Blake Russo must have really taken the advice I’d given him to heart because that Saturday he led our team in a win against the Vikings.
And the following week at home, he did it again.
It was invigorating — for him and the team and the coaching staff, too. All the odds had been stacked against us, but the backup quarterback had shown grit, and the team had pulled together, and we had won.
It should have been invigorating for me, too. It was what I’d wanted.
And yet, I felt the all-too-familiar sting of being useless.
And even worse — the team had been fine without me.
I never spoke those selfish, whiny, child-like thoughts out loud, not when we were on the road and not when we were back at the stadium, either. But they were there, deeply rooted in my chest and the seeded fear I’d always had of being defective, of not being needed.
I woke with night sweats, panic zipping through my spine like lightning at the realization that this could be it for me, it could all be over. I saw the draft slipping out of my fingers no matter how I tried to tighten my grip, saw scouts turning their gaze to other prospects with me on the bench.
Inside, I was treading water in a sea of doubt and fear.
But on the outside, I was the same Holden Moore — level-headed and sure, calm, encouraging.
I had to be.
And it was being captain that kept me going, that gave me the life raft to stop myself from drowning.
The wins lit a fire in me, just like they did the rest of the team. Whereas they worked harder on the practice field, readying themselves for our next home game that weekend, I pushed myself to the edge every day in rehab. The steroid shot had me feeling good, along with the exercises we’d been doing and the anti-inflammatories. I’d rested, and then I’d stretched, and then I’d introduced movement, and then I’d strengthened that movement. We were already introducing the passing motion, and it felt good.
I felt good.
Now, I was anxious to get back on the field.
I knew better than to push, than to ask Julep or JB or any of the other training staff to put me in before they recommended it. I was almost afraid to ask, like if I pushed too soon, it’d raise their warning flags and they’d hold me back even longer.
So, I showed them I was ready through physical therapy, through ignoring any little grimace of pain I might have felt and proving I could perform despite it. No, I wasn’t in perfect condition yet, but that would come with time. With practice.
With being back out there with my team.
If I was in the NFL, I’d already have been on the starting line-up. When money was involved, everything was different. But as it was now, the university was responsible for my well-being and health, and as much as I hated it, I was a liability.
They weren’t going to rush it.
The Thursday before our home game, I stretched out on the table after a grueling session of PT with Julep, sweat sluicing over my skin as I did. My chest heaved for a while as I lay there, as she carefully stretched my shoulder while it was warm.
She’d been all business since the party at the Pit more than two weeks ago.
I didn’t push her, not that night when every inhibition I had told me not to let her go, not to release her without kissing her first, when everything inside me yearned to claim her and show that I could have her — would have her.
And certainly not once I woke the next morning, sober enough to realize that she had been right.
Thank fuck she’d been the smart one, the strong one, to realize that line we toed was one we could never pass over. I understood that fact just as much as she did, but that night, with my judgment impaired…
I hadn’t cared.
I’d been willing to risk it all.
It had been hard for her to meet my eyes that next day in training, but once she did, it was as if nothing had happened at all. I cracked a joke, and she shot a one-liner back at me. And that was it.
Business as usual.
It’d been that way ever since.
“You’ve really progressed,” she said as she maneuvered my elbow and wrist this way and that, testing my shoulder’s limits. “Your recovery is going better than even I speculated.”
Hope ballooned in my chest, but I didn’t dare ask what that meant, and Julep dropped it just as quickly as she’d brought it up, instructing me to roll over onto my stomach for deep tissue work.
We were both quiet as she massaged my neck and shoulder, my upper back, all the little muscles and tendons that needed to be worked out. Those quiet minutes lulled me into a stupor, my heavy heart and mind begging me to sink into oblivion. I was so exhausted from training, from the mental and physical aspect of it all, that I succumbed, a long exhale bringing me the last bit of relaxation I needed to release.
In my half-dream state, Julep’s hands felt even warmer, firmer where they squeezed and rubbed. I inhaled deep, soaking in each touch, groaning a little when she dug her thumb into a sore spot that brought on as much pain as it did pleasure.
I knew without being able to see her that she was grinning. The little sadist loved bringing me pain.
