Here & Now (29 page)

“You seem happy.”

“Maybe that’s because I am happy, Ginger.”

“You wanna tell me why, Fred?” I ask, easily playing into his little name game and as always giving back as good as I’m given.

“What would you think about going out with the Assistant Coach of the Panthers?”

“Is this a trick question? Because I already have a boyfriend. I’m not looking for another one.”

He laughs and it doesn’t take long before I’m joining in with him. It feels good to laugh again. It’s like in the moment, the past couple of months haven’t happened and we’re right back where we were when he got back from Toronto.

Except it did happen and we’re better because of it. Dillon
and me.

“Nice one smartass.”

“Thanks, I try.” I smirk and he kisses me quickly before stepping back and letting his expression turn serious again.

“Okay, so what Coach wanted to talk to me about, it’s pretty huge.”

“Well considering he’s pretty huge, I guess that makes sense.” I quip and he just grins.

“He wants me to work with the team as an assistant coach and also fill in for Mark.”

I tense at the sound of the old trainer’s name and he doesn’t miss it. Ever since he told me how everything happened, I’ve wanted to find that guy and make him pay for what he helped Dillon do. He deserves more then to just lose his job. He should be in jail right alongside Bruce.

“So he offered you a job?”

“Two if you’re keeping score.”

“And what did you say?”

“That I wanted to talk to you about it first, because baby, we’re not doing this if you don’t want to.”

We’re not doing this.

He didn’t say he wasn’t doing it. He said we’re not doing it. Bringing to life what I told him in the hospital even more. Dillon really is trying to change again and this time, I get the feeling it’s going to stick. He’s no longer looking at things the way he used to, believing that he didn’t have anyone he could really count on. Instead he’s realizing it.

“So what do you think?”

“Do you want to do it?”

“Yeah. I mean I would still get to be a part of the team and you know how I am about that. How I feel about football.”

I do know how he feels. He’s so intense about it that he was willing to risk everything in order to keep doing it. If there’s one thing I understand about him more than anything else, it’s his feelings toward the sport that I still can’t figure out.

“Plus,” He starts again. “Not playing anymore but still helping the team get where I think they deserve to be means I can focus on classes and other, more interesting pursuits.”

The way his lips lift mischievously tells me just what the other more interesting pursuit is going to be.

Me.

“It’s gonna mean putting in a lot of time with the team, and travelling, but considering the way I was before, it’s gonna be a lot less than I was doing.”

“And how do you feel about that? Doing less than you were doing before?”

“Great.” He admits and I raise my eyes skeptically. I’m not sure I buy that he’s going to be happy about doing less when he’s so used to being counted on to do more.

“You sure about that?”

“Yes, Caddy. I’m absolutely sure about that. I’m fine with not being the center of attention on the field anymore.”

“What about everywhere else?”

“The only person I care about being the center of attention for is you, pretty girl. No one or nothing but you. So…do you think this is something we can do?”

There it is again, the use of the word we instead of me or I. He really does look at us like we’re a singular unit instead of two separate parts. If we weren’t in the middle of a serious discussion, I’m pretty sure I’d allow myself to melt over that realization with how much it affects me.

“Okay, Murphy. If you think we can handle this, let’s do it.”

Six Months Later

Dillon

“Okay, I’m here. Where’s the fire?” Ryder asks as he comes through the front door, swiping his hands through his hair as he tries to catch his breath.

“No fire, I just needed to talk to you about something.”

“You wanted to talk to me about something? Are you kidding me?”

“Nope, not kidding.”

“Dill, you know what normal people do when they wanna talk? Pick up a phone and call. They don’t send out a 911 text. Dude, what the hell?”

Everything’s changed in the six months since I went under the knife, but not just for me and Cadence. It’s changed for Ryder too and judging by the scowl on his face, it’s obvious I called him away from something I would have kicked someone’s ass over had it been done to me.

I cock blocked him. Took away his ability to get laid and as annoyed as I would be if that happened to me, I can’t help laughing about it now, which just deepens the look of loathing on his face.

If I don’t spit out the reason I called him home soon, he’s definitely gonna beat my ass and something tells me after the hell we’ve all been through, it’s gonna be long lasting. Ryder doesn’t mess around when you screw with something he wants or cares about.

“You know this arrangement we’ve got has been working for me, right?”

“Yeah, works for me too, otherwise we wouldn’t be doing it. What are you getting at?”

“What if I said I wanted to change things up a bit?”

Sliding out of his jacket and tossing it across the back of the sofa, he makes his way into the living room and throws his body down onto it, settling in for what I’m about to say next.

