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“I heard. The news is everywhere right now,” he says. “Thanks for letting your little brother in on the intel first.”
We made the engagement public, but we haven’t announced the baby just yet. Not publicly, anyway. We’ll wait a bit and make sure everything is going smoothly before we do that, but we did announce the engagement via the podcast, and apparently the thought to notify my brothers really didn’t cross my mind.
“Unlike my brother, I prefer to break exciting news personally instead of having my closest family members find out about it through the media,” he says.
“Oh?” I ask, my curiosity piqued.
“I did it, Linc. I proposed to Amelia.”
“Well I’ll be damned,” I murmur. “Congratulations, Spence. I’m so happy for you.”
“Imagine that. Two Nash men off the market at the same time.”
I laugh. “As the patriarch gets back on the market.”
“Jesus. There’s an image.” We’re both quiet a moment, and then he asks, “How are you doing with the whole mom and dad thing?”
I’m vague in my response since he doesn’t know my suspicions about my own lineage. “Fine. You?”
“It’s hitting me harder than it should given that I’m a grown adult,” he admits. “It made me pause for a second before I popped the question. Is marriage meant to last forever?”
“Heavy question for two newly engaged men, but I’d like to think we’re our own men and the mistakes our parents made aren’t ours. Instead, we learn from them and live our own lives.”
“You’re pretty damn smart sometimes for an asshole,” he says, and I chuckle.
“Right back at you, Spence.”
“Asher said you’re not talking to Dad,” he says, clearly prodding for more on that.
“It’s a little more than that,” I admit. “Sort of like how Mom’s divorcing him…I’m cutting him out, too. He’s done me more harm than good in my thirty-six years.”
“You really believe that?” he asks.
I blow out a breath. “Look, anyone can see he treated me differently than the rest of you.”
“You’re the oldest. He expected more out of you.” He says it so simply, like he saw exactly what I’m talking about and justified it in the way he saw fit.
“Maybe that’s true,” I admit. “But maybe that’s not what it was at all.”
“Oh, come on. You can’t really believe that he’s done you more harm than good. If it weren’t for him, none of us would’ve had the resources to make it to the NFL. None of us would have the lives we have.”
“Maybe you’re right about that,” I say. “But I also never would’ve had to break up with Jolene in the first place. Maybe we’d have six or seven kids running around by now. Maybe I’d be something other than a coach. Maybe I wouldn’t be involved in sports at all. But we’ll never know because that’s not how the chips fell.”
“What would you be doing if you weren’t a coach?” he asks.
I don’t answer. I can’t.
I’ve never known the answer to that.
I’ve never had to know because I never had to think beyond football. When you’re done playing, you coach, or you scout, or you broadcast. The game is life. We’re the Nashes.
It was drilled into me practically from birth. My first stuffed animal was a football my grandmother crocheted for me, and I was expected to love it.
And I do. There’s no doubt about that. I’m a driven competitor.
But with a woman who’s about to become my wife and a baby on the way and a stepson I love as if he were my own…I’m also starting to think about life beyond the game.
I’m starting to think that maybe I won’t coach until I’m too old to step onto the field.
