“Well, I guess that explains what the mass exodus was about.” Cruz crashed onto the couch beside me and nudged me.
“I guess it does.”
A reporter had just asked him how it felt to be the best tight end in the pros today when someone pounded on the front door.
Cruz’s head whipped in my direction. “Are you expecting anyone?”
I checked the time as I shoved off of the couch. “No.” I moved toward the door and checked the peephole. My breath left me in a rush when I saw who was waiting outside. “Or maybe . . . I am.”
“Who is it?”
Instead of answering, I unbolted the door and opened it.
“Speaking of . . .” Cruz made a clucking sound with his tongue.
“Hi,” I said, feeling shell-shocked that Grant was standing in front of me when I’d just been watching him on television. “You want to come in? Cruz and I were just having some tea, if you want some too?”
Cruz whipped his head at me and waved outside the door, like he was “subtly” trying to suggest we leave.
Grant was still staring at the ground, his forehead creased. “I’m sorry I left the way I did earlier. I’m sorry I said the things I did.” Grant stuffed his hands in his front jeans pockets and lifted his shoulders. “Everything just happened so fast, you know? You calling all panicked, me getting here and finding you in your bathrobe, figuring out what was going on . . .” His jaw locked up for a moment before he popped it loose. “You have every right to have a life. It’s been seven years, and I’d be a fool to think you don’t. I guess that realization just finally got around to hitting me this morning.” Grant’s head lifted just enough, and his eyes met mine. “I’m sorry.”
My head shook. “It’s okay. I should have stopped to think before calling you this morning. But I didn’t, and that’s life, so let’s just forget about the should-haves and move on.”
Grant seemed to consider that for a moment before nodding. “Okay.” He gave another nod as his eyes scanned the room behind me, almost like he was checking for someone else. “Did you still want to talk? I know it’s later than we planned on, but I’ve got eight hours before I need to be at the airport.”
From out of nowhere, Cruz appeared with my purse, a jacket, and dropped a pair of shoes at my feet. A true master of subtlety.
“But don’t you need to sleep sometime between now and then?”
Grant’s shoulder lifted. “That’s what the airplane’s for.”
As I slipped into my flats, I glanced at Cruz, who was back on the couch. “Do you mind?”
Cruz lifted his teacup and pointed it at the television. “I’ve got a terrible cup of hotel tea and six static-y channels to surf. Of course I don’t mind.”
Grant chuckled and stepped aside as I started to walk through the door. “If you get bored, you can play with my makeup.”
Cruz stabbed his index finger in the air. “Don’t tempt a diva, honey.”
Even after my laugh had come to an end, I hovered by the doorjamb, biting my lip.
“I’ve got it, Ryan.” Cruz sighed, waving at us. “Take as long as you need. I’m not going anywhere.”
Thanking him with a smile, Grant and Cruz exchanged a good night before I closed the door and locked it. I waited outside the door until I heard Cruz get up and lock the chain locks too.
Now that it was just Grant and me, I had no idea what to say. What to do. Or where to go. This get-together had been all my idea, and I hadn’t planned a single part of it. Not to mention that after what had happened this morning, I’d been under the impression our meeting wouldn’t happen.
“Do you mind if we stop by Mickey’s?” Grant stayed beside me as we made our way to his truck parked in the lot. “It’s a tradition of mine to stop there every time I’m in town and pack as much grease as I can into my arteries, and I haven’t had a chance this trip yet.”
My relief was palpable. At least now we had a destination. “I feel like by saying yes, I’m signing off on your request to give yourself a heart attack.”
“But . . .” Grant nudged me gently as he came around the truck to open my door.
“But I haven’t had a Mickey Burger in seven years. I don’t care what health experts say, that just isn’t healthy.”
A soft laugh rumbled in his chest. “We’re all going to die someday. Might as well live it up in the meantime.”
My smile felt more forced than real. Hopefully it didn’t look that way. “Might as well.”
After pulling out of the motel, the drive to Mickey’s only took a few minutes. Growing up, Grant and I had made a handful of trips to the greasy burger-and-fry icon that had been around since the 20s. Aunt May had been the first to introduce us to Mickey’s, bringing us on our birthdays to celebrate. It had felt like such a special thing back then—getting to order food from a menu and tell the person behind the counter what you did or didn’t want on your burger. It was the first time I’d ever had a milkshake, and I blamed Mickey’s for my adult addiction to all things of a blended-ice-cream-and-milk variety.
“I saw the interview you gave earlier,” I said as Grant tucked his truck into a parking spot.
He jacked his brows a few times. “How did I look?”
“Like you were trying to save the day without looking like you were trying to.” I rolled to a stop as we headed toward the restaurant. I knew why he’d given that “surprise” interview to the local media, and I wanted him to know I knew. “Thank you for doing that.”
His arm jutted out in front of me as a car started to back out of a spot. “Since it was my fault they were there harassing you, I figured it was my job to take care of it.”
