Page 82 of Dirty Player
“Your dad do this with you?”
He’d mentioned his parents a few times, but most of it was in passing.
“Of course,” he replied. “Every day when we were done working on the farm, he’d have me out in the backyard throwing passes.”
“Are you close?”
“Close as we can get, I suppose. He never really understood my passion for football, and I think a part of him still wishes I had stayed close and taken over their farm. But he’s also always been supportive of me, behind me a hundred percent. Both of my parents were.”
“It’s good you had that.” A small wave of sadness rolled over me.
“Your mom wasn’t like that?”
Unlike Oliver, Beaux and I had pretty much done everything on our own, always. “Mom tried to support us, and she did with her words, but she was always so busy working that she didn’t have the time to do much else.”
He caught my next pass and tucked it under his arm before he started walking toward me. “What about your dad? Where was he?”
I snorted. “Drowning himself in a bottle of whiskey at the local bar.”
“You know who he is?” His eyebrows arched in surprise.
Shrugging, I started walking toward the picnic table where we’d left bottles of water he had picked up. “Yeah, I mean, I know his name and he lived in town. But he and my mom weren’t really together when she got pregnant, so he didn’t feel any obligation to stick around when she got knocked up. It’s not like he would have been any help. I only knew he was a worthless drunk.”
He scratched the scruff on his cheek and frowned. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what that was like, but I bet it sucked. What about Beaux’s dad?”
I scrunched my face. “My mom’s not a slut, you know.”
“I never said she was, Shannon. I’m just asking.”
I squeezed my eyes closed and exhaled a breath. “I’m sorry, I’m defensive, but neither of our stories are pretty, I guess, and you come from such a normal family.”
“All families have their problems.”
“I know.” I took another sip of water before explaining. “Beaux’s dad was a one-night stand from a time when my mom worked the front desk at a hotel. All I know is that the hotel was fancy and the patrons had money. Lots of it. She didn’t talk about it much, and I think she was ashamed, but she told me when she was sick that she was just lonely during that time. One small child, all on her own. She had a high school degree but nothing that could earn her enough money to give her kid what she wanted.”
“That sucks,” Oliver replied and set the football down on the picnic table. “I can’t imagine what that was like for any of you, really. The fact that both of you have done so well for yourselves is a testament to her and your characters.”
Tears burned the backs of my eyes and I forced myself to look away. “I miss her. All the time. I missed her when she was alive because Beaux and I were always alone, and then I missed her when she was gone.”
His hand reached out and cupped the side of my neck, and his thumb began making small movements just beneath my chin. “How’d she die?”
“Exhaustion, I think. She was never officially diagnosed with a cause of death other than heart failure.” Tears began blurring my vision as the memories slammed into my mind. “She got pneumonia one winter and didn’t have paid time off. So she kept working, and it took forever for her to get better. But she never really did, either. She kept getting sick, kept refusing to go to the hospital because she didn’t have the insurance to pay for it. Once she lost her jobs and kept getting sicker, I think she just gave up.”
His hand at my neck tightened and he tugged me forward until my forehead hit his chest. His other arm wrapped around my lower back and he held me against him while I began to cry. Swaying back and forth, he held me close, letting me expel all the emotions I worked so hard to keep bottled up.
And it was in that moment, with the sun beating down on us, the rustling of a breeze through the trees and the waves lapping against the shore the only sounds around us, I knew I was falling in deep.
So deep I was drowning, but didn’t want anyone to rescue me.
I pulled back and wiped my tears away, my smile shaky when I looked up at Oliver. The understanding in his eyes made all his hardened features seem softer and made my breath catch in my throat.
“Sorry,” I whispered, cleaning up my cheeks.
“Don’t be.” He leaned down and kissed my cheek, my jaw, my lips, back by my ear. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You ready to go?”
“Yeah.” I sniffed one more time. I erased the sadness in my eyes and grinned, biting my tongue between my teeth. “I still have more things planned for tonight anyway.”
His soft grin turned wicked. “Then by all means, let’s go home.”
