“When are you giving Mom and Dad a grandchild to dote on?” Ava jokingly asked me.
“Never,” I replied like I’d done each time in the past, then stuck my tongue out at her.
I knew she was kidding because I had explicitly told my family that the heteronormative idea of marriage and kids was not for me—and there was nothing wrong with that.
So why did I immediately picture Donovan with his brother, Ricky, imagining him being just as good with kids of his own? I thrust that thought from my brain so quickly, it almost gave me whiplash. I had never in my life pictured myself with someone long-term, and I wasn’t about to start now. Besides, why torment myself?
After the call ended, Dad excused himself to his office while I helped Mom unload the dishwasher.
I reached for a stack of plates and put them away in the cupboard. When my back was turned, I finally got up the nerve. “I didn’t know you stopped over last night.”
“I had to check on my child,” she said, playfully bumping our shoulders as she handed me some bowls. “You were already fast asleep.”
I exhaled. “Yeah, guess I was pretty tired after all.”
“But Brady Donovan was there, taking care of you.”
I winced, then looked over my shoulder to make sure Dad’s door was shut. “He’s become…a good friend.”
Mom stared at me, as if searching for some underpinnings of truth in my eyes.
“That boy has feelings for you,” she said plainly. “And before you dispute me, a mother knows.”
I slumped against the counter. “I…I don’t know what to say that won’t incriminate me.”
She reached for my shoulder. “Does that mean you have feelings too?”
“Possibly?” I groaned. “I’m pretty overwhelmed about stuff. So maybe I don’t trust my own feelings right now.”
Okay, lame excuse, and she knew it too because she just grinned at me.
“Well, let’s see… Do you think about him all the time?”
I couldn’t make my mouth work, so I just nodded ever so slightly. And the relief was immense. I had always confided stuff to my mom over the years, so maybe she’d have good advice for me where Donovan was concerned.
“Does he make you happy?” she asked next, and my cheeks immediately flushed hot. “Ooooh, that smile says it all.”
Dumbfounded, I patted my face. I hadn’t even realized I was smiling. But that was what Brady Donovan did to me. Made me all goofy and melty inside.
She arched a brow right before she went in with the big guns. “Does losing him scare you?”
“Damn, that’s your criteria?” I buried my face in my hands. “How are you so good at this?”
Fuck. I threw myself into a chair at the table and took a few measured breaths.
“Dad wouldn’t understand. It completely violates the one big rule he gave me. If he knew, it would totally disappoint him. Plus, he’d kick me from the team.”
“Not gonna lie, all that stuff might happen,” Mom said as she slid behind me and lightly rubbed the tension from my shoulders. “He’s a pretty strict coach, and he won’t cut you any slack just because you’re his son. So, I guess you’ll have to decide.”
I glanced at her over my shoulder. “Decide what?”
“Whether he’s worth losing it all.”
21
Brady
I hadn’t seen Kellan alone since the night of the fundraiser, and it felt unsettling, to say the least. We still texted daily, and I could feel him watching me sometimes during the practices leading up to regionals. And now that we were on the long bus ride to North Carolina, where we’d play the Rangers first in a double-elimination bracket, I was itching to get close to him.
Ever since the incident at the bowling alley, things felt different around some of my teammates. It wasn’t anything I could place my finger on, so it was probably just me feeling under scrutiny, like they were trying to figure out my relationship with Kellan. Or maybe they worried he’d have another fainting spell, but according to him, everything had checked out at the clinic. And Coach even joked that Girard was to avoid any bloody noses for the remainder of the tourney, looking pointedly at Maclain, who still seemed out of sorts about the whole thing. I’d tried discussing it with him at home, but as I’d predicted, he’d brushed me off.
For my part, I was trying to act as normal as possible. To still tease and mess around like I always did, and avoid staring at Kellan too long like some lovesick puppy. When I’d asked Hollister about my teammates, he’d pointed out that everyone was pretty nervous and stressed about the tourney, preoccupied as well.
Maclain and Girard were a whole other story. They were always grumbly with each other, but since the bowling alley, they seemed to even avoid eye contact, and that was fucking weird. No doubt, Girard was still pissed at Maclain for giving him a bloody nose, but this past week it had seemed to change the fabric of our team. We were all good players in our own right, but our chemistry was off. Not that I was placing the blame completely on their interactions. It was also part nerves, part the culmination of a long season. None of us discussed making it all the way to the championship bracket because the seeded teams were pretty amazing, even though stranger things had happened. But at least we had some hope that we could get through this double-elimination round in order to get to the super regionals. It would be the furthest the Pirates had gone in a long time, and we all wanted to make Coach proud.