“Fuck you.” I glared at him. I didn’t know if that was his messed-up version of trying to be funny, but I found no humorin it. I just needed Cage so badly it hurt all over.
“Ask any NFL wife and she’ll tell you this is the life. Sacrifice. Sacrifice. Sacrifice.”
“I’m not his wife.”
“All the more reason to not call him.”
“He might call me. He hasn’t in a couple of days.”
“I’m not doing this with you, Lake. You know what’s best. Just go take a bath, have a glass of wine, whatever you need to do to let the day go.” He went to shut the door.
“Flint?”
He turned.
“Thank you.”
I didn’t anticipate the pause, the diversion of his eyes to the ground between us, the wrinkle of pain on his forehead. “I drank.”
Was it a statement or a confession?
My body froze. I feared a single move would scare him and he’d swallow back the words that I knew he needed to say.
“I had a wife… and a drinking problem. I had a son… and a drinking problem. It was my birthday. We went to dinner. I always drank. She tried to take the keys. I didn’t let her. Told her I was fine… I wasn’t fine. Do you know how deafening screeching tires are to your ears?” He stared at the floor or into his past. “Do you know how the sound of bending metal embeds itself so deep into your mind you can never ever forget it?”
I did. I knewexactlywhat that sounded like and how it never went away.
“Cage was driving home behind us. She was trapped.”
I gasped.Iwas trapped.
“The car was on fire. Cage got our son out. He got meout… he couldn’t get her out. She was trapped.” He looked up. “Cage saved me and my son. I owe him. I’ll always owe him. Football is his dream. I want to give him his dream.”
I tried to nod. Maybe I did. From halfway across the country, Flint rescued me from the beach with just a phone call. He appeared like a guardian angel when Shayna wasn’t breathing. And I knew if I asked him why, he would have said he did it for Cage. I finally knew why.
“Today you gave Shayna a second chance at life. I think your talent extends beyond sports stars and diffusing headline scandals.”
Flint nodded once, still holding a world of confusion in his expression.
“Good night.”
“Night, Flint.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
GAME DAY
“It sucks watchingmy teammates kiss their wives and girlfriends or play with their kids on the field between practices.”
I barely slept. Between my normal torturous sleeping pattern and Shayna nearly dying the day before, my brain waded its way through a thick fog. But Cage’s voice, like the rest of him, awakened me in every possible way.
“Then don’t watch them.” I yawned, sprawled out on the couch, rubbing Trzy’s partial ear. She liked it. Why? Because she was Trzy.
“I have told you that you’re welcome, even encouraged, to come visit me. Right?”
Tryz shook her head real quick. She’d hit her ear-rubbing limit.
“Yes. You’ve mentioned it a few dozen times.”
