You & Me

By Thursday, I’d convinced myself half a dozen times to text Landon and back out, to say, Sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking, but I can’t do this.

Emmet and I avoided each other all week. We never passed in the kitchen or on the stairs. I watched the milk decrease in the fridge, saw his sports bag change spots on the living room floor. Found wrappers for frozen pizza and burritos in the garbage. Those were the signs of life from my son.

We’d fallen into our isolation like everything else in our lives. Our avoidance of each other, or of any hint of a home life, was a careful reenactment of the time before Riley’s death. We were locked into the pattern she had left us: frozen food in the microwave, empty kitchens, my terrible attempts at dinner.

The last time I tried to cook for both her and Emmet, Riley laughed at the ugly little pan fried parmesan pork cutlets I’d labored over. She’d dumped her plate in the sink, food and all, and lit a cigarette right there in our old kitchen.

“You expect me to eat this?” she’d asked.

“Do you have anything else to offer for dinner?” I was wiping counters and polishing the drawer pulls, doing everything I could not to look at her or at her curlicues of nicotine. When had she started smoking again? She whipped that pack out of her purse like it lived there.

“Nope,” she said. She sucked down her cigarette, hollowing her cheeks as she inhaled. Embers flared.

I didn’t know this woman. I didn’t know who this person was in our home, wearing my wife’s clothes. I didn’t recognize her, or this cold rage, this bitterness in her eyes. “There’s cereal in the pantry,” I said, “if you get hungry later.”

She’d slammed the door when she stalked out to her car. I went to the dining room, where I had my laptop set up. I could always work, so I always did. There was always another email, another report, another way to bury my head in the sand.

My tried-and-true avoidance tactics weren’t working this week like they’d used to. Instead of getting lost in utilization reports, I replayed Emmet’s practice on a loop in my mind. Emmet on the field. Landon at my side. Bowen and Landon laughing together. Landon smiling at me. Emmet glaring at me.

At night, I tossed and turned. I was on the edge of something, and those thunderheads were still building on my horizon.

I didn’t cancel on Landon, and on Thursday afternoon, I pulled into the parking lot of the athletic center adjacent to the stadium.

I’m here, I texted.

Landon texted back immediately. Meet you out front. 🙂

He was, again, in suit pants and his booster T-shirt. Unlike at practice, he’d tucked his shirt in this time, which highlighted how fit he was. He looked as put together as a magazine ad, the kind of forty-year-old guy who makes aging look good. He sported a rakish five-o’clock shadow and perfectly styled hair, with just the right amount of silver at his temples to look distinguished.

I, on the other hand, looked fifty, not forty. My khakis and shapeless dress shirt were rumpled, and I had a salad dressing stain on my thigh. I’d run my hands through my hair a hundred times in the past hour. Sleepless nights had left me wan and haggard. The bags under my eyes had bags.

Landon handed me one of the T-shirts, with the cartoon rodeo rider and Emmet’s number 99 embroidered over the chest. “You can slip that over your shirt, or if you want to change, there’s a restroom inside.”

Out of all my hang-ups, modesty was never one. I loosened my buttons and tugged my dress shirt over my head. Landon’s eyes darted to my forearm and my tattoo before he politely turned away. I pulled my new T-shirt over my undershirt, tucked it in, and straightened my belt. “Am I decent?” I asked. I held out my arms. Do I look like an actual parent?

“You look great.”

He walked me inside the athletic center. Clumps of teenagers were bunched in the hallway outside the team room. They wore a mishmash of sports shorts, flip-flops, and hoodies, and they were huddled over each other’s phones. I searched the clusters for Emmet, but my son wasn’t around.

“So, team dinner,” Landon said. “Every Thursday during the season, the junior varsity and varsity teams eat together. Local restaurants donate the food, and they get a shout-out during the games. All we have to do is set up and serve the kids.”

The team room—huge enough to hold junior varsity and varsity combined—was filled with cafeteria tables, all set up in rows like an elementary school lunchroom. Memories hit me: Donuts with Dads and Brunches with the Best. Three times a year, Emmet and I ate powdered donuts at his elementary school before I’d walk him to his classroom. His little hand used to fold inside mine like a pearl. He’d give me a squeeze before running to his teacher, and after he hit his desk—always, like a towheaded hurricane—he’d turn back to the door and give me a beaming smile.

