Page 122
The team erupted with cheers echoing across the parking lot. Several boys punched the air. Tyler cupped his hands around his mouth. “HE LOVES US!”
I pointed at him. “Especially you.”
The boys laughed even harder. Before another step could send the ground tilting, Jace slipped an arm around my back to steady me. The movement didn’t escape anyone’s notice.
“Ooooooh.”
“Look at Jace helping Coach.”
“That’s adorable.”
Jace groaned.
“Someone snap a pic for Father’s Day!”
The entire parking lot exploded with laughter.
A cough barely disguised my own.
Cali covered her face. “Absolutely not,” she muttered.
“Doc’s blushing!”
“Oh, he’s definitely becoming your stepdad.”
“Adam Wege,” Cali warned.
The kid immediately pointed at me. “Coach, she used my full name. I’m in danger.”
The team completely lost it. Absolute fruit loops, every last one of them. By the time we reached the truck, my palm slid across the robin’s-egg blue paint.
The old Ford had carried me through heartbreak, championships, funerals, and more late-night drives than I could count. Somehow seeing it waiting for me felt like proof that the world was still where I’d left it.
“You gonna stare at it all day?” Cali asked.
“Maybe.”
“Get in the truck, Massey.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Jace barked out a laugh.
I shot him a look. Still smiling, Jace helped ease me into the passenger seat. The boys were still yelling and waving signs. Still making complete fools of themselves.
As Cali climbed behind the wheel and the old Ford rumbled to life, my gaze drifted back one last time. For years, every ounce of energy had gone toward earning love from someone who’d never been capable of giving it. All along, the people who mattered had already been here.
My friends. This team. Jace. Cali.
Family had never been waiting inside Bryant’s house. It was standing in a hospital parking lot, holding crooked signs and making terrible jokes.
Fifty-Nine
Cali
The boys cheered as I pulled out of the hospital parking lot. Lane waved once through the open window. A terrible decision. The gesture only fueled them, and their shouting followed us down the street until the sound finally faded behind us. I shook my head, smiling.
Beside me, Lane sank deeper into the passenger seat. His discharge instructions sat folded in the center console. His prescriptions were in a paper pharmacy bag at his feet. The pain medication he’d taken twenty minutes earlier was doing exactly what it was supposed to do. Lane was completely loopy—not sleepy loopy. Talkative loopy.
