Page 54 of Fair Catch
Clay nodded in understanding.
“He grabbed my keys, said he was fine to drive — which we both knew was a lie. I tried fighting him on it, but he insisted. But we didn’t even make it three blocks before he hit a curb.”
“Did he wreck?”
“No, but I made him pull over.” My chest ached. “He was a mess, man. Emotional. And I’d only had a couple drinks. So, I figured if anyone should drive… it should be me.”
Clay closed his eyes, letting out a slow exhale before they opened again. “What happened?”
“There was a stop sign that I didn’t see,” I said, voice shaking. “We got T-boned, his side of the car taking the worst of it.” I looked him in the eyes then. “Lower spinal cord.”
I couldn’t even say the words to tell him what happened next, how we found out Gavin was paralyzed from the waist down, but I didn’t have to. Clay swallowed.
In football, we knew what a lower spinal cord injury meant.
“Gavin… he never blamed me. He went through all the stages of grief, yes, but he… God, he forgave me so damn quickly, like it wasn’t my fault at all. He just instantly thought of how to make the most of the situation. That’s the kind of guy he is. I mean, he plays wheelchair basketball now and is one of the best on the team.”
Clay smiled.
“But Riley…” I continued, fighting through the difficulty of managing a swallow. “Riley blamed me for all of it — his paralysis, the stress on her family, the pain I put them all through. I ruined his life in her eyes. She hated me, and rightly so.”
“What changed?”
“Nothing,” I said, but I shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe something. I can’t tell. It doesn’t feel like she hates me as much, but…”
I fell silent. I had no idea how to explain what had happened in the last month or so, how we’d somehow mended the broken bridge between us and found something that felt a little like friendship.
“I think, even through the hate… there’s a part of me that feels comfortable to her.”
“Like home,” Clay finished for me.
I nodded, throat tight, and it closed in even more with his next question.
“When did you realize you wanted her?”
I released a long breath from my chest. “Honestly? I think I’ve always known. Somewhere deep down, maybe ever since we were freshmen in high school. I could tell she had a crush on me, too. But then everything happened, and this wedge was driven between us, and I couldn’t even think about anything past my promise to her brother.”
Clay arched a brow.
“That I’d protect her.”
He nodded, blowing out a breath through flat lips as he looked out over the sun setting on the field. After a while, he reached out and squeezed my shoulder tight.
“Look, man — maybe she still hates you. Maybe she doesn’t hate you, but she doesn’t want anything more than to be friends. Or maybe,” he said, adding a shrug. “She wants you, too.”
Hope clawed at my throat like a caged animal on the verge of escape, but I swallowed it down.
“You’ll never know if you don’t tell her what you’re feeling.”
“We’re teammates,” I reminded him. “Hell, we’re goddamn roommates. Doesn’t it seem a little selfish for me to put that at risk by complicating what’s obviously still very fragile between us?”
“There’s risk in every decision we make,” Clay said. “You just have to decide which risk is worth taking. Would you rather tell her and chance things getting a little awkward or being rejected? Or would you rather not say anything and drown in the unknown, wondering if she maybe feels the same?”
“I just… I don’t see a scenario where she ever would. Where she ever could.”
“Then you’re fucking blind,” Clay said with a laugh. “Man, if you don’t see the way that girl looks at you, the way she reacts when you so much as breathe in her vicinity, let alone touch her?” He shook his head. “Then you’ve got bigger problems.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. “I feel like I’m going to vomit.”
“Well, if you do, do it over there,” Clay said, pointing toward the sideline. “I just cleaned these sneakers.”
I chuckled, letting out a long exhale as I assessed his advice.
I told her I’d be out all night — a little because I knew she felt awkward after what happened, but mostly at her request, since she said she needed a quiet night to study.
I didn’t miss the way she couldn’t even look me in the eyes after our last study session and how that’d turned out.
But we didn’t have practice tonight, which meant I had the chance to have her alone for a while, to talk without all the distraction that was always around us.