I shook the memory away.

Long folding tables snaked around two walls of the team room. Other booster parents—all moms—were setting up trays—and trays, and trays, and trays—of food. Garlic and carbohydrates filled my nose.

“Luke!” Annie waved from one of the tables. “Come on over and dive in!”

“Annie, I’m going to grab the coolers and the ice.” Landon’s shoulder brushed against mine. “Why don’t you help them set up the rest, and I’ll grab you when I’m back?”

“You don’t want help with the coolers?” There were a lot of moms on that side of the room.

“No one wants to deal with the ice machines. They refuse to work right. You’ve got to tell them who’s boss. Most of the time, I lose.”

I chuckled. His grin grew fractionally larger. “See you in a few.”

And then he was gone, disappearing through the double doors. Annie waved me over to join her and the rest of the moms, each of them carrying in a tinfoil-covered tray from the back entrance. I jogged over, taking one each out of the arms of Annie and another mom.

“Thanks, Luke.” Annie led me to the tables where the food went and then guided me out back to grab more. The moms had been unloading like worker ants, but there were still dozens of trays to go.

Each of the moms made a point of coming up and saying hello while we worked. They introduced themselves, naming their sons and pointing to their jersey numbers on their T-shirts. A few recognized 99 on my chest. “Oh, Emmet!” they said, bunching up their noses and trying to smile. “A very serious young man.”

“That’s my son.” I pasted a smile on my face and tried not to cringe.

Still no sign of Landon. I wasn’t used to this, to the small talk that parents engage in. I didn’t know how to converse about a son I didn’t know anymore or how to trade stats about homework and classes and football. Marianne, Jonah’s mom, told me her son was in all honors classes, worked at the Hot Dog Shack, and wanted to major in agricultural science at Texas A&M. He already had his acceptance letter. “And Emmet? What about him?”

Emmet drank three quarts of milk a day. He attended school, I knew, because the police hadn’t called me to report him truant. I had no idea what college he wanted to attend. Life had frozen one year and three—almost four now—weeks ago, back when colleges weren’t on the radar yet.

Jesus, Emmet was seventeen now. He wasn’t going to be drinking my milk and eating my peanut butter for much longer. He was a junior this year, but what happened after senior year? What did he want for himself?

Annie saved me from the interrogation. “’Scuse me, Marianne, I need to borrow Luke for a mo’.” She smiled her apology, then smiled her way through the crowd of moms until we were alone at the dessert table. “So, Luke…” She fiddled with the pecan pies, little palm-sized individual tins strangled in plastic wrap.

I smelled personal questions. Probing questions. Maybe even an invite to coffee to get to know one another. I pushed a bunch of brownies into a pile, then started stacking chocolate chip cookies, anything to busy my hands and keep my eyes glued to the table.

“I wanted to talk to you for a sec,” Annie said. She wasn’t looking at me, either. She was focused on those pecan pies. Emmet could probably put a whole one in his mouth. Bowen could probably eat two at once. “Look, I’m just gonna come out and say it.” Her accent, something North Texan, deepened. She squinted at me, propped one hip out as she shifted her weight. “I want to get this out of the way early in case it’s gonna be a problem. Landon is gay.”

I frowned. “Problem? Why would that be a problem?”

She ran her finger across her brow beneath her fluffy bangs. “Oh, whew,” she said. “Thank the Lord. We’re all very fond of Landon here, and I won’t tolerate any problems between the volunteers.”

Oh. This wasn’t a warning for me. It was a warning to me.

“This is Bowen’s senior year. Landon’s been so involved, and he deserves to have a great last year. He’s such a special guy.”

“Landon has been nothing but kind since I met him.”

“That’s Landon. He’s the nicest man you’ll ever meet.” She smiled, but it turned to steel as her eyes hardened. “We’ve had one or two volunteers who were not respectful to Landon. They are no longer with us.” Her voice was as sharp as a blade.

“Shouldn’t Landon be telling me this?”

“It’s not a secret. He probably thinks you already know. He’s as out as out can get. But as the president of the boosters, and as Landon’s friend, I need to make sure we are okay here.” Her blue eyes drilled into mine. “We okay?” There was a long drawl to that o-kay, a lingering question inside that one syllable.

“We’re good.”

