Page 11

Chapter Eleven

Ivy

“Ivy.”

I fuss with the bed corner again, mumbling under my breath as I sweep a hand beneath the crisp sheet. They changed the sheets on Pops’ bed whilst we were having a short walk around the hospital floor yet they still couldn’t get the corners right.

I furiously swipe my hand along the crease, tucking the sheet between the heavy metal frame and the mattress.

“Ivy.”

I’m ignoring Pops and his insistence on talking about last weeks’ news cycle. I’m sick of seeing my face on ESPN. I’m sick of seeing Pops’ face on ESPN. Mostly though, I’m sick of seeing my dad’s.

The news had broken that Pops had gone into emergency surgery thanks to an old timer that was staying in the same ward. He’d been a big fan back in the day. He and Pops are roomed next door to each other and had apparently become friends. The old guy had seen Pops and called his daughter about the legendary Billy Booker going into surgery, she’d told her husband, who happened to be a reporter at one of the local papers.

It snowballed from there.

Soon enough, ESPN were knocking on the door and asking for comments from ‘the family’ left, right and center.

The ‘family’ being me. Just me.

“Ivy, stop it,” Pops says again, leaning forward in the bed to brush my hands away from the already perfect sheet corner. I glare at him before smoothing out his blankets anyway and moving toward the couch where a basket of fresh laundry is sitting. I pick up a t-shirt, holding it up to fold it when Pops’ voice rings through the room again, loud and harsh.

“Put the shirt down, Ivy Grace. Now.”

I flinch. It is the same voice he always used when I’d gotten into trouble at school albeit, it wasn’t all that often that I’d had to hear it.

“You should fold these so you don’t get them mixed up with the dirty ones.” I try to keep my voice light, calm. He wants to rehash the past and I am not in the mood for it.

“Come sit here,” he says again, not as loud but still as scary as ever.

I sigh, dropping the shirt into the basket. I move over to the bed, sitting beside him as he settles back into the pillows. He leans over to the bedside for the remote, flicking on the television to ESPN .

Great.

“I want to talk about this week. You’ve been on edge and we both know why.”

“I haven’t been—” The look he gives me has me swallowing hard and my shoulders slumping. I change directions. “I don’t want to talk about football. Not now. Not ever.”

“I know you don’t sweetheart but I think we should.” Pops gives me a small smile. “This week has been intense. Have you been watching the stories on the news much?”

“It’s been hard not to.” I cringe glancing towards the screen.

It’s Friday and the highlights they are playing look to be from last night’s game. For once, my dad’s face isn’t glaring back at me.

It started after the news broke of just rehashing Pops’ career. They dug up game highlights and old tapes. They talked about his impact as a quarterback in the sport and then in Boston. The local news picked up the story and, on what seemed to have been a very slow news day, they had decided to feature a two-night special just on the football legacy that was my family.

I love watching the local news. I like recognizing the places I’ve been to on the TV and I like keeping up to date with what’s going on in the city that I live in. I often sit in front of the six o’clock news with a glass of wine and a pile of work, making my way through it while the newsreader does feel good stories on local activists or small business owners.

However, they ruined my nightly ritual last Monday when the opening story had a cover picture of my family; Pops, Nan, me, and my parents.

Where had they even got the photo?

It looked to be one that had been taken in my dad’s sophomore year in college. I was a baby in my mother’s arms. I suspect someone had sent it in from the university.

It definitely wasn’t one of mine, not from the box I keep tucked safely under my bed.

The newsreader had deep dived into Pops’ career with the Broncos, talked about his family life and raising his son. About raising me. They even touched on the lesser-known fact that Pops had a small ownership in the team, something I didn’t even think was public knowledge but the station had done their research well it seemed.

Then after they’d played a five-minute-long highlight reel of Pops’ games—similar to the one ESPN had played the night after Pops’ surgery—they moved onto my dad.

Pictures of him in his high school football uniform had been splashed across my TV. Him holding a state trophy, him scoring a touchdown, him posing for the team picture surrounded by the team. A picture of him and my mom at the senior prom. They had been laughing on stage, the crowns of their prom king and queen awards sitting lopsided on their heads.

I have pictures of them at prom. I have one framed on my dresser.

But I didn’t have that one.

When the picture came across the screen, it felt like a hand reached into my chest and squeezed my lungs.

There I was. Watching the evening news on a random Monday and seeing a picture of my parents for the first time along with the rest of the world. Tears welled in my eyes. My heart was beating violently in my chest and for some reason, I felt a surge of anger flow like voltage through my veins.

I almost threw my glass of wine at the TV.

It isn’t fair that the rest of the world gets to see a piece of them I never have.

