“Riverside Cafe,” he says. “Eddie brought them, along with a change of clothes for me and some croissants. I figured we could eat on the way, so I wanted to let you sleep a little bit.”
“On the way?” I ask.
“Yeah. If it’s cool, I thought I could tag along to the game. Eddie will drive. We have a spot at the stadium. Thought Cole might like to hang out with Jerome after for a little bit.”
My eyes grow wide.
“Wha—what?”
He smiles.
“He said he’d love to meet him. We’ll go in the player entrance so we won’t be spotted.”
“But…won’t people see you in the stands?” I ask.
“We won’t be in the stands,” he says almost sheepishly, like he doesn’t want to brag. “I have a suite.”
My jaw drops open.
I should refuse, protest, tell him he doesn’t have to do this. But I can’t stop thinking about the look on Cole’s face when he meets his hero. So I nod.
“Oh, my god,” I say. “He is going toflip.This is fucking amazing.” He bends down, kissing me again and grabbing a handful of my ass.
“So are you,” he says, giving me a little pat. “Now come on. We gotta get going.”
A little while later,we are pulling up in front of my parents’ house. Cole bursts through the front door, stopping when he realizes that Brooks is with me again.
“Are you guys boyfriend and girlfriend?” he asks, wasting absolutely no time. I feel my cheeks fire up as I take him under my arm and squeeze him, kissing the top of his head. But Brooks sticks out his fist for a bump then leans down to him.
“I’m trying, man,” he says. “I’m trying.” Then he looks up at me and gives me a wink. I bite my lip. Did he really just say that? Cole looks at him, a confused smile on his face.
“I like your car,” he says, looking past us now to the blacked-out Escalade.
“Oh, thanks,” Brooks says matter-of-factly. “You want to ride in it?”
Cole looks at him again, now even more confused.
“Huh?”
“Well, I thought maybe we could all ride together?” Brooks says. Cole’s face erupts into the biggest, glowing smile I’ve ever seen, and I can feel my heart swelling.
“For real?” Cole asks. Brooks nods, holding his hand out to the car. Cole sprints past us as Eddie opens the door for him.
“Bro, thisrocks!”he cries out as he jumps in. I giggle, but just as we’re turning to follow him, I hear the screen door creak open and slam shut. I turn back around to see my parents on the porch. I walk up the sidewalk to them quickly, wrapping them both in a hug.
“You’re here!” I say as they both wrap me up. “I thought you’d both be working today.”
“I work tonight,” my dad says, rubbing my shoulder. “And your mom got off a few hours ago.” My dad works as an electrician at the local community college but has been taking on a bunch of extra shifts ever since my mom’s diagnosis—ovarian cancer, three years ago. Treatment was long and brutal and uncertain, but she made it. But instead of sailing off into the sunset, she had to find something where she could work part-time but also be able to take on extra hours when her body lets her. She works answering phones at the hospital. It’s a thankless job, but luckily, a hospital never sleeps. So when she has the energy, she takes more hours. That usually means they both work a lot over the weekends, so I try to get down here to be with my brother as often as possible. Or sometimes, they bring him to me, and he spends the weekends with me in the city.
When my mom got sick, I wanted to cancel my lease. I had just graduated and was making steady money from freelancing and bartending on the weekends. But I wanted to toss it all in and move back to Jersey. Be with them. Be with her.
But they refused to let me. They told me to stay in Brooklyn. They told me to start my life and never look back.
“But look to your side when you need to. That’s where we will be,” my mom had told me. So I did. And I felt guilty about it every single day. But I worked my ass off. I covered stories all over the city. I bartended for two years and fully paid off my student loans. Then I landed a reporting job at a small Brooklyn paper about a year ago. But when it went under, I got laid off, and I’ve been looking for the next step since.
Who knew the next step would lead me here?
“So…you gonna tell us what the heck’s going on?” Mom says, stepping farther out onto the walk, eyeing the car and the handsome devil standing outside of it. When he sees my parents, he makes his way up to us slowly.
