I leave Lucy and Wyatt at her friend’s house and my mind is racing. I decide to walk around the block and try and calm down, take stock. I went from the most perfect kisses with her in her office to seeing her panicked and fearing for her life because she laid eyes on her garbage ex.
I stare at my phone in my hand and sit on a bench at a bus stop near Lucy’s friend’s house. I need to fucking vent to someone about this because I still don’t even know what just happened here.
And then I remember that I have brothers. Normal people would call their brothers about something like this.
I sigh and look at the time. Almost seven. I don’t want to fuck up dinner or bedtime for anyone, but I honestly have no idea what time either of those activities take place for a normal family. I decide to just call Tim since I know he knows Lucy and a little bit about her situation.
He answers after two rings, his voice muffled like he’s speaking in a hurry as he leaves a room. “What’s up, Hawk?”
“Hey. So.” I blow out a breath and run my fingers through my hair. “Something really fucked up happened today and my head is all messed up about it.” I recoil as a bus blows its horn at a car cutting it off. “Also I need a ride home.”
Tim tells me to hold tight, that someone will grab me soon. I don’t have to wait very long to figure out what he means by that. A few minutes later, a gold minivan screeches to a halt by the curb and my brother Ty opens the window. “Yo, baby, climb aboard the Stag-mobile.”
I pinch my lips together and walk toward the van, leaning in the front window. “How’d you know where to get me?” He beckons his hand at me when the light changes, and I hurry into the van as cars start honking at him.
He squeals away as I buckle my seatbelt. Ty turns onto a bridge—I still have no idea which ones are which—and slaps my thigh. “Timbo told me there was a Stag in need.” He shrugs. “I was close by picking up June-bug’s dry cleaning. You still haven’t met my wife, man! She’s the best.”
I smile. “From what I hear, Tim and Thatcher’s wives are also the best.”
Ty grins. “Yeah, well they’re all your sisters-in-law I guess, so you probably shouldn’t play favorites.” He winks at me. “You can have a favorite brother, though. Who picks you up from a shitty bench on the South Side, Hawky? Who? Me, that’s right!” Ty pounds on the roof as we cruise through a yellow light. I can’t help but feel relaxed around him. He turns to face me again and asks, “So Tim said something’s eating at you. Wanna spill now or wait til we’re at the park?”
“The park?”
“Oh, Tim didn’t tell you? In this family, we go for long runs when we’re upset. Hope you’re not too tired from practice.” Ty cackles and then whistles. “Just kidding, man. I know damn well you’re beat. We’ll go easy on you.”
My eyes go wide as I realize he’s serious, that he’s driving me to go running with my new-found extended family. He pulls over in the one-way loop in Highland Park near a huge garden and glances at my outfit. I changed into sneakers and sweats after practice, but not necessarily sneakers I want to trash by running. “These are $400 Yeezy’s,” I mutter, bending forward to tie the laces tighter.
“Oh, just invoice Tim if you scuff ‘em. That’s what I do in these situations.” Ty bends over next to me, stretching and reaching for his toes. He doesn’t look like a guy who retired from pro hockey years ago. He looks like he’s still training four hours every day. He’s got at least four inches on me in height and probably fifty pounds of muscle. I feel like a kid beside him.
I hesitantly begin to stretch my quads and I see the dark heads of my two oldest brothers coming up Highland Avenue into the park. Is it weird that I feel calmer about the whole thing already, just being with this group of men I barely know? I haven’t even told them anything yet. Maybe it’s because they didn’t give me shit about anything and just picked me up for a ride, no questions asked.
“Hawk,” Thatcher says, giving me a nod and running his hand through his beard. I nod back at him.
Ty looks around at all of us, grinning. “This is so great, right? There are four of us! I mean, it’s obviously a huge mind fuck. But also it’s great!”
Tim clears his throat. “Hawk said he needs help sorting through a situation. What do we think? Three miles of conversation? Four?”
I realize he’s asking me and my eyes go wide. “I, um, already had two practices today. Three I guess?” Tim nods and starts running, so I follow him. I’ve never been to this park before, and I take in the massive flower gardens before he makes his way around a bend. There’s a wide pedestrian path marked off from the car traffic, and the whole thing seems to circle the reservoir.
We run past families picnicking, kids playing on playgrounds, and a group of teens slack lining between some of the trees before Thatcher says something. “So, the idea is, you’re supposed to tell us what’s bothering you and we see if we can help.”
Tim frowns. “I think he knows how it works, Thatch.” These guys aren’t even out of breath and we’re keeping a pretty good pace. I guess I come from good cardiovascular genes. I sigh.
