Samson knew exactly what Dean was referring to. It was weird to go from playing professional football, that intense life in a tightly knit group, to nothing, your days no longer regimented and controlled by an outside force. About a year after he’d retired, though, Uncle Joe had started showing signs of illness. After that, Samson had had his hands and his head full with his uncle’s care. He hadn’t had time to dwell on anything else.
“You’ll understand when you go through it next year,” Dean added.
Samson raised his eyebrows in surprise. Football had always been Harris’s life. “You’re retiring?”
“I’m almost thirty-eight.” Harris braced his elbows on the counter and leaned back. “My knees aren’t what they used to be. I’d rather go out on top than wait any longer.”
“Dean’s not wrong about how you’ll feel after.” Samson turned his head so Miley’s little exploring fingers didn’t go right into his mouth. His arm was falling asleep, but he was conscious of Dean’s eagle eye on him. “Try to line up some work or projects or something.”
“I’ve been talking to a couple of people. Charities, mostly. And there’ll be endorsements.”
“Though we could all be so lucky to get this spokesman gig of Samson’s,” Dean interjected. “Get paid to date hot girls and live in a swanky apartment.”
“Seriously.” Harris took a sip of his beer. “You go on any dates yet?”
Rhiannon popped into his head. Harris had been the one to gently badger him into downloading Crush all those months ago, but he’d never told his friends about That Night. It had felt too private, and he’d been ashamed of how it had ended.
More so now that he knew the word for what he’d done. Ghosting. Ugh.
But Harris wasn’t asking about Rhiannon, he was asking about his time at Matchmaker. “Not yet. Soon.”
“You nervous?”
“No. Why would I be nervous? I’ve been on dates.” He winced when Miley’s nails scratched his nose. Baby nails were surprisingly sharp.
Dean and Harris exchanged a glance. “Uh, do you want to come out with me some night to dip your foot in the shallow end first? The world has changed since the last time you were out there,” Harris said.
“When it comes to how you find a date, maybe. Not the mechanics of actually talking to women, that hasn’t changed. And I was always pretty good at that.” He may never have had a long-term relationship or a grand love affair, but there were good, logical reasons for that. His focus had always been on something else: school, football, his dad, his uncle. He’d dated and had lovers, though he’d never reached Harris’s borderline player status.
He’d be fine. Sit down with a woman for an hour or so, engage in some light banter that would play well for the camera? That, he could handle.
“Yeah, you weren’t called the Lima Charm for—” Harris cut himself off. “Sorry, Samson.”
Samson dipped his head in gratitude. He was resigned to hearing that nickname from strangers, but his friends knew exactly why it made him tense up. A little teasing and ribbing was normal, but he loved Dean and Harris because they weren’t cruel in the name of joking around. “It’s fine.” He gently removed Miley’s grasping hand from his hair, and the baby’s face screwed up tight. Samson was shocked at the piercing wail that came out of her tiny mouth. “What did I do? Is she—”
“Hang on.” Dean unzipped his jacket, revealing a baby carrier strapped to his front. “I got her. She’s due for a nap. Miley’s always on schedule.” He took the baby from Samson and deposited her in the carrier, deftly maneuvering her kicking legs. His giant hand cradled her head and he moved away. Samson watched with bemusement while his buddy started doing walking lunges down the length of his big apartment.
“What are you doing?”
“It calms her down and puts her to sleep,” Dean explained over his shoulder. Lunge. Step. Lunge. “We can go get dinner once she’s out.”
“Plus, the exercise maintains his figure. Gotta keep it tight for his hot wife,” Harris explained mischievously.
Without breaking pace, Dean flipped his cousin off.
They watched him for a second, then Samson grabbed a cracker and tossed it into his mouth. “He must be driving Josie insane.” He dropped his voice so Dean wouldn’t hear him.
“I think she’s trying to convince him to adopt another kid so his attention will at least be split. There isn’t a baby book, an opinion piece, or a parent forum that man hasn’t read at this point.” Harris shook his head. “I never thought I’d see the day Dean would be an expert on diapers and transracial adoption.”
Samson huffed a laugh.
Harris sobered. “Hey. How are you holding up? I know it’s been tough since Big Joe passed.”
“I’m . . . I’m doing good. I think I was really in a fog for a while, but I feel better now.” The gig had helped. It had given him a schedule. A purpose, as Dean might say.
“Yeah, you seemed pretty out of it at the funeral.”
Samson barely remembered Joe’s service. Harris and Dean had been the only contemporaries of his to attend. The rest of the mourners had been the few of Joe’s friends that the man had stayed in touch with. And Annabelle, of course, her eyes still sunken from weathering Joe’s illness and mourning her sister barely nine months prior. “Listen, I’m sorry if I’ve been distant since then. His death really hit me harder than I’d thought it would.”
Samson had felt occasionally lonely when Joe had been sick, but with his uncle gone, he’d been totally alone. The last Lima, a short-lived dynasty over. Some charm.
“Nah, man. You did kinda disappear, but Dean and I got it. We knew you didn’t mean anything by it.”
His nose twitched. Here was the easy forgiveness he’d hoped Rhiannon would give him, but Dean and Harris knew him. They could afford to give him the benefit of the doubt in a way that Rhiannon could not. “Thanks.”
The baby’s crying rose in volume and intensity and Dean’s lunges became longer, taking him into the bedroom. Harris shifted. “Did Joe . . . I mean. I know he talked about donating his, um . . .”
“His brain. Yeah. He donated it to the Concussion Research Alliance.” Samson took a sip of water to wipe the taste of grief out of his mouth. Joe had been adamant about that donation. He’d wanted his brain to help with the research that was going on with chronic traumatic encephalopathy in football players. “Getting the results back takes time. Might be months longer.” They could take as long as they wanted, as far as Samson was concerned.
Samson had had to fight his mother to get his dad’s brain donated to science. Back then, CTE had only been diagnosed in a couple of deceased players. But Samson had had a hunch that his dad had the disease. He’d wanted his father to have the disease. He’d needed something. A diagnosis, an explanation for why the man had gone from a kind and loving father to a mood-spiraling, angry, unstable man.
The tests had taken a long time back then, when funding for CTE research had been nonexistent. Lulu had died before the diagnosis could come back. Aleki had had CTE, the buildup of tau proteins in his brain excessive and obvious even to a layman like Samson. Most likely linked to all the hard hits he’d taken over the years playing the game, the researchers had explained to Samson.