“Great!” She shifted back to Texas sunshine. “I know he’s excited to have another dad around. A lot of the dads that sign up think they’re going to be lil’ football coaches or something. They don’t realize this is just like mothering—well, parenting—but for two hundred kids, not just one. Not many stick it out after the reality of this all sets in.” She spread her hands, waving to the long tables of food and the moms positioned behind the trays with serving spoons at the ready.

It was far too early to make some grand commitment, a glib comment like I’m in it for the long haul or not me, I’m here to serve. I gave Annie a thin smile.

“Oh, Landon’s back.” She pointed across the team room. Landon was maneuvering two stacked coolers through a door he held open with his hip, and a long line of more coolers stretched into the hallway behind him.

“I’ll go help him.”

I grabbed the door for Landon as he was finishing off a complicated hip-and-toe shimmy with the coolers. “Hey. How was the ice machine?”

“Surprisingly cooperative. I’ll pay for it next week, I’m sure.”

We dumped sodas and mini bottles of Gatorade into the coolers, then lined them up at the end of the buffet tables. “Watch the kids,” Landon said. “Especially the freshmen and sophomores. They try to grab seven of everything. Seven brownies, seven Dr Peppers.”

“This all seems ambitious, feeding two hundred teenagers.”

“It is, but the kids have a great time. It’s a good way for them to bond. Nothing brings people closer than sharing a meal.”

“Food smells great.” The garlic was overpowering. If there were any vampires in Last Waters, the high school was safe for the next week. Maybe the next month. The smell was going to saturate my clothing. I’d have to strip in the garage like I had when I was in high school trying to hide my pot smoking from my parents.

“It always does. The local restaurants are wonderful to the team.”

“And this is every Thursday during the season?” I tried to think back through the past two years. Where was Emmet on Thursday nights? Practice, I’d been told. Had he been here, eating with the team? Did he bond with the other boys? Did he have any friends he goofed off with, like the kids in the hall? A serious young man. He was my son, so he was definitely one of the quieter ones.

I imagined Emmet sitting by himself at the end of one of the long cafeteria tables, eating alone, glaring at the plate, and stabbing at his food. Like how he ate at home.

“It’s been a tradition for six years now.” Landon pulled out his phone and checked the time. “Uh-oh.” He winked. “The barbarians are coming.”

On cue, Annie tiptoed across the team room to the double doors. “Ready?” Moms raised their serving spoons. Landon looked at me.

Just like feeding them at home.

If Emmet was here, tonight would be the first time he’d eaten in the same room with me in over a year.

Hordes of teenagers flooded in. Junior varsity came first, mostly younger boys. They chatted a mile a minute with their friends, jerking their plates backward and forward over the food tables with nods and grunts when they saw something they liked.

Every variety of pasta was available, along with four kinds of sauces. Five types of salad. Heaping baskets of bread rolls and garlic knots. The dessert table overflowed, and as soon as the boys had decimated the pies, more appeared. I’d seen ants take longer to devour a carcass in the wild.

Within minutes, the cafeteria was half-full of boys stuffing their faces, the thrum of conversation and laughter bouncing off the walls.

Landon let the kids grab three Gatorades or a soda and a Gatorade each. I followed his lead, but it was harder than playing whack-a-mole. “You did this by yourself?” I asked, dumping another pallet of red Gatorade into a cooler and scooting it to the front. “Do you have eight arms?”

“You see?” Landon laughed. “Getting you to sign up was purely selfish on my part.”

“I believe it.”

Varsity followed the younger players. These were the seniors, with a few very talented juniors thrown into the mix. They were bigger, taller, more muscular. Men, at least physically, compared to the boys on the junior varsity team. They towered over the moms, and instead of being absorbed in conversation with each other or silently jabbing their plates back and forth, these players were exceedingly polite. They said please and thank you and smiled at the moms who served them. Clearly, there were higher expectations for the upper-level team.

I searched for Emmet. He wasn’t with the first wave, or the second, and then I lost focus while I had to reload a cooler with Coke and Mountain Dew. I rubbed my hands together to try and warm them after, standing shoulder to shoulder with Landon as he passed a small pile of Gatorades to a player he knew.

