The Right Swipe (Modern Love, #1)(52)

Dean glanced back and forth between them. Miley was due for a nap soon, but Samson knew his friend wouldn’t leave if he thought Samson needed him. “I guess . . .”

“Go on. Trevor and I will have a quick chat, and then we don’t ever have to talk again.” He kept his tone pleasant, though his stomach was coiled into a knot.

Trevor was smart, confronting him in a public place like this. Samson wouldn’t, couldn’t, make a scene. Too many people knew who they both were.

The last thing he wanted was another wave of headlines pitting him and Trevor against each other.

“He’s loyal to you, all right,” Trevor said, after Dean gathered up his baby and left, with another warning glare for Trevor.

“That’s what friends and teammates are. Loyal.”

Trevor flinched, probably because he’d said almost that sentence, verbatim, to a journalist the day Samson had walked mid-game, but he stayed seated. “Like I said, you have every right to hate me. But this isn’t about me. It’s about something bigger than both of us.”

“You always were dramatic.”

Trevor was silent for a beat. “I don’t know how much Harris has told you, but I’m starting a nonprofit. For retired players who are showing signs of CTE but can’t access the NFL settlement, either because they were denied, or because their symptoms don’t fit in the covered class.” When Samson stared at him blankly, Trevor continued. “The settlement only covers a narrow window of neurological, degenerative diseases like ALS or Parkinson’s. There are players out there with anger, depression, suicidal ideation. They have to cobble together their own emotional and financial resources. I want to create a central place they can go to for assistance.”

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“What?”

“You’re going to be the face of a CTE organization?”

“No, actually. I was hoping you would be.”

Samson’s laugh was short. “Are you serious?”

“We’re serious. I’m serious.”

“There are a lot of players, current and former, who are more famous than me,” he said flatly.

“Your career aside, you’re a Lima.” Trevor spread his hands out. “The son and nephew of two beloved players. Your father’s case made that settlement possible. The irony is, he wouldn’t even be eligible for compensation from it if he was still alive. Both because he retired before the cut-off, and because he didn’t have the right diagnosis. Your uncle—”

“My uncle’s results are not back yet,” Samson snapped. With every word Trevor was saying the throbbing at the base of his skull grew. He didn’t want to think about where his uncle’s brain was, or who was poring over it, or when the results would come. Bad enough when it had been his father, though he’d prayed for an explanation then.

He knew exactly what had caused his uncle’s decline, he didn’t need the confirmation.

Trevor dipped his head, acknowledging what he must have realized was a sensitive subject. “You quit the game,” he continued, in an even softer tone. “At the height of your career, loudly and publicly, because you disagreed with how head injuries were being managed. You were one of the first to take a stand for yourself and other players. In the history of activism for this condition, you are an icon.”

Samson linked his hands together under the tablecloth. Another person might say they were shaking, but he was a big, strong man. Big strong men’s hands didn’t shake.

He’d played football for four years after his dad died. Four years of being gaslit by his employers about how the scientists who had studied his father’s brain matter didn’t know what they were talking about, and that Aleki had been a special, unusual case.

On the day Samson had retired, when he’d knelt next to Dean, he hadn’t been thinking about activism. He’d been thinking about his dad. And how, if people had stopped Aleki from going out in the field with concussions, maybe he wouldn’t have suffered as much as he had in his final years.

“You’re forgetting part of that story,” Samson said, his voice hoarse. “When I left the field, you declared me a coward and a traitor.” A curse.

“I did.” Trevor’s shoulders hunched forward. “I absolutely did. I’m so sorry. It was a different—”

“I don’t want your excuses. I’m out here to help out a family friend, that’s all. It has nothing to do with CTE or the NFL or football.”

Trevor’s brow furrowed. “Man, haven’t you been looking at how the sports world is covering this? Whether you want to or not, your whole past, your father, your uncle, it’s all getting rehashed. I’m not the only one calling you an icon.”

Samson’s shoulders tightened, like there was a target painted on his back. “I stopped caring what that world thought of me a long time ago.” He dropped a wad of cash on the table, not looking to sort out how much was there, just eager to get gone. The waitress could have a big tip.

“Samson . . . I retired because I started having depressive episodes.”

Samson froze. Trevor’s voice lowered. “It was bad. I couldn’t play, I couldn’t get out of bed. After I quit, it got worse. I had other mood changes. Paranoia, anger. I’d pick fights with my girlfriend, stupid fights, sometimes over the same damn thing again and again. She finally left me one day when I accused her of stealing my phone. I couldn’t stop yelling at her.” Trevor’s jaw worked. “She took our son. I only get to see him in supervised settings now. I actually don’t mind that. I’d never hurt him, but I don’t know.”