Caleb looked hard at where Mel’s truck reappeared on the gravel drive. “That better be a promise you’re ready to keep…asshole.”
Though he muttered the insult, Dan both heard it and wasn’t affected by it. If anything, he felt at least moderately better Caleb cared, no matter how poorly he showed it.
When Mel stepped out of the truck, he stepped toward her, because she looked like she needed it. At the same time, Caleb stepped back, as if he couldn’t handle the utter confusion and hurt written all over Mel’s face.
He wanted to call Caleb an asshole, but he’d been in Caleb’s shoes before too. So, instead, he offered Mel what he could. Maybe he could be some kind of an example.
Who would have thought?
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“She’s settled. For now.” Mel rubbed her temples. “You need to get back.” Before he could argue, she pressed on. “Herd of llamas. Friday morning. You need to head back and finish that to-do list. You can…” She trailed off and looked at Caleb, at the way he was all but shrinking into the porch. “You can pick me up at seven. I’ll be ready to go home with you then.”
Go home. With you. She’d probably never know what those words meant, but someday when they had a moment alone without all their issues crowding together, he’d tell her. And maybe tell her other things too.
“Please don’t argue.”
He shook his head and held up his hands. “Not making your life harder, remember?” He leaned in and brushed a kiss over her mouth, ignoring the way she didn’t reciprocate. Mel had bigger fish to fry at the moment, and hopefully she’d fry Caleb into some action. “I’ll be back at seven.”
“Thank you.”
“Anytime, honey.” He offered his best charming smile and walked to her truck, even though it killed him a little bit to do it. Unfortunately, she needed family time, and for this portion, that didn’t require him.
He climbed into her truck and looked at her one last time. She offered the tiniest of smiles, the most pathetic of waves, and he wanted to stay. He really did. But she turned to face her brother, and that was not his fight.
As much as he wanted to step in and take that for her.
Instead, he turned around in the drive and headed back to Blue Valley. The sturdiness and longevity no longer haunted him, no longer gave him the heebie-jeebies. It was all a little daunting, but not something he couldn’t handle.
Even when his phone rang, his mouth was curved in a smile at that thought. “Sharpe.”
“Dan.”
At the sound of his father’s voice, all that confidence shriveled up. It didn’t die, exactly, but it shrunk and went skittering somewhere in the back of his rib cage.
“Scott called,” Dad said tonelessly.
Well, shit. “And told you I declined the tryout invitation.”
Dad sighed audibly, and Dad was not a sigher. “Yes, that is what he told me.”
“My decision on that stands, Dad. I’m sorry if that disappoints you.” It was somewhat shocking to realize that he was sorry, but not the guilt-laden, beat-himself-up sorry he would have been years ago. This was a little pang, and one he’d move on from relatively quickly.
Because it was the right fucking choice, and he was old enough and strong enough to know that. To believe it. That belief didn’t shake at the sound of his father’s voice. Not too much anyway.
“Dan, you know I hesitate to give you advice. I’ve always wanted you to make your own choices, but… This looks poorly on me. On you. It’s throwing away everything you’ve worked for. If you can’t handle the scrutiny, we can work with Scott and maybe a better publicist to—”
“It’s not the scrutiny I can’t take,” he interrupted through gritted teeth. “Both Scott and you wanted me to get away for a bit.”
“Yes, a bit. Not forever. Son, you can’t give up on hockey right now. There is a team that will take you, and even if it’s only for a year, it will erase a lot of the bad press. Then you can still get a job with another team. I can’t hire you myself, of course, that’d look bad, but I can pull some strings and—”
“I was never meant for management.” He had never had doubts about that, or an interest in changing that. “And since I can’t play hockey forever, this…what I’m doing here is something important.”
“You could coach. Scout. There are—”
“That’s you, Dad. It was… I love that game, but it’s different than the way you love it. If I can’t play, I don’t… Playing is all I ever wanted.”
“You could still do that. For at least a year. I played until I was thirty-nine, and you haven’t had nearly as many concussions as I have. Your mother and I—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what? Mom and you? You’ve been in contact?” Dan had to stop the truck, so he pulled into a spot in front of Georgia’s.
“We’ve exchanged a few emails and a phone call in the past few weeks.”