Complete Stag Brothers Group Chat
Ty: The eagle has left the building.
Thatcher: I told u not to use a code name for Lucy, Ty.
Tim: What Ty means to say is that court went well and we’re bringing Lucy to the stadium. She’s getting her car from the garage right now.
Me: Seriously? That didn’t take long.
Tim: That’s because he had no case and only succeeded in pissing off the judge. Ty, remind me to give Juniper the run-down later.
Ty: Dude, I’m standing right next to you.
Tim: I’m documenting for posterity.
I kept my phone in my pocket for the first hour of training, super anxious about what was going on with Lucy. Coach asked me again this morning if there was anything he needed to know about her missing work this morning and I told him I’d update him later.
I jog over to him on the sideline after I hear from my brothers. “Coach,” I try to draw him away from the assistants and I’m glad when he understands and steps toward me. “I just wanted to let you know Lucy’s on her way here and I think things are going to be okay.”
My brother Tim wouldn’t exaggerate or misrepresent what happened. Coach grins at this news. “Glad to hear that, Moyer. Good.”
I hand him my phone. “Hold that for me?”
He shakes his head. “Christ, kid. You’ve been running sprints with this thing on you?” I shrug. “Get back out there, Moyer.”
Lucy arrives in between training and film, and she smiles at me, but I don’t get a chance to talk to her. I pop into her office when we’re done for the day, but she’s hustling down the hallway. “I have to get Wyatt,” she says. She bites her lip. “We have to check out of our hotel.”
I arch a brow at her. “Hotel? You’ve been paying for a hotel? Since when?”
She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter.” She pauses for an instant, like she’s trying to decide something huge. “Do you want to come with me? We can talk in the car?”
“Of course I want to come with you, Lucy.” I shake my head and follow her and I take her bag from her as she unlocks her trunk, dropping her stuff and mine into the space full of her son’s toys. I buckle my seatbelt as she drives toward Wyatt’s daycare and she tells me about court.
“I feel like someone finally heard me,” she says, eyes on the road. Like it’s easier for her to open up without looking at me. I’ll take it. “I know it’s terrible, but that was one of the thoughts I had the night Nick locked Wyatt in that car. That someone saw now, that it wasn’t all inside my head. That he actually is a dangerous person.”
I frown. “What’s stopping him from just following you again, coming after you two? He’s still on house arrest?”
She nods. “The same mechanisms as before, but now he and his parents and his lawyer know that they’re actually monitoring him. That they are serious. I wish you could have seen the judge, Hawk. He hates Nick.” Lucy allows herself a grin at this revelation.
“I wish I could have been there, too, but someone insisted I stay with the team and finish her last brutal workout before playoffs…”
She swats at my arm. “Your brothers were really amazing. I really like them, Hawk.”
I laugh. “I like them, too. Not that I have a choice about it.”
She tells me how Tim debriefed her with his opinion afterward and how they called Juniper, who confirmed that the judge indeed does not mess around with idle threats. “If he said he’d toss Nick in jail for his behavior, Juniper says he’s really serious about it and it doesn’t matter how much money Nick’s family has to throw at appeals.”
“I’m glad she’s able to give us the inside scoop.”
Lucy grins. “Speaking of your family, I promised them all VIP seats at the match tomorrow.”
My stomach flutters at this idea, that my brothers and their wives and children will come watch me play. “My mom will be there, too,” I tell her, and then I realize that my mom is going to meet my brothers, come face to face with the children of the man she feared for 26 years.
Lucy pats my arm as she pulls into the parking spot outside Wyatt’s daycare. “Speaking as a mother,” she says, “I’m sure she will have a lot of big feelings, but the main thing will be that she sees you happy with them, that they care about you, too.”
Lucy and Wyatt drop me outside my apartment so I can eat my prescribed dinner and get the recommended amount of sleep before our playoff game. I don’t get a chance to talk to my mom or my brothers in the morning before I head to the stadium for the afternoon match.
I draw on my years of training to get ready for the game, telling myself there will be plenty of time to fuss over my family later. I silence the excited surge I feel at the idea of introducing my mother to Lucy. So much is still up in the air between us, but I’m not willing to ease up. Not when we’ve been through so much together. Not when I have such big plans to make sure she knows she can have anything she wants. And I know she wants me. I know it.
The team is pumped to play against Atlanta. Everyone is literally jumping up and down as we take the field before the match. We had an amazing final run through together, and all of us are fit. We’ve had a long run with no injuries and our starting lineup is the same crew who dominated New York. I’m not worried about the game.
My eyes keep wandering up to the box, where I know my mother is sitting in a row of seats with my brothers. Where Lucy’s son is running around with my boss’s kids. I shake my head and my arms, telling my body to focus. I’ve got 90 minutes of work to do before I can worry about all of that.
We win 2-1 with a late goal from Reggie, who is still screaming joyfully in the showers. Coach urges him to hurry his ass up, since the media is waiting to interview him for a change. I’m glad of the reprieve from attention. I hurry through my own shower so I can find my family. When I make my way up to the VIP box, where I asked everyone to wait, I’m bombarded by a tangle of long limbs.
My brothers squeeze me into their arms, soon joined by my nine nephews, all jumping up and down and wearing Moyer jerseys, squealing. I feel like I’m being squeezed by a red and black striped raccoon. Over Tim’s shoulder, I see my mom, deep in conversation with Lucy’s friend Patty. The two of them have their heads bent together over a cellphone, laughing.
I extract myself from the hug and grin. Ty ruffles my hair. “That was a sweet assist you had there, bruh.”
“Bruh?” Thatcher arches a brow as he scoops up one of the kids. Byron I think? But before I can delve deeper into the Stag family tree, my mom catches my eye and rushes over to squeeze me in another series of deep hugs.
“Hey, Ma,” I say, scooping her into the air and twirling her around. I set her on the ground and she wipes away tears, smiling. I scratch my neck and look around the box. “So…you met my brothers?”
She nods and the three of them smile at her, more subdued. “I did,” she says. She clasps her hands together in front of her heart. “Oh, Hawk, I’m so happy for you, honey.”