The Wrong Quarterback: Chapter 2

“Hey, Parkie, I got one for you,” Jace said as he threw his helmet on the ground and fixed his man bun.

I felt weird every time I said those words.

I took my time drinking my water because Jace “had one” for me a couple of times a day.

And every time it was awful.

“You can proceed,” I told him as I reluctantly put the water bottle down. Matty snorted next to me, and I shot him a grin. One of our favorite things was giving Jace a hard time.

“You two act like I’m not the funniest person on the planet,” Jace commented, finally finishing his beauty routine and putting his helmet back on. “But inside, I know that you pine for these moments.”

“We pine for these moments?” Matty drawled as he snapped his own helmet back on. “I can promise you, Thatcher, I’ve never used the word pine before in my life.” He side-eyed me. “I bet Parkie-Poo has, though. That big brain of his loves the word pine.”

I huffed out an amused laugh.

“Well, first of all, you just used the word pine, and it came off your tongue quite smoothly, so I’m confident you’re not a first timer. But I do agree with you that ole quarterback here probably loves that word. He does have a big brain. I feel good about myself, though. I have a big⁠—”

“Am I interrupting social hour, ladies?” Coach Everett called, mercifully cutting off Jace’s sentence as he tossed a football in the air and scowled at us.

“No, sir, Coach, sir,” Jace called back as the three of us started jogging over to resume practice.

Coach pretended to snarl at Jace, but it was hard to stay mad at my golden retriever best friend. Mostly because he was one of the best receivers that college football had ever seen obviously. All of us could do without his bad jokes.

Speaking of jokes…

“What did Nala say to Simba in bed?” Jace asked as we lined up to run a play.

“Do we have to?” I groaned.

“Yes we have to. I’m not going to catch one ball until you listen to me,” Jace said seriously.

“But what about his other ball?” Connor, my enormous center called. Now the whole team was groaning.

“Can we not talk about Parker’s balls?” Matty said from down the line.

“I’m still waiting,” Jace said, a giant, annoying smile on his face.

“This is chaos,” Coach muttered, and I nodded. The best kind.

“Fine. Hurry,” I growled as I lined up behind Connor.

“Move fasta,” Jace said, and then he began cackling.

It took me a second to get it…obviously my big brain wasn’t working today. Probably because listening to Jace’s jokes made me dumber.

“Move fasta. Mufasa,” Jace emphasized. When not a single player laughed, he scowled. “Y’all need to get a better sense of humor.”

“Set…hut,” I called, and a second later Connor hiked me the ball with a clean, perfect motion, and I dropped back, scanning the field.

Jace cut left, and I launched the ball, watching as it spiraled through the air and fell perfectly into Jace’s outstretched arms.

Because I was a god like that.

Jace ran a few steps and then held up the football, shaking his ass at the rest of us as he celebrated the catch.

“How the fuck do we ever win a game?” Coach grunted to Coach Houston, our quarterbacks’ coach. Coach Houston grinned as Jace came running back and tossed me the football.

“It’s ’cause we’re awesome, Coach,” Jace called as we lined up again.

And so practice went.

This was my third year as the starting quarterback for the Tennessee Tigers, and these crazy, out of control idiots around me had become my brothers. Each of these guys would do anything for each other and for me.

We were also the best fucking team in the NCAA.

Coach Everett blew his whistle, the sharp sound cutting through the shit talk on the field. “Alright, bring it in!” he called, motioning for us to gather.

I jogged over with the rest of the team, everyone forming a tight huddle around him. Sweat dripped down, breaths came heavy, but the energy was high. We could feel it. This was our year.

“Good job today, boys. Even you, Thatcher,” Coach Everett said, eliciting his usual laugh. Jace rolled his eyes, and Coach grinned. He put his hand out, and we all followed, a sea of hands stacking on top of each other.

“Call it, QB,” Coach called.

“On three—one, two, three—TENNESSEE!”