There he was. My Emmet moved through the line with Bowen at the back of the team. He was loading up on fettucine and holding out his plate for alfredo sauce. Bowen had gone for lasagna, and whoever was serving had scooped almost an entire row onto Bowen’s plate. Bowen laughed with every mom, saying thank you and holding out his hand for a fist bump. Emmet was like his shadow, silent save for a few thank you, ma’ams I saw him mumble. He never smiled. He never laughed. A serious young man.

But he was here. He was eating. He was with Bowen. I felt like I was sneaking a glimpse at a secret world, peeking into a part of my son’s life I had never known existed. I didn’t know he liked alfredo sauce. I didn’t know he liked Caesar salad, either. I gathered these tidbits of knowledge like I was a hoarder scraping precious oddities into my arms. Fettuccine. Caesar Salad. Garlic knots. Chocolate chip cookies.

“Hey, Em,” I said as he approached the drink table. I held out a Coke for him. He used to sneak Cokes into his room and hide the empty cans in his closet, like we wouldn’t find them if he made towers behind his rarely worn button-downs and his dress pants.

Emmet’s face pinched. “Um, can I have some Gatorade?”

“Yeah, of course.” I dropped the Coke back into the cooler and stared at the colors of Gatorade. “Which one? Lemon Lime, Orange, red, um, red something, white… Glacier Freeze?”

“Just whatever is fine.” Emmet shuffled left and right. He stared at the floor and the linoleum between his feet. His toes curled and uncurled inside his socks.

Two Lemon Limes and a red something. I handed them to Emmet. He took the bottles like he’d be poisoned if our skin touched. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

“Enjoy your dinner.” I love you.

“Bowen.” Next to me, Landon had turned serious. Bowen stared down at his dad with puppy dog eyes and a sorrowful expression. “Your English teacher called.”

Bowen sighed and dropped his chin to his chest.

“You blew off an essay?”

“Dad, I…” Bowen’s shoulders slumped.

“You were supposed to write a reflective essay on a summer reading book. Please, Bowen, please tell me you did read a book over summer?”

“Of course I did.”

“Not just the drill book?”

Bowen’s lips twisted. His face crunched. Caught.

“You’re lucky your teacher is letting you redo the essay. You should be getting an F.”

“I know. I’m sorry, Dad. I did try, I just… you know. I forgot my book up in Utah, and things get so busy at the end of summer, with football camp and everything.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“I know.”

“What did you read?”

“It was a Louis L’Amour western. Guns of the Timberlands.”

“We’ll buy another copy tonight so you can take it to school and use it for your essay.” Landon raised his eyebrows. “And if you need help, or if you’re struggling, you’ll reach out and ask, yes? Either ask your teacher or ask me.”

“Yes, Dad.”

A beat. Emmet hung behind Bowen’s shoulder so still and quiet he didn’t seem to be breathing.

Landon’s voice softened. “I’ll see you at home and I’ll get the book for you.” He gave his son a smile as he passed him a Dr Pepper. “Good luck at practice. You’re going to do great.”

“Thanks, Dad.” Bowen smiled. His gaze flicked to me. “Nice to see you again, Mr. Hale.”

“You too, Bowen.”

Bowen took the Dr Pepper and my son and headed to a table in the back, where he and Emmet sat across from each other and descended into a deep conversation. Bowen pulled out his phone and set it between them, swiping through screens as Emmet nodded along.

Bowen and Emmet were the last two players coming through the line. Junior varsity boys hunting for seconds were pecking through, and behind them, the coaches were starting to assemble their plates. Moms consolidated empty trays, and Landon started shoving empty coolers behind us. We’d powered through twelve coolers of drinks in under twelve minutes.

“I love my son, I love my son…” Landon rolled his eyes to the ceiling and chanted. He smiled at me as he tossed sodas. “Some days, it feels like you have to repeat that mantra to make it through.”

I snorted. There were days I wanted to shake Emmet until I got my little boy back, and days I wanted to fling myself at his feet and beg him to tell me what to do to fix this divide between us. Was it that I lived and Riley did not? What had grabbed hold of my son?

I didn’t want to get lost in the gloom of my circling thoughts. Those were 3:00 a.m. thoughts, staring at the bedroom ceiling thoughts.

“Bowen has problems in English?”

