The Hardest Play

by Teague, A. S.

  Georgia was persistent. I shouldn’t be surprised by any of it. I stood in front of her and squeezed the back of my neck, too tired to argue with anyone right now. “Look, I’m assuming you know where I’ve been?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s all over the news.”

  “So, you can probably imagine I have a lot of stuff to do.” I tried to step around her to go inside, but she blocked my path.

  With a soft hand on my bicep, she pleaded, “Tell me what the hell is going on. Please.”

  All the heat that had been in her voice just a minute ago was replaced by a soft pleading. I could see the concern etched on her face, and the shame that I was the cause of it squeezed my chest. She deserved an explanation, but I just couldn’t give it to her right now.

  “I’m exhausted. Can we please talk later?” I pleaded. I’d had several hours with nothing to do but think about how the hell I’d ended up in this situation, and worse yet, how I was going to get out of it. I needed a hot shower and a long nap.

  She planted her hand on her hip, those beautiful emerald eyes that I’d gotten lost in a week ago blazing with irritation, and hissed, “Oh, you gonna send me a bunch of one-word texts to explain to me why you were just in jail?”

  I pressed the heel of my palms into my eyes and blew out a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry. I know I’ve been quiet the last few days. Just had a lot going on.”

  She scoffed, “A lot going on. Right.”

  Once again, I tried to move past her, but she stood in my way, her face fierce with determination.

  “What do you want me to say?” I groaned. “I’m sorry I was busy last week?”

  “I don’t care about that right now! I mean, I do, but there’s a more pressing issue I’m concerned with.”

  I shook my head. “No, there’s not.”

  My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I fished it out, Griff’s contact flashing across the screen. “I’ve gotta take this.”

  “I can wait,” she said, dropping to her ass on the step. “Go ahead.”

  She made a show of inspecting her nails like she was trying to give me privacy. I pressed the decline button and stepped back. “I’ll call him back later.”

  It was obvious that Georgia wasn’t leaving without the answers she’d come for, and I was going to have to talk to her eventually, even if I was so overwhelmed by it all that I didn’t know if I could even explain it myself. “Come in.”

  I unlocked the door and held it open for her, the apartment eerily quiet. She stood and then stepped inside and waited for me to follow.

  Once the door was shut behind me, I flipped on the light switch and leaned against the door frame. “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything.” She pushed her hands through her hair and looked around. “But first, why do you live in this small apartment?”

  I looked around the cramped space and saw it from her point of view. I was a millionaire with all the money in the world, and yet I lived in a fifteen-hundred-square-foot apartment. I could almost see the wheels in her head turning. Did she think I spent all my money on drugs? Maybe. “When I got traded here, I didn’t want to commit to anything because I didn’t know how long I’d be sticking around.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest, not looking the least bit convinced, but it was the truth. I wasn’t going to drop a ton of cash on a house when I didn’t think the team would be keeping me around for long.

  “Next question?” It came out much harsher than I’d intended, and immediately I wished I could take it back when she flinched.

  But Georgia wasn’t a little bird, and she recovered quickly. “So, you were arrested for possession of heroin?”

  It was my turn to cringe, the fact that I’d just spent hours in jail much more real when it came from her. “Yes.”

  “Was it yours?”

  “It was in my truck.”

  Her eyes darkened as she took a step forward. “It was in your truck. But was it yours?”

  I had nowhere to go, and she nearly had me cornered. “Possession is nine tenths of the law, right?”

  “How long?” Her voice shook.

  I hung my head and blew out a breath. “Years.”

  “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It doesn’t to me either, Georgia. Look, I’m sorry about all of this. But, really, I’ve got a lot on my plate right now. Can we continue this conversation later?” I didn’t know how much longer I could stand to look into her sad face without my resolve weakening. Something inside of me screamed to trust her, to tell her everything, but I just couldn’t do it.

  She shook her head slowly. “No, Quinn. We can’t. I need to know, and I need to know everything. Today. Now. Before I walk away from you.”

  “I can’t tell you everything today. I barely even know myself. I can’t give you the answers that you want. I need time and space. Can you respect that?”

  “Respect that? No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I can’t go through this again!” she exploded, her eyes filling with tears.

  I took a step toward her, but she waved me off, turning away. “Don’t.”

  Irritation filled me. She’d barged into my life, shown up on my doorstep, and now she was yelling at me? Pushing me away? “You can’t go through this again? What exactly is it that you’re going through?” I jabbed a finger at my own chest. “I’m the one who went to jail. I’m the one whose career may be over. I’m the one who’s going to spend the rest of my life trying to figure out how to get past this. Tell me what it is that my arrest is going to do to you.”

  She whirled on me, her laugh bitter as she threw her hands in the air. “Well, I’m the one who watched one of my best friends die. I’m the one who had to help his sister pick out a dress to wear to his funeral. I’m the one who’s spent the last eleven years of my life wondering if I could have saved him! But I am so sorry that my concern is an inconvenience to you.”

  The words tumbled from her mouth, each sentence louder and more filled with anguish than the last. And yet I had no idea what she was talking about.

  “Saved who?”

