Page 12 of Blitz
So fucked up and sad.
I grabbed my phone before my brain caught up. The phone felt like it weighed twenty pounds, but I took it off do-not-disturb and called anyway. Rebecca answered on the third ring, her voice cautious, as if she didn’t quite believe the caller ID.
“Hello?”
“It’s me. Trick. Cole. Your… yeah.”
“Hey, Trick,” she said, in a quiet voice—a lot less confident than she’d been when she’d come to the practice rink. There was something grounding about hearing her call me Trick. Not Cole. Trick. She wasn’t reaching for the name wrapped in legacy and expectation, but for the oneI’dchosen—the one I felt like I could breathe in. It was such a small thing, but it mattered.
“Hey,” I said. My voice was tight, but it didn’t crack. Progress. Or maybe denial with good PR.
Another pause. Then, she finally asked, “You called me?”
“Yeah, I did. Sorry, I just… do you want to meet?”
“I’d love to,” she said, “as long as you’re not bringing a lawyer or CH2.”
“No, just me, coffee? Somewhere quiet. Discreet.”
“‘Discreet’?” She huffed out a humorless laugh. “Hell, we’re going to the most out-of-the-way coffee shop I know, where there’s no chance of running into anyone who watches Pastor Cole’s Sunday morning fire-and-brimstone hour.”
That stung more than I wanted to admit. I’d expected some bitterness, but not that kind of burn. Her words hit like a slap—sharp, personal, and layered with years of resentment I hadn’t earned, but somehow inherited. “He’s your father, too,” I said lamely. However, I wouldn’t wish him on my worst enemy.
“Yeah? No,” she deadpanned.
“I have this thing in Philly, so… can we maybe meetnextweekend? Sunday morning?” The irony of meeting the product of my father’s out-of-marriage fornication on a Sunday morning didn’t escape me.
“Sure.”
“Can you text me the address of this out of the way place you know?”
My phone pinged with a message. “Done. Eleven o’clock. Don’t flake on me, big brother.”
She hung up before I could say anything else.
I stared at the phone, the quiet ringing in my ears giving way to a hollow ache. Big brother?
What the hell was I doing? She was just a name on a report, a sudden reality I hadn’t asked for. A sister. Rebecca. My DNA was walking around in someone else, and I hadn’t known.
I didn’t hate the idea of her—I didn’t even know her enough for that. It was more like… I didn’t want another connection laced with expectations and rules.
And now I was fucked-up. And tired. And I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. There was a twist in my chest that wouldn’tgo away—part anger at my father for the years of judgment and fire-and-brimstone bullshit, part guilt about Rebecca and how reluctant I was to speak to her, and a healthy dose of self-loathing for the shit I’d said to Tom about dogs.
It all churnedinside me like acid, and not even later, heading to practice and sinking into the leather seats of my Lambo did I actually relax. The usual comfort—the smell of the interior, the engine’s purr, the luxury of control—none of it touched the ache beneath my skin. And now I had to drag this mess of a brain to practice and pretend I cared about line drills and camaraderie. I was so tired of pretending. Tired of carrying all this.
I had more messages, but this time from Tom.
I reread the text timestamped at one-thirty in the morning—did football players not sleep?
Idiot Ball Chaser: Hey, it’s me
Idiot Ball Chaser: Tom
Idiot Ball Chaser: The one who kicked your ass
Idiot Ball Chaser: LOL
Idiot Ball Chaser: I meant to say that if you want to cross-promo for your dog charity, one of my buddies on the team works with Fetchadelphia in downtown Philly, so a link-up could be cool. [paw emoji]