“So, there’s a woman.”
“Ah.” Ty nudges me with his shoulder. “We’re great at this sort of advice. You trying to woo her?”
“Maybe? It’s complicated.”
Thatcher shakes his head a few times. “We’ve got nothing but time, brother. Well…two and a half more miles of time. My wife might castrate me if I don’t make it home in time for the kids’ bedtime.”
“Way to make him feel like an asshole, Thatch.” Ty shoves his brother, making him stumble, and Thatcher tries to trip Ty. I have to jump over them to make my way over to Tim, who has stopped running while they squabble.
“As you were saying?”
Eventually, Ty and Thatcher form some sort of truce and start running again. “So, uh, I really like her. But she…” I hesitate, but remember that these guys are squeezing me in for a pep talk here. “She works with me. And she has a super fucked up situation with her ex and she stands to lose a lot if she goes out with me. But I really fucking like her. And did I mention she works with me? So I have to see her every day.”
“You got a woman on the team?” Ty looks like he swallowed a mosquito as he contemplates a woman playing on a professional men’s soccer team. I shake my head and fill them in on the rough outline of my interactions with Lucy.
Tim slows his stride a little bit as we near the place where we started running. He looks at Ty, who points forward to indicate we should do another lap. Tim says, “Well I have some experience with workplace romance. And I have insight into your specific workplace. I can assure you it’s probably a bigger deal in your mind than it is in any sort of formal, policy sort of way.”
I nod. “You know I’m talking about Lucy, right?”
He shrugs. “She seems very competent at what she does.”
Ty nudges me with his shoulder again. “Tim loves competence.”
“That’s why he hates you so much,” Thatcher says, setting off another round of shoving that passes quicker than the last time.
I brush the sweat off my forehead with my arm. “I really wanted her to let me take care of her today when she was scared of that dick. I…I don’t know how to get her to choose me.”
My brothers all nod, like I’m making sense somehow. Ty turns around and runs backwards a bit, looking me in the eye. “Best I can tell, you’ve spent like 26 years wanting to be chosen by our dad, right? And now you’ve got this woman making you feel a similar sort of way. And she’s got a monster of an ex triggering all sorts of other father issues inside your heart.”
My jaw opens and closes a few times, because damn! “That’s pretty much exactly it, man. Wow.”
Ty holds up a hand and Thatcher slaps him a high five. “I’m telling you, the three of us spend a lot of time talking through this shit.” Ty tilts his head at Tim. “Tim struggles with our father, too. And I get it. It’s fucking terrible.”
“So why don’t you look like you want to flip his car or burn down Ted’s house or something?” As I list these out, the idea of vandalizing his life sounds mighty attractive right now. Ted or Lucy’s ex. Or both.
Tim shakes his head and breathes out heavily through his nose. “It’s not productive to be angry at Ted. It doesn’t help anything.”
“And yet you’re still angry.”
He nods. “I still am.” We finish another lap around the park and Tim swerves toward the stone steps leading up to the top of the reservoir. The sun is setting now and the sky is bright orange and purple, reflecting off the still water. “But I also know deep in my bones that these guys love me. That they will choose me, every time. That even if I fall to pieces they’ll come collect me and stitch me back together.”
Tim stops on the path and leans against the rail, with his back to the water, the sun setting behind him. “Hawk, I want you to know that we choose you, too. You don’t ever need to doubt us.”
Thatcher and Ty nod and the four of us stand there along the rail, watching the sunset, not talking. I start slipping again into regret that I missed decades of this, of their counsel and their horseplay and closeness. Tim, somehow sensing where my thoughts are leading, shakes his head again. “There’s a time and a place for anger, Hawk. But today, you’re here with us. And tomorrow, if you need us to drag you out for another pep talk, you’ve got us then, too.”
We’re silent for a while since I don’t know what to say. Eventually Ty slaps me on the back and nods toward the stairs back toward his car. “Let’s get you home so Thatcher can go read Harry Potter to his rascals.”
“We finished that series, Tyrion. I thought I’d start Game of Thrones with them.”
Ty screeches to a halt and whips his head toward his brother. “Are you fucking with me? You’re reading that out loud to little kids, man?” And Thatcher grins, because he is clearly fucking with his brother, who shares a name with clever, ruthless Tyrion Lannister.
When we get to Ty’s car, Thatcher drops an arm on my shoulder. “Hawk,” he says. “I’m gonna give you a hug, and then I’m going home. Sound good?”
I nod. He wraps his arms around me, and so does Ty and even eventually Tim. And damn it, I do feel better.