“Change things how?”

“I want to ask Cadence to move in with me.”

“You what?”

“I want her to live here, with me—us, whatever. I just don’t want to do it without talking to you first.”

“Where’s this coming from? Did something change with you two?”

“No, but I’ve been giving it a lot of thought and after everything that went down before, I think this is the right move for us. I’m tired of being apart from her.”

“And what does her mom think about this?”

I’m glad he’s asked me that because before texting him, I’d gone to see Sarah about it. After explaining all of my reasons for wanting to do this, I was surprised when she said that if Cadence wanted it, then she was alright with it.

After making so many mistakes with her daughter, taking her for granted, lying and hiding things from her, the last thing I expected was for Sarah to be so agreeable. If anything, I went into the talk expecting a fight.

“She’s cool with it as long as it’s what Cadence wants. With her eighteenth birthday coming up, I get the feeling Sarah’s already been gearing herself up for something like this. Even if she wasn’t going to live with me, she’d still want to go away to college.”

“So you just wanna move your girl in here with us?”

“Yeah, if you’re cool with it.”

“Have you talked to Caddy about it yet?”

“No, that’s my next stop. She actually texted me a few minutes ago and asked me to meet her at the ravine, so I’m gonna drop it on her there, but I’m not gonna do it if you’re not cool with it.”

Running his hand over his face and then up through his hair, he exhales, and I gear myself up for his response, which judging from the way he’s reacting isn’t going to be good.

“I suppose there’s no time like the present to bring this up. I’m moving out.”

“You’re what?”

“It’s time. Like you said, you’re tired of being apart from your girl and I’m getting the feeling that I’m the same. So yeah, give me a month to find a place and you two can have the place to yourselves.”

“Are you sure? Bringing this up wasn’t supposed to be you thinking you had to leave.”

“I know. It’s not about that. We had a good run, Murphy, but we’re heading off in different directions, with these people we can’t seem to imagine life without, so I think it’s done.”

“We’re done?”

“Yeah baby, I’m sorry, but I’m breaking up with you.” Ryder responds with a shit eating grin and I slap the back of his head.

“You’re seriously okay with this?”

“Dill, just stop questioning it and go meet your girl. We’ll figure out all of the important shit later. I’m okay with this, just do me a favor would you?”

“Depends on the favor. You breaking up with me has kind of left me raw.”

In a totally childish move, proving again why we’re such good friends, he sticks his tongue out and laughs.

“Don’t screw it up, because I happen to think your girlfriend is pretty fucking awesome and I’ll have no problem beating the hell out of you for her.”

This is definitely one favor I can deliver on, and a promise I can keep. Nothing else may be clear and everything in our future might be up in the air, but the one thing that isn’t is how I feel and have always felt about Caddy. Now that I’ve been making all of these changes, getting clean and straightening out my shit, the last thing I’ll ever do is hurt her again.

“You got a deal.”

Cadence

No road worth taking is ever one hundred percent smooth. There are cracks, bumps and potholes along the way, and you can do your best to swerve in order to avoid them or deal with the shocks and keep going, letting nothing stop you from reaching your destination.

The point is, no matter what decision you make, you can never avoid them completely. It wouldn’t be a road worth taking if you could.

When I think about my relationship with Dillon, it’s a lot like that.

The way we met, it was like we were stuck in a ditch, but we just kept the tires spinning until we were free and back on the road. No matter how hard it got and how easy it would be to just give in completely and take a short cut, we never stopped, even when we hit the next bump in the road.

It’s the amount of things we faced and how we never lost sight of the road we were on when we were drenched in darkness that makes it that much more rewarding.

We’ve come so far as a couple and on our own in the last six months that it’s hard to believe that not all that long ago, things looked so bleak. Even now, surrounded by the sound of the water moving and the ducks conversing to one another as they glide along with it, the sun blaring down and warming me, I can’t believe how far I’ve come and how much has changed.

Being here, in the place where Dillon likes to say it all began for us, it’s not a random occurrence. I didn’t come here because it’s peaceful and I enjoy the way the world sounds from this spot more than any other, though, I’m sure those play a little bit of a part in it. I’m here because if this is where it all began, it’s only fitting that it be where it changes too.

Change can be frightening. When you become so accustomed to your life being a certain way, having something come along and shake it up; it can completely throw you off, but where I should feel scared about this change, I’m not because I know that it won’t change what’s already been written. What I know to be true. We’re just expanding to our story.

“It should be against the law for a woman like you to be in a place like this all alone.”

