Page 105 of Play the Last Card

“The … what?” He tells me all of this so casually that I do a mental double take when processing his words.

“You can buy her something new if you want to. But just in case you want to use her mom’s, I’m telling you where to find it.” He pauses again, shifting in the bed and his face screws up in pain. It’s only for a momentand when the moment passes Billy finally opens his eyes again. “We both know I won’t be going home.”

His words today continue to hit me like tidal waves. Over and over, they keep coming. I’m starting to think he’s being blunt on purpose, like he knows something we don’t so he’s hammering his points home.

Eventually, I nod.

“Okay. I’ll keep that in mind.” Billy only nods in answer. He leans back into his pillows before pointing to the remote and I take the wordless command to turn on the game from Sunday. He loves to walk through the plays with me.

We watch half the football game, keeping our conversation on the routes and the plays and the touchdowns.

Sometime in the fourth quarter, knowing my visit with him is coming to an end, I look over at him.

“I’ll look after her, Billy. I promise, I will.”

“I know you will, son.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Ivy

I can barely makeout the usually lush, green field. It is covered in snow and patches of ice. As if the cold is reaching through my TV, it seems to wrap around me in a tight fist as I watch the players on the field run warm ups. It didn’t matter that the fire has been going since lunch or that I’m wearing a sweatshirt that is two times too big for me. Nothing about the heavy blanket covering me helps warm the chill spreading over my body.

They are being careful. The whole team, all the players. I may be watching through a screen, tuning out the annoying commentators, but only an idiot that has never watched a ball game in their life wouldn’t be able to see the running backs aren’t going full out when they start to warm up their legs down the side lines. Or that the defensive linemen aren’t desperately trying to break through the top layer of ice and snow with their cleats, looking for a way to dig their heels into the ground.

The broadcast cuts to the commentators in their cozy box and I groan.

I don’t care about the fucking commentators.

Katie blows up my phone as the game begins but I don’t need to look at her messages to know what she’s texting me about. She’s at the game—with Grant, in a season box because Scott got them both the same season passes so I would have people to attend the games with—but I can tell just as clearly from my cocoon on the couch that Scott is playing recklessly.

Unlike the others out on the field of ice, he’s running full out and he’s not taking precautions. He’s not watching his teammates, not communicating, he’s not playing their game.

He’s playing his.

Whatever game this is, it’s not a safe one.

He gets taken down by the opposition's defense time and time again. Each time is a direct hit to my nerves the moment contact is made. By the end of the first half of the game, I’ve worn the nail on my thumb down by anxiously chewing on it and I’m curled into such a tight ball in the corner of the couch that there is a really big possibility that I may never be able to get out on my own.

I twirl my phone between my fingers, itching to call him and tell him to pull his head in.

I can’t. But boy do I want to.

There’s no way he would pick up between quarters anyway. I know that his phone is currently tucked in the side of his bag in the depths of his locker and even if there is a chance he is nearby and did hear it, I am absolutely certain that Uncle Jeff would be ripping into him right about now.

Jeff is like Pops—he believes hard in the team game and hates players that think they are bigger than that.

I almost hope that Scott is getting ripped into by Uncle Jeff. Maybe it will make him start playing safer in the snow.

It’s in the middle of the third quarter when it happens.

The Broncos offensive team is on the field and his former deep blue and white uniform is covered in mud and, from what I can tell, a bit of blood.

It happens so quickly I almost miss it.

I’m not paying attention, my eyes on my phone screen typing furiously to Katie.

“They’re down!”