37. MATTHEWS

MATTHEWS

T hanksgiving came faster than expected.

I had everyone breathing down my neck about the timeline. When are you coming home? When will I have that piece? Are you finished yet? Stop wasting my time.

I had two interviews left.

The two I had been avoiding.

Dean Tucker and Ryan Cody.

Julien had called fifteen times in three days because I had missed his birthday and Bobbi had even reminded me but I just didn’t care anymore. I didn’t want to hurt him, but my heart hadn’t been Julien’s, ever. I knew that even before coming to Rhode Island, but Cael just reminded me that life didn’t have to be hard.

I hated him for it.

It was going to make it harder to leave.

“Mary.” Dean appeared from the side of the living room with two coffees in his massive hands and handed one to me. “Black,” he said, settling down onto the couch across from me in a pair of black shorts and a Hornet’s shirt that looked a size too small across his broad chest and round biceps.

“Morning,” I said, setting the coffee on the table and flipping open my binder.

The tension between the two of us had started to fizzle, but sometimes I caught him looking at me like I might spontaneously combust and take the Nest with me. The jury was still out on that one.

“How are you?” I asked him when the silence stretched too tight.

“Fine.” Dean sipped his coffee and laughed. “Probably shouldn’t do that, act like I haven’t uh…” he swallowed.

“I feel like I’m back in highschool.” I sighed.

“If it makes you feel better, I feel like that everyday.” He grimaced.

“I’m sorry. We can get this done quickly, I’m sure you have a lot to do.”

“Offseason has its perks. Take your time,” he said with the shake of his head.

He had his curls tucked neatly back and they curled at his neck. He really was handsome, glassy sea-green eyes and a big genuine smile that was full of teeth.

I asked him a few questions about his career and the team, sticking close to home and trying not to stray when he talked about moments that were definitely involving Cael. I couldn’t help it though, it was infuriating how easily distracted I could become at even the idea of him.

I wasn’t that girl anymore, I promised myself I wasn’t before coming down here, and yet… When I closed my eyes I could see Cael coming down the step behind his house, in that dumb blue shirt, a smile bright on his face and we were sixteen again. Happy again.

“Dean, do you believe the team can survive without Arlo King?” I asked him.

“I believe in the team, I believe that Arlo did everything he could to make us much more than that. We’re a family, and if anything is going to help us get through this adjustment period it’s that,” he answered smoothly.

“Do you think the reason for King’s departure from Harbor is because of the post-season accident.”

His eyes narrowed and a tiny chuckle left his lips.

“ No ,” he answered with conviction. “If anything, that accident is the only thing holding Arlo back. We play NCAA ball, there’s the expectation that eventually our time with a team will come to an end. He graduated, we knew he’d look for a new team.”

“Even though he’s been offered a position with the Hornets?” I assumed so. I couldn’t be sure but I needed more from Dean than just a surface interview. He was the next closest to the situation after Silas, who only reprimanded me for digging.

“That’s speculation,” Dean smiled tightly, “and if Arlo was offered something better,” he said, leaning forward and rolling his huge shoulders out. “Then I’m glad , he deserves it. We all know it and believe it. He was the best pitcher we’ve seen come through Harbor in fifteen years.”

“You’d damn the King legacy?” I laughed.

“Line up the brothers, I’ll tell them to their faces. Arlo is the best player to come out of that family.”

“Bold.” I nodded with a fond smile. “I like it.”

He watched me carefully as I scribbled some things down and prepared myself to ask the next question. “And Cael Cody, can he recover without the backing of King?”

“Do you want the truth or do you want what Cael would want me to say?” Dean said smoothly and my heart flinched and how serious his tone was.

I had to make a decision now. If I wanted to know the truth then I would have to risk not having anything to use from Dean other than drabble like most of the other players gave me or risk my relationship with Cael, what little we had repaired, for my career.

It just all depended on how attached my stupid, foolish heart had grown.

I leaned forward and pressed pause on the recording.

“I want the truth.”

