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CASS
“Alright, boys.”Coach Malone claps his hands together, blowing his whistle a second later. I wince at the sharp noise, too loud in the confined space of the locker room. “Good job today. Morgan,” he snaps his fingers before pointing at me, one of my new coach’s more annoying habits. “Nice hustle.”
Like usual, I only acknowledge him with a grunt and a nod, keeping my gaze low, focusing on toeing off my cleats and kicking them into my cubby. Like usual, Malone is unfazed. I’m waiting for the day when he starts taking my lack of real replies personally. And for the day I’d care. As of now, though, as I ease myself onto the bench splitting the room down the middle, I only care about my bones creaking in protest; all thatnice hustlingI did has a price, and I’m paying it.
“Smile, Cassie.” A hand clamps down my shoulder, making me wince. “Don’t you know we won?”
Shrugging off my teammate, I hide another pained reaction—the last person I want to know about my newly aggravated old injury is Sal. I’m not sure when my shoulder started hurting like a motherfucker again; I just know it did, and with a bone-deep kind of pain that doesn’t relent until I get more than a couple of painkillers in my system and smother on an eye-wateringly thick layer of Icy Hot. “Don’t call me that.”
Sal pouts as he plops down next to me, straddling the bench and starting to work his hair free from two very messy plaits. “So moody.”
Yeah, well. I have my reasons.
Getting to my feet, I grab my bag and dodge my half-naked teammates on my way out the door, not interested in celebrating with people I barely know—not for their lack of trying, but entirely because of mine—or in showering here; I shower back at my hotel so no one sees me struggle to lift my jersey over my head. But I’ve got to get out quick and, most importantly, unnoticed before someone starts hounding me for an interview, and flying under the radar isn’t exactly what the man on my tail is known for. “Fuck off, Rodés,” I call over my shoulder, growling it again when he darts in front of me, stopping me in my tracks.
“Dude, c’mon,” he whines with a roll of his eyes, but his expression is weirdly somber, his voice low as he hisses, “How many times do you want me to apologize, huh? I didn’t know it was a fucking secret.”
I bristle. It’s not the first time we’ve had this conversation, and something in me says it won’t be the last. Since I joined the Devils, he’s been relentless, always trying to talk, always searching for some kind of acquittal, and maybe it’s petty of me but I never entertain it.
I know he didn’t do it on purpose. I know it’s no one’s fault but mine. I know all the anger and frustration I’m feeling should only be directed at myself. But it’s nice to direct it at someone else for a change, however selfish that may be. And Sal? Fuck, Sal is so easy to be blame. Every time he opens that big, cocky mouth of his, he makes it a little easier. “It’s been, like, two months, Morgan. Get over it.”
I’d laugh at his flippant statement, and how he seems to compare a couple of months to an eternity, if the words didn’t sucker-punch me right in the gut. If they didn’t remind me of how long it’s been since I checked into the same hotel I’ve yet to check out of, since Sunday walked out and I let her, since I somehow got exactly what I wanted yet lost everything too.
When I think about that, I understand Sal’s dramatic exaggeration of a couple of months because fuck me, the last two have dragged on forever. But two more, two years, two fucking decades, could pass and I wouldn’t get over it.
Even if I felt inclined to explain, Sal wouldn’t get it. He’s me from ten years old—fuck, he’s me from a year ago. Completely focused on the game, completely incapable of loving anything more. He doesn’t know what it’s like to have everything you’ve ever wanted, everything you didn’t even know you really wanted, ripped away from you. He’s never walked away from the woman he loves, and the kid he loves just as much. So he’s standing there, frowning at me like I’m a pathetic old man, unable to comprehend why two measly fucking months isn’t enough for me to justget over it.
The mother of my child is thirty-eight weeks pregnant today and I’m not there. Our baby is as big as a mini watermelon, as the app on my phone told me this morning, reminding me of the great large strawberry debate but not bringing me nearly as much joy because I’m not there. Sunday is in the final stretch of pregnancy andI’m not therebecause Sal couldn’t keep his mouth shut and Ryan couldn’t either—a long-term problem, I discovered, when I fired him and he screamed about everything he’s done for me, andeverythingturned out to be selling stories about me and my family to keep my name in the spotlight, and telling the Wolves I didn’t want to go back to them—and John just had to exist and I combined all of that into one massive fuck-up.
Ifucked up.
It’s been agony. Not being there, not helping, not seeing her grow my kid has been nothing short of torture. I wake up every morning and she’s not there, and it sucks. I eat breakfast alone, and it sucks. I think of all the things I should be doing in these last couple of weeks of her pregnancy—packing her hospital bag, buying baby clothes, preparing an endless supply of food so we don’t have to worry about cooking—and it sucks so fucking bad that I’m not.
And something in my gut tells me these next few weeks are going to be so much worse.
* * *
I hate that I was right.
My daughter’s due date comes and goes with no avail—stubbornness is hereditary, apparently. She’s perfectly healthy—just cozy, one of my many informants told me the doctor said—and so is her mother—just pissed, another confirmed the obvious. Everyone tells me not to worry, my baby girl will come when she comes, they’ll induce if Sunday reaches forty-two weeks, there’s no need for me to come home—you’ll make it worse, the aunt of my child so kindly snapped. But despite the reassurance—for the most part—I’m still losing my mind. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t play for shit because all I can think about is Sunday. If she’s sleeping, if she’s eating, if she has the same unrelenting ball of anxiety knotted deep in her chest.
My entire day revolves around me checking my phone, and when it rings the night before the one week overdue mark, I panic.
Shouldering open the ajar bathroom door, steam follows me into the bedroom, hot and thick as a result of the blazing shower I just stepped out of. When I check the caller ID, I quickly wipe my damp hands on the towel wrapped around my waist, I answer the call with a rushed, “Everything okay?”
The young, male voice that replies doesn’t match the name flashing on my screen but I’ve learned to expect that. “I watched your game.”
Stifling a relieved sigh, I slump on the unmade bed, smiling like the boy on the other end of the call can see me. “Yeah? How’d I do?”
“Your pitch could use some work.”
My chuckle trails off when I hear a familiar hissed, “August.”
Realistically, I know that during mine and August’s almost daily phone calls, Sunday is never too far away. It is her phone he’s calling me on, after all. I don’t think about it, though. Acknowledging it makes me fucking sad, and August doesn’t deserve sad, mopey half-assed conversation. He deserves my full attention. Everything considered, the least I can do is give him that.
“Yeah,” I agree with his comment, a little to counteract his mother’s reprimand, mostly because it’s true. “Guess I’m still out of practice.”
“You kept rubbing your shoulder.”
