Cement Heart(57)

“Fine,” I groaned as I sat back down on the couch, shaking my head. “I’ll try, but I’m not making any promises. I won’t go looking for it, but should a situation present itself, I’m taking it.”





AFTER A MOSTLY shitty meeting with Dr. Roberts, I needed a break. I needed to go where I could be myself and I wouldn’t be judged for it.

I headed straight to Gam’s.

She opened her front door, beaming when she saw me. “To what do I owe this surprise?”

“I missed my favorite old lady.” I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her tight, lifting her off the floor just a little.

“Well, this old lady missed you too.” I could tell she was smiling as she talked. “Come on in. I was just baking.”

I set her down and pulled back, eyeing her skeptically. “You? Baking?”

“Okay, I was thinking about baking, but I was just about to pour myself a drink. Want one?”

“There she is!” I joked, following her to the kitchen. I noticed she was limping more than normal. I motioned toward her leg. “You okay?”

She waved me off. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. What can I get you?”

“Do you have any root beer?” I grinned.

“Of course I do!” She winked at me. “I keep it stocked for surprises like this. She took a bottle of IBC root beer out of the fridge and set it on the table in front of me before turning back to the counter to mix her own drink. She was just about to sit down at the table across from me when she stopped and put her hand on her hip. “Actually, it’s nice out. Wanna sit on the back deck instead?”

“Absolutely.”

Gam’s backyard was just as amazing as the front. Flowers of every color sat in planters in the corners of her deck and a dozen more birdhouses hung from the trees. Two turquoise Adirondack chairs I’d bought her a couple years back sat right in the middle of the deck overlooking the lake her house was on. It wasn’t a big lake, certainly not as big as the one Kacie and Brody lived on, but it was big enough to have a boat out on, and she loved to sit and watch them and, of course, protect her birdhouses from those bastard squirrels.

“It is nice out today.” I walked over and set my root beer on the small table that sat in between the chairs.

“You say that like it’s the first time you’ve been outside all day. Don’t tell me that you’ve just rolled out of bed.”

“No, I was up early, actually,” I said in my best know-it-all tone.

“Oh?” She sat down in one of the chairs and set her whiskey and water down next to my bottle. “What were you up so early for?”

Other than Coach Collins, his assistant Mia, the big wigs in the office, Brody, and Dr. Roberts herself, no one knew I was going there to see her on a semi-regular basis. I hadn’t yet told Gam about my meetings in general, and no way in hell was I ever going to tell her about the “restrictions” I’d been put on, but it was time to let her in… at least a little.

“I had an appointment with my therapist.” I looked at her and waited for her reaction.

She looked over at me quickly with her dark brown eyes narrowed at me, her hand raised up to shield them from the sun so she could see me better. “A therapist? Seriously?”

I took a deep breath. For obvious reasons, Gam’s opinions and judgments of me ran much deeper than anyone else’s.

“Yes, seriously. The dickwads in the front office thought I was spiraling out of control with what happened with Mike, so they sent me to her. Oddly enough, we’re talking about all sorts of things now. She’s trying to make me better as a whole.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “She?”

“Yeah. Dr. Roberts. You’d like her. She doesn’t put up with any of my shit.”

“Good, she shouldn’t.” She nodded. “You think that smile of yours can get you out of just about anything, and you’re mostly right. At some point you needed to grow up and deal with life head-on, not hide in the weeds and wait for it to drive by before you showed your face again. You’re good at that, Lawrence.”

I’d just been schooled by my eighty-nine-year-old grandmother.

“I know. And I’m trying. You have to give me some credit.”

“Okay, you win… for now.” She smiled, staring out at the water. “How is this going to affect your season? Don’t you start soon?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “We report back in two weeks, actually. I’m just going to have to work around my schedule. It is what it is. If it’s important enough, you make time for it, right?”