Page 29 of Playing for the Hat Trick
I grab my phone and hit call.
“Yo,” Leif answers on the first ring. “It’s still a hard maybe on the godmother thing. You people are relentless.”
Some of the tension in my chest breaks loose. There’s been an ongoing battle between Hailey’s best friend and me for the position of godmother to their beautiful baby girl—Luna. Since he brought it up, I decide to bargain. “Okay, what if I fix your friend, and you hand over your firstborn?”
He laughs. “Why the fuck would I give you my baby?”
“I just want to be her godmother. It’s not like I’m asking for a kidney.”
“Considering your bedside manner, I think that might be safer.”
I roll my eyes even though he can’t see it. “Anyway, Tate. You aware of his current situation?”
“You mean the part where he’s still benched and the team’s been bleeding goals for what it feels like fucking forever?” Leif mutters. “Thought he said you were helping already. Why are you negotiating now?”
I provide him just enough to skate around HIPAA without falling through the legal ice. Enough for him to understand: Jason’s circling the drain and calling it progress.
“He’s sabotaging himself,” Leif says, a voice suddenly too serious for jokes.
“I know,” I admit. “But why?”
There’s a long pause. And then?—
“Fear.”
Okay, we’re off to a good start. If anyone knows Jason Tate, that’d be my brother. I have to ask, though, “Of?”
“Becoming his parents.”
“You have to be more specific, Leify.”
“There was a time—junior year—when things got really bad. House was in foreclosure. Utilities almost shut off. His mom had a seizure from stress. Dad disappeared for two weeks. They were inches from being homeless. Jason held it all together. Didn’t sleep, barely ate. He trained harder than any of us. Got a second job at some warehouse that didn’t care he was underage. Started calling scouts himself. Begged for a spot. By eighteen, he got drafted, but even then, he was already wired for survival.”
I had no idea that any of that had happened to him. He’s always been so . . . detached and sarcastic that he made me believe he didn’t have any problems in his life.
“He’s never trusted the good things to stay,” Leif adds. “Always thought it’d all disappear if he let his guard down. If he wasn’t sacrificing something, he wasn’t working hard enough.”
I close my eyes. Try to swallow the lump forming at the base of my throat.
“This isn’t compliance,” I whisper. “This is survival.”
“Exactly,” he says. “He’s been in survival mode for so long, he doesn’t know how to exist outside of it. He doesn’t trust joy. He doesn’t believe in ease. He thinks if he lets go of the pain, the whole damn structure falls.”
I bite my thumbnail, feeling that twist in my gut—the one that says,Fuck, you know this pain too well.
“He’ll fight you,” Leif adds. “He’ll resist. But if you get through . . . Scottie, he needs someone who won’t flinch when he pushes back. He needs someone who knows how to carry that kind of fire without getting burned.”
I laugh under my breath. “Did you just call me fireproof?”
“No,” Leif says. “I’m saying you’re too damn stubborn to burn.”
I scoff. “So, what you’re really saying is: ‘Please, little sister, fix my broken friend because you’re the only one who won’t cry if he bites’?”
“More like: do your job because he deserves someone who won’t give up on him the second it gets uncomfortable.”
Ouch. Okay, that one lands.
I lean back in my chair, staring at the ceiling like it might beam down divine guidance or maybe just drop a coffee IV.
