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“Hey,” I murmur.
“How are you feeling?”
I turn to look and see Beau in the doorway to my room, his arms loaded down with so much shit that I have no choice but to put him out of his misery. “Come in,” I tell him, biting back a laugh as he drops three packages of panty liners.
Should I reassure him I’m not bleeding to death and therefore do not need seventy-five thousand absorbent pads? Nah. I’ll bring them to school, and low-key leave a stash of free shit in all the girls’ restrooms.
“I’ll just…ah…hang on…” Beau fumbles with bags and packages in my bathroom, unpacking one thing after another.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I say.
“I know, but I wanted to.”
I let it go and watch him stack half of the drugstore’s contents on my dresser. He comes over to the bed with a heating pad. “I didn’t know if you wanted hot or cold, but I heated this up for you. The cold one is in the freezer and should be ready in an hour or two.”
“Thank you,” I say quietly, taking the pad, slipping it under the blanket, and pressing it on my abdomen. “Where’s Micah?”
Beau looks sheepish. “I might have paid him off to go out for pizza and snow cones with his buddies.”
I don’t have the energy to tell him he’s spoiling my kid rotten.
“Don’t you have some interviews to do about the game? Surely that’s less torture than hanging out with me right now,” I say.
He grunts. “I did some phone interviews this morning for the local news folks. My publicist is handling the rest.”
“You might be the first person in the history of Dauterive to have a hired publicist,” I say with a smirk, then add, “But I’m glad. I hated the thought of you having to rehash the game with anyone but the team.”
“Can I sit down? Or will that make it worse?”
“You can sit.”
The old bed frame squeaks under Beau’s weight as he sits on the bed behind me, facing my back as I lay on my side facing the wall. Weird arrangement to have a conversation but alright.
“I want you to know I have a history of fucking up,” he starts.
Beau then proceeds to tell me the real story behind his life-altering knee injury. The parts of the story the public doesn’t know.
The fact that he trusts me with this information — that the injury resulted from a series of alcohol-fueled choices — makes me feel humbled and honored. He knows I’ll never tell anyone.
Beau goes on. “I fucked up my career and I fucked up with you and the school. You were right, I didn’t make enough time for teaching, and I thought I could skate by based on what I already knew. I should have asked for help,” he says.
Guilt surges through me. “Thank you for saying that. But you know, you didn’t fuck up your career. You have two Super Bowl rings. That’s more than anyone could ever hope for. And more than that, you’re a good man, Beau. Sometimes you make me nuts, but I shouldn’t have lost my temper. Football is all-consuming. So is having a girlfriend. So, I’ll understand if we can’t be together. We can return to being friends, and I’ll help you with lesson plans and a syllabus. Hell, you can just copy my shit. No one is going to fire you for that.”
I stop talking when something heavy rests on my hip. “Wait. Is that okay? I don’t want to touch you there if it hurts.”
I smile and look back at him over my shoulder. “My uterus is not in my hip. It’s okay. But friends don’t usually touch each other there when they’re having a heart-to-heart, just saying.”
Beau lets out a quiet growl and then says, “Well, we’re not friends. At least, I don’t want to be just friends.”
“A relationship is too much work. You already have too much on your plate.”
“I know. So I’m taking some things off of it.”
I roll to face him. “You’re not quitting coaching, are you? The kids will be devastated.”
“Fuck no,” he snorts. “I’m quitting teaching.”
If this is a pregnant pause, it’s having octuplets. Does he not get what happens if he doesn’t teach?