“He’s struggled for years. He’s dyslexic, and reading is hard for him. When he was younger, we’d read together, which was sometimes the only way he’d finish a book. Homework has always been a challenge. We’ve spent hours at the dining room table, working page by page through his textbooks. Essays are the hardest of all. He’s so good at verbalizing his thoughts, but translating that to written words…” He shook his head. “His English teacher called and told me he didn’t turn in his first essay. Considering it’s the second week of school, him getting a zero on this means he’d have an F minus, and he would be ineligible to start in the game tomorrow.”

Even though our lives had crumbled around us, I’d never received a phone call from any of Emmet’s teachers about him missing assignments. He was, on the whole, a good student.

But were there times when I could have done the same as Landon? Sat with Emmet and gone through his algebra or helped him study for his Spanish test?

“His English teacher is letting him work something out?”

“Yes, Mr. Inglewood is being very considerate. He said Bowen could come in before school for the next week to write his essay for partial credit. He’ll accept the paper as a late grade. It’s part tutoring, part detention. Bowen is very lucky.” His expression turned wry. “Even though I’m not. Bowen going to school early means I’m going to be awake early, too.”

I frowned. “He has his own car, right?”

“Yeah, but look at him. Does that look like a boy who can move quietly? If he’s awake, I’m awake.”

Now I laughed. Emmet moved like a herd of elephants all on his own, too, and he was smaller than Bowen. “Do you have giant genes in your family?”

“All the men on his mother’s side are mountain men. She’s five two and a hundred pounds, but Bowen came out like a bowling ball. Now he’s his own marching band wherever he goes.”

The coaches were descending on us, and Landon had a line of sodas ready for them.

“Larsen,” Coach Pierce said. “Your boy ready?”

“He’s been trying to perfect tonight’s practice more than he tried to perfect his SAT score,” Landon said. “He’s ready to lead.”

Pierce grinned. “I have no doubt.”

Landon turned to me. “Coach, this is Luke Hale, Emmet’s dad.”

Coach Pierce’s eyes widened. He looked me up and down, taking me in slowly, before shuffling his plate and holding out his hand. “Emmet’s dad, huh? Haven’t seen you around before.”

His words scraped across my soul.

“I’m real proud of how your son fought back, Mr. Hale. He put in the hard work this past year. You should be proud, too.”

“Of course I’m proud of my son.”

“He’s got Bowen to thank for pushing him.” Coach Pierce grabbed a Sprite and pointed to Landon. “Your boy wouldn’t let Hale give up. He probably saved that kid.”

“Well.” Landon looked down and ran his fingertips around the edge of the table. I stared. What did he mean, Bowen had saved him?

The coaches moved away in a herd. Bowen reappeared, grabbing another huge plate of lasagna, a pile of garlic knots, and snagging more Gatorades for himself and Emmet. I smiled at Emmet when our eyes met, and I counted it as a victory when Emmet held my gaze and didn’t look away as soon as he could.

Then it was cleanup, and Landon and I started hauling coolers outside to dump the melted ice before carting the leftover drinks back to the locker the boosters kept in the athletic center. Wall-to-wall shelves were crammed with Gatorades, sodas, snacks, spirit wear, decorations, flags, and banners. I gaped at it all, at this explosion of parental pride.

By the time we were done, the moms had finished consolidating the food down to one table and the kids had bled from the athletic center down to the stadium. The varsity boys were huddled up in the end zone as the junior varsity players sat in semi circles around them. Landon led me to the bleachers, and we both perched on the back of the seats on the first row of the upper deck.

“After the team dinner, the varsity team coaches for the junior varsity squad. The team captains lead.” He pointed to Bowen, who was huddled with Emmet and a boy wearing a number 35 jersey. Annie’s son. Jason. The running back.

“Emmet is a captain?”

Landon nodded. “Defensive captain. He’s the first junior to be named defensive captain in eight years.” He threw me a small smile.

“I didn’t know that. I didn’t know any of this.” God, I wish I had.

On the field, the younger boys listened to Bowen with a focus and intensity that mirrored parishioners in a Baptist church. Emmet and Jason were on the outside of the circle, arms crossed, watching. The rest of the varsity team were setting up cones and blocking dummies, and the coaches were sitting on the bench as they took the evening off.

Once, Emmet glanced up at the bleachers. Our eyes met, and I raised my hand, waving.

“Emmet’s mom died last year, right?” Landon’s voice was quiet. “Right at the start of the season?”

