“Yeah. I can tell.”
There was a frustrated breath on the other end, and I pinched the bridge of my nose, shaking my head.
“Mom is broke,” I ground through my teeth, getting back to the reason I called. “I have sent all that I can. Dad, please. I’m begging you. Please help her. Just until she can get back on her feet.”
“She never will if she gets a handout from me or you or anyone else, Clay.”
I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Unbelievable.”
“Look, you can call me an asshole and think I’m evil if that’s the picture you want to paint. But let me tell you the truth, son — she is an addict. She has been for years. She finds a man who can take care of her and give her all the drugs she wants and she’s happy. The second he’s gone, she’s destructive. She doesn’t have it in her to work for herself.”
“Like hell she doesn’t!” I screamed. “She raised me! She raised me — not you. She was there, every night, cooking dinner for me using whatever we had in the pantry even when it wasn’t much, all after working all day — sometimes double shifts.”
“And how do you think she had the energy to do that, hmm? Why do you think there was barely any food in the house, yet she always had money for what she needed to get by?”
I ignored the insinuation, even though my throat stung with the possibility that he was right. “You’re a monster,” I breathed. “You’re selfish and you can’t think of anyone but yourself. You never have.”
“I used to be just like you,” he shouted over me. “I used to bend over backward for her and everyone else in my life. But one day, it was too much. I didn’t want to be the fucking rug everyone stepped on anymore. And trust me, you’ll get there, too. Or, at least, I hope you do. Because living a life where what you put in isn’t reciprocated is no life at all.”
I shook my head, tuning out most of his lecture. “So, you won’t help.” It wasn’t a question. It was a fact, one I knew before I made the call.
“It wouldn’t be help. It would be enabling. And no, I won’t do that.”
I swallowed the knives in my throat, nose flaring. “So what am I supposed to do?”
“You are supposed to play football,” he said, his voice calmer now. “And get your degree. Date pretty girls and get into trouble with your friends. Be a kid, for Christ’s sake. Your mom is a grown woman. She can take care of herself.”
“Clearly.”
He paused, a long sigh meeting me on the other end. “Life is hard, Clay. I know you already understand that, but you’re only beginning to peel back the layers of just how hard it can be. Your mom will figure it out. She will. And if she doesn’t? She only has herself to blame.”
It baffled me, how he could find relief in that, how he could say those words and believe them wholeheartedly.
“I don’t know how you came to be so self-centered, but I hope I can never stomach turning my back on my family the way you have.”
I hung up as soon as the words were off my lips, fisting my phone so hard the screen cracked in my hands before I shoved it into my pocket.
The rest of my walk across campus was fast-paced, a sheen of sweat on my forehead when I blew through the stadium doors. I was still seeing red, still fuming from the conversation, and I debated ducking into the weight room to hammer out a quick set just to burn off the steam.
But as soon as I rounded the corner and slipped into the hallway, I saw her.
The entryway to what was usually a club for our most influential benefactors had been transformed, lights and music thumping from inside while a giant banner hung over the double glass doors. Giana stood in front of them, a photo booth background with the team’s logo behind her and a dozen cameras in her face as she spoke into the microphone at the podium.
She was a vision, draped in a floor-length dress that glittered like starlight against her pale skin. The dress was sleeveless on one arm but wrapped all the way down to her wrist on the other, the neckline elegant and refined where it slanted her chest. I knew even without her turning around that it was a low back, the slivers of her ribcage visible from my viewpoint giving it away.
Her curls were tamed, brushed back into a high, sleek bun that transformed her from a young woman into a timeless movie star. She smiled with her rose-painted lips, gray-blue eyes sparkling under the lights of the cameras as she spoke with confidence, her chin lifted, shoulders squared.
I was speechless.
I was mesmerized.
And I was rooted to the spot until the moment her eyes flashed behind the cameraman in front of her and landed on me.
She dismissed herself from the media frenzy, pulling Kyle Robbins up to the podium to take her place. He launched into his interview easily, and Giana watched only for a moment before slipping away, the hem of her black dress gliding along the tile as she floated to me.
“Wow,” she breathed, letting out a low whistle as her eyes ran the length of me. “I knew you could clean up, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a black tux look this good.”
She smiled with the compliment, all light and easy and playful like we’d always been. It set my heart on fire, but I masked it as best I could by the time she found my gaze again, knowing those were feelings I would need to bury alive if necessary.
“And I didn’t know slits could go this high,” I mused, arching a brow at her exposed thigh. “No glasses?”
“Contacts,” she answered easy, but then, she frowned. “Does it… do I look okay?”
“You look…” I bit my lip against everything I wanted to say, landing on a quiet, “breathtaking.”
She blushed, stepping next to me and slipping her arm around mine. “Come on, let’s get you mingling so you can steal some poor rich woman’s money and make me look good on that auction stage.”
“Is that my job tonight?” I asked. “Make you look good?”
“And raise a lot of money for charity,” she added.
Her smile slipped a bit when we passed through the entryway, not even needing to do more than nod to the volunteers taking tickets. They knew who I was.
I marveled at how the club had been transformed, the uplighting and dance floor, the champagne fountain and various waiters walking around with appetizers and hors d’oeuvres. Every member of the team had cleaned up for the occasion, and even Holden looked relaxed where he drank water as a group of older women fawned over him.
“Maliyah is already here,” Giana said quietly when we made our way into the space. “She looks beautiful. And I… I overheard something.”
I just swallowed, looking down at where she still clung to my arm.
“I think she really misses you, Clay. I think… I think our plan is working.” Her eyes searched mine. “She told a group of the cheerleaders in the bathroom that she wants you back.”
I blinked at her reveal of information, waiting for it to hit me, to strike me in the chest, to fill me up with hope or the sense of pride I felt after winning a game.
But I felt nothing.
Two months ago — hell, even one month ago, I would have leapt for joy, or perhaps even cried. I would have run to Maliyah. I would have held her in my arms and begged her to take me back, to believe in us, to see the future I had always seen.