Grant didn’t drop his arm until the car was rolling forward. “How do you think they saw us? It was late. You were only there a minute. And The Starlight Hotel doesn’t strike me as the kind of place the media makes a habit of canvasing for pro football players hanging out at while they’re in town.”
Grant led us onto the sidewalk, a smile starting to form when the first whiff of grease and heart disease hit us. “Who knows? The press is everywhere—that’s the motto I’ve adopted. When you least expect them. Where you don’t expect them. They’re everywhere.”
Hearing him talk about it made me think about what it would be like to be followed everywhere you went. I was living about as far from New York City as a person could get, and even I could barely turn on the evening news and not hear something about the Invincible Man, the name he’d earned growing up on the tough streets of The Clink and the name he’d carried into pro football. No one could take him down. Nothing could take the knees out from under the invincible Grant Turner.
“If you knew the media would chase you the way they do, would you have still gone into the pros?”
He nodded. “Absolutely. I love football. It’s a part of me. The media part of that world sucks ass, but you have to take the bad with the good. Nothing comes for free, and playing the media game is the price I have to pay to play the game I love.”
I considered that as we roamed around the front of the building. Mickey’s was busy any day, night, or time, and this no exception. The parking lot was packed, and so were most of the booths and stools inside. Already, heads were starting to turn inside the diner, recognition lighting up faces. It wasn’t exactly like Grant Turner blended in with the general population.
“Seems like a steep price to pay,” I said, remembering how overwhelming the media storm I’d woken to today had been. I couldn’t imagine dealing with that every single day, every single place I went.
“It is,” he said matter-of-factly.
My eyebrows pulled together. “Then why do you do it?”
“Because I love football.”
“Yeah, but you hate the media chasing you.”
Grant tipped his head at me like I wasn’t getting it. Maybe I wasn’t, but I couldn’t imagine putting up with something so awful because I loved doing something. “But I love football even more.”
br /> Saying nothing more, he swung the glass door open for me and motioned me inside.
I’d passed through the doors to Mickey’s dozens of times, but never had it felt like this. Like every eye in the place was at on me. Or at what was right behind me.
It was usually really noisy inside, conversations and laughter filling the place, but now all I could hear was the jukebox playing an old Beach Boys song and the spit of burgers sizzling on the grill in back.
Kids were gaping at Grant as if Superman had just flown his spandexed ass out of the sky, women were admiring him in a way I was all too familiar with, and everyone else had been struck with a serious case of hero-worship. Even back when we’d been teenagers, Grant’s name held a certain degree of awe in the area. He was setting records in high school football as a freshman, and even then, I think most of us knew we were watching a great in the making.
But now, the prodigal hometown hero had returned, and all at once, it felt like every last diner in Mickey’s was reaching for their camera phones and digging around in purses for a stray pen.
“Shit. Should have gone with the drive-thru,” Grant whispered to me, putting on a smile for the crowd.
“Too late for that now, Invincible Man.”
He gave me an unamused look when I glanced back at him.
“Well? What are you going to do now?” I asked as bodies started rising out of chairs.
Giving me a look that suggested I was clueless, he tipped his head back and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Okay, everyone! I’ve got a box of signed jerseys in the bed of my truck!” Grant pointed out the window where his truck was gleaming in the parking lot. “Help yourselves!”
In twenty-four years of life, I’d never seen a herd of people move so quickly. Never even close.
In less than a minute, the restaurant had cleared out, even most of the employees, and people were tearing through a couple of boxes in the truck bed.
Turning around, I was met with a victorious-looking Grant. “You keep a pile of signed jerseys on you all the time?”
“Only when I want to step out in public.” He shrugged, moving for a couple of empty stools at the end of the counter. “I don’t travel anywhere without a few signed somethings on me. Or, in this case, a bunch of signed somethings.”
I kept staring out the window at the mass of people around his truck. Surprisingly, they were all working together, instead of every man for himself.
“Because you don’t want to get mobbed by your adoring fans?” I guessed.
“Because I’m thankful for my adoring fans,” he said, settling onto a stool.
It made me smile, seeing him propped up on that tiny thing. He’d been too big for them when he was fifteen, but now he looked like a lion trying to balance on top of a Barbie chair.
“Do you need a menu?” He pointed at a stack of menus down the counter.
“Do I ever?”
Smiling, he motioned at the waitress who had just stopped in front of us. “Then take it away.”
“Your usual?” I asked him.
He nodded. “Always.”
After I rattled off our order to the waitress, she turned to Grant as she stabbed her pencil behind her ear. “Nice to see you come in here with somebody beside you for once.” After patting his hand resting on the counter, the waitress disappeared into the kitchen.
I didn’t recognize the waitress as one of the regulars that had been here before I left, but she obviously knew Grant. I turned in my stool to face him. “How many artery-packing trips have you been making here, Grant Turner?” He’d made it sound like he came every once in a while, but maybe he was more of a regular than I’d guessed.
“I make it a point to make a stop at Mickey’s every time I’m in town. Sometimes two stops per trip.” His gaze wandered around the diner like that should have been obvious.
