Page 59 of Puck Happens

Right?

“Cap!” The guys were coming back, led by Novek, whose mullet was slick down his neck. “I have heard the most amazing thing,” he said, looking honest to God like a little kid.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Your father was Mon Ami?” he said.

“How the fuck do you know Mon Ami?”

“Wrestling is big in Europe. We know all the wrestlers. So, it is true? Your dad?”

“Yep.” I said with a smile, that this kid from half a world away knew his name would make Dad so happy. “Mon Ami was my father.”

“I wore a beret when I was ten because of him,” Novek said.

“You get the shit kicked out of you?” I asked.

“Yes. Very much. But I loved his swagger,” Novek said, twirling a fake mustache the way my dad used to.

“I’ll let him know.”

“He should have been featured more.”

“Yeah, well, life got in the way,” I said.

My mom hated him traveling. Hated the fact that he was away from us growing up. If he’d told me once, he’d told me a hundred times, you couldn’t have everything in life. You had to pick what was most important.

In the end, I suppose he’d picked mom and us over his career, because he dropped out of wrestling. But the damage had already been done. There was no saving their marriage. That’s what both of them had told us as kids.

A conversation kicked off about everyone’s favorite wrestler, but I tuned them out.

I needed to call off our detour to Calico Cove. I needed to stop all of this before it spiraled out of my control.

Hadn’t it already?

I looked down at my phone again. What the hell was I supposed to say to her?

Scratch next weekend.

Seemed a little abrupt.

Let’s call it off now.

Callingitoff, implied there was something to be called off. It wasn’t like we were making plans to fuck at the Festival. I just wanted to be in a space where she was without any team eyes around.

I shoved the phone in my pocket without typing a thing. I didn’t know what to say to her. I certainly didn’t know how to say it.

So maybe the best play here was to not say anything. Focus on practice, on my job, and pretend – try to fucking pretend – Liv was nothing more than a coach on the team.

12

Calico Cove Fall Festival

Liv

Was I fool? I felt like a fool. Down to my toes, I felt like a fool.

Calico Cove’s town square, which had been covered in fake snow at the end of August, was now full of carnival games and vendors. The gazebo was home to a biggest pumpkin contest. The winner was a monster grown by a ten-year-old girl and her grandfather.

---