Fuck. Now he was thinking of Julie again, who was the opposite of boring, but he couldn’t think about that, or the pity cycle would begin again.
Gavin sucked up his irritation, gave his dad a hug with a hard pat on the back, and then pulled his mom in for a tight hug. “I’m sorry, Ma. I’m stressed and it’s been a long day. If I don’t go now, I’ll miss my flight. Can you tell Julie how sorry I am?”
“If she ever speaks to me again, sure.”
“Jules isn’t the type to hold a grudge,” he said, because she wasn’t, and because Mom needed to hear that. And, since he did need to get his ass on that plane, he told himself that the same would apply to him.
Eventually.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Eventually could be a long fucking time.
And space was nebulous and infinite.
Gavin was so over both, but as he sat waiting in the empty exam room, his phone found its way to his palm. Since he’d recently become a masochist, he lifted it and reread Julie’s singular communication with him since the day after Christmas.
Julie: I hope I’ll find a way to get over this, I do. I promise I’m trying, but right now, I just need some space.
That was all she’d said. New Year’s had come and gone, and still, nothing.
“You’re officially cleared,” the INC doctor said. The club physician had cleared him as well, but these days, that was only one part of a five-step process. The Independent Neurological Consultant—or INC—was unaffiliated with any team, and until his say-so, no player could return to contact practice or compete in a game.
Gavin waited for the excitement. The elation.
Anything.
Instead the hollow pit in his chest continued to eat his emotions and regurgitate more emptiness.
Yesterday, the team doc joked about how good his masseuse must’ve been and declared they should come work for the Stangs and make her job that much easier. When Gavin didn’t chuckle along, concern crinkled Dr. Morrison’s forehead, so he’d summoned up a laugh that sounded as fake as everything else felt lately.
During last weekend’s game, Gavin had stood helpless on the sidelines as he watched the newbie cave to pressure. Not his fault by a long shot. No, it was Gavin’s for getting injured and not being around more to guide the kid. He’d been in Mann’s position before, and regardless of how many intense college games any QB at that level had played, it was just different when it came to the NFL.
Add the Mustangs’ second place position in the AFC South, an upset no one had expected during the other game that day, which meant they’d had to win to ensure a playoff spot, and it was like playing with a stone weight around your neck. Mann had been sacked at the end of the first quarter, and it’d gone downhill from there.
The loss meant they now had to play a wild card game, but at least they weren’t out of the running. With Gavin’s shoulder fully rehabbed, his sole focus should be winning the next game.
But all he could think of was Julie.
He thanked the neuro doc, Coach Bryant was informed, and congratulatory texts poured in from the team over his upcoming return. They also promised an especially brutal practice to make up for the ones he’d missed.
Which was delivered as promised, and as Gavin gasped for breath on the field, he rejoiced, because it was difficult to think about much of anything during training drills.
Later that night, he ended up on Jason’s couch, his muscles pleasantly sore. Originally, he’d declined the invitation to hang with the guys. But then he’d decided that the best way to get past everything that’d happened over Christmas was to throw himself back into his life here in San Antonio.
When the video games hit a lull, he automatically pulled out his phone and tapped on Julie’s name.
Surely it would be okay to tell her he’d been cleared to play, in part because of the magic she’d worked with his muscles, and before she heard it on ESPN. He composed the text and read it over an absurd amount of times.
“A text? You don’t send that kind of news in a text,” Jason said from behind Gavin’s shoulder. “That’s the kind of news that deserves a call.” The guy lunged over the back of the couch and tapped the Facetime button.
“Damn it, Holt. We need to talk about boundaries.” Gavin debated hanging up, but if there was the slightest chance Julie would answer, how could he not snatch it up?
Each inhale and exhale burned his lungs, and just when he was sure she wouldn’t answer, her image popped onscreen. Her blond hair was pulled into a high ponytail, her fringe of bangs hit the top of her plastic goggles, and at the sight of her, his ragged nerves came completely undone.
If he didn’t have an audience, he’d get down on his knees and beg for forgiveness. Hell, he might still do it, observers be damned. “Jules,” he rasped out.
“Julie!” Holt yelled, the rambunctious greeting swallowing up Gavin’s raw one, and Smitts’s baritone voice joined the melee. The rest of the guys crowded around, and his heart went on hiatus, afraid to so much as beat, despite it being, you know, vital to life and shit.
The color drained from her features, and her lips flattened into a tight line. While the happiness he hadn’t experienced in eight whole days bobbed its head, not one ounce of joy showed in her expression. Without it, she hardly even seemed like his Julie.
He supposed he’d lost the privilege to call her “his,” and that sufficiently snuffed out his elation at seeing her face.
“We have some great news.” Holt clapped Gavin on the back, waking him up from his pity party. “Tell her, Frost.”
“Tell me what? That you don’t understand what space means? Or that you have so little respect for me that you don’t care?”
Awkwardness coated the air, the shift in mood as drastic as on the field when the ref overturned one of their touchdowns over some bullshit call.
While he couldn’t take his eyes off the screen, he could feel his teammates’ stares boring into the back of his skull. “I do care. About you, about how you’re doing—about what’s going on in your life. I’m sorry, Julie.” Having an audience was damned inconvenient, but at this point, he couldn’t care less what they thought of him. As long as he could make things right, he’d suffer through however much humiliation it took. “For everything.”
“You can’t just call, say you’re sorry, and expect my feelings to magically bounce right back to normal so we can be besties again. Did you think having the guys there would change my mind? Or would keep me from saying how incredibly hurt I still am?” Unshed tears glistened in her eyes, and he felt two feet tall. “You were wrong on both counts.”