“Why are you in fucking California without telling me?”
“I left a note.”
“I’m going to… head upstairs. Unless you need me,” I say, getting off the couch, a lost kernel of popcorn falling to the floor. I quickly bend and pick it up.
“I was only calling your phone because he isn’t answering me on his,” Angie says, essentially dismissing me from whatever smackdown is about to take place.
“Because I left my phone in the bedroom to charge,” Landon replies as I beeline for the stairs. I can get my phone later, or even in the morning. It’s better than listening to them argue. I know their issues started before our little sexcapade, but I can’t help but feel like that might have made it worse. “It ran out of power when I had to call an Uber to get us home.”
“Sorry, I wasn’t there to be your chauffeur, Landon.”
I take the stairs slowly, but two at a time, trying not to look like I’m running away, but I totally am. I close my door, grab my iPad and my noise-cancelling headphones, and I give them the privacy they need.
I have a gut feeling this isn’t a good idea. At all. And I want to fix it for them because I like them both, as friends. And more when it comes to Landon, but my feelings don’t matter. I turn on Spotify and pull up some rental listings.
Chapter 16
Grady
Two months later…
“Brother from another mother!” Tate pulls me into a hug as soon as he sees me crossing the parking lot. “I dropped Dylan and Mal at the door because the parking lot is a zoo. How ya been?”
“I’m hanging in. Miss you, man,” I say, breaking the hug as he punches a button on the fob in his hand, and the gunmetal gray luxury SUV he drives beeps. “Thanks for handling the move for me.”
He shrugs it off and smiles as we walk toward the bustling Italian restaurant, which was one of my favorites when I lived here. “It was no problem. I brought Dylan, and he was obsessed with the big truck and the strong dudes lifting the boxes. He asked for a toy moving truck for Christmas.”
I laugh and make a note to find something truck-related for Dylan. After I sold the house in West Hollywood, Tate oversaw the movers the day they packed it all up.“Well, everything got to me in one piece, which is great. First time in all my moves, something didn’t go missing or get broken.”
“Dylan must have been the good luck charm,” Tate says about his son as we walk toward the restaurant near the boardwalk.
“Can I borrow him for my games?” I ask, and I’m only half kidding.
Right now, I would steal a baby if I thought it would get me out of this slump. I’ve been playing some of the worst games of my life, and also a couple of the best. There is no in between, and inconsistency is a huge liability for a goalie. So huge that the Riptide haven’t even reached out to talk about my contract… yet. My agent keeps telling me not to forget the ‘yet’. He swears they’ll reach out before the trade deadline this spring … I am not holding out hope. Not unless I can make that hope in the way of some very good performances all in a row. No blips and no fucking meltdowns.
Tate shoots me a sympathetic smile. “To be fair, the Riptide are not the Quake. You don’t have our depth in front of you. I mean, Abbott Barlowe is good, but he was out until a couple of weeks ago. And Conner, well, he can’t carry the whole damn team.”
I flash him a grateful smile because I appreciate his honesty. “If it makes you feel any better, it’ll take a miracle for us to make a real run again this year.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better,” I tell him. “If I can’t make it, I definitely want one of you to make it.”
“Maybe the Garrisons’ hopes this year hinge on Theo,” Tate says and then fakes an over dramatic shudder, which makes us both laugh.
He reaches for the door handle and holds it open for me. “I’m excited to see Dyllie Bear and Mallory, of course?”
Tate touches my arm as I start to walk into the restaurant. “We have a surprise. You’re the first in the extended fam to know.”
“What?” I ask and then turn and scan the restaurant for Tate’s son and girlfriend.
Mallory is sitting next to Dylan at a table near the back. Dylan sees me and starts to stand up on his chair, waving frantically, which brings Mallory to her feet to make sure he’s steady. And that’s when I see her round belly. My jaw drops, and I turn to Tate. He grins. I ruffle his hair and laugh. “Amazing!”
“It is,” Tate agrees, and I run over to hug Mallory and then pick up Dylan and hold him high up in my arms, which makes him squeal with delight.
“You look incredible!” I tell Mallory.
“I feel incredible.” She smiles. “But also like vomiting about seven hours a day.”
I try not to laugh as she motions for me to sit. Tate tells me how they’re not announcing it just yet because Conner and Mac just introduced everyone to their foster daughter Violet, last month, and they don’t want to step on that. Besides, Mallory isn’t ready to tell her family, who happen to hate all things Garrison. Tate says they’ve got a decent break in games between Christmas and New Year’s, so they’ll fly home and surprise the aunts, uncles, and grandmothers with the news then. The L.A.-based cousins already know.
