Down & Dirty (Lightning 1)

“I said no!” It comes out as a shout, and this time I don’t even give a shit. “Don’t you get it? I don’t want your help. Hell, I don’t want you anywhere near me.”

I’m in full-on asshole mode now, lashing out at Emerson because she’s the only one I can lash out at right now. Because I was fine on that floor. I was so numb that nothing hurt.

But now that she’s here—her big blue eyes filled with tears, her beautiful face filled with compassion—it hurts like hell. It feels like I’m being hollowed out from the inside with a dull blade, one small scrape at a time. I can’t stand it, can’t stand the pain of losing Heather. Can’t stand the pain of loving Emerson.

“Don’t you think if I wanted you here, I would have returned one of your texts? Don’t you think I would have called you? I didn’t. Because I don’t. I was trying not to be rude, but I can’t do this right now. Go home, Emerson.”

“I just want to make sure you’re okay—” she repeats herself again, like that’s all she can think of to say.

“I’m not okay! Is that what you want to hear me admit? Fine, I’m not okay and the last thing I fucking need is you standing here poking at me about it. Just leave me the fuck alone.” I unlock my car and climb in, ignoring the fact that Emerson is still standing there—face pale, eyes huge—watching me.

I feel like a total dick, lashing out at her like this. But I need her to let me go. I need her to leave me alone before I fucking lose it completely. I can’t lose it. I just can’t fucking lose it. Not now. Not when I have to tell Brent and Lucy. Not when I have to make funeral arrangements. Not when I have to play in a fucking game in three days.

Goddamnit.

I hit the steering wheel once, twice. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Emerson reach for me. See her face crumple with a sympathy that I’m not equipped to accept. So I do the biggest dick move yet. I start to pull the car door closed, pausing just long enough to say, “Call me when you get your car fixed. I’ll send someone over to get the truck.”

Then I close the door. Start the car. And pull away without so much as glancing her way again.

Chapter 28

Emerson

I shouldn’t be here, I tell myself for the thousandth time. I should just get back in my car and drive away. Go home. Go to the mall. Go anywhere but here.

Hunter’s made it very clear that he doesn’t want to talk to me. Or text me. And he definitely doesn’t want to see me. Not just when he lashed out in the hospital parking lot after Heather died, but in the days since then.

I’ve texted him once a day for the last week and he never returns the texts. Never so much as reads them. And I get it. I do. He’s hurting. More, he’s grieving and he has every right to do that however he wants to do it. If that means by himself, licking his wounds like an injured animal, then that’s absolutely his right.

But it’s killing me not knowing if he’s okay. Killing me not to be able to help him. Because staying away is the only way it seems I’m able to help him right now, I’ve kept my distance. Let him grieve on his own. Watched him play on TV on Sunday, worrying the whole time about how fragile—how sick—he looked. But I’ve stayed away.

Until today.

Because I can’t let him go through this alone.

Maybe it’s arrogant to think I matter, maybe he’ll be mad that I’m here. Hell, maybe I’m going to get my heart broken wide open when I walk into that church and he looks right through me like I don’t even exist.

Just the thought has me shaking in my sensible black boots. But this isn’t about me. This is about Hunter, about Heather, about Brent and Lucy. If nothing else, I owe it to the two of them to walk into that church.

So I do, slipping in a side door and sitting in the back, out of the way. Most of the people here are associated with the Lightning somehow—football players, coaches, their families. I’ve never felt so out of place.

It’s a beautiful ceremony, one that has tears pouring down my face even though I never met Heather. But the way the priest describes her, the way her friends eulogize her, it’s hard not to cry. Hard not to regret her death not just because of how it’s affected people I care about—Hunter and Brent and Lucy—but because she sounds like a truly wonderful woman.

And then it’s Hunter’s turn to walk up to the altar. Hunter’s turn to face the crowd. Hunter’s turn to speak.

“When I told people that I wanted to do this, that I wanted to stand up here and talk about Heather, they asked me if I was sure. Told me that it would be difficult and that they were only concerned because they didn’t want my pain to get any deeper. As if that’s possible.

“And while I appreciate their good intentions, the truth is, this isn’t difficult. Standing here and talking about all the things my sister has done in her life—all the people she’s touched—isn’t difficult.

“Difficult is fighting stage four cancer. Difficult is getting up and ta

king care of your kids the morning after chemotherapy or radiation. Difficult is being able to stay cheerful and loving and kind, no matter what ravages your body is going through.

“Like many people here, I put my body on the line every week. I’ve been through injuries big and small, surgeries, some of the most difficult PT around. And I took it all without complaint because it was part of the job. But never did I face my own pain, my own setbacks, with the kind of grace and good humor that Heather faced every day with, no matter how bad the day was. And there were some bad days, especially at the end. There were a lot of bad days.”

He clears his throat. “But there were good days, too. Like the day we took her children, Brent and Lucy, to the beach and built sand castles just because Heather wanted to feel the sun beating down on her face. She and Lucy challenged Brent and me to a sand castle contest and she worked tirelessly to prove to Lucy that just because they were smaller than we were didn’t mean their dreams had to be.

“Or the day we went to the zoo. Heather had to be in a wheelchair because she was too weak at that point to walk all the hills. But every time I turned my back to buy drinks or popcorn or tie my shoe, she would scoop up Lucy or Brent and they would go joyriding on some downhill path, bound for certain disaster. But somehow, they never hit a bump or a curve Heather couldn’t negotiate.”