Page 44 of Time Out

“I was going to tell you.”

“I’m not mad you didn’t. I didn’t want you to be mad I found out. I was talking to my teammates, about well”—I waved a hand between us—“everything, and before you get on me about not telling anyone, they won’t tell a soul.”

“Davis. It’s fine. Belle knows. I was worried about your family, but I’m not mad you needed to talk to someone about this.”

Okay. Good. The knot I’d had in my gut started to unwind itself. “When I mentioned something to Dawson, one of my teammates and friends, he said something about how it sounded like those crazy families on TV—and shit. I didn’t mean your family is crazy.”

“They are.” Maggie shrugged, like what do you do? “In some ways anyway.”

“He said his sister is a huge fan of the television show. So then Cole, our quarterback and another good friend, pulled up his phone.”

“And found the article about me being excommunicated from the family due to my multitude of sins?”

I mean, when she put it that way, she had to hear how strange it sounded.

My look must have been answer enough because Maggie shrugged again, picked up a fresh pizza slice and took a bite.

“You’re not mad at me?”

“There’s no reason to be mad. I made appearances on a show I never fully supported and then convinced my parents to let me go away to college. I’d go where they wanted me to, I’d earn an early education degree so I could help do more formal teaching with everyone else’s kids when I was done. At least, that was how I sold it to my dad and uncle so they’d agree—my mom had no say either way, really. I made a deal with them. They chose the college. I’d follow the rules. I’d even let the film crew come show me on campus. The black sheep, I think they liked to call me, and that was supposed to be it.”

“So what happened?”

“I got to school, started seeing how all these other kids from Christian families lived so differently, and I wanted that instead. They had freedom and were normal. They had their faith, but they also had a life with dreams and goals. I sort of rebelled, well, a lot. Eventually, I got caught. It wasn’t really that big of a deal, but I got caught kissing a boy and drinking a beer on a day I didn’t realize camera crews were going to be there. My parents flipped out, said I’d embarrassed the entire family and church and our reputation, and I was supposed to go home, marry Patrick, some boy they’d had earmarked me for since I was four, and pretend none of my sinful lifestyle happened—I just had to publicly confess my sins in front of the entire congregation.”

“You didn’t do that.” Didn’t take a genius to figure that one out.

“I couldn’t. I refused and I was not going to get married at nineteen years old just so I could be forced to listen to another man in my life tell me what to do for the rest of my life and start popping out babies like my mom….” She paused and gave me wide doe eyes. “Which, I guess I failed at some of that.”

I chuckled. “I’ve considered the irony.”

“I used to love my mom, and then I got older. I always thought she was this super kind woman, but then things happened.” She gulped and her face paled. Whatever it was, wasn’t good. “I… well… my dad wasn’t nice. He was commanding, at least to us girls. We had to do what he said, because all he ever told me was that my job was to make a man happy. As long as I’d do that, I wouldn’t be punished.”

“Punished?”

“Yeah.” She sniffed and stared with a blank expression. “And well, I wasn’t great at listening.”

My anger pulsed by the second. The thought of a parent’s punishment bringing that kind of look in her eyes made me grit my teeth.

“Anyway, I was forced into helping my mom with everything while Jed and Zach could go play. It never felt fair. My college experience was supposed to be my four years away, before I had to go back to that life, but when it came time to do it, I had too many questions about their beliefs and rules they refused to answer. So, no, I couldn’t go home. My regret is I’ve barely been able to talk to my sisters, and they’re now going to be married soon too. I wish I could tell them they had choices.”

I couldn’t imagine being trapped, not being able to make decisions for yourself in regard to your future, and having it restricted further simply because of your gender.

“I’m sorry you went through that.” What else was there to say? If she didn’t want to go into specifics, I wouldn’t push. “Why Nashville?”

“I sang in the church choir and wanted to make it big out here either as a gospel singer or country.”

“Is that how you met Belle?”

Another chuckle and adorable shake of her head. Maggie’s lips lifted at the corners. “Sort of. I was working at some dive karaoke bar, and she had some friends come in from college. They wanted to have a ‘slumming it’ weekend, as she liked to call it—where they spent a weekend pretending they were poor instead of filthy rich—because she’s ridiculous like that. I was working a shift, and the bar was slow, and my boss let me sing when it was. I hopped out on stage and belted out ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ and Belle and her friends demanded more. I think I sang like five or six songs while they drank and danced. It was so much fun, and I’d loved every second of it, and I don’t know what happened, but my head was in the clouds or something because I dropped a huge case of glasses. Shattered them everywhere and was promptly fired. Belle chased after me. She caught me as I was getting in my car, saw all belongings in the back—”

“You were living in your car?”

“She pretended she was slumming it, I really was. It was only for a short time, but I’d had to live in some pretty unsafe places when I got here. I’d just been evicted from a place because my roommates were too loud, and I’m pretty sure dealing drugs, although I never saw that. My car was better, trust me.”

I couldn’t picture it. She was too sweet, too innocently pretty to be living like that—and all because she’d kissed a boy and had a beer? I was having a hard enough time getting past the part where parents would just kick one of their children out of their family. Had they known what that decision forced her into? Did her mother lay awake at night lamenting those choices and hating herself for not protecting her child?

The more I thought about it, the harsher fury rose in me. My parents would never, under any circumstances or any mistakes we made, not love us, not continue to want what was best for us.

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