River

I can hardly walk from my car to my parents’ front door without wincing. Training camp is kicking my ass especially hard this year, but I don’t want to miss out on a home cooked meal with my family.

Everyone is here tonight . . . well, not everyone. David is still in the hospital, but my brother, Abel, and his daughter are here visiting from New York, and Olivia and her crew are here spending a couple of days with Mom and Dad.

Noah and his family are always here, and so are James and Mark and their kids. Abigail usually has a hard time rounding her family up to come, but she’s so pregnant, I imagine she needs a break.

When we get together like this, everybody looks after everybody else’s kids, and I take care of them all.

“Don’t jump on Uncle River!” Maria yells when I’m met at the door by a laughing mob of nieces and nephews.

“He’s been working hard, and he hurts,” she says, trying to explain, but it’s too late. They are crawling all over me like Arnold Schwarzenegger in that old movie, Kindergarten Cop.

Marie is plucking them off one by one, but I’m okay with the pain. At least it comes with love and not criticism. Coach is brutal this year. I don’t know what’s going on with him, but his positive attitude approach to coaching this year seems to have gone out the window.

“Everybody come and sit down before dinner gets cold,” Mom yells from the kitchen, and the kids are off and running to the table.

I groan and straighten up to hug Maria.

“Lo siento. They’re just excited to see their favorite uncle,” she says, patting my back gently.

“It’s all right. I love it no matter how battered I am.” I smile down at her, and she takes my hand to lead me to the table.

“Hey, baby brother, when’s your girlfriend coming home?” Olivia says when I sit down next to her.

“She’s gone for two more weeks.”

“You miss her?” she asks.

“Yeah, like crazy, but I’m glad she’s not around for all this crap with the media about David. She doesn’t need that when things are taking off for her.”

“If you two are serious, you’ll weather these kinds of storms together. It’s called teamwork, ever heard of it?” she says and elbows me in the ribs.

I flinch and grab my side. “Oh God, sorry. I forgot you’re having your ass handed to you this month.”

“It’s okay.”

Mom had a table custom made to fit all of us, but we’re usually missing one or two people every week, so it’s particularly crowded tonight. Olivia is left-handed and I’m not, so we keep bumping arms.

“Sorry,” she says for the tenth time. “I haven’t gotten to talk to you since your sleepover at my house. Allen says you had a very nice time out by the pool.”

“I told him not to watch that. He said he would erase it.”

“He did after he watched it.” She pops a cherry tomato into her mouth and waggles her eyebrows.

“You can’t seriously expect a red-blooded man to erase a porn flick filmed by his own pool. Come on, River.”

“Yeah, I guess so. You have a very nice bed, by the way—firm yet bouncy.”

“You changed the sheets, right?”

“Yes, I did. I also borrowed a couple of condoms from your drawer. Thanks.”

She stops eating with her fork halfway to her mouth. “What?”

“We borrowed your condoms. Man, if it’s a big deal, I have a few in my wallet I can pay you back with.”

She drops her fork, and it clatters on her plate.

“Olivia, what’s the matter?” Allen says from her other side.

She whispers something into his ear, and his mouth falls open.

“Oh my God, I thought you got rid of those,” he says, setting his fork and knife down on his plate too.

“Um, what’s going on with you two? Did I use your favorite condoms?”

A hush has settled over the table, but I’m not worried. Most of them are too young to know what a condom is anyhow.

Allen takes a deep breath and blows it out, puffing his cheeks.

“Olivia and I recently decided to try and have another baby.”

“That’s awesome. Congratulations,” I say, and everyone at the table begins to congratulate them as well.

“We aren’t pregnant yet. Well, I don’t think so anyway. That’s not the point, though. When we decided, we had a little ceremony where we put a pin through all the condoms in that box,” Olivia says and stretches out the last few words of her sentence to make sure I understand exactly what she’s saying.

She blinks, and I stare at her. She blinks again, and adrenaline starts to flood my bloodstream.

Holy shit, no, no, no. I want kids, but Angel and I are nowhere near ready to start a family. We’ve only officially dated for a little over a week, over five if you count the weeks she’s been gone.

I scoot my chair away from the table, and she grabs my wrist.

“River, I am so sorry. I didn’t even think.”

“I have to go to New York.”

“River, honey, wait. You should call her first. You might be getting all worked up over nothing,” Mom says.

“I can’t tell her about this over the phone.”

“But you’ll miss training camp tomorrow. You need to be there,” she says.

“I don’t care. I’ll take the red-eye and be home tomorrow. I have to go.”

“All right, Son. I’ll pray for you. Drive safely. Your mind is all over the place. You won’t be any good to her if you have an accident.”

“I will, thanks.” I kiss her on the cheek and get on my phone on the way to my car to talk to Coach and book a flight.

He’s going to shit a brick when he finds out I’m flying to New York. Reporters follow me everywhere these days, but they aren’t trying to get a great pic of the famous football player, River Kelly. They’re competing for the juiciest picture of a fallen star suspected of trying to murder his brother.

I’m not officially supposed to leave the state, but they can kiss my ass. They can throw me in jail when I get back, but I’m going to see Angel tonight, no matter what.