Page 21 of Playmaker
Cameron
“Ethan, that’s not fair!” I stomp my foot on the grass as he waves the popsicle he just stole from me in front of my face. “Give it back!”
I go to reach for it but he sticks his tongue out and runs away from me toward the pool in my backyard. It’s a summer day in the dead heat of July—the kind of day in Arizona when it’s well into the hundreds. The popsicle is steadily melting on the grass while Ethan runs around with it, and I find myself becoming angrier the longer I can’t have it.
“Mom!” I whine, blinking away tears. Ethan continues to taunt me from the other side of the pool. “Ethan stole my popsicle!”
She’s busy speaking to Mary and sipping a drink she says I’m not allowed to try, and I stomp my foot again when she’s not paying attention.
“Honey, what’s wrong?” Her emerald eyes identical to mine fill with concern.
“Ethan stole my popsicle,” I repeat.
Mary lets out an exaggerated sigh. “Ethan!” she hollers, watching as his dirty-blond hair blows in the wind. “Get over here this instant!” Then she looks at Mom with her mouth turned into a frown. “I’m sorry.”
My mom waves her hand, completely unbothered. “It’s just kids,” she explains. “Don’t apologize.”
Suddenly I feel a tap on my shoulder, and when I turn around, Maddie, Ethan’s little sister, is holding out a popsicle to me. Her face and hands are covered in blue sticky syrup, and the color matches her daisy-printed sundress.
“You can have mine,” her tiny voice says, as she pushes her blond curls behind her ear with her free hand.
I’m about to take it from her when my dad pats me on the back and crouches so that he’s eye level with me. “Come with me,” he says with a grin. I smile instantly. No matter what, my dad always fixes things. “I think I know where we keep the secret stash.”
—
How long has he been standing there?
Long enough, judging by the redness of the tips of his ears.
My father moves his gaze from me to Maddie, almost in disbelief.
“Mr. Holden, I can—”
“Out,” he replies sharply. “Now.”
His clipped tone has my spine straightening, and the sudden urge to protect her makes me take a step toward him. “Anything you have to say to me can be said in front of her.”
“Oh?” He crosses his arms over his chest, ready for a fight. “Then I suppose she won’t mind if I call her parents right now to tell them what I just witnessed?”
Finding us making out shouldn’t be a big deal. We’re grown adults who make our own decisions now, but I know Maddie wants to keep this a secret, and if her parents find out, Ethan is bound to find out, too, and it’s a conversation I don’t want to have yet. Especially when so much was already left unsaid between us.
As it is, I don’t even know if there’s anything to tell anymore.
Judging from our previous conversation, she’s going on a date with Mark, and what we had between us is over, because I don’t trust myself to tell her how I really feel.
As expected, Maddie steps around me and scurries out of the room before my father can interrogate her further, and it only causes my anger to bubble closer to the surface. What the hell is he doing here? He hasn’t seen me since Christmas.
When we’re finally alone, he releases a frustrated sigh. “ Maddie? What the hell are you thinking, Cameron? She’s too young for you to be screwing around with. She’s like family.”
“Too young? Dad, she’s only two years younger than me.” I snap my mouth shut beneath his scrutinizing gaze. It’s a look I know not to mess with.
“Does Ethan know about this? How long has this been going on?”
I’ve played out a thousand scenarios in my head about how Maddie and I could possibly be discovered. Ethan coming over and walking in on us, her parents going through her phone and finding our texts, or Maya slipping up and accidentally spilling our secret. But none of those scenarios have been my father being the first one to figure this out.
“No, he doesn’t know,” I reply honestly, “and it hasn’t been long. Just since break started.”
He eyes me judgmentally, but I can’t say I blame him. All I do is fuck around with women, and he considers Maddie like his own daughter too.
“I like her, though,” I say. “I’ve liked her for years.”
“Cameron, does it look like I care about any of that? Maddie isn’t someone you should be messing around with. She’s the one girl who’s off limits. Do you think if Mary or Richard find out they’ll let this continue? Maddie is someone you’ve grown up with, son, and your track record speaks volumes. You can’t afford to break someone’s heart, or worse, get yours broken too.”
