Page 39 of One Little Favor
“I’m sorry. I was blindsided by what she told me, and I guess it confirmed my worst fears, even though I had no reason to believe what she was saying was true. There have been moments over the last week where I’ve found it impossible to understand, impossible to believe that you want to be with someone like me.”
“Then I’m going to have to keep proving myself to you over and over, I guess.” Never put off by a challenge, he just shrugs.
“Tom, I don’t want you to feel like I am constantly making you prove yourself. That isn’t my intention at all. It’s just my own self-doubt, I guess.”
“I’m sorry that you don’t see how amazing you are,” he says. “But I will always show you how much I care about you, and hopefully in time you’ll see yourself how I see you.”
I breathe in the crisp air, and then snuggle my face into his neck, breathing him in as well. “I’d love that.”
EPILOGUE
AVERY
Twenty-one months later
“You sure you’re ready for this?” I ask my dad as he sticks a leg out over the ice.
“Are you kidding me? I was born ready.” His ruddy face is practically split in half with a smile as the blade on his skate hits the ice.
Dad pushes off on that skate, easily gliding across the ice, then pushing off with his other blade. His footwork is better than I would have expected from someone who hasn’t been on the ice in almost four years. But the intensive physical therapy he’s undergone over the last year and a half has turned him into a new man—more like the old, pre-accident version of himself. He’s optimistic and excited about life now. He’s walking fine, in less pain, and has been able to go back to work. He hates that he’s relegated to a desk job, but not-so-secretly loves being back.
I watch as Alex crosses the ice to my dad and skates backward, talking to him as if it’s perfectly normal for an old man to be skating under the Stanley Cup banner New York added to its collection the season before last. Alex managed to get the two of us tickets to that final game and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen my dad happier than he was that night—until today.
“I’ll never not be grateful to him, you know?” I say as I turn toward Alex’s wife, Petra, who has become one of my best friends in the year and a half since she came into my life.
“It was mostly Tom,” Petra tells me. “You know that, right? That man would walk through fire for you.”
I nod a solemn nod, still in awe of the way he takes care of me, cherishes me, makes me know how loved I am. “I know. And I love that he shows me that every day.” I pause and think about how he can still be a grump in the office. “But that no one else sees that side of him except me.”
“Oh honey, weallsee it.” Petra laughs, and I notice the husky sound has Alex turning toward us, gliding over the ice so quick and smooth it’s like he’s not two hundred-plus pounds of solid muscle. He stops at the opening to the rink, where I stand on the ice and Petra stands in her heeled boots on the rubber mats. He gives her a kiss on the cheek, and asks, “Where’s my girl?”
“Owen’s helping her get her skates on,” Petra tells him.
“Fucking Ramirez,” Alex says, “he’s probably flirting with her.”
“She’s eight,” Petra says dryly.
“She’s female,” Alex responds. Ramirez has a reputation, and if their daughter, Stella, were ten years older, Alex would be right to keep her away from him.
He steps onto the rubber mats and stalks down the tunnel where we can see Owen Ramirez kneeling at Stella’s feet. Her skate is on his thigh and he’s tying the laces, but it’s clear even from here that she’s bossing him around.
That kid is amazing. She’s come to my girls’ hockey skating lessons every single Sunday since I met Petra, and she’s the perfect combination of sass and sweetness.
And she knows how to lace and tie her own skates—which means she’s conned Ramirez into doing it for her. As I look at his wavy hair, flowing and loose around his collar, with his strong jaw and angular cheekbones, I can guess why.
That girl already knows how to get people to do what she wants, just like her mama.
The two men exchange a few words, Ramirez holds his hands up in the universal gesture of surrender, and Alex throws Stella over his shoulder where she shrieks and laughs. Then he’s carrying her straight past us, dropping her onto the ice, and saying, “Let’s show Avery’s dad what you can do.”
I give Petra’s arm a squeeze and skate out to where my dad is watching while Stella flies around the ice with Alex, practicing all the moves I’ve taught her. She’s a natural, and it’s too bad she’s not actually interested in playing hockey, but at least she can skate with the best of them.
“What do you think, Dad? Is being on the ice here everything you’d hoped?”
Dad glances up at the Stanley Cup banners, and then to the stands, where Mom and Tom are sitting together and chatting. Dad often calls them “two old hens,” because Tom’s always asking her for all the neighborhood gossip, and my mom loves having someone who wants to listen. I often wonder if Tom actually cares about any of it, but the reality is, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that he knows she loves to talk, and he’s happy to listen so she feels heard.
He’s a good man, that one.
Dad reaches out and knocks his closed fist lightly under my chin. “Even better, kid. Even better.”
