She drags me inside. The house smells the same, like whatever she’s baking. It’s late afternoon, but my mom’s always baking something.
“Mark!” she yells toward the living room. “Danny’s here!”
My dad appears from around the corner, newspaper in hand, reading glasses on his nose.
“Well,” he says. “Look who decided to show up.”
There’s no anger in it. He flashes a wide smile.
“Hey, Dad.”
“You look terrible, son.”
“Mark,” my mom scolds.
“What? He does.” Dad sets down his paper. “You eating? Sleeping?” He lifts an eyebrow. “Or just sitting around feeling sorry for yourself?”
“All three.”
“Thought so.” He gestures to the couch. “Sit. Your mother will make you something. You’ll eat it. Then you’ll tell us what the hell’s been going on.”
I sit. Mom disappears into the kitchen. Dad takes the chair across from me.
“We haven’t seen you since before that mess at the fan event,” he says. “You’ve been avoiding us.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t want to see the disappointment on your faces.”
“You think we weren’t disappointed before you avoided us?” He leans back. “We raised you better than that, Danny. You screw up, you face it. You don’t hide.”
“I wasn’t hiding. I was dealing with it.”
“By yourself. Without your family. That’s hiding.” He’s quiet for a moment. “So. You going to tell us what’s really going on? Or are we going to keep pretending everything’s fine?”
I take a breath. “I was seeing someone. The team’s PR director. Coach’s son.”
Dad nods, but he doesn’t interrupt.
“We kept it secret. For obvious reasons. Then it came out. There were videos everywhere. I got suspended. He lost his job. And now it’s over.”
“Over because the relationship couldn’t survive the scrutiny? Or over because one of you gave up?”
Ouch. That stings.
“He gave up. He released a statement saying we were done before he even told me.”
“And you? Did you fight for it?”
“I tried. I gave an interview to set the record straight. The journalist twisted everything and made it worse. It got Noah fired.”
“So you made it worse trying to fix it.”
“Yeah.”
“And now you’re here.”