The cheer echoed, settling into my veins as it usually did as we walked off the field toward the locker room.

“Hi, Parker,” McKenzie called as we passed by where the cheerleaders had been practicing in the field next to ours.

I pretended not to hear her or the three other girls that also called out our names. I kept my eyes firmly focused in the distance because all of them were the kind of crazy I was not looking for. My dick had once liked cheerleaders, but it had been quickly cured of that.

Jace and Matty had no such issues, waving at their own fans on the team like we were in a fucking parade.

“I think you hurt the poor girl’s feelings.” Matty smirked once we finally got past the field.

I scoffed, giving him the side-eye. “Can I remind you that she was so desperate to have my babies she tried to put my old cum, that had been sitting in the condom for hours…inside of her—while I was sleeping.”

“So a hot girl tries to have your babies, Davis, cry me a river,” said Matty.

I gaped at him.

“No harm, no foul, though, Parkie. All because you listened to me,” said Jace, starting to whistle as if it was no big deal that I’d been woken up by McKenzie screaming because her cunt was on fire—thanks to the hot sauce I made sure to pour into every used condom for that reason alone.

Jace had read about some celebrity doing it when we were freshman. We’d started trying it, as a joke, never thinking it would come in handy.

The relief that I felt as she ran out of the room screaming could not be matched.

“Why are all the crazy ones hot?” Matty muttered, making fun of me as his own personal stalker waved at him from the parking lot.

“Why don’t you go over there, Matty? Since crazy, hot girls are no big deal and all,” I teased.

He flipped me off and jogged off in front of us as his little stalker girl, still nameless to us somehow, stared after him despondently.

“One day one of them is going to crack,” Jace muttered as he gave a friendly wave to her. She ducked behind a car, and I snorted because I was pretty sure she still didn’t know that we’d noticed her here every day, watching Matty like her life depended on it.

“What the fuck was Cole wearing last night?” Steadman, one of my linebackers, said as we walked into the locker room. He was grinning like a loon as he held up his phone.

And I immediately got why. I gaped at the picture he was showing me.

There was my rockstar brother, Cole, standing on the red carpet, a smug look on his face. He was shirtless, wearing a leather jacket and about twenty necklaces—because apparently that’s what rockstars wore.

But that wasn’t what everyone in the locker room was cackling about.

It was the fact that his hat, tilted low, had what looked like an owl perched on the brim.

What the fuck.

Being the youngest of three brothers when your oldest brother was a rockstar, and the other brother was a superstar NHL goalie wasn’t easy. I absolutely jumped on chances like this to make fun of one of them.

Shaking my head, I walked over to my locker and pulled out my phone.

Dangit. Walker had already seen the picture and started the fun without me.

I quickly typed out a supporting response.

I snorted, and Jace came over to read the conversation over my shoulder.

“Good one,” Jace muttered, as I elbowed him for standing practically on top of me.

I was still smiling as I went to put down my phone…and then it buzzed in my hand.

My smile instantly died when I saw who the text was from. Martha, Mom’s nurse.

The words made my stomach twist, and whatever leftover buzz I had from practice and making fun of Cole died in an instant.

Matty, noticing my shift, lifted an eyebrow. “Everything okay?”

I tried for a nod, but it didn’t feel convincing. “Just my mom again,” I muttered, even though everything with my mom the last couple of years had definitely not been just a thing.

Matty’s brow furrowed, sympathy in his eyes that I didn’t want. “Want some company? I can drive over with you.”

I shook my head, forcing a smile I didn’t feel. “Nah, it’s fine. You’ve got study hall tonight, right? I can handle it.”

He didn’t argue with me. He and Jace both knew by now there wasn’t any point to doing that. I never wanted them to come with me. The fact that my mother had given up on life wasn’t a secret. But it was widely known that I didn’t want to talk about it.

Without another word, I changed as fast as I could, grabbing my stuff and heading to my truck. The drive to my mom’s place wasn’t long, but it was heavy.

