wasn’t just Nixon that had me out of sorts; hearing about what Zach was going through made me realize that, with any luck, Hunter would soon be in an NAFL locker room.
If I had my way, that moment was still almost two years away, but with the way the analysts gushed about him, I had a feeling Hunter would enter the draft next spring whether I liked it or not. “Have a seat.”
Hunter eyed me cautiously, but took the chair next to me. I slid the ottoman between us so he could get comfortable as well. I couldn’t help but stare back at him, trying to figure out what had happened to the gap-toothed little kid who used to beg me to throw the ball around in the backyard. The preteen who rolled his eyes every time I tried to give him advice about his stance. The high school football standout I’d watched get into a buddy’s car and ride off to celebrate the week’s win.
He sat next to me, looking more like the players I traveled the country speaking to than the little boy I’d sworn would always be my first priority. That made me wonder if he resented me, if he thought I’d failed him.
“Pops, you’re starting to worry,” Hunter said, once again pulling me out of a haze. “Seriously, what’s going on? You can bullshit a lot of people, but not me. I know there’s something freaking you the fuck out. You’re not sick, are you?”
I’d long since given up on lecturing Hunter about cursing in front of me. I was a grown man with my own adult child and I’d still never uttered a swear word in front of my own father, but that was more because my parents believed swearing was vulgar and a sign of an uneducated mind.
Hunter was far from stupid and I knew his vocabulary was influenced by those he spent time with, so I allowed it as long as he wasn’t being disrespectful to me or his mother. If I treated him like a man in that aspect, maybe it was time I talked to him about other things. He was closer in age to today’s professional players, so he might even be able to give me a bit of perspective.
“No, I’m healthy as can be,” I assured him. My son’s greatest fear lately, every time I forgot something or wanted to talk to him, was that I’d gotten bad news from the doctors. It wasn’t a coincidence that his worry had started shortly after his godfather had been diagnosed with early-onset dementia, most likely caused by his time spent on the football field.
“You’d tell me if you weren’t, right?” As much as Hunter worried about me, he rarely thought of the consequences to his own body if he followed in my footsteps. Any time I tried pointing out the risks as a reason he needed to finish his degree before considering the draft, he blew me off, saying times had changed and it wouldn’t happen to him. I prayed every night that he was right.
“I would,” I promised. “I had something I wanted to ask you.”
