The Right Swipe (Modern Love, #1)(54)

“My dad died when I was young. I was too small to really know him, but I had my mom.” She might drive Rhiannon crazy, but she loved Sonya.

“What’s your mom like?”

“Guilt trippy, but she loves and supports me in her way. She lives in Chicago, but travels a lot.”

“Do you wish she lived closer?”

Rhiannon grimaced. “I should. But no. We’re both a little too power hungry to live in the same house.”

“You both like to be head of the household?”

“Basically.”

“One brother, right?”

Rhiannon nodded. “Younger, yes.”

“I always wished I had siblings.”

“I don’t know how I would have dealt with being an only child.”

“My parents made sure I was never too lonely.”

“You look like them. Your father, especially.”

“I know.” He picked up the photo and looked down at it. That was when she noted the air of preoccupied sadness clinging to him. Had it been there since she’d walked in? Or was it in response to this conversation?

She stuffed her feelings down for a minute and moved close enough to study the picture with him. “Had you just won some important game?” she asked.

He nodded, still staring at the photo. His finger traced his mother’s face. “Yeah. My dad was really proud I was following in the family footsteps. This was before the Switch.”

“The Switch?”

He blinked at her, and shook his head. “Sorry. That was what my mom called it. A nice euphemism.” His laugh was hard and unexpected.

She hesitated. This was veering fast into personal territory, and she wasn’t sure how personal she should get with this man, when they’d already blurred so many lines, but . . . “A euphemism for what?”

His lips flattened into a tight line, and she wondered if he would answer her, but he finally did. “Right before I started college, my dad started having issues.”

“What kind of issues?”

“He’d get angry. Depressed. At first, it wasn’t too bad. My mom and I chalked it up to him not having enough to do. She tried to get him involved in activities, hobbies. Ballroom dancing with her, golf. Whatever might get him out of the house. Every month, it was like he got worse, the episodes getting longer. We took him to different doctors, neurologists, psychiatrists.”

Ah. She didn’t watch sports, but she heard what was going on in the news. “CTE.”

“Yeah. He played pro for seventeen years. He’d had God knows how many concussions, let alone subconcussive hits.” Samson shoved his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. “The episodes escalated. He stopped coming to my college games. Barely paid attention when I was drafted. He holed up in the house, drank, gambled, raged. My mom made excuses. I don’t think he ever laid hands on her, but I was always scared for her. Not that I expected her to leave him. I couldn’t leave him, no matter how angry my face made him, toward the end.” He cast her a quiet, anguished look, and Rhiannon’s heart clenched.

Samson’s affable charm was such a huge part of his personality it was startling to see something else in its place. She placed her palm on his back, wishing she could absorb some of his pain for him.

It’s dangerous to care this much.

Nah. She’d be concerned about what kind of a person she was, if she could coolly turn the subject to business right now. Bluster over how strong and tough she was aside, she’d never been someone who walked away from another’s pain.

Especially someone she kind of, well, liked.

“Do you know what it’s like, to love someone who hurts you? Because you know they can’t help how they act?”

Her fingers spasmed. “I know how it feels to love someone who turns out to be someone other than who you think they are. It’s not quite the same, though.”

The corners of his lips turned down. “Not quite.”

“I’m guessing it was difficult to get him help?”

“We tried. The league denied us more disability. Said their doctors had found no definitive link between playing football and long-term neurological issues.” His smile was bitter. “We had independent research proving otherwise. In the end, he died as we were filing an appeal.”

It took a second to connect the dots and the timeline. “He passed away . . . while you were playing pro? And you knew that his behavior was linked to concussive injuries?” That must have been a conflict for Samson.

“You’re wondering why I didn’t quit immediately?”

“No, not at all.”

“You should. I wondered.” He lifted a shoulder. “Even after I got the diagnosis, I tried to convince myself I was wrong, that my dad was a unique case. Deep down, I knew I was fooling myself. I only needed something to push me into realizing it.”

Realization dawned. “Your friend. The one you walked for.”

“Dean.” He put the frame down and gestured at the other photo, the one of him and his goddaughter. “When the reporters asked why I was retiring, I said I feared players’ head injuries weren’t being managed properly. The press went nuts, especially since my dad’s death was so fresh. There were already rumblings of the class action coming.” His words were halting. “I know the league was my employer, not my friend. But they spend all this time—the coaches, the media, my teammates—they tell you you’re part of a family. And it was like my family turned on me. My coach said I walked ’cause I couldn’t handle the pressure. Our quarterback said I was a traitor, that I’d left the team when they really needed me. I went from the Charm to the Curse.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that.”