Page 12 of Sneak Attack

He sucked in a breath, lips peeled back like I’d almost hurt him but that was impossible. If Butler had feelings, they were encased behind an iron cage.

“Well screw me for giving a damn about you. You’re the steadiest one on this team, always have been. You can have an off day but if something is going on that’s distracting you, make sure you get your shit figured out before it affects us next week. That’s all.”

He shoved past me, straight to the weight bench on the far side of our team’s practice facility’s gym where Tim Nolan, our safety, and Mason Yeets, a cornerback, were lifting.

He was right. Absolutely he was. But talking about Eden would only dredge up a past I’d long since buried. Everything except the visceral reaction I had when I saw her earlier.

She had the same effect on me as she did the first day I saw her. Crying. Upset. Car broken down on the side of the road two days after that same car pulled into the driveway next door to my parents’ house with Wisconsin license plates.

Her tire had blown out and she couldn’t get a hold of her dad.

I’d pulled up behind her, all teenage cocky swagger and the moment I knocked on her driver’s side door, my future had changed.

Only back then, I had no idea it’d be for the worse, and not the better like I’d instantly imagined.

Across the gym, Dawson shot me a look, an eyebrow raised in question. He clearly wasn’t going to hold on to my attitude, and he’d made a point with his. Instead of fixing it, I whipped my towel off my shoulders and headed to the showers. We had film and then practice in an hour anyway. Might as well see if I could get my head in the right frame of mind and working out hadn’t done a thing to help.

CHAPTER5

EDEN

Marley bounced along in her old Chevy truck bench seat next to me while I drove. The truck might have been the same old mid nineties boxy truck she had ever since her late husband was alive, but steady as ever. Her purse sat on her lap, arms wrapped around it in a hug. Besides the quiet religious hymnal music playing on the radio, and her sporadic coughing fits, we hadn’t spoken much since we left the doctor’s office.

Her latest MRI showed her tumors were spreading, and without the chemotherapy she still refused, Marley would only continue to get sicker, faster. Her cancer, a glioblastoma in her brain, needed chemo for any hope of giving her more time with us.

“Maybe you should think about what the doctor said.”

“Don’t need to, honey, and before you tell me whatever it is he said to you when I gave y’all that moment to talk about me when I wasn’t there, that doesn’t mean I’m gonna listen this time either.”

“But—”

“No buts. I miss Darryl. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen my husband, and I’m ready to go see him again whenever the good Lord has determined it’s time for our reunion. There’re things I’m gonna do first, stories I need to help finish, but as far as I’m concerned, my ending is coming, and I want to meet Darryl again with a full head of hair.”

Well now that she had to bring her faith in God into the conversation, I couldn’t exactly argue. “God gives doctors and geniuses the ability and gifts to heal with science as much as faith, Marley.”

“Know that, too, and I’m thankful to God for all the science and scientists and medical interventions He gives to people to create and use to heal. But for me, that’s not the direction He’s leading me in.”

“Dr. Vanders mentioned getting you a nurse.”

“I have you.” She was a woman bound by faith and stubborn as the hills were steep.

“Marley…” I tried gentling my voice. “I’m a vet tech, not a nurse, especially not for what’s coming.”

I refused to think about what that was, but the doctor had painted a picture and it was the ugliest piece of art I’d ever heard described. What was coming would be a painful torture for everyone and increasing in until the end. Not only would the glioblastoma steal her mind, it’d begin affecting other functions. Limbs. Nerves. It just depended on where it moved to next.

“Then I’ll trust you to know the time for that, too. I know what you think.” She turned to me, her features set with purpose and peace despite the news we’d heard. “But death is a part of life and I’m not afraid of it. And I’m not pretending this isn’t happening, but before I go, itismy mission to ensure all the people I love who still walk the earth are happy and healed. I don’t need chemotherapy and six more months of living in misery to see my mission fulfilled.”

My hands creaked on the steering wheel, sweat making my palms slip. “I am happy, Marley. If that’s what this is about…Cole and I…that doesn’t exist. Never did.”

“Don’t lie to me. You’ll feel guilty for it once I’m dead.”

She turned back to the window while I wanted to slam my head against mine.

I wasn’t lying. We might have wanted there to be something, back when we were young and dumb and ignorant to the harsh truths of the world, but we weren’t now.

Especially after his visit earlier this week.

Whatever stories she wanted to see finished, and I could imagine what those were, were not going to give her the happy ending she had in mind. Of that much I was certain.

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