Page 14 of Man Advantage

Cole went out to the truck a few minutes before Ford was ready so he could warm it up. The cold made the hip worse, and Ford didn’t need to start the day fighting a frozen seat on top of everything else. Cole watched the front door through the patch of windshield that had already thawed. Last night’s game had been a physical one, and he still wasn’t convinced Ford was actually up for spending the day with the rest of the team.

Ford came down the steps balancing a foil-covered pan on one flat hand, careful on the salted walk but not favoring the leg much. Cole made himself quit watching for the limp. Ford climbed in and pulled the door shut against the cold.

“I thought Carter said he had everything handled and to not bring anything,” Cole said.

“Yeah, well, we’ve played together long enough that I know better. I’m sure he’ll have the basics covered, but he has a tendency to get overwhelmed, and then he freaks out thinking there’s not going to be enough.” Ford set the pan down between them and reached for the belt. “Not only that, but my grandmother would smack me upside the head if she was still alive and found out I showed up empty-handed.”

Cole understood that. His family was the same way. His mom would be so disappointed that he’d taken Carter at his word.

“Don’t sweat it.” Ford placed a hand on Cole’s knee, giving it a gentle squeeze. Cole didn’t want to acknowledge how nice that simple contact felt. “He really doesn’t expect anyone to bring a dish to pass. And you watch, he’ll give me shit for not listening to him, but I’ll bet twenty bucks there’s not a crumb left by the time we all head home.”

Cole backed out of the drive. Charlotte was with Nadine at her sister’s for the long weekend, her first Thanksgiving away from Ford, who’d joked about finally getting to eat a meal without cutting up somebody else’s food first, and it fell flat both times.

“You get through to that specialist?” Cole asked.

Ford blew a breath at the window. “It’s a holiday week. Nobody’s picking up a phone till Monday.”

“Monday then.”

“Yes, dear,” Ford teased in an exasperated tone. Cole didn’t laugh, and he didn’t fill the gap either. “You’re worse than Theo. He’s been riding my ass about it since October.”

“Good. You need somebody riding your ass about it.” Cole took the turn onto the county road. He left it there. Leaning harder only ever made Ford dig in.

Three nights now since the couch, and neither of them had said a word about it. Ford hadn’t made move since, and Cole had read it the only way he knew how. Ford had leaned in on a bad night with a cold pack on his leg and thought better of it the second the world came back. So they talked about the roads and the standings and whose turn it was to buy milk, and left the couch sitting there unmentioned the whole way to Carter’s.

The farmhouse Carter Walsh was slowly wrestling back into shape during the offseason sat out past the edge of town. The gravel drive was already full when Cole pulled in behind Riggs’s lifted pickup. Inside it was loud and warm and smelled like every other kitchen in America where someone had been up before the sun working to put together a Thanksgiving feast. Carter met them at the door with a dish towel over one shoulder and a beer he put straight into Ford’s hand.

“You brought food,” Carter said. “I know I had a few drinks last night, but not so many that I imagined telling you I had everything handled.”

“I pointed that out, but he started carrying on about his dead grandma,” Cole said. “I think he’s getting old and senile.”

Ford flipped him off. “Remember, I know where you sleep.”

“Promises, promises.” The words were out before Cole could think about how that sounded. He glanced at Carter, but if it landed wrong, Carter didn’t show it.

Carter took the pan and clocked the careful way Ford came up the step. He looked to Cole with a raised eyebrow. Cole shrugged. It wasn’t his place. “Englund, there’s about nine pies in the kitchen and Beaudry’s guarding them like they’re the Cup. Go save him from himself before he cracks.”

After swinging through the kitchen to let Beaudry know the pies were safe, the two of them joined the rest of the guys in the living room where they were already taking bets on the day’s football games. The only thing everyone seemed to agree on was their hope that the Cowboys got stomped.

As much as Cole missed Grand Rapids at times, the Stags connected in a way his teammates there never had. He’d gotten used to sitting home alone on the holidays when they couldn’t fly back. Here, every guy on the team who didn’t have a wife and kids to spend the day with was crammed into one living room, talking at once.

Russ found him twenty minutes later on the back porch, where Cole had volunteered to dig two more beers out of the cooler so he could stand a minute in the cold by himself. Russ’s wife had taken the kids to her mother’s in Des Moines for the weekend, and Russ, who couldn’t sit still in an empty house, had turned up at Carter’s with the rest of the strays. He lifted one of the beers out of Cole’s hand like that had been the plan the whole time.

“So Delgado rented the place,” Russ said. “Couple up from Kenosha. She works at the clinic. Signed Tuesday.” He watched Cole for a reaction. “Which you already knew was coming, seeing as you called the man Friday, turned it down, and didn’t tell me till after.”

“Should’ve told you first. Sorry.”

“I’m not busting your chops.” Russ leaned on the rail. “Okay, a little. That was the one place in town a single guy could afford, and you handed it back and then spent the whole weekend looking like you’d screwed something up. I know it sucked getting shipped off by Grand Rapids, but you don’t have to worry about that here.”

“It’s not that.” Which was mostly true. “Nobody’s trading me. I know that.”

“You’d better. You’re skating the best I’ve ever seen you, and this team’s a lot of things, but it’s not Grand Rapids.” Russ took a pull off the beer. “So if it’s not that, then I can think of exactly one reason you passed on it.” Cole’s stomach dropped. “Ford know you let it go?”

Cole drank instead of answering, which was answer enough.

“Cole.” Russ shook his head, not unkindly. “You gonna let him go on thinking you’re moving out?”

“I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell him.” It was true, and they both heard how flimsy it was. He couldn’t say the rest of it aloud—that he’d rather stay down the hall from Ford and his kid than have a place of his own. He was also half-convinced Ford would be relieved to get his space back.