It made me wonder if she’d dig those nails into my flesh if I ever had the chance to lay her back, if she’d bite my lip enough to draw blood if I dared to steal a kiss.
I’d wanted to so badly that night in the garden.
It had made me dizzy, made me sick when she’d told me to stop, when she’d said goodnight and pulled away just enough for me to let her go. I’d been intoxicated by her, drawn into her web and willing to lay my entire life on the line for just one taste.
That desire hadn’t ebbed, not even as my intelligence took over and reminded me all the reasons nothing between us could ever happen. It didn’t stop me from storming up to my shower that night, running it hot, and stroking myself to the thought of taking her. It didn’t stop me from daydreaming every time I’d seen her since. It didn’t stop me from fantasizing about how she would respond if I broke loose of the constraints I’d tied myself up with and said fuck it all, pushing her against the nearest wall and hiking her thigh up, skating my fingers between her legs…
“Roll over,” she commanded, and I did so as those words drifted to me through a fog only a massage could bring on.
I kept my eyes closed, sighing contently as I rolled onto my back and waited for her to start working on the front part of my shoulder.
Instead, a soft laugh floated into the shell of my ear.
I creaked one eye open and then the next, Julep framed in a halo from the fluorescent light above her. She wore an amused smile, and through my exhausted, sated massage haze, she almost looked like an angel.
“What’s so funny?” I mused with a smirk of my own.
“Oh, nothing,” she said, folding one arm over her chest and balancing the elbow of the opposite on top of it. She rested her chin on her knuckles, rolling her lips together before she released them with a pop. She pointed at my crotch at the same time. “Just saying hello to my new friend, that’s all.”
I frowned, following the direction of her finger.
And then cursed.
I had a raging fucking hard-on, my cock at full attention, straining against my shorts.
I sat up, adjusting myself as Julep laughed and laughed. My cheeks flamed with embarrassment, but the longer I watched her laughing, the longer I heard that rare, fucking perfect sound coming from her, the less I cared.
I smiled, too, and leaned back on my hands, shaking my head. “It amuses you, does it?”
“Oh, very much so,” she managed between her laughs. She was holding her side now, tears flooding her eyes.
“Who’s the twelve-year-old now?” I teased.
She just howled more.
I couldn’t help but watch her, and even though she was laughing at my expense, I felt some sort of pride in getting that sound out of her at all. I waited until she calmed, and she rested one hand on the edge of the table, the other still holding her side as her eyes found mine.
Silence fell over us like a warm blanket, shielding us from the outside world. Her face evened out as her breath shallowed, and I held her weighted gaze as long as I could before she shook me free and stood straight again.
“Well, I have a boner killer,” she announced, and she actually had the decency to look a little apologetic as she wiped a tear from her eye. “Holden… you’re going to be out again this game.”
All joy left me with those words.
I flopped back on the table, sighing. “Perfect.”
Julep didn’t try to comfort me, didn’t try to assure me everything would be okay and I’d be out there soon. I appreciated that, that she didn’t lie, didn’t make any promises she couldn’t keep. She was calling the shots as she saw them in that moment, not a future one.
Right now, I couldn’t play.
It was as simple and awful as that.
After a moment, she leaned against the edge of the table, half-seated, as she said, “We’re making progress. Your strength has improved ten-fold.”
Both true.
Neither enough to soothe the burning in my chest.
I nodded, sitting up again. “Well, I guess I can look forward to another game of me showing up bright and early like always, except instead of having purpose, I just look like a lost puppy now.”
Julep offered a sympathetic smile. “Why do you show up early if you don’t need to?”
I shrugged. “Because I always have.”
She nodded, considering, and then said, “What if we changed it up a bit, did something before the game to take your mind off things?”
Surprise made me sit up more. “You want to hang out with me, Polerina?”
“Never mind,” she said instantly, lips flat.
“No, no,” I said, reaching for her as she stood up and started to walk away. I didn’t touch her though, just ran a hand back through my hair. “It’s just… it’s an early game,” I reminded her. “Kick off is at noon. I may not need to get here early, but what could we possibly do before official team report time at ten?”
Something in her eyes told me she regretted making the suggestion, but still, her lips curled into a smile. “I have an idea.”
