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It's not very big, and it's certainly not set up to hold a few dozen people, but somehow here they all are at Tim's small ranch house - Smash and his girl (and his Superbowl ring); Street and Erin and Noah, now in his terrible fours; Seven, paint under his fingernails and a smudge of charcoal on the back of his neck where he can't see. Julie's there too, back for Christmas break from her fancy college up north, chatting with Tyra. Tyra's in a blue dress with flowers along the hem, and Tim just lets himself watch her a little while, smiling. A bunch of the team is there too - Anton and Reggie, Steven and Chuck and Fourteen. Billy's still here even though Mindy's home with the baby, and Coach even dropped by for a bit, but left early enough that they could all settle in and get a nice buzz going.
Lyla might come, maybe, she'd said when Tim ran into her at the pizza place a few days ago. But Tim hears she has a boyfriend now, a kid from California whose daddy sells microchips or something fancy like that, and Tim mostly lets it go. He almost never gets that dull ache in his chest anymore when he thinks about her. Now it's mostly visions of dark hair and her wide, surprised laugh, of pretty, girlie underwear and eye-rolls, and the back of a bus pulling away. Lyla's mostly good memories now, and he's okay if she doesn't want to come by.
"Riggs!" Jason calls to him from the back patio, a wide expanse with a pool he put in himself last spring. There's a tree out there now, covered haphazardly in tinsel and lights. It overlooks forty of the prettiest acres of land Texas has to offer, and Tim glances out past the back fence for a minute. It's dark, but he knows that the bulk of his small herd is out there, just past the ridge line. Mr. Cafferty came by a few days ago to check on some studs, and Tim makes a mental note to drive out in the morning and talk shop about breeding. "Seriously, Riggins, c'mere," Jason laughs and Tim smiles around the neck of his beer bottle. Maybe not in the morning, he thinks.
"Street," he drawls, and leans on the railing next to Jason's chair. "This better be good. I was enjoying the show," he grins, gesturing to where Julie is studiously not looking at Matt, and Matt is failing miserably to have a conversation with Smash's girlfriend.
"Some things never change," Jason sighs happily, and Tim smiles wider. "We're going to have to get going in a little bit," Jason adds, pointing to where Noah is nodding off in Erin's arms.
"You know you can stay here," Tim reminds him for the twelfth time, but Jason's staying with his family over the Christmas holiday this year, and they only have him for a few more days before the Street clan heads back to New York.
"My mom would kill me. Or probably you," Jason reminds him, and Tim just nods and takes another sip. He's had a few great days with Street already, driving him down through the back acres in his new-used truck, bouncing along the unpaved trails with Street laughing in the passenger seat, Noah clinging to the front of his shirt with wide eyes as Tim introduced him to some real live Texas cattle.
"You're an actual cowboy," Jason had said to him, a touch of awe in his voice, and Tim shrugged it off as much as he could. It was a life he could do, a life he could love, just working his herd and his land with nothing but his own two hands and some common sense. Cafferty was a good business partner, excited to take Tim on and teach him the trade in exchange for some extra hands at his place while Luke's finding his way in college. Tim thinks Luke's way is going to lead him right into the pros after a winning season with the Vols, but he knows better than to say that to Mr. Cafferty. Not yet, at least.
(Luke was here earlier with Becky, but they disappeared into the night a while ago, more on- than off-again these days. Tim tramps down his big-brotherly desire to track them down and make Luke cower a little bit...)
"It was awesome to see you, Street," Tim says, and he means it to his core.
"You too, man," Jason grins up at him, his smile wide and bright, and Tim remembers that smile too, locked away next to Lyla's.
They moved on - Street and his family, Lyla and her ambition, Smash and his golden legs, Matt and his soul that was always too tender for Texas. Tim realized a long time ago that he's not going anywhere - he's holding down the fort, putting down roots - both real and metaphorical - in this place they all dreamed of escaping from. He's not the only one - Coach is still here, putting East Dillon on the map one player, one season at a time. Billy and Mindy and Tim's big-eyed niece are all down the road at Riggins Rigs, where Tim still helps out three days a week. It's home in a way that never fit before. It's the land, he thinks. Making a mark on it, knowing it inside and out, putting your name on something and caring about what happens to it.
"Hey, you got one more," Jason says and points to the door of the patio where a shock of red hair makes Tim shake his head and smile.
