I arrange to meet my brothers at Tim’s house. His wife and kids went out with…I forget which brother’s wife and kids. Or maybe they’re all together, talking about us. I’m not ready to meet the whole crew just yet. I’m on edge just at the idea of this.
He told me to be here at 6, which left me with an awkward time gap after training. I try unsuccessfully not to fill it with thoughts of Lucy, so eventually I park down the block from Tim’s address and call my mom. There’s been tension between us lately, ever since I told her what happened with the reporter. I’m still feeling a lot of big, conflicting emotions about missing 26 years of bonding time with my brothers.
“Hey,” I say when she picks up the phone.
“Hi, honey,” she says. I hear a commotion in the background.
“Oh, crap, are you at work?”
“It’s okay. I’m on my break.” I can hear beeping skid steers and people shouting about crates of milk. I always hope my mother will go get a cushier job now that I bought her a house and paid off the mortgage, maybe at a spa or something, but she insists she likes her Grocer Joe family.
I sigh. “I just wanted to tell you I…well I was talking to someone with a shitty ex. She’s a single mom. Anyway, she gave me some things to think about. Like from your perspective.”
“I appreciate that, Hawk. I’m sorry that I kept you in the dark, as you say.” I clear my throat. I don’t want to fight with her today. She takes a deep breath. “I was talking to my sponsor about what happened. How you found out about your father from a reporter.”
I perk up at this. “I don’t think I knew you still have a sponsor, Ma.”
She laughs. “I’ll always have a sponsor, Hawk. That’s how it works when you’re an addict.” There’s a pause and I hear her moving around. “Baby, I’ve been letting my shame about my past take precedence over your pain. I let that reporter embarrass you by keeping you in the dark.” She starts audibly crying and I feel my body tingling with strong emotions.
“Ma, I…” What do I say to her in response to this? I can’t say it’s okay, because it’s not. “I appreciate you saying that,” I tell her, finally. And then I change the subject. Sort of. “I’m meeting my brothers today. In twenty minutes.”
“You are? Wow.”
I can’t think of anything to say to her after that. I think about Lucy pointing out that I can still have a future with them, that we can have a relationship, my brothers and me. But it’s not that easy to shake off the sadness that I spent years not knowing they existed.
“Hawk, I know you wish I’d contacted him, that I’d reached out, that you could have grown up with family connections.”
“Ma, I—“
“But Hawk! What if he came for you? What if he tried to take you from me? You have to understand that I am an addict in recovery. A teen mom. Jesus, Hawk, do you know you’re my higher power?”
“What do you mean?”
“You,” she says, and I hear her sniff through tears. “You are my thing. My focus. My sobriety meaning. When I was pregnant, I found the purpose I lacked. God, you were my miracle, baby. I couldn’t risk losing you. If I didn’t have you here, needing me every day, I’m certain I would have slipped back into that darkness, Hawk. I know it.”
“I didn’t realize any of that, Ma.”
She draws a shuddering breath. “I know. I worked real hard to keep all that ugliness from you. But it’s part of you, too. And now you’re a grown man. And I’m really glad you have this chance to make some connections.”
“Ma, I don’t want to put your sobriety at risk.”
“Oh, that’s not what I meant by telling you all that.” I hear her blow her nose. “I just…I guess I just wanted to explain, that’s all. What I was thinking then, in not telling you earlier.”
“I used to hear you crying, Ma.” My voice is almost a whisper as I confess to her.
“Oh, baby, I had no idea. But I wasn’t crying because I wished Ted Stag would come into our lives and help. It was just hard, that’s all. It would have been hard no matter what.” She laughs. “Kids are hard!”
“So I’ve heard,” I mutter. In the rear view mirror, I see a bunch of kids spill out of Tim’s house and a curly haired woman loads them all into a silver Volvo. I watch as she backs out of the driveway and drives away. “Hey, Ma, I’m sorry to cut out like this. I gotta go…”
“What are their names? Your brothers?”
“Timber, Tyrion, and Thatcher,” I tell her. She repeats them back to me. “We’re hanging out at Tim’s house.”
“Well, enjoy yourself, Hawk. Send me a picture?”
“A picture?”
“Yeah.” Her voice is lighter now. “You should do a selfie. Capture the moment. The four brothers Stag meet at last…”
“We’ll see, Ma. I love you.”
We hang up and I climb out of the car, locking it as I make my way toward Tim’s house. The door flies open as I raise my hand to knock. A huge man who resembles Tim opens the door and holds his arms out wide. “Are you him? Of course you’re him. You look just like us. Except for the eyes.” He leans forward and pulls me in by my shirt sleeves, wrapping his arms around me. “Hey, Thatch, I think he smells like a Stag.”
