Page 77 of Whirlwind
“It’s more than enough. I have everything important,” he says. “Competition never leaves, though. That sticks. I always wantanother year on the cup, better stats, or to break someone else’s record.”
“I guess I can understand that.”
“You’ll see soon enough. We’ll get there, I have a feeling,” Letty chimes in. “And my feelings never fail.”
“I’d say that sounds creepy as fuck, man,” Cillian says. “Except you’ve said that shit before and it’s always been true.”
“My ma was a witch. I get it from her,” he says with a toothless grin.
“Jesus, you’re scary.”
“Good,” he says to me, adding a maniacal laugh as he heads toward the shower.
“For the life of me, I’ll never understand how he finds women to sleep with him, let alone talk to him,” Hugo says. “Speaking of women, I hear you’re bringing Kit Kat to the gala.”
“She’s agreed to be seen with me, yeah.”
“Of course she has, fucking Pretty Boy,” he says. “You better watch out, though. Odette’s suiting me—I’m going to be dashing as hell. So, we’ll see if she agrees to leave with me.”
“You can try, fucker. But don’t forget, I like to fight.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he says, smiling. “For real, though, I’m happy for you.”
“Me too,” Cillian adds. “Kit’s good people.”
“She’s amazing, man. Probably the bravest person I’ve ever known. And so fucking smart.”
“She’s like a walking encyclopedia,” he agrees. “It blows my mind how much she knows about the most random things.”
“Yeah, her mind is always working. A couple of times, I’ve woken up in the middle of the night to find her wide awake and researching some crazy thing. The other night it was black holes;the time before that, she was near tears reading about the ivory black market.”
“She told me she doesn’t sleep much,” he says.
“She doesn’t. A few hours here and there, mostly. She’s slept through a few times, now, though.”
“How are you dealing with that?” Zander asks, taking his seat on the bench across from us. Concern shows—his mouth a slight frown.
“It’s fine,” I say. “Once I know she’s good, I fall right back to sleep. You know how it is—you learn to sleep when you can with a schedule like ours.”
“I don’t just mean the sleeping situation,” he says. “Kit struggles with change and spontaneity. You seem the opposite.”
“I mean, yeah. I’m very much a go-with-the-flow type who will happily dive into whatever comes up. I know that’s not her, though. She’s a homebody who’d rather pop on a video game than go out for a night on the town with a crowd. And I don’t mind that at all,” I say. I’ve never believed that couples need to live in each other’s pockets. It’s healthy to have not only your own interests but shared ones, too. “I don’t expect her to come work out with me or go play golf. Hanging out with her is relaxing, forces me to take time to just…I don’t know…be.”
“And if you got traded again?” Zander asks.
“Fuck, man. I just got here—I don’t even want to think about that.”
“I hear you, but that would be very difficult for her.”
“To be fair, that would be hard for Isla or Willa, too,” Cillian says. “All of our women have roots here.”
“True,” Zander agrees. “Willa’s strong enough to handle it, but she’d hate being away from her family.”
“Fuck, I think I’d rather retire, at this point. That would be easier than asking Isla and Sadie to move away,” Cillian says.
Shock is my first reaction. I’ve never heard a player say anything like that. Everyone normally says some version ofwe’d figure it out, because we all know it’s part of the gig. We could be traded at any time, without notice, and for those who have a wife or girlfriend, the weight of a move falls on them. They’re the ones who have to pack up, sell the old place, find a new one, re-establish any career they may have in a new location—not to mention finding new friends or whatever—while we would just be thrown into the only work we’ve ever known.
My shock fades to understanding of just how much Cillian Wylder loves his family. I haven’t doubted his commitment to them for a long while now, but him saying he’d give up his career for them cements that, for sure.