Julep
“A yard sale?”
Holden made a face, blinking at the hand-written sign with balloons that had an arrow pointing down a narrow street before he turned to look at me. I just smiled and hit the blinker, heading toward our first stop.
“Maybe a few, if you’re lucky,” I corrected, and I reached between my seat and console, fishing out a small stack of papers that I handed to him.
“You actually mapped out a plan,” he mused, cocking an eyebrow as he filtered through the pages. I had red circles with numbered ratings in all the suburbs surrounding the city.
“Oh, you’ve got to. Every bargain hunter knows that. You scope out the best neighborhoods first, early — before anyone else gets there. And of course, you want to try to avoid driving back and forth across town, get the best routes. But then again, it’s worth the gas and the time to hit the most coveted spots first.”
If I hadn’t been watching the road, I would have been smiling at Holden’s expression, his jaw a bit unhinged as he listened to me.
“Who are you?” he asked.
I just laughed.
Leaves rained down overhead as we drove a beautiful street of brick houses with lush, expansive yards. It was one of those perfect fall days, the sky gray and cloudy, breeze rushing in a cool front that would likely wash away the last bit of summer that had been trying to hold on to New England. Growing up down south, I never had much of a fall, so I marveled at the trees changing colors, and felt a true sense of joy for the first time in ages all because I could wear jeans and a sweater without sweating my ass off.
“It’s a perfect day for football,” Holden mused, looking out the window like he, too, was appreciating the sudden rush of fall.
“No football talk this morning.”
He arched a brow at me. “It’s game day.”
“Who cares? You’re not playing.”
His face sagged, and I inwardly cursed at my social inability to recognize when something like that was inappropriate to say, when it might hurt.
“What I mean is that today, we’re going to shift focus from what we can’t control to what we can,” I amended, and even I was impressed at how adult that sounded. Holden seemed surprised by the statement, too, judging by the way his expression softened.
“Which is, by your definition, hitting all the best yard and garage sales in Boston before nine AM?”
“Precisely.”
We pulled up to a nice house, modest in size but with a kept lawn and a literal white picket fence. The really nice houses never had yard sales. They were rich enough that they usually just donated their lot or had someone who worked for them take care of it. Estate sales were the real jackpots, huge mansions with antiques galore. But I hadn’t found any for today, so yard sales would have to do.
I parked along the curb, and a forest green minivan pulled in right behind me. An elderly woman hopped out of the driver seat like it was on fire, giving me a look over her glasses that said she would trip me with her walker if I dared to get in her way.
I nodded my head in a sign of respect, which made her lift her chin a bit before she made her way up the small driveway toward the sale.
“I didn’t realize how brutal these things got,” Holden murmured, his brow reaching for his hairline as he joined me on the driver side of the car.
“Oh, you have no idea.”
He followed me up the drive to the sale, which hadn’t even been touched yet. It was just past seven in the morning, and the owners of the house were still setting up, but they greeted us and the older woman with wide smiles.
“Good morning,” the female owner said. She looked to be in her fifties, with brown skin and black hair that showed a touch of gray at the roots, and oversized, wire-rimmed glasses that gave her a warm, studious vibe. She dropped a box of toys on one of the folding tables. “No price tags, just make an offer if you see something you like. I’m Geraldine, and this is my husband, Howard,” she said.
Her husband didn’t look as pleased to be up this early moving boxes, but he managed a smile and lifted one of his large hands at us in greeting before he got back to moving an old dresser out of the garage and into the driveway.
We thanked them, along with the older woman who was already perusing the first table, before I led Holden to start on the opposite side.
“There’s so much stuff,” he commented.
“Which just makes the treasure hunt that much more exciting.”
He picked up a strange figurine that looked like something between a long neck dinosaur and a Pegasus, eyeballing it every which way before shaking his head and setting it back down.
We ambled slowly along the tables and racks, and after a while, I felt like Holden was watching me more than any of the items for sale. I peeked at him over my shoulder as I picked up what looked like an oddly shaped, dusty piece of metal at first, but on closer inspection I discovered was a Baroque hand mirror. I ran a thumb over the dust, revealing beautiful rose details on the back. The mirror itself was in good shape, too — just needed a little cleaning.
