Page 20 of Yard Sale

Passing a hand down my face, I stood up just as a shadow crossed my vision. I froze, and then a gentle hand touched me as a familiar voice said, “Tiago. Hey.”

My entire body relaxed when I realized it was Amedeo. “You’re early.”

He laughed. “Yeah, a bit. My sister’s here. Is that okay?”

Lips stretching into a smile, I turned my head where I assumed Alessia was standing. I was wrong, of course, but she adjusted me by yanking me into a hug before kissing my cheeks.

“You look like shit, babe.”

“Thanks. I’m sure you look amazing as always.”

She guided my wrist to her arm, and beneath my fingers I could feel her textured shirt. “Black lace, my darling. I look fucking fantastic.”

Grinning, I let her pull me close, then took her arm and tucked my cane away to let the siblings guide me to the café. My brother, for the moment, was entirely forgotten in the face of the people who were my chosen family.

“Okay, so you’ve agreed to go to your family’s beach cottage—the one they built that basically exists to make your life harder.”

“Mm, yep.” I sipped on my iced tea, which tasted like it had been sitting in a container for more than a few days, and smiled in Alessia’s direction.

“For…what reason?”

I grimaced as the only honest answer I could give slipped past my lips. “I feel like the only person who’s going to get a good answer out of my brain is my therapist, and I haven’t seen her in over a year.”

Alessia laughed, and over that sound, I could hear Amedeo chuckling. I knew he’d get it. He was more of a people pleaser than I was, but it was definitely a shared experience. And why it was so easy to be friends with him.

Grabbing my fork, I pushed a crouton around my plate and traced the path with my right eye. I was doing my level best not to hyperfixate on the spots of vision I’d lost, but the more I had to talk about it, the more I couldn’t think about anything else.

“You know, I have a friend who does vacation rentals,” Alessia said, her mouth full of chicken parm. I caught a flash of metal under the lights as she pointed her fork at me. “She could hook you up with a really sweet spot on the West Coast and you wouldn’t have to see your family at all.”

I shrugged. It was a nice gesture, and while I knew this was going to be a massively failed experiment, I wanted to see if they were going to make any effort at all. I wanted to keep a little bit of hope buried in my chest that when all was said and done, they were going to try.

“If it goes to hell, I’ll call you. Sound fair?”

“Yes,” Amedeo answered for her. “Just say the word, and I’ll gather up the boys, and we’ll make a whole week out of it.”

That settled something in me, and I felt better by the time we finished eating and I beat Amedeo with my credit card.

“Someday, you’re going to lose that battle,” he complained as we headed out the doors and toward his car.

I snorted as I held Alessia’s arm tighter. “Not a fucking chance. I was trained to be quick. Even if I’m not doing hockey anymore…”

“Wait. Is that a thing?” Alessia demanded. “Was that article real?”

My blood went cold. “What article?”

“That PPHL reporter guy you hate so much. The one who did that op-ed piece about whether or not being sighted was cheating?”

Fucking Aravind.

I took a calming breath as Amedeo came to a stop beside his car. “I didn’t know he’d published anything.”

I had checked, of course. The week after he came to see me in the hospital, I spent my downtime trolling the website and even put an alert on his name. But then came another surgery. Then more eye doctor stuff, and fuck.

How long had it been since I’d checked my email?

“He talked to me right after my first surgery. What I said about my career was supposed to be off the damn record.”

“Well,” Amedeo said very quietly, reaching out to touch my shoulder, “he didn’t say you were the one who confirmed it. He said that after everything you had going on, he wouldn’t be surprised.”