The newsreader interviewed an old teacher of my mom and dads’ and she’d described them as still the most loved up young couple she’d seen in all her years of teaching. She spoke about my mom’s dedication to learning and the ability she had to pull my dad’s focus from the one thing he loved most: football. She’d told a story about them I’d never heard and it made the hole in my chest, the one that had been there since I’d been old enough to understand they were gone, ache for days.

The anger surged again and I turned off the TV, throwing the remote across the room.

The TV remote is still somewhere across the room. I haven’t been bothered to retrieve it.

It’s been a week.

A little dramatic?

Maybe, but I won’t be forced to dwell on those emotions.

And I certainly am not going to be forced to talk about football.

Pops’ hand squeezes mine, bringing my attention back to him. My eyes focus back on him and he sighs, seeing straight through my false calm expression.

“You saw the local piece then,” he says.

“Why do they care so much about them? Why do they have to bring it up?”

“Because like you, your dad grew up here. He went to the high school you did. He went to college here. He made a big name for himself in high school and college football. The local news covered him all the time and some of the people that still work there remember him. They remember me. So when things like this happen to me, they want to comment. ”

“They don’t have the right,” I grunt.

Pops laughs lightly, his thumb rubbing across the back of my hand in comfort.

“They do though. Freedom of speech and all that. Besides, I thought the piece was nice. They said some lovely things about your mom and dad, your dad’s career—”

“I hate football for making him famous.”

Silence falls like a blanket of freshly fallen snow around us after my words. The air in the room cools. Pops sucks in a breath, sitting straighter with a small wince.

“Oh, Ivy.” Pops’ hand squeezes impossibly hard and he tries to pull me forward but I don’t budge. “It’s not football’s fault, sweetheart. He loved the game and the game loved him. But more than anything he loved you and your mom with everything he had.”

Pops’ words aren’t helping. I feel too raw, too emotionally exhausted after this week.

I feel numb.

A chill spreads down my spine, flowing through my veins and numbing the fingers that are still clutched tightly in Pops’. My eyes sting and I try desperately to blink away the tears.

I hate crying about this in front of Pops.

“Ivy.” His voice is low and warm and filled with sadness. “Ivy, my girl.”

I look up at him, the tears still stinging behind my eyes. Pops’ eyes reflect the same deep navy as mine just as much as they reflect the pain.

He quietly says, “I failed you.”

“What? How could you say that?”

“I have. You have this idea that football is the reason your dad passed away but the drunk driver on the snow-covered, dangerous roads did that. Football is the reason he still lives.” I begin to shake my head, trying to pull my hands from his so I can wipe my cheeks. He doesn’t let me, holding tighter as he continues. “Your dad gets to live on, not just through you but through football as well. ”

As each of the salty tears drop down my chin, streaking a path down my neck and making my skin sticky, I feel the cracks in my heart slash open a little deeper.

He was my dad.

He was supposed to be mine.

But instead, football had him longer and it tore me apart every time the local news decided to remind me of that.

“Ivy … please, you have to move past this. You’re holding onto a grudge with no merit. I used to think it was just a teenage phase, that you’d eventually move on and start watching the game with me again. I wanted to tell you about your dad on that field and share that world he loved so much with you.”

My vision blurs, my eyes sting, my heart hurts.

“You know, there are so many things I want to tell you about him before I die. I haven’t because I know how hard this has been but your dad? He was one of the best. You can remember and cherish him as your dad and you can love the game he loved as a player. The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” Pops tells me.

I feel like there isn’t any air in the room to suck in a deep breath and can’t steady myself properly.

I am done talking about this.

“I don’t want to lose you, Pops. You’re all I have.”

“Ivy.” Pops’ shoulders drop. There’s a slight scold in his tone at my attempt to change the subject. His eyes search my face and his hand clutches mine as if he is worried I’ll bolt if he lets go. At this point, I can’t say that I won’t. “Football can be a whole other connection to your dad. You just have to let it.”

My lungs drain what little air is left. A weight settles on my chest, my body feels so heavy. I give into my heavy eyes and shut them. I struggle to inhale but with a moment, it comes easier. Pops lets me sit in silence. I can hear the rasp in his breathing as he waits and I focus on the slow, rhythmic pattern until I feel the heaviness ease a little .

“I really don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I beg in a whisper.

A thumb brushes over my hand, a gentle pull and Pops’ hands surround my own, cradling them to his chest.

“Okay, my girl.”

When he brushes a gentle finger across my cheek, swiping the tears away, I feel like a young girl again crying in my bedroom and asking how it is fair that all the other girls’ dads turned up to the Father’s Day event but mine can’t. Crying because someone in middle school made fun of me for not having parents. Crying because every year at the annual pep rally to kick off the high school football season, they would honor my dad like he was theirs.