I stare at him completely dumbfounded. I haven’t seen him since Christmas, and now he suddenly pops back into my life to give me life advice? “What are you doing?” I ask.
He tilts his head to the side, studying me. “What do you mean? I saw the credit card charge for the pizza and got concerned that you had fallen off your game, so I was already at the airport to come see you when I called—”
“You think you can come back into my life after months of being gone and have everything be fine between us?” I pace back and forth, growing more infuriated with each step I take. “You can’t just waltz in here and start giving me relationship advice. You know nothing about my track record. You’re part of my life maybe one month out of the year, and that’s being generous. You don’t know me anymore. You haven’t for a long time.”
“Now, Cameron—” he starts, but now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop.
“No! Since Mom passed, Mary and Richard have been more like parents to me than you have!”
“ Don’t mention your mother,” he warns, getting directly in my face. “I’ve had to work, Cameron. How else do you think the bills are paid? How do you think you can attend one of the most prestigious schools in the country and not have a lick of debt? How does money get deposited into your account every month? I’ve busted my ass to make sure you’re provided for. I’m still paying off your mother’s medical bills all while putting you through school to make sure you have the best opportunities available, and you want to harp on me about not being here?”
Tears burn in the back of my eyes, threatening to spill, but I hold them at bay. What am I supposed to say? He’s right. I’m sounding ungrateful when I’ve never had to worry about material things, but if given the choice, I’d rather go to community college with Ethan and have my father present than be alone with only football as the common ground between us.
“You’re so close to making it to the NFL,” he says. “I can feel it. You’re talented, and I just don’t want you to mess this up for some girl —”
“Ah, so that’s why you’re giving me relationship advice.” I shake my head. “Not because you actually care about my happiness, but because it’s about football.”
My dad is speechless, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he tries to think of something to say. Telling him how I honestly feel would be fruitless. It’s not going to change anything. I won’t allow myself to let him see the vulnerable thoughts I have—how I stayed home two days every week in high school to see if he’d change his mind and come home. To tell him that I never needed the best shoes or the name brand clothes, I just needed him .
At the end of the day, he is who he is, and if he wanted to be here with me, he would be. I have a deep-rooted fear that if I were to express how hurt I am, he wouldn’t make any effort to change, so I’d rather keep my true feelings to myself than get hurt even more.
I avert my eyes, choosing a spot on the wall to stare at instead. “I’m assuming you’re leaving soon?”
He gulps and glances down at his dress shoes, which are as impeccable as his suit. I’ve rarely seen him wearing anything else. No matter where he’s at, he’s always ready for work. “I leave on a red-eye later tonight,” he admits.
I scoff. “Thought so. Well, I’m going for a drive. Don’t really feel like being here.”
“Cameron.” He places a hand on my shoulder to stop me. “I’m just looking out for your best interest, okay? You can’t continue things with Maddie. You know that, right? It’ll screw up everything you’ve worked so hard for, and you can’t allow yourself to become distracted. Not when we’re so close to the finish line.”
We’re .
As if we’re a unit .
A team .
The absurdity of it all doesn’t go unnoticed.
When Mom was alive, that’s when we were a team. My fondest memories are playing football in the backyard with him until the sun started to set. He was encouraging about it then, but he never forced it on me or pushed it too hard. The option to play football was always there, but when Mom died it became an obsession, and as the years went on, it wasn’t an option, but an expectation.
I don’t know who this man standing in front of me is anymore.
“Got it,” I reply, my tone clipped.
Pushing past him, I fish my keys out of my pocket and fight past the burning in my eyes. I refuse to let a single tear fall for him when he doesn’t deserve it, but the empty space in my heart he created only seems to grow bigger every time we have these discussions.
All I want, the only thing I need, is to see my mom again. I wish she was here to tell me how to handle him and how to mend things between us. I wish she could guide me when it comes to Maddie and my feelings for her and my fear of fucking this all up. I wish she could reassure me that although I’m amazing at football, there’s more to me than that.
I’ll never be able to hear her voice again, or listen to her laugh, but there is one way I can communicate with her, and every time I’m home, I always make sure to stop by.
I just didn’t expect it to be so soon.