She poured a glass, her brow furrowed in thought. “How many questions am I allowed to ask?”
I took a long sip, my eyes averted. “Not many,” I said on a rushed exhale.
Honestly, I’d rather die than talk about the night I spent with her brother.
“Ahh.” After trying the wine, she hummed appreciatively. “And this casual thing,” she said carefully. “Is there the option for it to be not casual?”
The answer to that was as clear as mud. A giant knot of tangled string that had no clear place to start pulling it apart.
I gave her the only answer possible.
“I don’t know.”
Molly studied me for a moment, then nudged the wine bottle closer. “You take this one. I’ll take the other one.”
I laughed. “How are we getting home tonight? We both drove.”
“That is a problem for later,” she said. “For now, I want to hear what I’ve been missing in my friend’s life the last few weeks.”
Emmett
The sky was dusky but not quite dark when the driver pulled up in front of my parents’ house. Every single window downstairs was bright with lights, and Molly’s car was parked in the driveway.
“Thanks,” I told my driver. Robert, as I’d learned, was in his forties, and started driving when he was laid off from a manufacturing job the year before. His son was a great football player but hated school. “Tell Matt to keep up his studies if he wants to play in college. It’s good to have the talent, but you can’t flunk out if you want a chance at the pros. And there’s nothing wrong with starting at a D2 or D3 school to hone his skills for the first couple of years. He can always transfer.”
“I never thought of that,” Robert answered, giving me an appreciative smile over his shoulder. “It was a pleasure meeting you, sir.”
“The pleasure was mine.”
“Do you mind if…” His voice trailed off. Then he held up his phone. “Is it okay if I grab a picture? My son will never believe me.”
“I don’t mind at all.” I leaned forward so he could snap a selfie, then clapped him on the shoulder. “Just don’t tag me in the next five minutes, okay? My mom has no idea I’m here.”
He smiled. “You got it, sir. Have a great night.”
Slinging my duffel bag over my shoulder, I waved as I climbed out of his SUV.
I took a second to stare up at my parents’ house. They’d lived there my entire life. When my dad played, he wanted as normal of an upbringing as possible for his sisters when he took custody of them. Because they were raised by my dad—and my mom once they were married—and I was the tag-a-long years later, I was always viewed as the little brother.
The brick house he purchased was in a tree-lined neighborhood, kids rode bikes on the sidewalk, colored in chalk all over the driveways, and neighbors knew each other. After he retired, started coaching, and the house emptied out of everyone but me, he and my mom could’ve moved. They had the money to buy something bigger, in a flashier, more elite neighborhood, but this was home.
It housed all the messes and tantrums and arguments and growing pains.
Five of us figured out life in those brick walls—raised by my parents and taught the value of hard work, fighting for what you want, treating each other with love and respect even if you disagreed—and as I walked up the driveway, I realized just how many of those lessons had carried me to the point I was at now.
It wasn’t just how to throw a football and read a defense and how to lead a team.
They taught us how to live life well, in the ways that mattered. Gripping the strap of my duffel bag in my hand, I wasn’t sure I could say I was succeeding in all those ways.