Inside I’m still that same little girl who discovered the home videos of my parents and stashed them under my bed, hiding them away from the world in an effort to keep my parents all to myself.

“Go home,” Pops says after a few minutes of silence. “Get some sleep and I will see you tomorrow.”

I don’t have the energy to fight him on it. So I nod. Picking up my bag and Scott’s sweatshirt that I’ve been living in, I make my way to the car.

I place my hands on the steering wheel, watching the slow movement of the other vehicles around me pulling in and out of parking spaces. My phone chimes from where it is sitting in the center console.

Scott: How is your pops?

Are you okay?

Ivy: He’s okay. I’m heading home now.

I wait for his reply, watching the three little dots appear and disappear. When it doesn’t come, I push the engine start button on the car. It hums to life beneath me and I drive home.

** *

The black Mercedes SUV is waiting on the side of the road when I pull into the driveway. The windows are a near illegal tint and I can’t tell if the man that owns the car is still sitting inside. I watch it out of my rearview mirror for a moment before collecting my bag from the passenger seat.

I don’t see him sitting on the front steps of the house until I’m almost standing directly above him.

He wears the same gray sweats that he’d worn a week ago but the hoodie is different: a navy-blue Broncos logo stitched on the front. Seeing it brings the dull ache in my chest to life.

God, I am tired.

So done with today.

I need to curl up in my bed and sleep until next week.

Maybe I should. I’ve been at the hospital for more than a week. I can miss one Sunday. I can stay in bed tomorrow and sleep it all off. I can give myself a day to sit in my feelings and when I wake up on Monday, it will be all better.

But tomorrow is Sunday and on Sundays I play UNO with Pops and do the crossword puzzle with him. I bring him a pastry and coffee from Starbucks even though he isn’t supposed to be having them and we’ll half it as a compromise.

Tomorrow is Sunday and Sunday with Pops is tradition.

Whatever expression is on my face makes Scott pull me into his arms without speaking a word and I let him. I fall into his warm, strong embrace. His arms curl around me, locking me in place. My nose presses into his chest and I let the strong, masculine scent of him fog up my brain and chase away thoughts of anything and everything else.

“Hi,” I mumble into his chest. He takes my bag from my hand and I burrow deeper into him.

“Hi, yourself.” I feel his lips press into my hair and linger.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“You said you were coming home. I wanted to be here in case you needed anything. Is that okay? ”

I am too tired to try and play it off as anything other than sheer relief that he’s here.

“Yes. Thank you,” I say. He pulls away from me, hands dragging lightly down my body until his fingers find mine. He pulls my house keys from my hand and unlocks the door, leading us inside.

Scott makes me a cup of tea and places it on the coffee table in front of me. He covers me with the throw blanket that is on the edge of the couch and fluffs the pillow behind my head.

He settles beside me and I curl into his warmth.

“You didn’t have to do this,” I say as I lean for the tea. He beats me to it, passing it over as I settle back into the couch cushions.

He only shrugs. “Wanted to.”

I smile into my tea, sipping on it slowly. When I’m done with it, he takes it from my hands and places it back on the coffee table.

“So.” He stretches an arm over the back of the couch, behind my head. “Your family is pretty much football royalty according to the local news.”

The heaviness returns instantly and I lean my head back, resting against the strong arm he has stretched there. Rolling my head against it, I look over at him.

“Is it okay if we don’t talk about my family? I think I’m all out of tears for this week.”

He nods, the fingers of the hand behind my head lifting a strand of my hair and fiddling with it. “Family can be … difficult.”

I can’t help the small scoff that leaves my lips. I let the smirk lift my lips. “Your parents sound amazing.”

“My birth mother lives here in Boston.”

Safe to say my sort of smile drops instantly and I sit up. “Oh.”

“I understand that it can be hard to hear about people that are supposed to be in your life but aren’t. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to have to see her splashed across the screen night after night. I know it isn’t the same, but I’m still sorry. It must have been hard. ”

My mouth goes dry as I try and find the words, any words, to reply with.

I can’t, so I stay quiet.

He sighs, his eyes meeting mine and it makes me sit up a little straighter. There’s a determined look on his face. Like he’s come to a decision and he wants—no, needs to get whatever it is out.

I can’t help it when my gaze drifts downward and I focus on the way his throat constricts as he swallows. The way his muscles tighten, the way his Adam’s apple bobs and his jaw line seems to become even sharper.

He’s so attractive it hurts and now he’s baring his soul to me?

When I’m sitting here, feeling so sorry for myself and showing him how vulnerable I am a lot sooner into any sort of relationship than I’d like, he knows exactly what to do and ensures I know he’s vulnerable too.

