Page 98 of Fair Catch

Yeah, I kinda do.

“Don’t start planning a bachelor party just yet, because it didn’t exactly go well.”

He snorts and shakes his head. “I find that hard to believe. Your parents are the ones I wish I would’ve had.”

“Yeah, well, they’re the reason I’m all in my head and worried about what it means if he gets drafted thanks to treating dinner like a goddamn interrogation. Asking him a shit-ton of invasive questions about what his plans are for the future and how I would fit into it, if he has any backup—” I cut myself off when I notice his eyebrows inching toward his forehead while he attempts to hide a smile. “What’s that look for?”

He holds up his free hand in surrender. “Nothing, it’s just…those seem like pretty standard questions to me.”

“It was the way they were asking them more than anything. Like they expected us to have answers when this whole fucking thing is so new. It’s only been a couple months.” I blow out a sigh and run my fingers through my hair. “I’m not saying this is forever; I don’t fucking know that yet. I doubt Kason does either. But I hope it could be, and I don’t want to sit here and think about the possibility of it ending before we really have a chance to make it start.”

“That’s valid, it is. But your parents are realists, and though I wasn’t there to see it, I’m willing to bet they were just trying to look out for you. I’ve been around them long enough to know they only have your best interests at heart, even if it didn’t feel like it at the time.”

Narrowing my eyes, I ask, “Why does it feel like you’re on their side?”

He shakes his head immediately. “I’m not. I’malwayson yours.”

“But?”

He tosses his head from side to side, visibly looking for the best way to voice his thoughts. “I just think they might be forcing you to look at things a little more realistically, before either of you end up getting hurt. And that can be a tough pill to swallow when you’re trapped in the love bubble.”

Again, with that fucking word.

But I ignore it, instead focusing on the real topic at hand. “Telling Kason he’d be better suited giving up on his dreams for the NFL has nothing to do with me, though. Or harping on him about having a viable plan for when things inevitably don’t work out the way he wants.” My jaw tics, and I look away from the screen briefly. “Realists or not, there’s no fucking reason for them to shit on his dreams like that, especially when they just met him.”

Q’s frowning when my gaze returns to my phone, a quizzical look on his face. “That sounds more like my parents than yours. They were always so supportive of me trying to play in the NHL.”

I’d be lying if that thought hasn’t crossed my mind a time or fifty since we left their house after dinner that night. My mom and dad were one of Q’s biggest cheerleaders; they’d come to games with me. They were literally his second family.

Which begs the question,why?

Why is Kason any different than Quinton in their eyes? Why are they holding him to a completely different set of standards?

Because the only answer I can think of isn’t a good one.

But it’s also the most obvious.

“I don’t know, Q. It felt like they were treating him as just…less than. Because he grew up poor in the South with shitty parents who didn’t treat him well when he had no control over the cards he was dealt.” I adjust my shoulders, trying to push down my building annoyance. “If anything, he’s using all that negativity he came from and trying to build something new and better for himself, yet they’re treating him like he’s some kid from the wrong side of the tracks that’s distracting me from everything I’ve worked toward.”

I’m breathing a little heavily when I finally stop speaking, feeling just as frustrated and worked up by their treatment of him now as I was when it happened.

Quinton must realize it too, because he gives me a sympathetic smile. “Take your parents out of the equation for now, okay? Their opinion on your life doesn’t matter at the end of the day, only that you do what’s best for you.”

“Except I don’t know what that is.”

Or maybe the real issue is that, right now, it’s feeling a lot like what I want and what’s best for me are mutually exclusive.

“You’ll figure it out, man. You don’t have to have all the answers today or tomorrow or next week like you think you do. So just take it a day at a time.”

I nod, knowing he’s right but not having a single clue how to practice what he’s preaching. Because my thoughts are still spinning, and I feel no closer to figuring out what the hell to do now than I was before calling him. The only thing I do know is that hope feels too far out of reach, and yet it’s pretty much the only thing I’m clinging to at this point.

Defeat and frustration have me rolling my head back and forth against my headboard, wishing for some kind of distraction from my own thoughts.

“I just want to get away from it, you know? Chicago, my parents, this looming unknown we have hanging over us now,” I mutter with a sigh. “I want to enjoy what’s left of college and my time with him without fucking worrying about what comes next.”

“So do it,” Q says automatically. “Is Leighton in the playoffs?”

I nod, pulling up Kason’s schedule I’ve long since put in my phone. “Their bowl game is the week before Christmas.”

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