Page 2 of Game Changer

My brothers are all in college, all playing ball, and there will never be another day when hunting isn’t for sport but to put meat in the freezer. Mom won’t have to spend endless hours in the massive garden because, without it, we wouldn’t eat—she’ll do it because she loves it. She won’t take care of others’ horses but her own again, too, and she won’t do it alone because we’re all away at school or living the dream. She built the foundation sturdy enough for us to build upon; she’s got help coming … which is sure to piss her off.

There’s only one thing missing …

It’s time to lawyer up in a big fucking way, which means talking to Ava, who is in charge of the law team for the New York Knights and fighting for scraps of times like now when I’m back in North Carolina for a couple weeks at a time. For time during the season when we play at home and my little girl can be in the stands when I play, and chilling with me when I’m not. Holidays, too, or at least every other or some shit—whatever is best for Lily, as long as they know I am part of that equation, and not just because I’m her father but because I’m a good fucking man.

I step back from the fence and head to the driveway as Mom pulls down the dirt road toward me in her old truck.

She rolls down her window. “I’m fixin’ to head into town to grab some barbeque from Ed’s place. Sound good?”

Ed’s barbeque is legendary and second best to any of Mom’s signature comfort foods when I’m in my feels. “Sounds damn good.”

She looks me up and down. “Go shower off the day, and I’ll be back.”

Smiling, I answer back, “Yes, ma’am.”

After grabbing the envelope off the desk, I lock up the office and head to the house. We’re the fifth generation on Mom’s side of the family to live in the house and the tenth generation to live and work the land here.

The house is a two-story farmhouse with white clapboard siding that shows a few signs of age but carries character. The wraparound porch, with a swinging bench and rocking chairs, hold many memories. Climbing roses and honeysuckle vines trail up the posts, a natural landscape that Mom insists on keeping as it’s almost zero maintenance. The house is big, realbig; Mom is one of eight kids and the only one who wanted this place. There are six bedrooms, two full baths, and one half. The house is full of furniture passed down through generations. I’m fairly damn certain Mom was conceived on her mattress. She wouldn’t let me replace the furniture but did buckle to new mattresses for the beds. The wooden floors creak just slightly under each step, but it’s more a comfort now than it was when I was sneaking out or in during my teen years.

The kitchen is a blend of old and new. I didn’t ask when it came to having some updates done to it. New quartz countertops, white cabinets, and a farmhouse sink under a new, larger window give a perfect view of one of the pastures. The stainless-steel appliances Mom agreed to, saying they blended well with the open shelves lined with mason jars and a reclaimed wood island that Bishop and Blane made from a tear-down on the property. It gives a little separation from the kitchen and dining room we never used; instead, it was the porch or the living room in front of a game. We now gather to eat and talk around the island when we’re all here.

I didn’t ask permission to renovate the two full bathrooms, either. She loves the master bath, and yeah, we use it, too, on occasion. Not so much the freestanding soaking tub, but the walk-in shower with two heads and jets that spray at different levels, that gets a hell of a lot of use. It’s like driving your naked ass through a human version of a carwash, which is exactly where I’m heading now.

Sitting on the front porch, I fold the letter and place it back in the envelope from McClay Law firm then grab the mason jar of iced sun tea and lean back, considering whether I should switch thetea out for a bottle of bourbon, but then I realize even that won’t take the fact this letter bit deeper than the rest:Sign the papers. Let Scott adopt her. She deserves a “real” father.

The words twist in my gut like barbed wire. I’m not perfect, but I’m not my old man, and I will not walk away from my child. I take issue with the whole bonus parent shit people are shoveling these days, and yeah, I’ve gotten in some trouble stating that fact, but anyone who looks at the stepparent as a bonus to a child’s life and not the reverse—the child being the bonus in the relationship—can suck rocks. No child should be seen as baggage. No person should think that some swine like Scott is a hero for taking on a single mom. That kind of person is shit beneath my shoes.

The day my little flower was born, I made a promise to her that I wouldn’t be the kind of man my father was. No way in hell was I going to be a ghost in her life.

When Lindsey moved back to South Carolina four months after her birth, with just one semester left before graduation, she did it in the worst possible way, and I was fucking irate.

I had no idea she was planning to leave. I learned about it for the first time on the phone when I was heading back from the Combine, enroute to share everything with her, excited and so fucking high on the experience and the belief that it was going to change our lives.

I was tripping over the fact I’d met Trucker Cohen, Jose Cox, Logan, and Lucas Links and had hope that they saw in me what I’d promised them when I basically spammed a dozen NFL teams in hopes of getting that invite when I called her. Then I was fucking devastated, angry, so damn angry.

“We don’t love each other,” is what she said to me.

“I have all the love in the world for you. I?—”

“We aren’t in love, Beau,” she cut me off. “Lily deserves parents who are in love.”

I lost it. “Never saidI love youto a girl in my life. Said it to you, Linds. Said it to fucking you!”

“I have love for you,” she said through a sob. “But I’m not in love with you. You love us, you’re not in love with me, and that’s okay.”

“I fall in love with you every time I walk in the door and see you holding our little …” I stopped talking and tried to reword. “I’ve seen a million moms holding babies and never felt like this before. That speaks volumes.”

“Stop, just stop.”

“Never. Do you hear me, Lindsey? Not ever.”

I heard tires screeching, the phone drop, and a muffled, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

After that, she was pissed at me for upsetting her. She wasn’t alone. I was pissed at myself, too, and not for any reason but one—I could have been the cause of them getting in an accident.

When I got back to our apartment, my friend Max was there.

The last couple of years, I’ve done everything I can to make sure I am part of my daughter’s life, and Max and his wife, Lindsey’s best friend in college, have remained friends and play a big role in that. She spends a couple of weeks in Jersey with them, and I get to play Daddy for those couple weeks without her parents’ interference. It’s more time than the judge gave me, using the excuse that Lily’s life was in South Carolina, and her traveling to me when I sometimes spent half the year on the road wasn’t fair to her.

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