Hunter shrugged. “He’s okay, I guess. He said his dad’s been acting strange lately, but I didn’t see anything weird. It’s probably just him freaking about the little shit. He’s always been that way.”
“Well, there’s plenty for them to worry about,” I reminded him. “And I think it’s more likely Tanner’s trying to protect himself from being too hopeful. We know how hard it’s been for us to experience Patrick’s mood swings or his forgetfulness. Imagine what it’s like for Angie and Tanner.”
“I know, but sometimes I think Tanner’s too hard on Patrick. It’s not like hewantsto be this way.” Hunter stared out the side window.
I reached over to squeeze his arm, wishing he’d say whatever was on his mind. The conversation had already taken a turn to the morose, so he might as well lay it all out there. When he started wringing his hands together, I knew he was struggling with whether or not to speak up.
He sucked in a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “Has Patrick said anything to you about doctor’s appointments?”
“No, but I don’t know why you think he would.” I eased onto the exit ramp toward home.
“Tanner said he saw some papers when Patrick asked him to go into his office for something the other day,” Hunter told me. “When Tanner asked Patrick about it, he got all defensive, told Tanner to mind his own business. It’s just… That’s strange, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think so,” I responded. If I was in Patrick’s shoes, I likely wouldn’t want Hunter worrying about every appointment. Patrick was right, it wasn’t his son’s business, and Tanner needed to trust that Patrick would tell him if there was anything to be concerned about. I pulled into the driveway and killed the engine, but neither of us got out of the car. “Look, as time goes on, he’s going to have more and more appointments. There’s still a lot they don’t know about what players have been through, and they’re just starting to dig deeper so they can try to find answers. Once they do that, they’ll be able to make changes for current players so guys your age aren’t facing the same problems when you get to be old like us.”
Hunter stiffened. When he turned to look at me, I could see the sheer panic in his wide eyes. “Is there something you’re not telling me? You’re not… You’d tell me if you were sick like Patrick, right?”
I reached across the seat, pulling my son into a tight hug. He might be a grown man, but the fear in his rushed words and voice pitched almost an octave too high showed me a glimpse of the little boy I once knew.
“I’m fine,” I reassured him. “I didn’t take nearly as many hits as Patrick did when we were playing and I was always more cautious, both on and off the field. The coaches hated me because I refused to go out on the field if I wasn’t feeling right. You know this.”
“Yeah, but how can you be sure?” he pressed, unsatisfied with the answer I’d given him both times he’d asked if I was going to wind up with a fatal disease in my brain because of my time spent playing.
“How can I be sure the plane I’m flying in won’t go down? How can I be sure I won’t choke on my dinner when I’m home alone and die before anyone can get to me?” I asked, quirking an eyebrow, daring him to answer. “There’s a lot of uncertainty in the world. If you constantly live in fear of what could go wrong, you’ll never truly live.”
My shoulders slumped forward as I replayed my own words. I talked a good game about how you had to live life to the fullest, all the while trying to talk my son out of doing the thing he wanted most out of life because I was scared of what might happen to him.
While he worried about my memory slipping or my moods becoming erratic because of CTE, I was worried about the same for him, even though I knew the number of changes the league had already made to keep players safe and I was working to pressure them into even more changes in the coming years.
After the bowl game, Hunter and I were going to sit down and have a long talk about what he was going to do next year. If he truly wanted to enter the draft, I’d give him my blessing, as long as he still worked toward finishing his degree. That part was non-negotiable in my mind, because even the best players out there had to retire sometime, and I wanted him to have something to fall back on.
“Come on, let’s head inside. It’s getting late and Angie wants us back at their place tomorrow for dinner,” I told him. He groaned, but didn’t make excuses why he couldn’t be there. He and Tanner still got along, but they’d drifted as they entered their teen years and I knew Hunter would rather be off spending time with his own friends. Well, if he was crabby about an early Christmas dinner, he wasn’t going to like what I had to say next. “We need to get up early so we can go shopping.”
“Dad, it’s winter break,” he complained. “Can’t you let me sleep in like a normal kid?”
“Nope, because you have one last game and you’re not going to slack off now,” I informed him. “We’re going to hit the mall while everyone else is at work, then we’re going to hit the gym. I know you might think it won’t hurt you to take a week off, but that’s a great way to wind up being carted off the field on a stretcher. Nixon’s even been riding my ass about working out more frequently. He’s shown me some stretches that really help with agility, so I thought maybe I’d show you.”
“I don’t want to hear about who’s riding whose ass,” Hunter scoffed as he got out of the car. I followed him to the front door, smacking him as he reached for his keys. I’d have come up with a witty comeback, but I was too stunned to realize this was Hunter’s way of letting me know he’d come around to the fact that I really was gay, that I was seeing someone, and I was finally truly happy. “Come on, that was funny and you know it.”
“Maybe,” I conceded. I tossed my keys into the catch-all bowl on the counter and poured myself a glass of water. “I’m going to turn in for the night. Remember, I’m dragging you out of bed at eight whether you like it or not. If you stay up all night, I’m not afraid to dump a pitcher of ice water on you.”
“I know,” he responded, already flopping over the back of the couch, remote in hand. “I still say it’s a dick move to make me wake up early on my break.”
“Duly noted and ignored,” I quipped as I headed up the stairs.
* * *
I tossedand turned half the night. Every time I reached out for Nixon, I came back with a fistful of cold sheets. It was strange how I’d gone from content to have the bed to myself to unable to sleep without his body weighing down on mine. The room was too quiet without his snoring. It was all wrong.
The good news was I only had to get through two more nights and then I’d fly home for whatever Christmas surprise he was putting together. I’d told him I didn’t need anything, that I was looking forward to a low-key day spent at his condo, but he’d insisted we needed to do something to celebrate our first Christmas together.
It felt as though I’d just gotten to sleep when my phone started ringing across the room. I pulled a pillow over my head, promising to call whoever it was back at a more reasonable hour. When the ringing started again almost as soon as it’d stopped, I groaned and threw back the blankets.
So help me, if Nixon thought it was funny to call me at the crack of dawn just because he had to be awake, I was going to slap him when I flew home. And maybe I should apologize to Hunter about arguing when I told him we needed to be up early, because it seemed preferring late nights to early mornings was an inherited trait.
“Hello?”
“Did I wake you? I’m so sorry, Lincoln. I didn’t mean to call so early, but I didn’t know who else to call,” Angie rambled. She was breathing so ragged I could hear it across the line.
