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“Sorry, Coach,” Ellis said, pulling his mesh up to wipe off his mouth, working his jaw side to side and spitting in the grass, looking like a fucking plastic surgery fail his bottom lip was so red and bloated. “It was an accident. Tripped on the sled. You shouldn’t leave that shit just sitting out in the field, you know?”
“Won’t be sitting there for long,” Coach said, pushing them farther apart and glaring. “You and Walker just pulled yourself clean up. For the next fucking week. I deal with personnel problems, not personal problems. You leave this shit off my goddamn field. You two can kiss and make up and show up here with your asses in gear tomorrow, or you’re both fucking done. I’ll play Howser and fucking… Shane on Friday, I amsickof this shit.” He turned around waving his arms, scattering the huddle. “Practice is over.It’s fucking over.”
He stalked off the field, left everybody looking around for poor Ky Shane who’d thrown one pass, one game all year, and then taken his regular seat on the bench, praying somebody transferred and his number didn’t come up next year because the guy was a total back up in name only. But Coach looked so fucking pissed, who knew what call he might make. About one person was smiling, and you knew who that was.
Howser nudged me hard with his shoulder as he headed past me for the showers. “Told you,”he muttered. “Broken.”
I watched Walker and Ellis head off in opposite directions, picking up equipment, and it was hard to argue. Eye-rolling and ballbusting had escalated real goddamn fast. In one week’s time, mine was somehow the last bench seat people were worried about.
* * *
The sky was going from orange to pink fastby the time I finally got out of the locker room, sore and amped and stressed and tired and ready to fucking go home. Spotting Caleb sitting by himself in the bleachers, reading a book and waiting for me, made me so happy I swear I got lightheaded.
A week ago, I was probably literally sitting in my bedroom shaking after a fight with my mom, wishing I was dead. Now she was a fucking vague memory that only popped up in nightmares, and okay, every time I checked my phone, but I had a giant fucking boyfriend that chased that scary shit away. Blew off his job to watch and wait for me for goddamn hours when he didn’t even like football.
He did like himself some shoulder pads and football pants though, so I didn’t feelthatguilty. Better only have been staring at mine.
“Hey,” I said, trudging up to him, raking my hair back, trying to send the last of my shower down my neck because the sun might have been almost gone, but it was still muggy as hell. “Miss me?”
“Yes,” he said, smiling, but not even teasing a little bit, and god he made my chest hurt in the best way.
“Sorry it was so long. Shit’s a little rough.”
“I saw,” he said, raising up his eyebrows. “What happened out there?”
I shrugged and sighed, looking out toward the field where Walker and Ellis and their long shadows were shoving sleds toward the equipment shed, so pissed off they were working solo, probably adding an hour to their sentence. Fucking dumbasses. “Wish I knew. Ready to call it?”
“You wanna go for ice cream?” he asked me, standing up, sticking his book in his bag.
I stared at him, feeling like I didn’t really know what those words meant. “Do what?”
“It’s hot,” he said, wiping his forehead off with the back of his arm. “You tore yourself up out there. Wanna go get an ice cream cone?”
I absolutely did not wanna go get an ice cream cone, and that was a fucking ridiculous thing to ask. No matter how many times I’d seen kids getting ice cream on hot days after practice and been jealous and angry enough to kill someone, knowing I wasn’t getting one and was walking my ass home in the heat to a house with no AC instead, I absolutely did not want an ice cream cone.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The little nothing hole in the wallby Caleb’s apartment had ten flavors tops, but I still felt so fucking spoiled just walking in, the little bell on the door announcing us to the empty shop. Most of the world moved on from ice cream after August, diving headfirst into coffee and pumpkin spice no matter what the thermometer read, but it still felt like summer here with the pink and yellow tables and the AC running. The cold air mixed with the blast of hot air from the giant freezers, making pockets of mixmatched temperature like you were walking through ghosts.
The sticky sweet smell of ice cream wrapped around me so tight it choked me silent, but my throat was suddenly closed up anyway. Swear to god he just had this way of reaching inside me and plucking the most random string, unraveling a whole goddamn sweater. Who the fuck knew I needed an ice cream cone this badly.
“What do you want?” Caleb asked me, glancing up at the menu behind the counter and then back at me.
I just shook my head. It wasn’t even about not being able to make decisions on the spot, not about letting him buy me something, not even about food. It was about… I couldn’t have explained it if I tried.
This wasn’t popsicles in the park, this was some of that happy family bullshit that turned my rage all the way up, made me want to beat the shit out of people because they got it, they deserved it, and I didn’t. And when it got turned on me, I just collapsed inward, not prepared for this kind of shit, for feeling good multiple times a day, for what that brought up to the surface. It fucking broke me, and seeing as how I was already broken, it just left me nonfunctional sometimes.
“You know what? Why don’t you go sit down, you must be beat,” he told me, putting his hand on my shoulder, turning me gently toward the little group of tables by the window, always knowing what I needed. “You like chocolate?”
I nodded, grateful and just physically and mentally wrung out, and walked over to the table in the corner, out of the way of the giant square of sunset-sunshine that was sneaking in full blast under the wire, making the tabletops too hot to even put your elbows on. I dropped down off my shaky legs and watched him order, all smiley and making quiet small talk with the lady behind the counter, and he was just really good at being a person and that made me feel so fucking safe, dialed my anxiety down just having him in my eyeline.
He came back a few minutes later with two long skinny cones stacked with double scoops, straight up looking like a cartoon drawing of ice cream. Not just chocolate, but chocolate fucking chocolate chip, and just like that, I could feel a sad little gap in my childhood closing up like he’d just wiped it clean and put a band-aid on it.
Healed by fucking ice cream. Unbelievable.
It wasn’t just the ice cream, though.