“How often are you in town?”
“In the off-season, I’m here a lot more, but I try to make it back once a month or so.”
My eyebrows lifted. I had no idea he came back here so often. If anything, I’d guessed the opposite now that he’d made it big. This area was not the kind of place a person thought of nostalgically.
Then I realized why. “To check on Aunt May.”
“To check on her . . .” He cleared his throat, hesitation sweeping across his face. “And to check on the football program I started in The Clink a few years ago.”
“The football program?”
He swallowed, studying the wall across from us. “I had a couple of football fields made and hired a few people to hold practices and games for the kids in the community, free of charge. Their equipment, gear, snacks, everything, it’s all taken care of. Boys, girls, toddlers, teenagers, there’s a place for them to get out of their homes and play ball.” Grant shifted on his stool, still unable to look at me. “Francis’s grandson is one of the kids who plays on one of the league teams,” he said as Francis returned with a couple of milkshakes.
“This boy is an angel. A real-life angel. My James was getting into a whole heap of trouble before Mr. Turner started the Football For All program.” Francis winked at me as she set a strawberry shake in front of me and a vanilla one in front of Grant. “A real living, breathing angel among us.”
Grant snorted as Francis patted his hand again before she wandered away. “If I’m an angel, then humanity is screwed.”
“Here, angel,” I teased, which got me an eye roll, “milkshake switch.”
Grant didn’t say anything as I switched so the strawberry was in front of him and the vanilla in front of me.
“So you started a free football program for kids, hand out free jerseys to your adoring fans, gave my mom a funeral she didn’t deserve, and took care of an aging woman until she passed.” I circled my straw around my shake a few twirls. “Where did the troubled, hot-headed boy I grew up with go?”
Grant stared at the wall. “He’s still right here. He’ll always be a part of me.”
I didn’t know how my hand found its way into Grant’s, but it did. It was a reflex, reaching out for him when the past seemed like it was right smack in front of us. His large hand enveloped mine, looking like it had almost swallowed mine whole. The warmth radiating off his skin transferred to mine, spreading into my core. I’d always known I carried a piece of Grant with me, but I didn’t realize how many pieces until I felt them all resurfacing from the sensation of his touch. I could feel his presence everywhere—in the depths of my lungs, the tips of my fingers, the hollows of my heart.
Our greasy baskets of burgers and fries arrived a few minutes later. Diners trickled back in sporting new jerseys, swinging by to thank Grant and wish him luck at his next game. The jukebox played song after song until most of the restaurant was empty and the open sign flashed off. The whole time, Grant’s and my hand stayed joined.
“We should probably let them close up.” Grant shoved off the stool, pulling me up with him, which was a good thing since I felt like I’d swallowed a bowling ball’s worth of fries. When his hand unwound from mine to pull out his wallet, he casually slipped a large bill from it and tucked it beneath one of the empty baskets.
“Big softie,” I muttered, waving at Francis and a couple of the cooks as they called good night to us.
Grant kept a straight face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I laughed as we walked out to his truck. Not a single jersey had been left behind, but someone had taken the time to collapse the boxes and tuck them neatly into the bed of his truck.
We didn’t say anything as we left the parking lot, and our silence continued as Grant headed back to my motel. It was just after midnight, and I knew I had precious minutes left to tell him what I had to.
There’d been moments at dinner when I’d had an opportunity, a brief moment of silence between conversations, but each time, fear paralyzed me. I knew Grant was confused, because I’d been the one who’d asked for this whole thing to talk and yeah, sure, we’d
talked, but not about anything more deep than how the winters up in New York had taken him a while to get used to and our speculation that Mickey’s had changed something in their fry seasoning. The conversation had rolled between us easily—it always had—but we’d talked about everything besides what I needed to actually talk with him about.
When he pulled into the motel’s parking lot, I checked the time yet again. He was going to be on a plane, traveling back to New York, in less than six hours. Who knew if I’d ever see him again? Who knew if he’d ever want to see me again? Tonight had gone smoothly and I knew we’d both enjoyed being together, but I also knew we could both feel the pain of the past. I could see the scars on him as plainly as I could see them on myself when I looked in the mirror.
When Grant came around to open my door, his eyes met mine and I almost said it right then. The words were forming on my lips, then a tremble rocked my body and I practically fell out of the cab. I would have if Grant hadn’t been there to break my fall.
“Whoa, easy. Too many milkshakes for you it looks like.” Grant kept his arms around me until he was sure I’d regained my balance. “Good thing you had a DD.”
I had to force the smile because I didn’t feel like smiling, despite the joke. My whole life, I’d prided myself on being strong. Well, my whole life since I’d met Grant and he’d shown me how to be strong, both on the outside and the inside. But here, when I most needed to be strong, I could barely muster up a thimble-full of courage to draw on.
Grant walked me to the door, and he lingered there as I fumbled with the key.
“So we’re okay?”
When I turned around, I found him rubbing the back of his head, staring at the concrete at my feet.
“We’re, you know, friends?”