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chapter twenty-three: the calm before the storm

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Even though all of her crying left her exhausted and thoroughly humiliated, Rory can't help but feel like a certain weight has been lifted off her shoulders after her conversation with her coach.

After briefly returning to her room to wash her face and change into comfortable clothes, Rory settles down in Averman's bunk and they share the haul of stuff that he bought from the seven eleven to cheer her up. To fill the comfortable silence, she asks him about his family, and he talks without too much prompting. His parents are both teachers who work in the same school, people who came from large families and then had large families of their own; they're younger than her father and older than his mother, the perfect age to be parents. All of his siblings are younger than him, and he has nothing but kind words to say about them, even if they get on his nerves.

Rory lets herself sink into the warm, normalcy of it all. Lets herself get lost in the foreign idea of yearly family reunions, and ugly sweaters for Christmas, and football every Thanksgiving.

It makes her feel... bubbly.

"... and my nana's always making us and our cousins sit down for pictures for her holiday cards, which is annoying because they're all bigger than me and douches."

A smile tugs at the corner of her lips. She breaks a chocolate bar in half before she breaks it again and pops one of the small rectangles into her mouth.

"Wait, this feels wrong." He says, interrupting his tangent and frowning. "I shouldn't complain. Not to you."

"No. No. It's fine. You don't have to be this happy go lucky jokester all the time."

There's a softness in his eyes now.

"But--"

"It'll do us no good if I'm always talking and you are always listening." She nudges him with her elbow. "Just 'cause my father's an authoritarian nightmare and my mother's... negligent at best doesn't mean you can't complain about scratchy, ugly sweaters and family photos."

With a huff, Averman shoves her elbow away from him. She grins.

They fall into another comfortable silence, her eating snacks and him playing with the ends of her hair.

"Why don't you tell me about your grandpa?"

"Hm?"

"I want to know about your grandpa." He repeats himself. "And not, like, billionaire philanthropist Elijah Myrtle. I want to know about the dude who helped raise you, ya dig?"

Rory flushes a bit. "I mean, what do you want to know?"

"Whatever you want to tell me." He shrugs.

She thinks for a moment.

"Well... Dad and I were living in our Hampton house for a while, but we had to move in when my grandma got sick. I don't know why. Maybe 'cause my aunts and their children refused to." Rory chews on the inside of her cheek and has to put genuine effort into maintaining eye contact with him. "Everybody says he was a mean old bastard in his youth but when I met him he was old and the love of his life was dying, so he's been a lot nicer to me."

As Averman nods and plays with her hair, she chooses to skip over the fact that her demented grandmother scared the wits out of her, and that her grandpa could still be a little violent with her even if he was nicer to her than he was to most.

"He's been the only parent I've ever really had... aside from the various nannies, of course. He taught me most of what I know, and he tries to attend all of my games."

She frowns.

"Kinda sucks that he won't attend this one."

Averman nods, thoughtful, as she goes on to talk about her grandfather.

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A few hours later, Rory lies back on the couch in the common area and clenches her eyes shut.

She has a splitting headache and she's waiting for the medicine she took to work, but the girls were watching a movie in their room so she decided to get up and go instead of bothering them about it. Whatever game Goldberg, Jesse, and Dwayne are playing is much quieter, anyway, and the sound of Guy flipping through a book on the other side of the room is almost comforting.

"How can one tiny person take up so much couch space?"

She cracks one eye open to see that Dean and Fulton both standing over her.

"It's my big personality." She mumbles, covering her eyes with the heels of her palms.

Without ang verbal warning, the boys move her so that they can sit too. Her legs get slung over one boy's lap and her head gets dropped in the other's. She opens both of her eyes with a huff, even if it hurts, and makes eye contact with an unbothered Dean.

"That was rude."

"I'm a rude person." He shrugs.

"Adam and Charlie would've been nicer about it."

"That's because of your weird little daddy issues club."

Fulton looks up with furrowed brows. "Huh?"

"You're also in the daddy issues club, jerk."

"Daddy issues club?" Fulton cocks his head.

"It's actually the bad dad's club." She sits up carefully, letting herself be squished in between the two boys. "Dean's our most reluctant member."

The boy in question snorts.

"I wanna be a member."

"Do you have a shitty dad?"

"Sometimes."

"Well, congrats, you're part of the club."

Fulton looks downright pleased with the idea, and she stares at him, amused, for a moment before she leans back and closes her eyes again. The room gets calm again, the bash brothers watching the other three play their game and Guy still silently reading-- she actually feels like her headache is going away, which might just mean that her drugs are kicking in, but she'll humor herself with the thought that it's because she's happy.

Jesse breaks the peace by turning around and calling out to her.

"Yo, cake eater, where's your boyfriend?"

Rory shrugs. "I don't know. He went to go talk to Bombay and Tibbles, wouldn't say what about."

Slowly, the boy nods and turns back to his game, quickly becoming distracted again.

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Averman lingers in the doorway of his coach's office, his mind running faster than his mouth can even go. The older man doesn't notice him until he knocks hesitantly on the doorway, and then he's smiling softly at him.

"Hey, coach."

"Hi, Averman. What do you need?"

A sedative, probably.

"Uh, I have a question."

"What about? About the game?"

Well, facing off against the terrifying Icelandic team was at the back of his mind. He'll probably freak out about it all night, now, because who gets excited about the possibility of someone absolutely wiping the floor with you (...freaks and the bash brothers, that's who.)

"No sir." He walks in, taking a seat across the desk. "...I have a question about flights."

Bombay's eyebrow quirks up. "You're not chickening out on us, are you Averman?"

"No, no-- but being a big chicken, frankly, is something that I'm proud of. It's what kept me alive thus far-- historically, the cowards who run away from the battle get to live, pride or not."

He stares at Averman like he's got three heads, which is usually how he's looking at him, before he cuts him off.

"The question, Averman."

Les sighs softly, his shoulders deflating, and pushes his glasses up a bit.

Would Rory be happy at him for doing this or overwhelmed by it?

Can they even do this?

Is this a bad idea or a great one?

"I, uh, do you think Tibbles could arrange for a private jet to fly a really old man halfway across the country?"

Bombay blinks a few times before he really processes what the boy just said.

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a/n:

dun dun dun

i am dreading next chapter something fierce. why do i keep writing fanfictions for this if i hate writing hockey?

we're nearing the end! so excited to finally get to work on the second book (the plot is drastically different but it's super interesting!)

comments and votes are super appreciated! they let me know that you guys like my writing and I cannot stress how much they motivate me to continue! thank you