  “Jack!” His name was a strangled cry that barely passed her lips, but the single syllable was strong enough to knock me back.

  I took an unsteady step toward her. “Your friend who died in the car accident?”

  “Yes.”

  I didn’t understand. “You couldn’t have saved him.”

  “I knew Jack was using drugs, and I did nothing!” Her words hung in the air, the sheer agony of what she’d just revealed sucking every ounce of oxygen from the room.

  If she had punched me in the stomach, it wouldn’t have felt any different than it did standing there, watching as her hands covered her face and tears streamed down her cheeks. I wanted to pull them away and wipe her tears, to take the pain that she was reliving away from her.

  Instead, I stood there motionless, unable to comfort her, completely speechless.

  She was still crying, but her voice was steady. “I sat by while he tried to ease the pain of not knowing who he truly was and worrying about what we would think of him if we knew he was gay with any mind-numbing drug he could get his hands on! And I. Did. Nothing. I was the only person who knew, and yet I didn’t do the first damn thing to help him.”

  I’d been arrested for drugs.

  Her friend had been using drugs.

  He’d died.

  Fuck.

  She cleared her throat and straightened her spine, and the woman from the presentation reappeared. “So, now you know why I need the truth from you. Do you have a drug problem?”

  I opened my mouth to respond but clamped it shut. How did I answer her? Standing before me was the woman who just a few days ago, I couldn’t get off my mind, begging me to confide in her, or at the very least, give her the answers she so desperately wanted.

  But there were so many more things at play here, so much at risk. I swallowed hard, the lump in my throat refu
sing to budge, and nodded. “Yes,” I rasped, “I have a problem.”

  Her face fell, her hopeful optimism vanishing. She pressed her quivering lips together and gave a brisk jerk of her chin.

  “Okay.” It was to herself, as though she were trying to give herself the reassurance that I should be giving her. “Okay. I’m sorry, Quinn, but I just––” Her voice wobbled, the single wavering of her usually confident tone causing my heart to shatter right on the spot. “I just can’t.”

  She pushed past me and fled through my front door as though I were a leper that she had been exposed to for far too long.

  I spun on a heel to chase after her, to tell her to give me a chance to explain, to beg her to forgive me for keeping secrets from her. But just as I stepped through the door, my phone began to buzz again, my sister’s face filling the screen and halting me in my tracks.

  I watched, my shoulders heavy as Georgia climbed into her car, tears still streaming down her face. Even if I had caught up to her, what the hell could I have said that would have changed anything?

  I had a problem that Georgia Reed wasn’t able to handle. It wasn’t fair to ask her to try. Even if it were, she deserved someone who didn’t come with a laundry list of issues. The first being a drug problem that had coincidentally also been the cause of her childhood friend’s death.

  No, Georgia deserved so much more than I was able to give her. But even knowing that I was doing the right thing, letting her get away while she had the chance, didn’t ease the fire that was raging in my chest. And it sure as hell didn’t feel right to watch her drive away while I had so much more that I wanted to say.

  With a heavy sigh, I pressed the button to connect the call and watched as Georgia drove away from my apartment and out of my life.

  “Jamie,” I said as I put the phone to my ear. “I need you to come home.”

  16

  Quinn

  The apartment was quiet.

  Too fucking quiet.

  Ever since Georgia had stormed out last week, the space had been like a tomb.

  “I should get a cat,” I said to the empty living room. When there was no response, I took that as a sign and pulled out my phone, Googling the local humane society before throwing myself onto the sectional.

  I’d scrolled through three pages of animals that all looked pathetic and had vowed to send a donation to them tomorrow when the screen was filled with Aiden’s smiling mug.

  Jamie must have changed the contact in my phone. I debated the chances that Aiden would give up if I sent him to voice mail and decided the odds were not in my favor.

  “Hey, man,” I said in greeting. “What’s up?”

  His voice boomed across the line. “Pack your bags, my man.”

  For a split second, panic gripped me. “I get traded?”

  His ridiculous laugh filled my ear. “Not yet.”

  I let out a breath and asked, “What am I packing for, then?”

  “Two. Words: Stanley. Cup. Finals.”

  “That’s three words.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Here are more words for you, asshole: Me, you, and the guys are going to game seven of the finals.”

  I wasn’t going anywhere. “Nah, man. I don’t even keep up with hockey.”

  “So!” he bellowed into the phone. “It is game seven, dude. It could be two teams from Tim-fucking-buktu and it would be amazing. But it’s the freakin’ Canes and Rangers.”

  I reclined until I was lying on my back and switched he phone to my other ear. “I’ve got stuff going on.”

  Aiden scoffed in my ear, and then Griff’s voice broke through the line. “Told you he’d say that.”

  “Did the two of you conference call me? Are Shane and Trav on the line too?” The last fucking thing I was interested in was a team call where the four of them ganged up on me and wore me down until I was forced to give in and do whatever the hell they wanted.

  “Nah, it’s just me and Griff. Those other two assholes were too busy to talk. They’re coming though. Just like you,” Aiden stressed, and then Griff chimed in.

