The Hardest Cut by Jamie Bennett (book club recommendations .TXT) 📕

“I’m really, really lucky,” I told Ben.  “It’s still running.”  Thank goodness, because I definitely didn’t have the money for a car right now, not with all the expenses I was incurring to try to make the team.

“Sure, lucky,” he repeated, his eyes darting over my brother’s car.  “It’s going to need a lot of work.  Even if it runs, is it safe to drive?”

Was he worried about me?  I got a funny flutter in my chest, because that was so nice.  It was nice to have someone concerned about me like that.

“You’re going to pick up Tessa,” Ben continued.  “I don’t want her riding in this.  At the very least, you have to get the smell out.”

Oh.  “I don’t have another option,” I told him.  “It isn’t even my car to begin with.  I’m going to have to give it back to my brother and make a lot of amends for all that I’ve done to it.”  Oh, gravy.  More amends.

“Leave it here to air out, and we’ll go get Tess in my truck.  You guys can come to the Woodsmen practice facility with me for the afternoon.”

“Really?  That would be fun.  For both of us,” I assured him.  I rolled down each window a little and carefully locked the door after I got out.

“I don’t think anyone’s going to steal it,” he commented.  I nodded, thinking that no one would want it now, if they ever had.  I also thought about how I was going to explain the damage to my brother.  Anthony was going to be furious, but he wouldn’t show it.  He would turn it into a lecture about how I was messing everything up again, but he would use fancier terms, like “culpability” and “incompetent,” and then he’d shake his head and ask me to reflect back in my own words what he’d said so he could be sure that I understood.

His wife, Kristi, would lord this over me for the rest of my life, bringing it up again and again.  It would be like how she always talked about me having trouble with the math requirement for my business major in college, how I barely passed and only did by studying harder than anyone else in the class and camping in the professor’s office for extra help.  It still wasn’t funny to me, how bad I’d been, and I hated when she talked about it all the time and laughed like it was a joke.

I imagined what my mom would say, too, because she’d be very disappointed.  She would shake her head and purse her lips like she had a bad taste in her mouth.  She would definitely tell me how hard Anthony worked for his money, how it wasn’t fair for me to take advantage of his generosity.  And she would be right, because it wasn’t.

Ben opened the door to his truck for me and slung my bag inside.  “What were all the sighs for, the car?” he asked me.  “You’ll be able to get it fixed.  Probably.”

“I was just thinking about my family,” I told him.  “Even if I do get it fixed, I’ll have to tell my brother, and he’s not going to take it very well.  No one will.”  I heaved another sigh.

“Families can be tricky,” Ben agreed.  He backed up and we left the lot without hitting anything or the truck getting engulfed in flames.

“I met your brother at a bar once when he played here for the Woodsmen,” I mentioned.

“Did he come onto you?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer.  I settled with, “Well, I think he was very friendly with all the women there.”

“That’s Kayden,” he agreed grimly.  “Friendly with women.”

I glanced over, wondering why he would clench his jaw like that.  “I heard he might get benched next season,” I mentioned, but Ben didn’t respond.  “The Rustlers were looking for a QB in the draft but they didn’t find one, so that’s good news for him.  Maybe if he works hard in training camp, he’ll get to keep his job as the starter.”

“You know a lot about football.”

“It’s always been my favorite thing,” I explained.  “I used to go to every home game with my dad, starting when I was really small.  Sometimes we’d drive to the away games, too.”

“Not anymore?”

“He died when I was nine.”  I looked out the window after I said the words.  I wanted to reach the stage where I could state that fact unemotionally, like I might talk about the weather.  Looks like rain; my dad had a heart attack and was gone before I knew what had happened.  Maybe I’d get to that point about Anthony’s car, too, so that it didn’t hurt every time Kristi brought it up to laugh at me about what a bad driver I was, or when Anthony would tell me how I never accepted adulthood or something like that.

“I’m sorry to hear that about your dad,” Ben said, and I turned back to him.

“What about you?”

“What about me?” he replied.

“Where is your family?”

“I grew up in Arizona,” he answered, which I already knew from reading about him.  “My dad passed away a few years ago but my mom still lives there.  Kayden goes home in the off-season because he likes the weather.”

“Will you go back for the off-season also, once you’ve settled in here?”

“Probably not.  I want Tessa to be in one place.  It wouldn’t be good for her to move around too much.  She takes a long time to get comfortable.”

“But what about…”  I trailed off and tried again.  “I guess I was thinking that if you share custody, she’ll have to move between houses.  Where is Tessa’s mom?”  We drove for a while and I didn’t think he was going to answer me.  “I’m sorry,” I said.  “Never mind.”

“It’s all right.  Her mom isn’t around,” he said shortly, and I decided to leave it at that.

Tessa was ecstatic to have her dad pick her up from day care, but less happy that we