“The truth is Cael has no idea what he wants ever. He’s a mess, he’s unpredictable but he’s loud about all of it. More honest than any person I’ve ever met,” Dean said, without hesitation. “He’s had a hard time here from the beginning. I met him when we were nineteen years old and he’s always had a hard time in Rhode Island, but he’s always been authentic to himself, he’s never bent himself over for anyone. He’s always just been Cael, messy or not. He loves everyone with every bit of his heart and I—” he stopped himself. “I always appreciated that about him.”

“Until you didn’t?” I asked.

“Until he stopped appreciating that about himself,” Dean corrected me. “After Mrs. Cody died…” Those sharp teal eyes glassed over. “He felt more trapped than ever and his drinking got worse until that wasn’t enough for him and then he turned to drugs. He didn’t want to feel anymore, he wanted to be numb because suddenly feeling was the enemy. Mrs. Cody dying changed him.”

It changed us all.

“The only thing that’s kept him sane is his ‘ lavender girl.’ ” Dean stared at me. “You are a ghost story in the Nest, but you have always been his anchor to reality and you don’t even understand him.” Dean shrugged, I could tell he was getting frustrated with me.

“I didn’t know it was like that, I just thought it was a joke you all had…” My voice was barely a whisper.

“That accident was a catalyst for Cael,” Dean said, his hands gripping the cup so tight it buckled slightly in his grasp. “It scared him bad and he’s been clean since but—”

“I’m not here to stand in the way of his recovery,” I said quietly, my heart racing so fast it felt like it was trying to escape from my chest. I knew the facts about what had happened to Cael that night, but it was hard to hear that it wasn’t a one time thing. That he had been on a path of destruction since leaving Texas.

“It’s not you being here that scares us all.” Dean stood, breaking me from my thoughts, clearly done talking to me. “It’s you leaving.”

I watched him leave the living room and fell back against the couch.

The tears started before I could even stop them, streaming down my face.

All this time I had thought he was thriving here.

When in reality he was just trying to survive.

A sob tore from me and that stupid friendship bracelet rubbed against my cheek as I brushed my tears away, only making me cry harder. He was just so generous and thoughtful and it bubbled up inside of me violently.

“Clementine?” Mr. Cody’s voice snapped me from my tears as he entered the living room. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” I stuttered through my tears and dabbed away the ones that clung to my cheeks.

“You sure?” He asked, and settled down on the couch next to me.

He looked more put together than the last couple times I saw him. A clean pressed Hornet’s polo and jeans, his hair was brushed back off his sharp features and his graying beard was trimmed neatly against his jaw.

“Not really…” I sniffled and met his sad green eyes. “Do you remember that bird?”

“We lived on a farm, Clementine, there were a lot of birds.” He gave me a weak smile and reached across the table for a tissue, handing it to me.

“No, we were only ten I think. It flew into the back window at your place. Hurt its wing.” I tried to help him remember.

“Oh yeah, that little barn swallow.” He nodded, his brows coming together in confusion. “Cael hounded me until I made that stupid box and sat up with it for weeks in his room until he nursed it back to health. Woke up crying one morning because the bird had found its strength and flew away out the bedroom window.”

“What?” I stopped and looked up at Mr. Cody. “No that bird died.”

“No,” he shook his head with a sigh. “It squawked nonstop in his room for three weeks, I remember because no one got any sleep and he woke us up at five am sobbing because he didn’t know how to tell you he lost it.”

“Lost it?” I said. For the last thirteen years I thought Cael had let the bird die.

Mr. Cody sighed and tried to remember, his tongue brushing over his bottom lip. “He was determined to help the bird because it made you sad, Clementine. He was miserable for weeks stressing about it, telling Rae that seeing you crying was the saddest he’s ever been and he had to fix the bird to make you happy.”

“You told me it died,” I whispered. “Momma told me it died.”

“We did that to protect the both of you. I'm just surprised Mary never told you the real story…”

I had believed all this time that Cael wasn’t capable of loving me.

Believing that he got bored of me and let the memory of us die.

Cruelty had come so easily because I was angry.

But Dean, and now Mr. Cody, had shattered the thin crust of resentment and left my heart raw to the truth that Cael Cody had never stopped loving me.

I had let him down because I let my anger get in the way.

The bird had flown again.

Love had been enough.