  “So, get off your ass and go pack a bag. The game’s tomorrow night.”

  God, those guys were so damn last minute. They always liked to give me a hard time about all the planning I did for our yearly trips, but it was because otherwise we’d never make it work. Yet here they were, in the middle of the worst time in my life, insisting that I drop everything and go on a trip.

  “Guys, I can’t just drop everything and hit the road.”

  “What the hell do you have to drop? It’s off season. Mandatory training camp isn’t for another couple of weeks. Not like we’re asking you to blow off practice.”

  Griff had a point. I’d pretty much spent the week and a half since my arrest lying around, wallowing in self-pity and worrying about how the hell I was going to get out of the fucking mess I was in. The team had issued the blanket statement that they were cooperating with the league and that I was under investigation, but no decisions regarding my status would be made until after the legal aspect of everything had been cleared up.

  After talking to my attorney, my agent had assured me that all of this would be swept under the rug and that all I needed to do was focus on training and staying in shape.

  Of course, he hadn’t been the one who had to show his face at the practice facilities the following day. The few guys who had been there had made it clear that they weren’t happy about the bad publicity I was getting.

  But the man who had been the most unhappy was Coach Reed.

  Nothing like showing up to a family dinner with your coach’s daughter and then getting arrested a few days later.

  “I’ve just got a lot of shit here. Between Jamie and the cat I just adopted––”

  The shout that Aiden let out was damn near deafening. “A fucking cat? You’re so full of shit. You didn’t adopt a fucking cat. You haven’t left the couch in days.”

  I looked around the room. Had they set up cameras to spy on me? “How the hell do you know?”

  “Quinn, man, we know you. We’ve been friends for more than ten years. You really think we don’t know how you work? Now, get off your lazy ass and go pack a bag. There’s a flight to Raleigh you’re due on in a few hours.” Griff was usually the more laid back of the two, but when he got something in his head, he didn’t let it go.

  I groaned and tried a different approach. “Look, I can’t just abandon Jamie to go to some hockey game.”

  “I talked to Jamie yesterday. She’s fine. You’re out of excuses.”

  Sometimes I really regretted introducing my sister to the guys. Growing up with just me meant that she’d had no problems becoming just another one of the guys. But apparently, the so-called bro code didn’t extend to sisters, so most of the time, she just acted like their informant.

  “Fine. I’ll go. How long?”

  Griff and Aiden let out a celebratory whoop, and I half listened as they finished relaying the details of our out-of-the-blue trip.

  “Alright, see you guys later,” I told them before disconnecting the call and dropping the phone on the couch beside me.

  I’d planned to spend the next few days the exact same way the previous week had been, a whole bunch of lying around. But maybe Griff and Aiden were onto something. Moping wasn’t getting me anywhere. All this quiet apartment was good for was making my mind spin out of control.

  And even though I was in deep legal shit, along with wondering if I was still going to have a job at the end of this all, my brain couldn’t quit focusing on one person.

  Georgia.

  Maybe a change of scenery would get the image of her tear-streaked face out of my head.

  * * *

  “Can you fucking believe they pulled it out? With an emergency goaltender!” Aiden was bouncing on the balls of his feet. He was smiling wide, like he had been for the three days we’d been together.

  I shook my head. “Holy shit, that was incredible.”

  I hadn’t
been interested in this trip, but the moment I walked into the suite where Aiden and Griff were, I’d been damn glad I’d come. Being back with the guys for the first time in six months was exactly what I needed, even if I would never give them the satisfaction of knowing that.

  Aiden threw his arm around my shoulder. “See, man, I told you that it would be a great game. Hell of a lot better than your last playoff game.”

  I shook out of his grasp and socked him in the arm. “Shut the fuck up.”

  “Aiden, that was cold,” Shane roared from where he was draped across a couch in the luxury box that Aiden had somehow gotten us for the final game of the series.

  As professional athletes, it was pretty easy to get into events that we wanted to. But somehow, Aiden always managed to not only get tickets to games and shows that no one else could, but they were almost always the best seats in the house.

  Tonight had been no different. We’d spent the first period of the game directly behind the glass at the goal, the players fighting over the puck right in front of us. Despite what I’d said the other day, I couldn’t help but get caught up in the excitement and was right alongside the guys, banging on the glass and booing whenever the refs broke up the fights.

  Then we’d moved up to a freaking suite that rivaled a luxury apartment, a table covered with food and drinks waiting for us.

  “Man has a point,” Trav pointed out as he stuffed a chip covered with cheese into his mouth.

  I shook my head. Shane and Trav ate nearly five thousand calories a day, even more than that during football season. He followed his bite with a swig of his beer. “No offense.”

  “Can’t be offended by the truth,” I told him. I grabbed a bottle of water from the table and then crossed the room to sit in the chair next to Shane.

  Aiden’s phone dinged with an incoming text, his eyes quickly scanning the message before a shit-eating grin spread across his face. “Some of the guys from the team are going out. Told them we’d come.”

  Shane and Trav let out a “hell yeah”, but I shook my head. “I’m out.”

  “Come on, dude. It’ll be months before we’re all together again,” Trav pleaded.