Turning at the sound of his voice, a frequency I’ve come to refer to as the DF—Dillon Frequency—I smile and as he catches it, he slides his body down onto the grass beside me, immediately taking my hand in his and letting his eyes fall to the same place mine had just been. On the water.

“Who says I’m here alone?”

His brow raises in mock surprise as he tries his hardest to keep his lips straight and serious.

“Whose ass do I need to kick?”

“That would be your own, Rocky.”

“You know, if I could have figured out how to get my foot around to kick my own ass years ago, I would have saved a lot of people, a lot of trouble.”

As I start to laugh, he leans his face in and sighs before kissing me.

“I missed that.”

“And what would that
be?”

“Your laugh, but I might have missed your lips too since they weren’t in bed when I woke up this morning.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for. I had the morning off and you had school. But if you really want to make it up to me, you can tell me why you wanted me to meet you here.”

The next words I say have to be chosen wisely because they’re probably the most important ones I’m ever going to say to him. They’re also going to make what we’ve been building for the past year and a half, change. It’s going to be something that catapults us from just two young people hopelessly in love to something even bigger.

He’s barely twenty and I’m not even eighteen and in nine months, we’re going to become parents. Mom and Dad. Expanding not only our hearts to include another but expanding a home too.

“Do you remember the issues I was having a few months ago with the pills I was taking?”

“Yeah, but I thought you got that all worked out. You said these new ones didn’t have any of the other side effects the others had and you felt better about them. Are you saying that you’re having issues again?”

The pills I’m referring to, they’re birth control. After Dillon and I started sleeping together, my mom took me in to see her doctor and I’d been set up with a prescription.

What I didn’t expect was the way they would change me. I started putting on weight, having months where nothing would happen at all, which scared the hell out of me, and they even caused me to have issues with eating for a while. If I wasn’t hungry every other second, it seemed like I wasn’t hungry at all and it eventually started wearing me down.

Changing to a different pill, it made a world of difference and I was happy, at least I was until this happened and I finally went out and bought a test.

“Caddy? Is everything okay? You look like you’re about to be sick.”

He has no idea. I do feel like I’m going to be sick, but not for the reasons he thinks. So much for not being scared about this. If I keep doing this, it won’t be long before I make myself fall apart.

“Do you remember the waiting period the doctor talked to us about?”

“Yeah, it was the worst couple of weeks of my life.” He says with a laugh. “Why?”

“Dill...”

“Just tell me, Caddy. Whatever it is, it’s not worth seeing you look the way you do right now. What’s going on?”

“I’m pregnant.”

A few minutes pass with no sound, unless you count the pounding of my heart, and all of that talk about this change not being scary completely falls away until all I am is filled with fear. We did everything the way we were supposed to, not sleeping together at all and when we did, making sure we had condoms and yet we’re still here, in a situation that I’m sure neither one of us is prepared for. 

How did I ever think he’d be okay with this? Am I even sure I’m okay with this?

My mom was right when she said that I was still a kid. I’m not even eighteen and I know for a fact that I’m not in any way ready to raise a child, but I can’t imagine giving it away or getting rid of it. I don’t have it in me. I know it’s going to be a lot of work and that I’ll probably have to change the way I saw everything working in the future, but I’m determined to see it through. Any time I try and imagine it any other way, the picture never stays in focus. 

“Okay, umm,” he says, his voice shaky from the shock. “Does your mom know?”

“Yes.  I told her after I took the test. I couldn’t hide something like that from her.”

Dillon nods in understanding, taking in what I’ve said, but still not displaying in any way how it makes him feel, which just makes me even more scared.

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to have it.”

“That’s not what I meant.” He says and with the speed at which my head lifts, there’s no hiding my surprise. “Not the answer you were expecting, huh?”

“No. I’m not exactly sure what I’m expecting, I just didn’t want to wait any longer to tell you.” I admit and he just nods again, his lips curving up slowly into a smile that in the moment feels like the last thing he should be doing.

I was telling him the truth when I said that I didn’t know what to expect, but knowing how huge this is, if he is freaked out, it would be more welcomed by me than this. I really need to know what he’s thinking.

“What did you mean?”

“If you told me you didn’t want to keep it; that you wanted to have an abortion or even give the baby up for adoption, I would have gone along with you, but asking what you wanted, I was going on the assumption that you would be keeping it.” He pauses before looking down between us to our hands, still locked securely together, smiling again and looking back to me.

“I still don’t understand what you were getting at.”

“I’m gonna try asking it a different way, I think. Cadence,” he says as he moves himself in close again until our faces are inches apart. “Will you move in with me?”