“Jackpot,” I muttered under my breath.
“What is—”
I turned away from Holden before he could finish his question, holding the mirror up to Geraldine. “Five bucks?”
She barely looked up from where she was setting up a full china set. “Deal,” she said with a smile.
I smiled, too, opening the reusable bag I had with me and carefully dropping the mirror inside it before I readjusted the straps on my shoulder.
Holden chuckled, following me as I continued scanning the table. “I take it you’re a pro at this.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said. “But I’ve been doing it my whole life.”
“What do you do with all this… stuff?” he asked, picking up an old tool that was far too rusted to be on sale.
“What do you mean, what do I do with it?” I asked on a laugh. “I use it. I hang the art on my walls, polish the vases and fill them with flowers, line my cabinets with old glassware and dishes, stuff my closet full of gently used clothes.” I shrugged. “There’s already so much stuff in the world. Why buy something new when you can have something with memories attached to it, something with history? Every single thing you see here has a story.” I picked up an old, worn, heavily read edition of The Feminine Mystique. “It has character.”
I held up the book, then, turning to Geraldine.
“How much for the book?” I asked.
She shrugged, unsure. “Two bucks?”
I nodded, signaling it was a fair price before I dropped it in the bag.
Holden smiled. “This explains what you wore to the party at the Pit that night.”
“What do you mean?”
“The vintage-looking top, the bizarre heels, the leather pants that looked like something my mom would have worn in the 80s.”
I folded my arms over my chest, leaning a hip against the table. “You really were watching me all night, weren’t you, Cap?”
His eyes caught mine, but before they could dig their claws in and hold me captive, I turned and headed for the next table over.
“You said you’ve been doing this your whole life,” he mused as he followed me. “Who got you into it?”
I smiled — and not the fake or forced kind of smile, but the genuine kind that bloomed from the memory in my mind. “Grandma. My dad’s mom. She used to take me and Abby every Saturday in the summer. We’d stay with her for a few weeks while Dad did football camps, and she’d drag us out of bed groaning and complaining before the sun was even up. But we always gave in because we knew she’d buy us something.” I chuckled. “And she always made us coffee on Saturdays, which made us feel like adults. It was mostly milk and sugar, but still.”
Holden mirrored my smile. “Who’s Abby?”
Ice water washed over me, through me, and I paused where my hand hovered over a delicate teacup. Even my heart seemed to hesitate, taking a long breath before it began beating again, a little more unsteady than before.
“My sister,” I finally breathed. Then, I lifted my eyes to find Holden. “She died the summer before my senior year of high school. She was sixteen.”
Holden looked as if I’d reared back and slapped him, as if he was both shocked and in pain from my admission.
“I didn’t know,” he finally said.
I shrugged. “Not many people do.”
I continued walking, and though my heart was still unsteady, I found my next breath a little easier.
Holden fell quiet, spending some time sifting through old CDs. He plucked a few from the stack and offered Geraldine two dollars each, which she agreed to. I opened my bag for him to drop them in, smirking a little when I noticed the old Aaron Lewis album.
“So, yard sales are to you what gardening is to me,” he mused, pausing at an old casserole dish.
I frowned, confused.
“It’s a way to keep her with you,” he said when I didn’t reply. “A way to live a little piece of her life in your own.”
He looked at me then, and tears pricked the corners of my eyes unbidden when he did. Because I’d never been so nailed down like that, never had someone look at me with the same kind of pain and horror mirrored in their gaze.
I’d never been seen.
It was like he’d lifted up the rock I’d been hiding under, blinding me with sunlight as he peered down at me with a magnifying glass.
And he didn’t run at the sight of what he found.
But then again, he didn’t know the whole story.
“Oh, that would be a lovely piece for a couple,” Geraldine said as she brushed past us with an arm full of blankets. She tilted a chin up at the orange, yellow, and white casserole dish Holden still touched. “It was my grandmother’s. She and grandpa were married for sixty-two years. I’d keep it if we didn’t already have so many.”
Holden pulled his hand back. “Oh, we’re not—”
“Ten bucks?” I interrupted.
Geraldine looked at Holden, then at me, a knowing grin spreading on her weathered face as she winked at me.
“Deal.”