Fucking hell, this man is something else.

My body heats up the longer I stare at him. Sitting straighter, I press my thighs together.

“Ivy, I—”

I stop him, my brain suddenly going into overdrive. “Why did you tell me that? Just now, about your birth mother?”

His brows come together. “Huh?”

“Why did you share that with me?”

“I, um, well I guess I wanted to share with you. To let you know that I can understand missing a parent.” He swallows hard and my eyes track every minute movement of it. “Now that I think about it, maybe it isn’t relevant but you told me something really personal a week ago and I wanted to share too. You opened up. I wanted to do the same.”

My chest heaves.

Just as I thought, he’s hot and emotionally mature. He’s rare.

I reach up, pulling his hand from my hair and bringing it into my lap.

By the time my brain catches up on the words I say, it’s far too late. “What are we? ”

Instantly I cringe.

In a moment, his fingers that are absentmindedly fiddling with mine pause and his eyes widen.

“Maybe it’s too early and I’ll probably regret this for the rest of my life if you freak out and run right now but,” I suck in some air, pressing up to tuck my feet beneath my thighs. Now, it’s me that fiddles with his hand. “I need to know what we are. I thought … I think, I mean I assume we’re dating? I guess. We go on dates. I don’t know … I haven’t really done this in …”

Scott turns over his palm. He fits our hands together and pulls. I fall into his lap, my body twisting. My lips are inches from his. His forehead falls to mine.

“We’re together,” he breathes out. It’s quiet but his voice still drips with decisiveness.

“Oh.” I stare at his lips.

“Yes, oh.” There’s a tiny smile in his voice. I track his tongue as it darts out to run the length of his bottom lip.

“Good,” I say, somewhat stupidly as I press my thighs together.

After today, after this week, feeling his body so close to mine feels nice. I feel small in his arms, on his lap. I feel safe and protected.

“Yes, good.” He runs a thumb over my cheek and the heat rushing to my face follows it as if the thumb is personally pulling it from beneath my skin.

“You feel better?”

I go to nod, lean in and press my lips to his and formally seal us both away in the bubble where no one else exists but us. But I pause, glancing to meet his eyes. “Can you ask me?”

Scott looks confused. “Huh?”

I sit back on his lap, my hands come up to perch on his chest.

“Ask me to be with you.”

He stares for a while longer, confused, until it dawns on him. “Ah.” He shifts under me before cupping my face. “Ivy, will you be my girlfriend? ”

We stare at each other. He stays perfectly still as I assess him, pretending to think it over. Eventually, the throb between my legs overrules my need to make him sweat a little and I let out a giggle.

“That was very high school of you. But, obviously, I will. Since you asked so nicely.”

“You fished for that,” he says, eyes shining with laughter.

I hold my hands up, pretending to throw out a fishing line and reel him back in. My cheesy joke is rewarded with a deep laugh.

“You fell for it,” I giggle loving the sound of his laugh.

The echo of it wraps around us, warming the room, and the bubble seals off.

I feel the heavy weight of my grief and my tiredness dissolve. I relish the feeling, knowing it will only be until reality pops the bubble again.

Scott leans forward, catching my lower lip between his. He kisses me and I sink in, smiling. Against my lips, he murmurs, “I’m falling for you.”

I freeze, the smile dropping from my lips and I go to pull back but Scott’s hand finds the back of my neck and holds me against him. He kisses my lips again, lightly and attentively, a serious expression falling across his face.

“Ivy. I—” He sucks in a breath, “I have to tell you something. It’s important if we’re going to to—”

I climb off his lap, pulling him to his feet. “We can talk later.”

I don’t want the bubble to burst. The look on his face may as well resemble a giant, sharp pin. I’m not ready for that yet.

I want the bubble even for just a little while longer.

He towers over me, standing so close. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” I nod. My hand curls around his neck, pulling his lips down on mine.

“We should,” he tries again. I cut him off with a kiss. “… talk …” This time, he meets me eagerly, his words losing their conviction with every swipe of our tongues. “… first. ”

His hands drop to my ass, squeezing and pulling me tighter against his body. I roll my hips against his.

I groan as he bites down on my bottom lip before trailing a few hot, wet kisses down my neck.

“Scott, I get you want to talk but I swear to god if you don’t take me upstairs right this minute,” I say rolling my hips again, whimpering at the small friction I’m able to get between my legs, “I’ll make you wait another four weeks and that tent in your sweatpants tells me you can’t stand it either.”

My skin is on fire, the throb between my legs aching and I so badly want his hands to move around from my ass to touch me. I know that if he stops this, probably for some stupid noble reason, I won’t be able to keep the tears back. I need him. Now.

Then he groans.

“Fuck it.”