Page 50 of Saving the Halfback

I didn’t ask questions. Didn’t allow my eyes to linger too long on the picture. I had just finished unpacking their truck from the move, and nowhere were there signs of a brother or a mother. Perhaps they split, and each parent got a kid. That’s what I hoped, anyway.

“Need help unpacking?” I asked.

“No, I’ll do it later. Let’s go check out the neighborhood. I didn’t get a chance to see much when we were looking at places.”

I followed him out the door and down the stairs. The condo was so small, we were outside in front of the garage in a few steps. “I know a great ice cream joint, but we’ll have to swing by the store and pick up my sister. If I get ice cream without her, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Ice cream?” A voice beside me caused me to jump.

Fucking shit, I hated when people did that. I instantly took a step back, relaxing only slightly when I realized it was Nolan’s dad. He had given me a quick hello earlier but wasn’t too friendly. I figured it was just his personality; he’d been that way through the summer practices as well.

The garage was nearly set up into a full-on gym. They could probably open it up and charge memberships to locals. Nolan’s motorcycle sat pushed to one side.

Nolan’s father, Rob, stood a bit taller, and at the same time, Nolan shuffled to face him, stepping behind me just enough that I noticed. Instantly, I was on alert. “I probably won't get any, I’m not much of a fan. Just going for a walk, checking out some jogging spots,” I told Rob.

He nodded and pulled out his phone. “There’s a trail that goes through town and makes a loop around the creek.”

“River. It’s low now, but after winter or a few rains, it gets deep,” I explained. “That’s Travelers’ Loop. We call it that because a few out-of-towners come in just to run it. It’s thirty kilometers, but there's a spot we call pivot point at halfway.” Most joggers turned back around that point, since the hills were killer.

Rob nodded, satisfied with my answer, then turned to Nolan. “Why don’t you stay here? We’ll head out shortly. We can get two passes in before midnight.”

What the fuck? Was he serious? A sixty-kilometer jog through Travelers’ Loop, in the dark?

Rob looked past us at the moving truck as the movers began closing the back door. “Say goodbye to your teammate, Nolan.” He left us and walked toward the movers.

I turned back to Nolan, who was sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s a joke, right? My friend broke his ankle on Travelers’ Loop. There's no way you can navigate it in the dark.”

Nolan sighed. “We’ll probably finish the first run before nightfall.”

I shook my head. “Can you just tell him no?”

“It’s not bad. I mean, we didn’t have practice today. So, that’s likely why we’re going so long. I don’t normally run that long or this late. It’s just the missed practice.”

“You said that.” Damn. I didn’t feel right leaving him. “Through the park, the trail is a breeze, most of it is paved. Butwhen you get to the woods, pace yourself. At the bottom of the second hill, there’s a dip that causes nearly everyone to trip.”

“Do you run the trail often?” he asked, his face contemplative, as though he was storing away the information I had just given him.

“Yeah, I mean, no, not anymore. My friends and I used to go there when we were younger. I should go. Just don’t die, okay?” I turned to leave, but Nolan reached out and grabbed my arm.

I waited. Waited for the sickly dark feeling to slither its way into my skin, down my spine. Waited for my stomach to flip inside out on the verge of tossing all its contents. But it didn’t… I didn’t. Instead, the warmth from his hand soothed over the shaking within me. It calmed the darkness in a way only one person in my life had ever been able to do.

“How is she?” Nolan asked. “Bailey, I mean.” He dropped his hand and stepped closer to me. Had he known I’d been thinking of her? “She’s pretty amazing during practice, she has moments you can see she’s fighting something in class, but that thing with Chase earlier…is that normal? She went from being freaked out to a practical robot. If she smiles like that again, we might need to baptize her.”

He joked, but he was right. Over the last few years, Bailey had been quiet and timid, but I’d never seen her fall into submission like her life depended on it. Then again, she hadn’t interacted with others like she had since school started. It was as if the return to society had brought out something inside of her. She was hurt. We all were, in our own ways. My eyes roamed over the equipment in the garage, Rob’s actions now shining a different light on them. Not a gym, a torture room. My eyes shifted back to Nolan. A chiseled body sculpted into perfection by sharp tools.

“I think it’s a vise. A way of protecting whatever is bothering her.” I decided to tell him what I thought, because Nolan was one of us. Whether Bailey and I were creating a new groupor reviving our group with another addition, I didn’t care. But Nolan was going to be part of that group; he was hurting just as much as we were. And it was my first declaration…there would be no secrets.

Nolan’s eyes widened briefly before he frowned, standing straighter. “Someone is bothering her? Who?” he demanded.

Yeah, he was one of us, all right.

Rob walked back in that moment. “Get your shoes on,” he told Nolan. “See you at practice, O'Riley,” he slung at me.

I nodded, taking my cue. “I’ll call you later,” I told Nolan before I left, but I wasn’t sure when later would be. He was starting a sixty-kilometer jog now? The guy was going to be exhausted by the time he was done.

On my walk back to the store, I lit a blunt and did my best to chill my runaway thoughts.Theywere mine. How fucked up was that line of thinking? Oh, but I felt it so deeply. The moment Nolan took that small half step and placed me between him and his father, I knew he was mine. On what level? I wasn’t sure. Bailey had always been mine. I’d given her space, and fuck my life if that hadn’t been the worst damn decision ever.Never. I would never forgive myself. I only prayed she’d forgive me. Right here and now, I vowed that she would never have to worry about her ex—about anyone hurting her—again.

They were mine. I protected what was mine, no matter the consequences. I sipped on the blunt again, needing to clear the thoughts swirling around. The ones that told me to slit Rob’s throat. The thoughts that promised how good it would feel to string him up to one of his machines as I dropped a weight on his hand, breaking the bones—no. Not the whole hand, just one finger at a time. Pumping music through the speakers to drown the sweet sound of his screams so the neighbors wouldn’t question.

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