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I reached out, but Cooper shook his head. “We got this. Where do you want it?”
“Let’s start in the kitchen. Hey Greg, give me those and you go see Patrick.”
The shy tight end smiled. “Yeah, okay. Here ya go.”
He wasted no time getting to Patrick as Cooper and I unpacked everything. “Good lord. How much did you buy?”
Cooper looked at the pile of boxes. “Four pizzas. Then I added salad and hot wings. Plus some Italian cheese bread. You know how much they eat.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I do. But Patrick is not quite back to eating his usual amount of calories.”
“How’s he doing?”
I looked over the bar into the family room where they sat talking. “Pretty good. But I don’t think he remembers what happened yet. We’ve got to go clean out the car tomorrow. I’m afraid of what it’s going to trigger.”
Cooper stopped what he was doing. “I know you think you’re responsible for this, but you’re not. That guy who got behind the wheel drunk was.”
“But if I hadn’t turned him away…”
He put his hand on my shoulder. “You need to ask him what he remembers. I know you’re worried about his reaction, but it’s always going to be worse in your head than in reality. Every time you put it off, it grows bigger in your mind.”
“Probably,” I said, pulling out plates and napkins. I knew he was right. Facing that fear was better than waiting.
Greg and Patrick came into the kitchen just as I pulled out some beer and some bottles of water. Patrick came over and wrapped his arms around me. His right hand rested around my waist, while the casted one remained at his side.
“You hungry, babe?”
“Yeah, smells delicious.”
“It is,” Greg replied. “We picked it up from Mario’s. His pizza and wings are stellar.”
I loaded his plate with everything, then some salad.
“I’m surprised to see you eating like this, Foster.”
He shrugged. “It’s the off-season, and I still work out four days a week. I let myself have this pizza and whatever we eat in Key West.”
My stomach growled at the thought of the conch fritters from the food trucks down there.
“You guys should come with us again. We’re going for the month of June before training camp. Maggie is dying to run on the beach.”
“You’re dying to run on the beach, not Maggie,” Cooper added. Their Australian Shepherd was super sweet and the perfect beach dog.
We settled around the table and enjoyed our food. Patrick had learned to eat with one hand.
“So how are you doing?” Cooper asked him. “Are you still having memory issues?”
Patrick swallowed his food and nodded. “Yeah. There are gaps in things that I haven’t pieced together yet. I’m hoping it will come back.”
“Like what?” Greg asked.
My food suddenly didn’t look so good, and my appetite vanished.
“The accident. Not that I want to remember. But I have dreams about it sometimes.”
I looked at him and put my hand on his leg. “You do?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know if it’s a dream or a memory trying to come through.”