I nodded.

“That’s when he was moved back down to junior varsity. That was hard on him.”

Silence. I swallowed.

“Bowen worked one-on-one with Emmet for months. It was touch and go for a while.”

I heard Landon’s unasked questions: Where were you? Why weren’t you here? Why didn’t you know your son was falling apart? I shifted, closed my eyes. Breathe—

“I got the impression it was a sudden loss. Unexpected.”

Again, I nodded. Memories blasted in my mind like firecrackers, little snapshots that burst and burned. I’d never unsee those moments. They’d live etched onto my retinas forever.

“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how hard it’s been.”

It was excruciating, but for all the wrong reasons. I scrubbed my palms over my thighs, dug my fingers into my kneecaps. I thought there’d be more grief. More despair, more sadness, more desperation. I thought, once the shock passed, I’d yearn for the past and ache with the loss of it all.

When I remembered Riley, all I felt was emptiness.

“She had divorce papers in her purse,” I forced out. “The day she died. I found them. She’d been working with an attorney for months.”

My life was about to be demolished. She was suing for full custody. She wanted the house and sixty percent of everything, plus alimony. She wanted me to vacate the property, leave as soon as I was served. The papers were nothing but ink on paper, but the coldness, the viciousness, the hatred, took my breath away.

If she’d asked, I would have given her all of that, and more. If we’d talked, if she’d come to me and said, This isn’t working anymore, I would have said, I know, and it hasn’t for a while. What would you like to do? I didn’t want her to be so fucking miserable that she—

Landon’s face pinched. He pressed his hands together and slid them between his knees.

“We weren’t happy. We hadn’t been for a long time. Our marriage, our lives… they had disintegrated. We were living in separate worlds. But I thought we’d talk, at least. If we couldn’t make things work, then…”

“You guys never talked about it?”

I shook my head. “We never got the chance. She died, and—”

And all I had left was her hate.

And her crippling debt. Credit cards maxed out that I never knew she opened, personal loans she’d taken out at three different banks. The accounts she emptied. She’d burned through over two hundred thousand in eighteen months. She’d even raided Emmet’s college fund. If it was cash available, Riley was liquidating it. When she died, that bill came due to me.

“There were other things I found in her purse.” I’d never said these words. I’d never spoken this aloud. I thought I’d take Riley’s secrets to my grave. “I think she was having an affair.”

When it hit—all of it, all at once—I was sitting on the floor of the emergency room. I didn’t know the last six numbers she called, and I didn’t know why there were condoms and divorce papers and cigarettes in Riley’s purse.

Her limp and lifeless hand had flopped over the side of her gurney, dangling downward like she was reaching for me. I held it one last time, but when I did, I felt nothing. She wasn’t Riley—my wife or my friend—anymore.

“I’m sorry.” Landon’s voice was filled with pain. He shifted, and one of his knees brushed against the outside of my thigh. “I’m divorced. It wasn’t an ugly divorce, but… Are there any good ones?”

We both grimaced. I shifted, moving my own knee against Landon’s. Landon dropped casual touches easily, and I hadn’t been touched, other than a handshake, for three years. Landon’s shoulder squeezes and knee brushes burned me like a brand. They were moments where, for a single second, I wasn’t alone in the world. I existed. I was a person, and another person’s warmth reached me.

“What happened?” I couldn’t judge another couple’s marriage, but I also had a hard time believing anyone would divorce a guy like Landon.

Me? Oh yeah, women would leave me.

Landon scrubbed his hands through his hair. Chestnut strands swirled out of place. It was a good look on him. “Well, I’m gay.” Landon’s eyes flicked to me.

“Annie mentioned that earlier. She gave me the ‘if you hurt my friend, you’re bounced out of the clubhouse’ speech.” He laughed. “She cares a lot about you.”

“She’s a good friend.” He sobered, his smile fading. “I married young. Well, not young for where I come from. I was raised Mormon. Utah born and bred, from Happy Valley.”

“Mormon? I didn’t think Mormons were cool with people being gay.”

“Many are not.” Landon’s knee jiggled against mine. “Before I was sixteen, I had my whole life planned out. I was a decent high school football player. Nothing All-State, but I was good enough to get a partial scholarship to Brigham Young, and I played four years on the scout team.”

