I cleared my throat. “And we stayed up talking half the night,” I reminded him without looking over at him.
He was quiet for a beat before speaking. “You told me about the time your sister got lost on a trip to the Grand Canyon and your dad cried in front of you.”
I nodded. “And you told me about your Scout leader teaching you how to make table-side guacamole.” I didn’t mention that he’d also told me how much he’d always felt like a disappointment to his own dad.
Mikey laughed. “Game-changer. I’d never had avocado before, if you can believe it. Watching him mash all of those ingredients together sparked something in me, I guess. After that, I started making all kinds of dips. My brothers thought it was the best thing ever. They didn’t realize they’d suddenly become my taste testers.”
I let the subject lighten up from where my memories had gone. “What the hell kind of Scout leader teaches the kids to make guac?”
“Oh, he was super gay. Hated camping. Thankfully, there were two leaders and the other one did all the butch stuff. But Mr. Meadows taught us how to keep the campsite tidy, how to sing campfire songs in two-part harmony, and how to convince someone else to take the scales off the fresh catch. I loved that guy.”
I lifted an eyebrow at him.
“Not like that,” he said, smacking the back of his hand against my chest above my sling. “He was a hundred and ten years old. At least to my prepubescent self.”
We continued sharing childhood stories until he cut in with a reminder about seeing my parents. “I told them we’d contact them once we got settled and let them know when they can come out to see you.”
I bit back a sigh and looked out the window again. I loved my parents, but sometimes seeing them felt like a command performance, and my dad especially would pepper me with tons of questions about why I was in Colorado instead of with my team.
“Not right away, okay?” I asked.
“Of course. Whatever you want.”
I knew Mikey wouldn’t let me get away with ignoring them forever. He would do what he always did which was manage my parents’ expectations with my reluctance and find that sweet, delicate middle ground that would check all the boxes and leave everyone feeling like their needs had been met. He was good at that. So very good at it.
“You should be a hostage negotiator,” I muttered.
“False equivalency, I think,” he said with a smile in his voice. “Anyway, what the hell are you going to do with yourself in the cabin besides read your new books and sneak in forbidden workouts?”
He knew me well.
“Good question. Probably pester you while you’re cooking. Eat lots of your food. Sit in the hot tub and stare off into space.”
“Maybe you should start thinking about what you want to do when you retire,” Mikey suggested casually.
Too casually.
I turned to look at him. “I’m twenty-seven.”
He shrugged. “Sometimes retirement hits you out of the blue in the NFL. Everyone knows that.”
Of course, he meant retirement by injury, and I was sure it was on his mind after yet another injury. “Can we not talk about it, please?”
It wasn’t the first time he’d brought it up. I knew he was trying to gently nudge me to think about the future, but it was harder than he could possibly know. When you’d been called a football star your entire life and every decision made about your future had revolved around the game, it wasn’t easy to suddenly think about something else.
“I just want you to realize there’s more to life than football. There’s more to you than football. I think you’ve spent a lot of time ignoring those other parts of you.”
“Football is who I am,” I said in a quiet hiss.
“You’re right,” he replied calmly. “But it’s not the only thing you are.”
“How can you say that?”
He turned to me and reached for my wrist, turning my arm so he could trace the tattoo on the inside of my wrist. The touch brought goose bumps up on my skin.
The tattoo was a simple profile of the mountains with GPS coordinates underneath.
“It took me about an hour of boredom in the hospital while you were asleep before I decided to google the coordinates,” he said. “It’s the Golden Peak Superpipe in Vail.”
I nodded. “Yep.”
“Which is for snowboarders,” Mikey continued. “And it reminded me of the pictures of you in your bedroom at your parents’ house. You snowboarded in high school. Won some kind of medal for it and everything.”
What else was there to do but nod again? “You already know this. We’ve talked about it before.”
Mikey studied my face for a minute. “Does that mean this a subject you want me to drop? Because you’re acting like you do whenever I mention the phrase ‘cauliflower pizza crust.’”
I shifted in my seat so I could face him better. “No, it’s not that. It’s just… it’s a moot point, you know? I can’t snowboard anymore, so there’s no point in thinking about it or talking about it.”
Even my college coach had forbidden me from the laundry list of other sports and dangerous activities that could put my football career in jeopardy. I hadn’t laced up my snowboard boots since the winter of my senior year in high school.
“You’re not going to play professional football forever, you know. That’s my point. What do you want to fill your life with after you’re released? Maybe you’ll want to move back to Colorado so you can ski and snowboard again.”
I loved the mountains, and I missed the snow. Badly. I also missed summer in Colorado with the long days and huge blue skies. Sunshine on my back and cool evening breezes through the aspen trees. Everything about my home state called to me, and as long as I’d lived in Texas, I’d felt the loss of it deep in my bones.
But I also loved football, and it was true what I’d said before. I barely knew who I was outside of it.
“Maybe,” I admitted, trying to think of other things I liked that I rarely had time for. “I like to plant things. My mom always made the most colorful flower baskets in the summer and hung them on the front porch. She also has baskets along the back deck railing that we used to plant.”
“She still does,” he said. “At least, they were overflowing with color the last time we were there in May.”
“I always loved the flower baskets everywhere in Vail during the summer, too. Maybe after I retire, I can go work in the plant department at Home Depot.”
Mikey snickered. “I’d love to see your reaction the first time you got that paycheck.”
“Depending on when I retire, I won’t need the paycheck. But I can’t imagine not working in some capacity. I’d go stir-crazy.”
The plane jolted and had a sudden drop in altitude. Mikey gripped my arm the way he always did during turbulence. “We’re okay,” I murmured softly as the plane steadied again.
“What about coaching?” he asked as if it hadn’t happened.
I shrugged. “I’m not great with kids.”
His brown eyes flashed at me. “Bullshit.”
“Fine, but I don’t have enough patience for teaching, and I’m not sure I’d know how to pull back from pro level at this point. I’d probably send kids to the ER left and right after running them too hard or having too high expectations.”