All This Time(30)

“Everything all right?” my mom asks.

“Yep,” I say as I fill a glass with water and take a quick sip. “It’s all good.” I can feel her eyes on me, prodding for more. “Maybe,” I start to say, and she perks up, eager for more information. “Maybe you can promise me you’ll actually work late next time? Instead of, you know, ruining my plans.”

She gives me a guilty smile before agreeing.

“You hungry?” I motion to the uneaten plates.

She laughs, scooping them up to reheat. “Starving. I’ve been eyeing them since you left.”

We’ve barely started eating when there’s a knock on the back door. We look over, the hinges creaking as Sam steps inside, grinning wide and holding a six-pack of beer.

Crap.

Sam knows my mom usually stays late at work on Fridays, but he hasn’t just shown up like this since before the accident.

“Hey,” he says as he holds up the six-pack. “Thought we could hang.”

I frantically gesture to him to hide it, but it’s too late. His eyes widen instantly when he sees my mom, and he quickly tries to hide the beer behind his back, but nothing gets past Lydia Lafferty.

She gets up and grabs them right from his grip, clutching the six-pack to her chest. “How thoughtful, Sam! How did you know I love a good IPA?”

“Oh, come on, Mrs. L.,” Sam says, smirking and throwing an arm over her shoulder. Sam could charm anyone. “I feel like I’ve aged three years in the last three months. How about you, Kyle? You feeling twenty-one?”

“Maybe even twenty-two,” I say, grinning at him as my mom rolls her eyes at the both of us.

“Nice try, boys,” she says, pretending to not find our antics even a little bit funny, but I can see the corner of her mouth pulling up into a smile.

Sam sighs and plunks down on one of the kitchen chairs, nodding to the remnants of dinner.

“That’s a fancy meal,” Sam says, leaning over to give the rib eye a sniff. “What’s the occasion, Mrs. L.?”

“No occasion,” my mom says. She glances over at me, hesitating.

“What? What’s that look?” Sam asks me, his gaze confused, and my stomach sinks.

I know, even before saying it, that he isn’t going to understand.





15


I pull my backpack farther up on my shoulder the next morning, finally taking up Sam’s invite to join the Saturday touch football game at the park. I told him a few days ago I’d come, but after last night…

I see his jaw lock as he looks over at me from the middle of a group of guys. As I get closer, he spins on his heel, intentionally walking away from them. Away from me.

… I kind of wish I’d bailed.

I catch sight of Dave and Paul, two guys from our team who have stayed in town and started working. I hesitate, my stomach twisting a little more. I never replied to any of their texts. I really don’t need more people on this field to be pissed at me.

The worry is instantly washed away, though, when Paul looks straight at me, his face breaking out into a huge smile. “No shit.”

Dave spins around to see what he’s looking at, his mop of blond hair pulled up into a man bun. “Lafferty! Good to see you, man.”

“You too,” I say as Paul throws an arm around my shoulder.

At least someone isn’t pissed to see me. I can practically feel Sam’s passive-aggressive rage radiating at me from his fake-ass hamstring stretches a few feet away.

He knows now that I’ve been hanging out with Marley, but I can’t figure out why he’s being so weird about it. Maybe because he just left instead of letting me explain.

The silent treatment was always Kim’s move, not Sam’s.

“You look good,” Paul says as Dave nods in agreement.

“It’s been rough, but I’m getting back out there,” I say, which is somehow both an understatement and an overstatement at the same time. This is the most people I’ve been around in months.

“That’s awesome, bro. Glad you came,” Dave says, smiling as he hands me the football he’s been holding.

I look down at it, rolling it between my hands, the feeling like coming home. We divide into teams, the rest of the players people from last year’s JV team, now promoted to varsity after our departure.

When we circle up for the first play, Sam stands off to the side, making a show of disagreeing with everything I say.

Great. Here we go.

As we get into formation, he brushes past me a little too hard to be accidental. “It’s just like changing channels for you, isn’t it?”

“What?” I ask as he sets up on the line, his back to me.

“You know what.”

I ignore him and call the play, my eyes following him down the length of the field, a defender hot on his tail. I opt to throw a short pass to Paul for the sake of gaining a couple of yards. He catches it, but he’s tapped by a lineman almost immediately, ending the play.

Sam jogs back over, his chest heaving. “Nothing?” he asks, raising his eyebrows expectantly. “You’ve got nothing to say? Maybe we should ask Marley what she thinks.”

There it is. Out in the open. Fucking finally.

“Let it go, Sam,” I mutter as Paul hands the ball back to me.