Clusterpuck (Vegas Crush #9)

23. Think About it a Little Longer

23 /

think about it a little longer

Lila

It’s been five days since my grandfather’s heart attack. Because he’s a commanding guy, he’s managed to negotiate himself out of the hospital early, so we’ve set up a makeshift hospital room in the library at his house.

Here, he has a view of his beautiful pool, rather than a view of medical equipment and other hospital scenes. My family was all in for the first couple of days, but now that he’s home, they’ve gone back to their lives and jobs, and now it’s just the two of us again. Well, and the home-health nurse.

He’s been sleeping a lot, which is the best thing for him at this point, and it’s my hope that he was too sedated and groggy to remember the conversation we had right after his surgery. He’s mostly spent his lucid hours barking orders at everyone, so I haven’t brought it up. It’s not a subject I want to acknowledge, really, but I know that the clock is ticking, and I will have to decide what to do very soon. Marrying Tripp Blackburn is not really a factor in that decision-making process, so I sure as heck hope my grandfather forgot all about that little ultimatum he dropped on us.

Ugh. This is such a mess. I’ve nursed this crush on Tripp for a very long time—but for even longer than that, I’ve dreamed of taking my place in our family’s hockey legacy. All throughout college, I was all about showing that a woman could be just as savvy at running a team as a man. I wanted to be a general manager for sure, and being an owner was, like, the top of the mountain. And now I’ve been given this new information—that Max means for me to take his place when the time comes—and that future is now intertwined with a baby I didn’t plan and a man who doesn’t want to marry me.

I completely threw myself at him in a vulnerable situation he couldn’t escape from. Trapped by a blizzard in a hotel room two thousand miles from home, with his number one fan naked in the only one bed in the room. I seduced him and put him in a terrible spot. I still can’t believe that was me. That’s not how I’ve ever behaved in the past. So why did I act that way with Tripp?

And look where I’ve landed myself…and him.

I’ve been trying to immerse myself in a business administration textbook, curled up in my favorite chair, just a couple of feet from where my grandfather sleeps, but I find myself reading and re-reading the same sentence over and over again, the words bleary as my mind struggles to focus.

“You a married woman yet?”

Max’s voice makes me jump, pulling me to the present. I peer at him, putting the book on a side table. He’s wide awake. That was a real question.

So much for not remembering.

I sigh. “No. I haven’t spoken to Tripp much this week. There was too much to think about, trying to make sure things were in order for you. And I was still trying to work, even though Grant and Laura both told me it was fine to take time off.”

“Well, I’d hope they’d give you the time,” he says sarcastically, the fact he pays their salaries implied.

“They’ve been great.” I rub my tired eyes and uncurl, my bare feet hitting the cool, hardwood floor. “I thought maybe you’d forgotten that conversation. You were just out of surgery.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sure I said some things I didn’t mean. Or at least I said them in a way that wasn’t kind.”

“It’s no big deal.”

He’s quiet for a moment, long enough that I wonder if he’s nodded off again. But no, he’s just staring at me. “Do you love Tripp?”

The question catches me off guard, eliciting a strange, slightly panic-infused laugh. “Uh, no? I mean, I care about him—obviously. I’ve known him my whole life. And I find him attractive—obviously. But he’s not, like, the guy I would pick if I were the Bachelorette.”

My grandfather is a closet fan of reality television and he rolls his eyes at the reference. “Why not, though? He’s from a good family. He’s been successful in his career, has plenty of money. And you said it yourself that you find him attractive.”

“ I have plenty of money.” Even though most of it is in a trust fund and I really hope to make some of my own someday. “And I want a career in sports. He’s made it pretty clear that he doesn’t think much of women in pro sports management positions. He’s gruff. He doesn’t think about what he says before it comes out of his mouth. And finding him attractive doesn’t mean I should, or would, marry him.”

Max whistles and shakes his head. “How did you two end up in this predicament, Lila Jayne?”

“Well, I think you know how babies are made…”

He chuckles, then winces, adjusting himself in the hospital bed. “No, I mean, what were the circumstances that led you…down that path?”

I pull a face, not wanting to go into detail with my grandfather about how I ended up sleeping with Tripp Blackburn. “The break after the Vegas-Toronto game. Remember, we had a big snowstorm in Toronto? Our flight back to Las Vegas got cancelled, and Tripp was assigned the last available hotel room. He was nice enough to offer it to me, and I told him we should share the room, that there would likely be two beds. There weren’t, and I felt bold because I’d had this crush on him for so long. Things just…happened. And I instigated it. He was reluctant.”

“Because?”

“Because he thinks he’s too old for me. And because he thinks it would be weird since our families are so close. And even though he’s clearly attracted to me, I’m pretty sure he also thinks we’d be a terrible match.”