“Scout team?”

“Scout teams study the opponent the team is about to play. You take on their style and play like they do so the first string can get a feel for what they’re up against.” His eyes crinkled when he smiled. He had a dimple, too, on his right cheek. “I can play quarterback poorly and mimic the conference rivals of BYU from twenty years ago.”

I could see him on the field, like his son. Not as tall or as imposing as Bowen, but I could see him in the pads and helmet. “Did you go on a mission?”

Sorrow fell over Landon’s features as he peered into the distance. “We decided to put it on hold. We wanted to do it together, so we said we’d do it after our kids were grown up.”

“We?”

“My ex-wife. Bethany. Bowen’s mom.” His shoulders sagged forward. “I truly didn’t know I was gay when we married. Being gay wasn’t an option growing up, so I never considered it. I was the definition of a sheltered kid.” He smiled, wistful and sad. “Bethany and I were middle school sweethearts. We dated all through high school. Went to BYU together, too. We got married right after graduation. I went to work as a paralegal, and she worked in the church. Bowen was born. My firm eventually sponsored me to attend law school…”

He spread his hands. “And I had my eyes opened. First at law school, and then when I was put on a few larger accounts. I had to travel outside of Happy Valley, and I realized I wasn’t quite who I thought I was. I wanted things I didn’t understand.”

He looked at me, echoes of the lost and scared young man he’d been back then etched into his expression. “But I had a wife and a little boy at home.”

I didn’t know what to say. “What did you do?”

“I tried counseling. Mormon counseling, of course. Their advice was to pray. It’s not the attraction that’s the problem, you see, it’s acting on it. Wanting to live as a gay man, and not praying for the strength to overcome the desire.” He shrugged. “But how I felt wasn’t going away. My sense of identity was only getting stronger.”

“Did you try non-church counseling?”

“Thankfully, yes. I had a mentor at my law firm and I confided in him. I broke down in his office and he got me in with a great psychologist. I took two weeks off, and I worked every day, trying to unravel myself. Who was I? What did I want out of my life? What did I need?”

“How did you even begin to sort it all out?”

“With the basics.” Landon smiled. His thigh was pressed against mine. “I’m Landon Larsen. I’m gay. I’m Bowen’s father. And—” He took a deep breath. “I decided I had to be Bethany’s ex-husband. There was no future for us, not once I accepted myself.”

“How’d she take it?”

Landon exhaled. “There were some days I wished I’d never realized I was gay. I wished I could put that all back in a box and hide it away, and I could go back to my family and we could live our lives like we planned.”

“That wouldn’t be right.”

“No, and I knew that, but it was still difficult. Agonizing. There were lots of tears. But being me brought me to a place of peace, and that’s only grown over the years.”

“Are you seeing anyone?”

“No,” he said quickly. “No, I’m not seeing anyone. My focus is on Bowen and being a dad.”

“Well, you seem to have that all figured out. I was calling you Super Dad in my head all week.”

Another huge laugh from Landon. I grinned, watching him tip his head all the way back. “I’m hardly Super Dad. You saw my son blow off his English essay, right?”

“I see you and him talking. You guys have a connection. I’d give anything to have that with Emmet.”

Landon leaned into my shoulder, suddenly serious. “You will. Emmet is a good kid. You both have been through hell. You guys used to be close?”

I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t force the words out. Memories assailed me. Saturday mornings, chocolate chip pancakes. Drawing together. Pick 99, buddy. “Very. Very close.”

“You’ll get that back. You and Emmet need to find each other again. It’s a good thing, what you’re doing. Coming here. Volunteering. It’s the little things that add up.”

God, I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe that the distance that had grown between me and Emmet—the disintegration of us—could be bridged. I gnawed on the edge of my lip as I watched Emmet teach the junior varsity boys how to sprint off the snap. A week ago, even this moment seemed like an impossibility. But here I was, in my new T-shirt, at Emmet’s practice. With, amazingly, I realized, a friend.

“You just want my help with the coolers.” I bumped Landon’s shoulder.

“Come back tomorrow for the game and I’ll show you exactly how I want to use you.”

Landon went neon maroon as soon as the words left his lips. His ears darkened, and a flush bloomed over his cheeks. He stiffened, shifted away, groaning as he buried his head in his hands. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean, at all—”

I howled. Doubled over, bursting with deep-down-in-my-belly laughs. When was the last time I’d really laughed? “Your face! Landon!”

