Page 66 of Full Coverage (Boys of Fall)

She laughed and he got up into the truck. Just before he started the engine, she said, “Hey, Coach?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

“For what?”

“Chewing the jackass’s ass.”

“Like I said, I’m kind of a specialist.”

“And be sure to tell him I love him.”

Coach nodded. “Right after I tell him that if he doesn’t already know that, he’s also a dumbass.”

Then he gave her a wink and drove off, wiping his windshield with his new wipers.

* * *

“Ican’t believeyou haven’t been back here in amonth.”

Nolan sighed. “Hi, Mom.”

Teresa set her purse on the kitchen counter. She wasn’t surprised to see him—Nolan had called to tell her he was on his way this morning—but she didn’t look thrilled to see him either.

“And you ate the pie?”

Nolan looked down at the empty pie plate in front of him on his mother’s kitchen table. “I’ve been eating microwave burritos and frozen pizza for the past month. I couldn’t help it.”

Teresa shook her head and moved to the refrigerator, and Nolan knew she was about to make him a sandwich. He didn’t even think about trying to stop her. He was certainly old enough to make his own sandwich, but somehow Teresa’s always tasted better.

He wasn’t sure he could ever look at another burrito as long as he lived.

But instead of sandwich ingredients, Teresa took eggs, butter and milk out.

Maybe she was going to make him an omelet. That would work too.

“I’m just saying that amonthis a really long time,” Teresa said, pulling the canisters of flour and sugar from the cupboard.

So not an omelet. Maybe more pie. He could be okay with that.

“I know a month is a long time, Mom.” It had been a month since he’d seen Randi too. A horrible month. Thirty days of fighting, on a nearly hourly basis, the urge to drive to Quinn, fall at Randi’s feet and beg her to just let him sit in her shop and watch her work and talk to her.

He knew very well how fucking long that was. He was going crazy. But he had to do this right.

“I can’t believe you let her drive herself back to Quinn. After telling her that she was the reason your book ended up sucking.”

Nolan loved and hated his mother’s hair salon. There wasn’t a single secret about anything in Quinn because of that place. When it came to finding out news about his old friends, and yes, Randi, he’d loved it. But damn, having his own stupid mistakes spread all over town was irritating. Clearly Randi had confided in her friends. Who had confided in other friends, who had told someone else, who had told someone else.

“Mom,” Nolan said firmly. “I did not tell her the book sucked because of her. The book didn’t—doesn’t—suck, for one thing. And it wasn’t her fault. It was me. I was the one that got sidetracked. And I know a month is a long time. Too long. Okay? But I had to do it. I had to finish the book. It was…she was…I didn’t have a choice.”

Teresa broke eggs into a bowl and added the sugar and butter. “You could have forgotten the book. You could have told your editor to shove it. You could have chosenherover your work.”

Nolan opened his mouth, but she turned on the mixer, the whirring of the beaters too loud to be heard.

He waited until she’d stopped it to say, “Are you telling me that you think I should have given up my book deal, paid back my huge advance, turned my back on the career that has made you incredibly proud, that is everything you wanted for me, so that I could come back and stay here with Randi?”

Teresa got the baking soda, salt and other ingredients out of the cupboard and started measuring things into the bowl. But she did answer. “Yes.”

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