It was a family tradition of ours, to have dinner at least once a week at Mom’s, and any time that dinner fell on a Friday night during football season, they’d have dinner without me, come watch the game, and then we’d all gather here again after the game for me to heat up leftovers and for all of us to catch up.
Tonight, though, my appetite for anything that wasn’t whiskey was nonexistent.
Later, Mom stared at the untouched plate of food in front of me, worry in her eyes as I sipped on the old fashioned I’d made. It was a bit strong, but already I felt myself cooling off, my temper settling.
It was me, Noah, and my mom at the table. Logan and the girls were in the living room, all three of them watching a documentary on Mars that Logan had been waiting on to air for weeks. I watched the screen from the dining room table in a numb state of being, all the adrenaline draining from my body to leave me feeling completely wiped.
“So,” Noah said, sipping on his own glass of whiskey. He swirled the ice cubes around in it before setting it back on the table. “You wanna talk about tonight?”
Noah was the oldest of my brothers, but still four years younger than me. I remembered being wide-eyed and fascinated by him growing in our mother’s stomach, back when I was the only kid in the Becker household. I had no idea what would come with being an older brother, only that my father had told me I would be responsible for him, that I would have to look after him, protect him, have his back.
And I had, from the very minute he was born.
Noah and I had our differences, though, and of all my brothers — I’d fought with him the most. He was bullheaded and always felt like he had something to prove. Especially after Dad died, he was hell-bent on being man of the house. I had to literally wrestle him to the ground and kick his ass for him to calm down and see that we all had that title — and that it would take the entire team.
He was also the only one of us who really looked like Dad.
He had the same blue eyes, the same reddish-tone to his bronze skin. He was stout like Dad had been, where Logan and Michael were both lean and tall. They had Mom’s eyes, and her smile, too.
“Not particularly,” I answered after a minute.
Mom reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “It’s one loss. One loss does not a season make.”
I softened, squeezing her hand in return before I forced myself to take a bite of dinner. I knew if I didn’t at least make an attempt, I’d break my mother’s heart, and if anyone had a soft spot in me — it was her.
“I agree,” I told her, taking a bite of sweet potato. “But, we should have won. We would have won, in my opinion, had a certain situation been avoided.”
“You talking about Parker getting hurt?” Noah asked.
“He wasn’t hurt.”
Mom frowned. “He limped off the field. I saw the new trainer take him back to the locker room.”
I ground my teeth together, forgoing my next bite and reaching for my glass, instead. “I know. But I saw it in his eyes even before he was taken back. He wasn’t hurt, he just wanted to be rubbed down by Sydney. And like a fool, she fell for it.”
Noah and my mom exchanged glances.
“I know I sound like an asshole,” I admitted. “But, I told her not to take him back, to put him back on the field, and she refused. She dug her heels in like a stubborn woman.”
“Jordan Solomon,” Mom chastised.
“Sorry, Mom,” I said quickly. “Male or female, it was a stubborn move and a blatant disregard for authority. She took him back, anyway, insisting she needed to assess the full injury, and then after the game, wanna know what happened?” I grinned, though I was far from happy about it. “He admitted it. A few of the players had dared him to fake an injury to get her to rub down his groin, and she fell for it.”
Noah snickered and Mom swatted him across the chest.
“This is nothing to laugh about. First of all, that’s awful that they did that to her. But, Jordan,” she said, shaking her head as her eyes found mine. “Sydney doesn’t know these boys like you do. If Parker had truly been hurt and she let him go back into the game, that would have been on her.”
Mom looked older in that moment, as if the story I’d just told had somehow aged her. I knew the reality was that the last ten years had — ten years of raising four rowdy boys without her life partner to help. She’d recently cut her hair even shorter, the edges of it curling over her ears, and almost all of the soft brown was replaced by a silvery-gray. Her eyes were still a bright hazel, though — a swirl of green and gold.