Page 105 of Old Fashioned
“No promises. His due date is two weeks from now, but I have a high suspicion we won’t make it that long.”
Noah smirked, rubbing her belly, too, with a mixture of love and complete terror in his eyes. I knew he had to be shitting himself on the brink of being a father, but Logan squeezed his shoulder reassuringly, as if to say,you’re going to be great.
“I’ll help, too,” Sydney chimed in when she delivered the sweet potato casserole.
“I’d love that,” Mallory replied. They shared a smile, and my heart beamed at the relationship my sister and my girlfriend had formed over the last few years. I knew a big part of it was standing up and testifying against Randy together. It hadn’t been easy for either one of them, but it had brought them closer together.
Once everyone was seated and the food was on the table, Mom had us all gather hands, and she said grace. We all went around the table saying what we were thankful for, and after dinner, before the pie was brought out, we lit a candle in Betty’s honor.
The old woman who had become such an integral part of our family and our lives had passed away that summer, leaving peacefully in her sleep on the Fourth of July. Kylie had joked that she’d planned it, wanting togo out with a bang. The news had been especially hard on her and Ruby Grace, who were by far the closest with Betty, but Mom had suffered, too, as they had become close friends over the years.
Betty had lived a long and full life, which was one comfort we found in her passing. More than that, she had been a light in our lives, too — helping so many of us out of the dark when we couldn’t see even a ray of light that promised a way out.
The truth was weallmissed her dearly, but the impression she’d left on our hearts was one that could never be forgotten. And we all knew she was dancing withMr. Collins in heaven now.
Kylie and Mikey told us over dessert about the trip they were planning to Asia for the following summer, but I could barely listen, because my heart was ticking up a notch faster with every passing moment, beating loud and hard in my ears as I rehearsed what I’d been practicing for months. Before the plates could be cleared, Paige found her way over to me, clamping her hands down hard on my shoulders.
“Let’s play catch, Coach,” she said.
I swallowed, standing on shaking legs as Sydney smiled up at us.
“Do you twoeverget tired of football?” she asked, laughing.
“Never,” Paige answered, and she was already shoving me back toward the open yard where we’d been playing earlier.
When we were safely out of earshot, she put her hands on my shoulders again — which had her standing on her toes — leveling her eyes with me as best she could. “Alright, Coach,” she said, seriously. “This is the big game. Your big moment. The play of your lifetime. You gotta focus, alright? Don’t mess this up.”
My palms were sweating, but I managed a laugh. “Gee, thanks for reminding me that there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Always here for you,” she said, clapping her hands down on my shoulders once more before she pointed at me and started jogging backward toward the tables. “You’ve got this.”
She turned, taking off in a slow jog as I forced as steady of a breath as I could manage. Then, I looked down at the football in my hands, and I pulled a small, navy blue, velvet box out of my pocket, fastening it to the ball with the sports tape Paige and I had tested a hundred times.
When it was safely in place, I looked up, finding Paige waiting in her designated spot behind her mom. Everyone was in conversation, still, and oblivious to what we were doing.
At least, until I took a breath and launched the ball, and Paige cried out, “Heads up, Mom!”
Sydney looked up just in time to notice the ball spiraling toward her, and her hands went up instinctively, catching it before it hit her chest. She screamed, though, and then laughed, looking back at Paige before her eyes found me and she pointed. “That was on purpose, you jerk!” She laughed again. “You’re lucky I caught that!”
“What exactly did you catch?” Paige baited behind her, and Sydney looked back, confused, before her eyes fell to the ball in her hands.
And the little box strapped to the side of it.
I jogged over with my heart still pounding in my ears, and everyone fell silent, Sydney’s eyes widening as she fingered the box out of the tape hold and held it between two fingers. She looked at it, looked at me, looked at it again, looked at me.
I swallowed, rounding the table until I was next to her chair, and lowering down onto one, shaky knee.
“Sydney Clark,” I said, taking the box from her trembling fingers and holding it in my own.
Her eyes found mine, wide with surprise, her lips slightly parted as she waited for me to continue. From somewhere behind her I heard Ruby Grace whisper, “I can’t believe Betty is missing this.”
“All my life, I watched my dad and mom love each other, and I wondered if I’d ever find someone to share my life with the way they had,” I said, and I heard my mom sniff from where she watched us at her end of the table. But my focus was on Sydney, and I grabbed her hand in mine, squeezing gently. “I decided at a pretty young age that I wouldn’t, that it was rare and, in most ways, impossible. And I settled into a life alone, content to just be a brother, a son, and a football coach.”
“A damn good one, too,” Eli said, and a soft chuckle found the tables.
“And I was happy,” I said. “I was. I didn’t think anything was missing.” I leveled my gaze with hers. “Not until you walked into my life, and my heart realized long before my brain did that I could never go back to life without you — not once I knew what it was like with you in it.”
She smiled, her eyes glossing over with a sheen of tears.