He was still magenta, especially in his cheeks and on his ears. “Anyway,” he said, brushing a piece of lint from his thigh. “What were we talking about?”

I had to push my fingers into my eyes and wipe away my tears.

“That’s right. My ex. Bethany still lives in Utah with the rest of the extended family.”

“What brought you and Bowen out here?”

“Bowen was a football star at a young age. Like Emmet, right? The really exceptional players have always been standouts.”

I shrugged. If only I’d known what to watch for during those youth games.

“Bethany and I were trying to figure out which high school would be best for Bowen. Should he stay in Happy Valley? Provo? Salt Lake? Bowen came to us and asked if he and I could move to Texas so he could go to high school down here. Texas is better for future football stars than Utah, and he said he wanted to try and get into the University of Texas. That nearly broke my father’s heart. Brigham Young would kill to recruit Bowen.”

“Did he apply to BYU?”

Landon shook his head. Shifted the topic. “Bowen goes to see his mom every summer, and during the season, she comes down to watch most of his home games.”

“Are you still Mormon?”

“I was declared an apostate when I came out,” he said. “I think the closest I get to a label now is agnostic.”

“And Bowen?”

“Bowen is making up his own mind. He doesn’t go to church here, but he goes with his mom when he visits. He’ll decide on his own.”

“So Bowen knows? Everything? Not just that you guys divorced, but why? Annie said you were out, and, I mean, you just said you were gay—” I was rambling. I didn’t know what I was saying or what I was fumbling to ask.

“Bowen knows I’m gay. It was important to me to be honest with him.”

“He’s always been cool with it?”

Landon gazed at the far side of the stadium. “Bowen was suspended from school once in fourth grade. He and another kid got into a fistfight. Bowen got him down on the ground, and it took three teachers to pull him off. Even then, he was huge.”

Bowen seemed like a gentle giant. I couldn’t imagine him throwing a punch at anyone.

“Turned out, the other kid was picking on Bowen. Saying things like his dad was sucking the Devil’s dick, and that his dad had been kicked out of the church because I wanted to sleep with all the other dads and they had to protect themselves.”

“Jesus,” I mumbled.

“When I picked him up from school, he hugged me harder than he’d ever hugged me in his life. Even when I took him home, he wouldn’t let go. He cried for hours. I kept asking him if he wanted to talk, but he kept shaking his head no. He just stayed in my arms. I felt like the worst parent in the world because I did this to my son.”

“You didn’t—”

He talked right over me. “The only thing Bowen said that day was this: he told me, very seriously, once all the tears were dried, that as long as he was around, I didn’t have to worry about bullies. He said he’d take care of the meanies so I could be me.”

My body clenched like I’d been punched in both kidneys. “You’ve got a great kid. And he’s got a great dad.” I leaned into his shoulder. “Super Dad.”

Landon chuckled, and we dropped into silence as we watched the field and our sons. Bowen worked with the quarterbacks while Emmet had a line of defensive players around him as he demonstrated a pass rush.

“Did you eat? Before you came?”

I tore my eyes from the field, from Emmet, and shifted to Landon. “No.” I hadn’t eaten since I’d ignored half my salad at lunch.

“There’s leftovers.” He jerked his thumb to the athletic center. “By now, it’s turned into a coffee klatch in there. Everyone usually grabs a plate and talks until the end of practice.”

“You don’t watch Bowen?”

“I do occasionally. Bowen is protective of these practices, though. He’s shy about what he does here. He wouldn’t even put these on his college applications.”

“Bowen is shy? About anything?”

Landon nodded. “He’s my son.”

“You’re shy?”

His smile shifted, turned tentative. “If you’re hungry, what do you think about going somewhere a little quieter? You just had a lot of football all at once. Need a break?”

It was like Landon could read my mind. Or maybe I wasn’t that great at hiding what was going on inside me. Did I look desperate for an escape already? I, like my son, wasn’t a social creature. Big gatherings made me find corners to escape to. This, with Landon, was what I always liked best: finding someone to connect to and exploring each other’s hidden diamond veins.

My stomach rumbled loud enough that we both could hear. Landon grinned.

“Yeah. Let’s get out of here.”