She was the reason I’d stayed close to home, why I’d chosen Tennessee over any other school that had offered me a spot—which was literally almost all of them.

Cole was on a world tour with the Sound of Us, Walker was living his dream in Dallas.

That left me. I was the only one who wasn’t as haunted by the memories of our mom—the mom she used to be, when she’d actually wanted to live. I didn’t have those, because for as long as I could remember, she’d always been like this. I knew nothing else.

The drive home always felt longer than forty-five minutes. I gripped the steering wheel, trying not to think about what waited for me at the end of the road. Same house. Same silence. Everything I couldn’t outrun. The tires crunched on the gravel as I pulled into the driveway, and for a second, I sat there, staring at the front door like I always did.

It looked the same as it had for years. The paint that was chipped, the porch that sagged, and the windows that hadn’t been opened in God knows how long. Time hadn’t touched this place. Not since Dad. And it wasn’t like the three of us hadn’t tried. We all had money, especially Cole and Walker. But every time we’d had workmen come over to the house, she’d had a fit. Screaming and crying and scratching herself to the point that she could have been committed.

It hadn’t been worth dealing with it.

Thus, the house looked like this.

I sat in my truck for a minute, the drive not long enough for me to put up the walls I needed anytime I dealt with her. And like usual…thoughts like that made me feel like a shit son. It wasn’t her fault that she’d lost the love of her life unexpectedly. Our family had always had a reputation for falling in love hard. It hadn’t happened to me or Cole yet, but I was slightly a believer after seeing how crazy Walker was about his wife Olivia.

It’s just that I was pretty sure Walker wouldn’t abandon their child–my adorable niece–if something happened to her.

Unlike what my mom had done to the three of us.

Taking a deep breath, I finally got out of my truck and walked up the creaky steps to the front door. One more deep breath, and then I unlocked it and stepped inside.

The smell hit me first—stale air and dust, thick enough to taste. The kind of silence that settled in your bones and made everything feel heavier. The nurse was gone for the day, the silence told me that. She was a saint for lasting as long as she did on the days she worked. The fact that she wasn’t allowed to dust or move anything around couldn’t have been fun.

I got sick every time I thought about the day when she couldn’t handle Mom’s shit anymore and she left. Who would help me then?

The hardwood creaked under my feet as I walked through the front room. Dust clung to every surface—furniture, picture frames, the old clock on the mantle that hadn’t ticked in years. Like the whole house was frozen in the exact moment Dad died, and we’d never bothered to move on.

“Mom?” My voice echoed, too loud in the stillness. No answer, just more silence. My chest tightened.

I found her in her bedroom, sitting in the same chair she always did. It was the last thing Dad had built her before she died.

Her gaze was fixed on something out the window, like she was watching for someone. Like she hadn’t figured out he was never coming back.

“Parker, you’re here,” she said, her voice thin, fragile. She didn’t even look at me, though.

“Yeah, I just wanted to check in.”

Her hand twitched on the armrest, the only sign she’d even heard me. The nurse had told me that besides not eating, she’d also been agitated today, angry that things were being moved. That they weren’t exactly where they’d been before. I looked around. But everything looked the same, where it had been for years. The room was a shrine to a life we’d lost. Like everything was waiting for Dad to walk through the front door.

“You hungry? I can make something,” I offered, knowing she’d say no.

“I’m fine.” She shifted in her seat, a small movement, but enough to kick up a puff of dust from the cushion.

I glanced out the doorway to the kitchen, wondering if it had been stocked recently.

“Have you been taking your meds?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light, casual, even though I already knew the answer.

Her silence was the only confirmation I needed.

“I’m gonna go check the kitchen,” I said, more to fill the silence than anything else. “See if there’s anything edible in there.”

She didn’t stop me.

The fridge door squealed as I pulled it open, and I sighed in relief that Martha had some premade meals in there. Her soup would be a little bit easier to try and cajole down Mom’s throat than a PB&J.

