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I suck in a breath when I see the expanse in front of me.
From this very spot, basked in the pale moonlight, you can see for miles, the hilly farming land with cattle, and horses running wild in the fields. There are rows of fruit, and trees of apples. Even blanketed in inky darkness, it looks like something from a painting.
The stars above shine brighter than I’ve ever seen. In the city, the skies are full of skyscrapers, and smog, making it nearly impossible to see anything beyond the lights of the city. Truthfully, I’ve never seen a sky so calm and still before.
“Wow,” I breathe, my eyes still taking in everything in front of me.
Graham laughs low and hoarse as he spreads out the blanket he grabbed from the truck. He takes my hand and helps me sit next to him, like holding my hand is the most natural thing in the world to him.
So close that our shoulders brush together, and I breathe in his rugged yet calming scent.
“When I was little, my pops and I, we’d always be the first ones up. Before the sun rose every day, we’d be up and having breakfast, getting ready to do everything that needed to be done on the farm.” Resting his arms around his legs, he gazes out in front of him. “Man, I’d grumble and moan about it. Well, at first, I did. Then I realized that it was time I would get to spend uninterrupted with my pops. He… He was my best friend.”
His voice cracks with pain, and I reach out to lace my fingers between his, squeezing gently. I don’t like the sadness etched into his features. I wish with all my heart that I could take it away and bring back the smile that I’ve come to like far too much.
Clearing his throat of emotion, he continues, “It was my time with him, just mine. I look back now, and I’d give anything for just five more minutes of those mornings. You never know how important a moment is, until it passes you by and you can’t get it back.” Hearing the raw pain in his voice does something to my insides, makes me ache to put my arms around him.
“Anyway, those mornings I’d follow him around, watching everything he did, and trying to do it myself. But no matter where we were, he’d find a way to be right here on this very hill to see the sunrise. Every Saturday. We’d be here. And he’d say to me, ‘Son, never stop living like it’s your last day.’ I live by that. I think that’s why everyone calls me Sunshine, because I'm rarely in a bad mood, I rarely let shit get to me because I took that advice to heart from my pops. If I wake up tomorrow and the world around me ends, I want to be satisfied with the man I was and the life I lived.”
He finally looks over at me, raw emotion glistening in his eyes. “That’s all I want out of life. Not the money or the fame. Not the brand deals. Hell, all of it could disappear tomorrow and I’d use the money I made to take care of my family. My babies, my ma, my sister… you.”
My stomach flips. “Graham, I don’t need th-”
He stops me before I can finish. “I know you don’t, and that’s something that I fucking love about you, Em, the fact that you don’tneedanyone. You’re independent, you’ve got the entire world in the palm of your hand. It’s not that I don't think you can provide for yourself, or that you want me to buy you material things. It’s thatIwant to. I want to be a man that our babies are proud of. I wanna be just like my father, and I want to be half the man that he used to be.”
Emotion claws its way up my throat and hits me in an unexpected wave.
“He would be proud, Graham, of who you are. Tell me more about him. About what he was like. Tell me all of the things, so I can love him the way you do.”
Graham holds my gaze for a moment, his throat bobbing as he swallows. “He was kind. He’d give the shirt off his back for anyone. People in town would call him for help on their cars, or their house, and he’d drop whatever he was doing and go. Always put everyone before himself. I wish that I had more time with him.” He pauses, looking down at my hand in his, then back up at me. “I wish he could’ve met you. Met my children. I’ll keep his memory alive, like I always have. By being the kind of dad he was. Patient, compassionate, protective.”
For the first time, IseeGraham Adams.
Not the Graham IthoughtI knew or the Graham that the media perceives him to be. The guy who can’t commit or settle down, whose biggest responsibility is on the ice, and outside of that, nothing else.
I see someone who would do anything for his family, a guy that loves his friends and is fiercely loyal. Honest to a fault, ferociously protective of those that he loves. Those are the things that I’ve learned about Graham in the past few weeks. I’ve seen the way he treats his mom, or lets his sister call him his childhood nicknames, how even though he’s exhausted he still does anything and everything they need help with at the farm.
“The point of all that was that I just wanted to bring you out here. So you could experience it. So I could give you a little piece of me. Of my family. Of my dad.”
He looks away, then back out in front of him. In the midst of the deep conversation, I hadn’t realized that the sun was beginning to rise. A vast, deep orange that seemed to settle around us like a cloak.
It’s breathtaking. The most beautiful, tranquil thing I’ve ever experienced alongside a man I thought I knew, but I’m learning that I didn’t really know at all.
That I may have judged him all wrong.
And knowing he’s not what I thought… that isn’t good for my heart. I can protect it from a man who isn’t worthy, but from someone who is pure and good down to the marrow of his bones?
Well, let’s just say I didn’t plan for that and that’s what scares me most of all.