I hear a voice say, “How’s that, Tyrion? Mountain air, fresh cedar, and salt lick?”
I peer around the shoulder of the man who is hugging me, presumably Ty Stag.
“No,” he says, sniffing me again. “Old Spice.” He looks at me. “Do you use Krakengard?”
I see Tim standing at his kitchen counter looking stern and another man with long hair and a beard, sitting on a stool with his arms crossed. I push back from the hug and straighten out my shirt. “Nah. ,” I say. “Swagger.”
Ty’s face light’s up. “See? I told you guys! Swagger all around. They might as well call it Stag Brothers. Oh, I’m Ty. Bet you figured that out. I used to be the youngest.”
I raise a brow at him. “Let’s hope I stay the youngest, right?”
All three of them laugh at that and Ty slaps me on the back, ushering me toward the counter. We’re silent for awhile, Thatcher tapping his fingers on the marble surface. I give a little inhale through my nose, finding an odd sense of happiness when I recognize that all the men in this room are indeed wearing the same deodorant. Tim eventually slides me a glass of water and I raise it to him in thanks. “So,” I say, awkwardly. “Did he, um, say anything? About me? Or my mom?”
“Who? Dad?” Thatcher grunts. “He mostly got pale and sank into a chair. We called his sponsor and haven’t really talked to him since.”
I watch Tim swallow before he says, “Dad’s been sober for about five years now. Six?”
“Five,” Thatcher confirms. “Since Petey’s first birthday.” They all nod.
“This is awkward as hell,” Ty says, pacing around the room. “And we can’t even get shit faced together because Hawkeye probably has a diet plan or some shit.”
“Please don’t call me that.” I hate when my agent makes Marvel references, even if he says he’s just alluding to my deceptive left-footed accuracy.
Thatcher snorts. “Get used to it, man. Ty has a nickname for everyone.”
“You love it, Thatchy,” Ty says, dropping a kiss on his brother’s cheek and making a move to ruffle his hair. Thatcher elbows him in the throat. Tim and I stand there staring at them both.
“So,” Tim says, nodding toward the pair, now wrestling on the tile floor. “Welcome to the family I guess.”
I met my brothers today. I text Lucy as soon as I get home. After she came over last night, I decided I’m not going to push her to define anything, but I’m also not going to hold back anymore. Not when it comes to her. To us.
I send her the "ussie" Ty took, his long arm holding the phone as he squished the three of us in against him. There are some benefits to being tall, not that the rest of us Stag brothers are short.
My phone rings in my hand a minute later. Lucy. “You all look so much alike,” she chirps. “Are they nice? I mean, Tim is…stern…”
I laugh. “Yeah,” I tell her. “They’re nice. Kind of a pain in the ass already. They demanded VIP seats for the next Forge game.”
“They can sit in the owners box, right?”
I tell her how they have nine sons between them, and it takes her a minute to recover from thinking about all that testosterone. “So many fart jokes,” she mutters.
“Ha. Yeah.” It feels right to talk to Lucy like this. I know it puts her on edge any time I try to point out that we’re connecting, so I just enjoy the moment, sharing with her. “Did you have soccer tonight?”
“Mm hm. I scored a goal.”
“Bad ass,” I say, imagining what she looked like in her shorts, maybe a tank top, running up and down the field. I try to conjure some sexy Baywatch fantasy of her running, but when I picture it, I just see her as fierce and powerful. Which is also sexy. Shit, now I’m hard. “I wish I could have seen that.”
“You should come watch sometime,” she says quickly. And then she gives a little gasp.
“Too late to take it back,” I tease. “You already made the invite.”
“Kioko comes sometimes, to get the boys from Tawnya.”
“You’d think they’d hire someone to help or something.”
“Nah,” Lucy says. “They like the boys to see Tawnya in her element. I like it, too. When Wyatt watches me play. He thinks my team is as good as yours.” She laughs softly and I imagine her looking at her sleeping son with a smile on her face. I used to wake up sometimes and see my mom sitting on my bed, smiling at me, rubbing my feet through the covers.
“I’m sure the Phe-moms are amazing,” I tell her, smiling.
“You remembered the name?”
“I remember everything you tell me, Lucy.” She’s quiet for a bit and I wonder what she’s thinking. But I feel like I pushed her far enough for one night, so I tell her, “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
“Night, Hawk.”
We hang up and I stare at the second pillow in my bed, leaning in close to inhale the scent of her hair, still hanging around my apartment like it’s meant to be here.