Grabbing the container, I shut the door, sneezing as a puff of dust went right into my face.

A tomb.

That’s what this place reminded me of.

Leaning against the counter, I rubbed the back of my neck. Sometimes it felt like Dad would be disappointed in me. He’d always treated Mom like a queen. If this had happened while he’d been alive, he would have taken care of her every day without complaint.

Creak. The soft sound of the chair drifted out from the bedroom, and I looked up hopefully. But of course, she didn’t appear.

Making a vow to do better, I warmed up the soup in the microwave and slowly walked back to the bedroom, doing my best not to spill.

“Mom, look what I have…Martha’s zuppa toscana soup. You love this stuff,” I told her in a fake, cheery voice as I set the bowl down on the table next to the chair. “And how about I open this window? Get some fresh air in here.”

Her head snapped toward me, eyes sharp all of a sudden. “No.”

“Mom—”

“I said no!” Her voice cracked, thin as it was, and her arms thrashed around. “I don’t want anything.” I watched as her elbow hit the soup and it went flying, landing on the pair of Dad’s shoes that she’d kept right where he’d left them.

Mom let out an inhuman shriek at the sight of the soiled shoes and launched herself at them. I barely caught her before she hit the ground. “Noooo,” she wailed, struggling to get away from me and to the shoes.

My throat felt tight as I held on to her, desperate that she didn’t get hurt. “I’ll wash them off, Mom. It’s okay. Just please stop!”

She didn’t stop, though. She didn’t stop until she’d worn herself out completely trying to get to the shoes. She didn’t stop until I’d let her go, and she’d banged her knees on the wooden floor and cried over the worn leather.

“I’m sorry, Parker,” she cried as she fumbled frantically with her dirty pajamas, wiping off the soup with the hem of her shirt. “I’m so sorry.”

“I know, Mom,” I murmured as I knelt down and helped her.

She didn’t stop for hours. Until she passed out right there by the ruined shoes.

When I picked her up to carry her over to the bed, she weighed nothing. She was literally wasting away.

“It’s alright, Mom. You rest now,” I whispered, that choked, tight feeling still in my chest and throat. I tucked her in, pulling the sheets up to her chin. I could barely remember her doing that for me. And now here I was, long before she was old and gray, doing it for her now.

It fucking sucked.

All of a sudden the room felt smaller, tighter, like the walls were closing in. I glanced at the door, the house feeling like it was pressing down on me. The dust, the memories, the way everything had stopped the moment Dad left. It was suffocating.

I forced myself to leave the shoes, knowing it would just set her off again in the morning if she saw they were gone, and then I strode out of the room, setting the empty bowl in the sink before I hurried toward the door.

After all of that, she still hadn’t eaten.

My gaze got caught on the dust-covered frames on the mantle. Photos from a life that felt like it belonged to someone else. The three of us—Walker, Cole, and a tiny me—grinning like idiots next to Dad, all of us clueless about how fast things could change. How everything could stop.

Walker and Cole were lucky.

I got it, I really did. They were older, so the contrast from how Mom was then to how she was now was sharper. Their demons were closer to the surface.

But man, some days, this fucking sucked. That I had to be the one who walked into the tomb of a house and faced what was left of her. They didn’t have to see the way her eyes glazed over, or how she couldn’t remember if she’d eaten that day. Didn’t have to deal with the anger or the tears or worse…the blankness.

I ran a hand through my hair, trying to shove down the frustration bubbling up inside me. I wasn’t supposed to feel like this. I was supposed to understand, to handle it. But sometimes, it was too much.

I stood there for a second longer, waiting for something. Maybe a sign that things could change. But all I heard was my mom whimpering in her sleep.

And that was all I could take for the day.

I turned and walked out, the screen door creaking shut behind me. The weight in my chest stayed, though, clinging to me like the dust that covered everything in this place.

One thing I knew as I drove my truck away from the house like I was being chased…ghosts were real.

My mom was one.