“I have a lot of fast cars.”
He snorted.
“How are you feeling?” I asked. I tried not to notice how small he looked in the hospital bed or how the color of his face matched the white sheets.
“I’m fine,” he said with a dismissive grunt. “This whole thing is ridiculous. I should be home by now, but they insist on keeping me here for forty-eight hours. They said I need ‘monitoring,’ whatever that means. It’s unnecessary horseshit.”
“You had a heart attack over breakfast,” I reminded him. “I’d say the monitoring is necessary.”
“Yes, well, we can’t all have healthy starts to the day, can we?”
We stared at each other. A beat of surprise passed before it dissolved into laughter, and the fist in my chest loosened another inch.
I couldn’t remember the last time my father and I laughed around each other. Before Blackcastle for sure. Maybe even before I joined the Premier League.
“You drove here from London?” he asked.
I nodded.
He grunted again, which was as close to sentimental as he’d get. My father wasn’t a fan of hugs, thank-yous, or emotions in general.
The monitor’s beeps punctuated the renewed silence between us. Somewhere along the way, we’d lost the ability to talk to each other, and one bout of shared amusement didn’t change that.
My father’s eyes drifted toward the front of the room and narrowed. “Who’s the girl with your mother?”
I followed his gaze to where Scarlett and my mother were talking. They’d migrated from their original spot down the hall, and we had a perfect view of them through the window.
“That’s Scarlett,” I said. “She’s a…friend.”
“Scarlett.” A frown pinched between his brows. “Isn’t that the name of your trainer this summer?”
Of course he remembered that piece of information.
“Yes,” I admitted. “She’s that too.”
My father’s attention snapped back to me. “Do all trainers hang out with their athletes at the hospital over the weekend?”
I stiffened at his tone. Whereas my mother was constantly hounding me to give her grandchildren, my father thought love and relationships were too big a distraction.
I’d agreed with him in theory, but that was before I met Scarlett.
“I’d hardly call this ‘hanging out,’” I said evenly. “Like I said, we’re also friends. She was with me when I got the call, and she was kind enough to accompany me here.”
My father stared at me. Whatever he saw in my face had his face creasing with disbelief.
“Oh, don’t tell me.” He leaned his head back, his expression so pained one would think he was suffering another cardiac event. “Don’t tell me you went and slept with your bloody trainer.”
My shoulders locked at his visible derision. “It’s not like that.”
I hated how sleazy he made it sound, like I’d picked her up at the pub and brought her back to my place for a quick shag.
“The bloody hell it isn’t.” Anger strengthened my father’s voice. “What have I told you from the start? Getting involved with anyone at this stage of your career is not a good idea. It’ll have your head all twisted when. You. Need. Focus. Look at your last season. Number two, and that was before you shagged your trainer. How are you going to be number one when you’re too busy thinking about getting off to play the game?”
Trust my father to rant about my performance right after a heart attack.
If he weren’t lying in a hospital bed right now, I’d snap back. As it was, my jaw ached from how hard I was clenching my teeth.
Don’t take the bait.
“Your focus this summer should be on improving your game on the pitch, not anywhere else,” he growled. “If you’re going to play for that team, you might as well win. I will not have a loser and a trai-” He abruptly cut himself off.
My pulse rocketed. The lights in the room seemed to flare, whitening the edges of my vision until his face was all I saw. “And a what?”
His lips thinned in response.
“Say it, Dad.” My vow to ignore his bait sank beneath a surge of adrenaline. “You will not have a loser and a traitor in your house, right?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You were about to.” Blood roared in my ears. It was one thing to hear strangers call me a traitor. It was another to hear my own father almost say it. “Be honest. Do you actually want me to win?”
“What the hell are you talking about? Of course I do.”
“I’m not so sure.” This wasn’t the place for this conversation, but I couldn’t stop the flood from consuming what was left of our civility. It was here, in this garishly lit room, with its monitors and sterile floors, that my ugliest thoughts spilled out. “I think a part of you secretly hopes I’ll lose because if I lose, it’ll validate what you said about how I never should’ve left Holchester in the first place. If I win, that means Holchester lost, and you have never rooted against them. So tell me, Dad. At the end of the day, if you had to choose, who will it be? Your team or your son?”
I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t lose my temper. But my words reverberated through the air with an intensity that caused my father’s face to flush.
Crimson washed over his skin like blood seeping into snow. The heart monitor’s beeps increased in frequency until they blended into a stream of noise instead of disparate sounds.
He didn’t respond. He didn’t have to.
We both knew what his answer was.
Less than a minute later, the door flew open and the nurse charged in with a scowl. She scolded me thoroughly for raising my father’s heart rate and promptly kicked me out.
I muttered an apology and left. My own heart slammed against my rib cage with bruising force.
If you had to choose, who will it be? Your team or your son?
Anyone who wasn’t familiar with Holchester football fan culture would say it was a ridiculous question and that family was the obvious answer, but I’d seen men go to prison for beating another senseless over a missed penalty kick. Others have taken out bank loans to buy merch and follow the team around the world.
For some people, football mattered more than anything else. I had a sinking suspicion my father was one of them.
“What happened?” my mother asked when I stepped into the hall. Her worried eyes traveled from my face to my father’s room and back again. She must’ve heard the nurse yelling at me. “What did he say to you?”
What did he say to me, not what did I say to him.
As much as she loved my father, she was well aware of his faults and our long-running dynamic.
“The usual.” I didn’t look at Scarlett, who stood quietly next to my mother. I was too embarrassed by the family drama. “I’m sorry, I should’ve kept my cool. I know how he can get, and he just had a heart attack. I shouldn’t have risen to the bait.”
My mother glanced at the window again. “He’ll be okay.” Anxiety threaded her voice, but she didn’t press for more details. “I know how your father can get too.” She touched my arm with a gentle hand. “Why don’t you and Scarlett go to our house and freshen up? There’s no use having all three of us wait around when his condition is stable. I’ll stay and call you if anything changes.”
“Are you sure?” It would be nice to change into a more day-appropriate outfit. I kept an emergency stash of clothes at my parents’ house for occasions just like this.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.