The man flinches and then hunches, like he’s ducking. His mouth opens but no sound comes, like I knocked the air outof him. Shock and outrage rocket through me. “What’s that reaction for, Darren? Afraid I’ll sucker punch you?”
The man has the audacity to wince. I look at Granddad, who’s red with anger. “What are you doing, Ollie?” he snaps.
I look around the church, as if for backup. Surely, someone’s going to jump out from behind a pew and tell me I’m on a hidden camera show, right? Because in no universe does Darren Murphy being here make sense.
“What areyoudoing, Granddad? What’s going on right now? Why is he here?”
My voice is loud enough to bounce off the rafters back to me. I sound shrill. Unhinged.
And I’m not stopping.
“Darren is our facilities manager,” Granddad hisses. “He works for me. You’d know that, if you’d come home more in the last year.”
A high-pitched ringing starts in my ears, and it only gets louder.
“No,” I say, ignoring Darren.
“I’m so sorry, Ollie,” Darren says in a voice that sounds like a meat grinder. “I didn’t realize?—”
“I don’t want to hear from you,” I say, cutting a hand through the air. “You ruined my brother’s life.”
“What are you thinking, talking to him like that?” Granddad barks, defending the man who injured one grandson … over another grandson. Protecting Darren FROM ME.
The ringing in my ears is so intense, I can barely hear the shuffle of feet as they enter the ceremony space. I see movement out of the corners of my eyes, but I don’t know who, what, or why.
“Ollie,” Dad’s voice says from next to me suddenly, but it can’t be my dad. Because my dad would never open his armsto the man who destroyed his son’s future while keeping them closed to me.
Would he?
My heart booms like a cannon, and the smoke coming off it is making my head feel like it’s on fire.
Dad and Granddad are talking with Darren, but I don’t hear anything. I gape at the two men who were there for my every success and failure on the field. My granddad and dad. The hammer and the nail.
And I’m the board they drive into, splintering a little more each time.
I can’t take it for another second.
I’m.
Done.
I whirl around, striding down the aisle Sloane will walk in an hour, my feet pounding on the old wooden floor. Then I feel a hand on my shoulder, gripping, spinning me.
“Don’t you dare walk away,” Granddad says.
I knock his arm off and try one more time to bite my tongue, to keep going, but I hear Granddad’s voice growling behind me. “Control your son.”
“Dad—”
“Rod, this is an embarrassment, and I expect you to handle him.”
I stop cold.
“This is an embarrassment? Me, Granddad?” I stalk back, unable to stop myself. “You’rethe embarrassment. What grandfather cuts his grandson off because he was injured?”
“I didn’t cut you off.”
I laugh, disbelief making me feel lightheaded. “You’re right, you didn’t. Because I was neverinin the first place! You only cared about me when I was winning, and even then, it was never enough! And heaven forbid I make an error.” I chuckle. “Oh,those errors. How many thousands of hours of ‘extra practice’ time did those errors give me?”
