The Baller: A Down and Dirty Football Novel - Vi Keeland Page 0,88

to succeed and be happy, even if it meant you didn’t get to be with him.”

“I remember. I told him I didn’t want to go out with him anymore. He was pissed for about ten minutes, then stormed back in, realizing what I was doing. He could always see right through me.”

“Well, he felt the same way about you, you know.”

“I know.” There had never been any doubt in my mind that Drew loved me.

“But do you understand what I’m saying? Drew would want you to meet someone. He would want you to move on. Be happy. Fall in love. Have a family someday.”

“Of course he would. I just haven’t met anyone who could replace Drew.”

“That’s what I worry about, Delilah. No one has to replace Drew. He’ll always have a place in your heart. But you can love two men at the same time. You just love them differently.”

It wasn’t lost on me that Brody had basically said the same thing.

“Thanks, Jana.”

“Don’t be afraid to love again, dear.”

I spent a long time that afternoon sitting beside Drew’s grave. Unlike other times I came to visit, my time wasn’t spent crying. Instead, I thought about what Jana had said. Was I afraid to love again? Light snow started falling before I left. Unlike most New Yorkers, I loved the winter. Hot chocolate, bright lights, warm sweaters, snow, and football.

I leaned my head back, opened my mouth, and stretched my arms wide to catch the flakes as they came down. After a few minutes, I wished Drew a Happy Birthday and headed back to my car. Reaching the sidewalk, a hundred feet from the warm confines of my Jetta, I slipped on that pretty white snow I’d just been enjoying. I wiped out, landing on my ass with both feet up in the air. For some reason, I went hysterical laughing. An elderly man walking by with his wife stopped to help me up, but I waved them off, unable to speak through my fit of laughter.

I sat there alone on the sidewalk, the snow frosting my hair white, and cackled until my laugh turned into a cry. The cry turned into a sob before I finally got up. My teeth were chattering, my lips were swollen from the bite of winter, and my body trembled. I was a mess . . . but for some reason, everything seemed to be clear all of a sudden. It wasn’t that I was afraid to fall in love. I was pretty sure I had done that already. I was afraid that if something happened again, I wouldn’t be able to get back up.

Chapter 40

Brody

“Ready to go, you damn cripple?” Grouper took his time getting up, his bones creaking as he lifted himself from a chair in the dining hall.

He wagged his bony finger at me. “You should be so lucky to be in as fine a shape as I’m in when you get to be the ripe old age of sixty.”

“Sixty? Who you kidding? You have age spots older than sixty.”

Grouper grumbled something under his breath. He lifted a box off the table. “This is the last of Marlene’s things. There’s a nice little gold cross necklace in there and some old coins—not sure if they have any value or not. Everything else is pretty much paperwork. We donated everything to Phoenix House like you asked. They were pretty excited to get all those clothes. More than half of ’em had the tags on still. You sure did spoil her.”

“She deserved it.” I took the box from Grouper and waved goodbye to Shannon at the nurses’ station as we walked to the front door.

“That place said you’d be surprised at how many of their patients aren’t young kids anymore. Drug and alcohol rehabs are more than thirty percent women over the age of fifty.” He shook his head. “Would never have guessed.”

I didn’t know the statistics, but I knew Marlene would want her stuff to go to a place where people were trying to get help. “Thanks for taking care of that for me.”

“You gonna bring the cross to Willow?”

“I’ll mail it to her. She moved upstate yesterday. Her roommate from rehab bought a place up near Saratoga, and Willow needed to get out of the city. Place she was living had too much temptation for a recovering addict. It was easier to score drugs from her neighborhood than it was to buy milk. Marlene left her a nice little chunk of change,