My grandfather laughs, then coughs, then cringes. I help him take a sip of water. He chuckles again. “Sometimes desire takes the driver’s seat for good sense.”

“It doesn’t happen that often for me.” I shake my head wryly at him.

“I know that, but here we are.”

“Here we are,” I agree.

“Do you want to be a mom?”

“Not really.” I shrug. “Not right now at least. I’m twenty-three. I’ve got school to finish and a career to build. Maybe down the road, sure, but not now.”

Max nods. “I understand. I really do. You know, I was just out of high school when I went over to Vietnam. Just a kid, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I came back two years later and met your grandmother. She came to protest the war at a coming-home parade, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her.”

“Sounds like a Forrest Gump and Jenny thing,” I say, grinning.

“A little, I suppose. She was anti-war, and I had just come back from serving in the war. I went up to speak to her after the event, and I could tell she really wanted me to say that I disagreed with the war. But I told her my feelings on the matter were complicated, which intrigued her. We went to a local bar and had a few drinks and a few political arguments, and I was pretty sure we parted ways, hating each other. I saw her a few times after that and each time, we’d argue, and drink, and she’d tell me all the ways I was pig-headed and wrong. And one night, the drinking and arguing turned into something totally different. We ended up sleeping together in the back of my station wagon. Nine months later, your dad was born.”

He holds up his hands like, Whoops , and chuckles a little.

“Shotgun wedding?”

“No wedding,” he answers. The shock must register straight onto my face, because he adds, “I know, I know. And it wasn’t me. I was raised Catholic and as soon as I knew, I got down on a knee and proposed. But your grandmother was like, What’s the point ?”

“No way. She was always so family oriented. I can’t believe it.”

“True story. She thought marriage was antiquated, and she had no interest in it. Like, at all. She felt she could work and raise a child just fine on her own. She used the word trapped. She didn’t want to feel trapped.”

My grandfather is wistful as he says it, the memory a positive one for him. I’m still in shock, because none of this sounds like the grandmother I knew.

“So, what changed?”

“Time,” he says wistfully. “We talked a lot. We realized that a lot of the tension between us, a lot of the arguing and disagreement, was rooted in attraction. We started talking about other things and realized we had more in common than we thought, and we fell in love. I told her I’d be there for her and for Niles, no matter what. And I told her that a piece of paper had nothing to do with my love and respect for her, but that I was a Catholic boy with a desire to make our relationship real in the eyes of God.”

“And she was okay with that?”

“She was okay with it once she understood that it was important to me, and that it wasn’t meant to trap or control her.”

“Hmm.”

Max breathes in and then sighs heavily. “I miss that woman. I can’t believe it’s been ten years she’s been gone.”

My grandmother Jayne was a schoolteacher. She retired at sixty and was loud about wanting her husband to work less and travel more. Stage four liver cancer got in the way of her lobbying, though.

“Lila, I know it’s so old-fashioned, but I really want you to think about keeping this baby and marrying Tripp. Things have a way of working out just as they should, and it would be such a blessing to merge the Terry family with the Blackburn family. We’re like family already, and I believe Tripp would rise to the occasion. I believe he would be a good husband and a good father because he comes from good stock.”

“Lots of terrible people come from good families.”

“But in your heart, do you think Tripp is a terrible person? I’m going to guess not, because you’ve harbored a crush on him for a decade and you, well…let’s just say I don’t believe you’d be intimate with someone you thought was a terrible human being.”

At first, I assume the question is rhetorical, but then I realize he’s waiting for an answer. I feel an odd flutter of anxiety in my gut. “Do I think Tripp is a terrible human being?” I sigh. “No. He’s not. He’s actually been very kind, and supportive, and he’s been willing to give me space.”

“Then I ask you to consider my request. Just consider it.”

I open my mouth to respond, but then shut it again. I’m not sure what to say. When I try again, it comes out in a rushed jumble. “I can see the parallel you’re trying to draw between your own story and this one. And I know you love the Blackburns. And you dropped this bomb on me about maybe owning the Crush one day, then looped it in with an ultimatum to marry Tripp and have a kid I’m not ready to have. It’s a lot, you know? And I don’t want to disappoint you any more than I already have. But maybe I’m not owner material, you know? Maybe I should do what I need to do and accept the consequences and find my own path.”

I’m crying now, angrily pushing a tear away with the back of my hand.

“I love you no matter what. I’m just asking you to think about this. Just think about it a little longer.”

The home-health nurse comes in, then, giving me an opportunity to escape. I lean over and kiss my grandfather on the forehead and caress his cheek.

“Okay, I will. I’ll think about it.”