Page 148 of The Player

Nicole only half remembered the rest of the call. Her mother asked if she wanted to come home. She said no. Her mother asked if she was alone. She said yes. Her mother said she was going to call her again tonight, and Nicole had better pick up the phone when she did, and she said okay, and then her mother said I love you, baby, I love you so much, and she said it back, and then she was sitting on the floor of her studio with a dial tone in her ear and paint on her fingers.

The phone rang again at a quarter to one. She let it ring.

She’d moved downstairs to the couch, mostly because she couldn’t stand to look at those trees anymore, and she’d pulled the throw over her legs even though it wasn’t cold. She heard the machine click on in her bedroom down the hall. She heard her own voice telling whoever it was to leave a message.

Then she heard her father.

“Cole.” His voice was so rough she almost didn’t know it. “Baby girl, it’s Dad.”

She closed her eyes.

“I know your mother called you. I know you know.” He stopped. She could hear him breathing. “I been sitting here for an hour trying to figure out what to say to you, and there isn’t anything. I lied to you, baby. I looked you in your face and lied, and you believed me, ’cause you always believed me.” His voice broke. “I’m not the man you thought I was, Cole. I know that. But I’m gonna do better. I’m gonna be better, for you, for your mama, for Tiffany and MJ. I swear to God I am. Nicole, I am so sorry. I know that don’t fix nothing.”

She pulled the throw up to her chin and held on to it.

“Your mother’s done with me. Your brother and your sister been done with me. And I deserve all of it, I know I do. But not you, baby. Please. Not you too.” He was crying now, the way she’d never once heard him cry, not after the last game of his career, not after anything. “You don’t have to call me back today. You don’t have to call me back this week. Just . . . don’t shut me out, Cole. Please. I love you. I love you so much. I’m sorry.”

The machine beeped.

Nicole sat on the couch and shook.

She’d never had her heart broken. Not really. She’d broken Cedric’s, and she’d felt terrible about it, and she’d been hurt plenty of times by things people said. But nobody had ever reached inside her and done this. And the first man to break her heart was her father.

The phone rang twice more that afternoon.

Tiffany’s message was short. “Hey, squirt. It’s me.” Her sister was talking so softly. Nicole had forgotten Tiffany could sound like that. “Mama told me she talked to you. I’m so sorry, Nicole. Please call me back. I don’t care what time it is. I just want to hear your voice, okay? I love you.”

Goddamn professional athletes. They’re all the same.

Tiffany had said that in November, and Nicole had chalked it up to the ex. Tiffany hadn’t been talking about her ex. Or not only about her ex. She’d been talking about their father, and she’d been trying to tell Nicole without telling her, and Nicole hadn’t heard a word of it.

Even if they’d told her, she wasn’t sure it would’ve mattered. That was the part she couldn’t get past. If Tiffany had sat her down at Thanksgiving and laid it all out for her, every woman, every year, Nicole would’ve driven straight to the Ritz-Carlton and let him look her in the eye and tell her it wasn’t true. And she would’ve believed him.

God, she’d been so naive.

MJ called at ten after three. “Nicole. It’s me. Pick up.” A pause. “Okay. I know. Listen, I called Drew. He’s on his way. Just . . . let him in, all right? And call me when you can. Love you.”

Nicole heard Drew pull into the driveway before he knocked. He didn’t have a key.

She hadn’t looked in a mirror since her mother called. She had a smear of yellow ochre on her wrist, and she was still in the old shirt she painted in, and when she opened the door, he didn’t say a word. He just stepped inside and put his arms around her and held on.

She let him.

She stood there just inside her front door with her face in his chest and let him hold her up, and for a few minutes, it helped. He smelled like his truck and his laundry soap and him. He had one hand on the back of her head and one arm all the way around her, and he wasn’t asking her anything.

“MJ called you,” she said into his shirt.

“Yeah.” He kissed her hair. “He told me. I was in the truck before he even got off the phone.” He held her tighter. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

They ended up on the couch. He sat in the corner and pulled her in against him with the throw over both of them, and she lay there with her head on his chest listening to his heart.

“He lied to me,” she said after a while.

“I know.”

“No, I mean . . .” She tried to find the beginning of it. “It’s not just Gina. It was never just her. And Tiffany knew, and MJ knew. They all knew the whole time, Drew, and they never . . . everybody knew except . . .”

Drew’s hand stopped moving on her back.