"Hey, Landry," he calls, and Landry puts his hand up in a tentative wave. In his other hand...
"Oh my God, Clark, did you bring wine to my house?" Tim asks dryly.
"It's a traditional gift," Landry points out, "among civilized people."
Tim get him in a headlock in under three seconds and Landry doesn't put up much of a fight.
"Point taken," he says from somewhere around Tim's belt buckle, and Tim lets him up slowly. "I'll just drink this myself, then," he says with a grin and a nod of his head, and Tim can't help but laugh as he walks away. Landry's one of the few people Tim can't ever quite pin down. He turns up like a bad penny, but always just about the time you're searching for some loose change. He watches Landry hug Tyra, awkward but sweet, and try to hug Matt, equally awkward but more hilarious.
"He's at Berkeley?" Jason asks from Tim's elbow.
"Stanford," Tim corrects him and doesn't miss the way Jason's eyebrows go up. Tim's irrationally proud of Landry, just like he is of all of them, his whole Championship year out there making their dreams come true.
"Isn't Matt in California too, now?"
"Chicago," Tim corrects, and Jason is smiling now, in that way that means he's been testing him. "Shut up, I don't have a lot else to do around here. Besides, everyone's mom needs to give me updates every time I go to the grocery store."
"You buy groceries?" Jason asks in mock horror and Tim smacks him in the back of the head.
"Ow, fucker," Jason laughs and Erin finally shakes her head and stands up, handing a limp Noah to her husband.
"We'll see you again before we go, Tim," she says, kissing his cheek, and they're off, rolling out the back gate and down to their rental car.
The party empties out after that - by one in the morning, it's just Matt and Landry and Tyra and Tim, with Billy socked out in Tim's spare room. Tim's buzzed but not drunk - he hasn't been truly drunk since his birthday last summer, celebrating twenty-three in style with Billy down in Mexico.
"This is some place you've got here," Landry says, stretched out on Tim's oversized sofa, petting the big quilt thrown over it. "This 's soft." Tim saved the sofa from the side of the road in some swanky part of town last year, but he doesn't tell Landry that. Tyra snorts, which means she already knows.
"Yeah, he's a regular Martha Stewart now," Tyra says, and Tim throws his shoe at her.
"You like it, though?" he asks a few minutes later, barely audible over the crack of wood in the old iron stove.
"It's nice," Matt says, smiling at the ceiling, and Tyra reaches out to poke Tim with her foot.
"It's great," she says, her eyes warm.
"I think it could use some more insulation, especially with heating oil prices being so high -" Landry starts, and they all laugh as they shower him with Doritos. They all drift off in the living room, tucked into various pieces of furniture, covered in blankets donated by a bevy of moms who all came out of the woodwork when Tim decided to build this place. He's got at least four ladies he can call at a moment's notice for a casserole or a haircut, and he suspects Mrs. Coach and Grandma Saracen are to blame. He doesn't call any of them much, but it's strangely nice to know the offers are there.
When Tim wakes up the next morning, Tyra and Matt are already gone, but Matt's left a drawing on the counter - a charcoal piece of the view out Tim's back window, all shadows and light as the sun comes up. Thanks, it says on the back, and Tim puts it by the door so he won't forget to take it when he goes to visit Grandma Saracen on Sunday.
Landry's still there, though, hair sticking up at a ridiculous angle as he flips through Tim's five television stations. "You know they get cable out here," he notes as Tim sits down next to him on the couch.
"Eh, who needs it," Tim shrugs, and Landry shakes his head. He opens his mouth, but then closes it, looking at Tim with this weird, intense look in his eyes. "What?" Tim asks, defensive, because Landry's one of the few people who ever saw Tim as vulnerable, as smart. Who ever saw through Tim's bullshit.
"I was going to say you haven't changed, but you've changed a lot," he says. "In a good way! Like, you're letting yourself be a real person now, and not some caricature of person, like you always tried to be."
"I'm the same person," Tim mutters, arms crossing.
"Yeah, I know, deep down you are," Landry says, settling back into the couch cushions. "But now you're actually letting people see who you are, which is cool."
Tim shoots Landry a look that should be mocking, but Landry just grins at him.
"Shut up," Tim says, smiling. "Give me the remote."
"Why, there's only five -" Landry starts, but he doesn't finish before Tim is on him, knee in his back, both of them fumbling for the remote like it's a pigskin.