He knew that. Right after it’d happened, he’d had several missed calls from his teammates, but Tristan was the reigning champ of checking on him. But Rowan really didn’t want to see them. He wasn’t ready for the sympathy and the pity. They wouldn’t mean to, but being with his mates would only make it worse.
“I’m not up for it,” he groused.
His mother looked at him with compassion. “It will make you feel better.”
“No, it won’t.” His throat was still gravelly from the surgery and disuse over the last few days. “Not now!”
She shook her head but left his room. When she returned, she plopped into the chair again. She reached into her bag for a set of knitting needles. Settling the needles in her hands, she pulled on the yarn she kept in her bag. The quiet cadence of the needles scraping together worked with the medicine to send him to sleep. But when he woke, his mother was still there, the telltale sign of her knitting a bulge of patterned yarn.
“You’re awake.” She put her things away and gave him another sip of water.
“How long was I asleep?”
“Five hours.”
Rowan blinked. He hadn’t been out of bed all day. He suddenly felt restless.
“Your father stopped by.”
Rowan growled. He could have come up with words to express his displeasure of his father seeing him weak and asleep in a hospital, but he didn’t want to waste any words on him.
“He’s been here every day.”
Probably to gloat.
“When are you going to forgive him?”
He looked at his mother. She was a force of nature. But for some reason, when it came to his father, she was a helpless kitten. It rankled him.
“Rowan, it’s time to put this resentment behind you and to fulfill your legacy.”
“It’s not my legacy. I don’t want a future by default. I have my own path, and I’m going to follow it.”
She shook her head. “Football is over. He’s allowed you this. Now … now, it is time for you to take your place with him.”
He turned his head to the side, staring out the small window into the black night. He’d outrun his future for thirty-two years. He wasn’t ready to stop running.
The End … of the Beginning.
Other Novels By J. Santiago
Lex and Lu
Bliss
SUPERSTAR DUET
Five-Star
Superstar
About tHE AutHor
J. Santiago is a graduate of Villanova University and the University of Pennsylvania. She gets her love of sports from her fifteen-year career in the field and a houseful of boys who love to play. A former English and history teacher, she understands and embraces the power of stories in our lives.
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