Tomboy

by Avery Flynn

  “It was good training for now,” he said, scooting his chair closer and cutting off another bite of the omelet for her. “So I could make you breakfast out of the barren vista of your fridge.”

  Fallon didn’t need to be fed. She had two hands that both worked, but this moment wasn’t about that, and even she knew it.

  “This isn’t part of our negotiated terms,” she said, taking the fork from his hand.

  His eyes darkened with emotion, and he shrugged. “We left those behind a while ago, and we both know it.”

  This was him letting her in while using the cover of taking care of her. This was a preview of what their life together could be like. Not that he’d be hand-feeding her for the rest of their lives, but that they’d be in it together, watching out for each other. She’d never realized before just how much she wanted exactly that.

  “And you’re going to come home after a three-game road trip and make me an omelet before I go to work?” The idea was both ridiculous and thrilling in the same breath.

  He leaned closer, his mouth only a few inches from hers. “If I’m lucky.”

  “I think I’d be the lucky one in that situation,” she said, her heart speeding up from his nearness and the possibilities.

  “How about we agree we’re lucky together?” he said, cupping her cheek.

  Giving in to the idea that this could really be happening, she nodded. “Sounds about right.”

  Really, it sounded perfect—almost as perfect as the feel of his lips against hers when they met in the middle for a kiss.

  …

  That night, Fallon pulled into the employee parking lot at St. Vincent’s, her mood almost as dark as the stormy sky. The whole thing with Zach’s parents had blown up since the call from Lucy this morning. Now, everyone from the egomaniacs on sports TV to the gas station attendant filling up her tank had an opinion about what a shitty human Zach was for what he’d done to his parents.

  “And I’ll tell you another thing,” the blowhard on her car radio continued. “Could you imagine what kind of person you’d have to be to make the kind of money he is and abandon his parents so they’re living in a fifth-floor walk-up studio with a drained retirement account? That’s low, really low.”

  “It’s also totally not true, asshole,” Fallon muttered to herself as she shoved the stuff that had spilled out of her backpack onto the seat back in with more force than was necessary.

  “I couldn’t agree with you more, Trevor,” the blowhard’s partner said. “Gotta tell ya, kudos to TMQ for going deep to get that story. I’d always wondered why Blackburn’s parents stopped acting as his managers so suddenly. It was fishy.”

  He wasn’t wrong there, but not for the reasons he thought. She jammed her extra T-shirt down to the bottom of her backpack maybe picturing—okay, totally picturing—Zach’s parents’ faces when she did it.

  “Very shady,” blowhard Trevor said. “And a total gut-punch when Bobby Blackburn just came out with how they’d spent the last of their retirement savings so their son wouldn’t have to pay them to be his managers because they didn’t want to be those parents. You could really hear the anguish in his voice. Heartbreaking, man.”

  “Well, when my kid hits the bigs,” his partner said, chuckling as if he was the funniest guy to ever walk the planet. “I already told him he’s buying me a house.”

  “Hell, yeah.” The smack of the men doing a high five in the studio sounded. “You take care of your parents. That’s the way it works.”

  Blood pressure peaking, Fallon flipped off her radio and killed the engine so the drive-time idiots would stop yammering through her car speakers. The jerks didn’t know a damn thing they were talking about. Of course, how could they, with Zach refusing to fight for himself.

  Muttering about the stupidity of men, she grabbed her backpack and got out of the car, slamming the door shut hard enough that it even made her wince, and she was already a twelve on the five-point pissed-off scale.

  As she marched across the parking lot, she spied a handful of people standing near the emergency room entrance. Probably smokers. She’d give them a heads-up that if Fred, the security guard on duty tonight, caught them, he would banish them from the ER even if their mother was inside getting stitches. Then, if that didn’t get them to put it out, she’d add in a little tidbit about what smoking did to a person’s lungs before heading inside to start her shift.

  However, as she got closer, she realized there wasn’t any cigarette smell coming off the group who all turned as she approached. That was when she noticed the cameras, microphones, and cell phones held out like tape recorders. Fuck. Maybe she should tell all of them to take up smoking so they could hack up a lung while Fred kicked them off the property.

  She looked down and angled her face away from them, but it was too late.

  “Lady Luck,” one of the women called out.

  “Hey, Fallon,” shouted another. “Do you have any comment about Zach Blackburn?”

  They hustled over to her, shoving their mics and phones in her face as she marched toward the door.

  “Did you know he’d given his parents the shaft?” a man asked.

  That wasn’t what happened, and there was nothing in the world she’d rather tell them, but Zach had been clear about how he wanted this handled.

  She glared at the reporters. “No comment.”

  “Oh, come on, Fallon,” the first woman said, stepping in front of her. “Give us the real story.”

  As if that was their due? Yeah. No. “Get out of my way. I said no comment.”

  The other woman gave her a sympathetic look as if they were friends from back in the day. “TMQ’s coming out with another story tomorrow,” she said. “Word is his mom’s about to unload about how they’ve begged for help and he’s said no.”

  Begged for help? More like continued to try to extort money from him because what he’d given them already hadn’t been enough. It never would be. Fury on his behalf beat against the backs of her eyeballs and pounded against her skull. It wasn’t fair. He was going to get nailed to the wall for this. Still…

  She unclenched her jaw enough to get two words out. “No comment.”

  “What about the fact that the time he punched out a fan, supposedly for spitting in his face, wasn’t the first time Blackburn has punched someone after a loss,” the male reporter said. “According to his dad, it was a pretty regular happening. One time he broke his old man’s jaw and left him with medical debt the old man is still paying off.”

  “That’s not true.” There was no way.

  “Bobby Blackburn has X-rays,” the reporter said.

  Oh, she didn’t doubt that. There were probably hundreds of people who’d taken a swing at him over the years and a million more—herself included—who wanted to punch him now.

  “No comment,” she said, pushing her way through them, determined to get inside so she could call Zach and let him know what was coming. He hadn’t known all of this when he’d made the decision to go the no-comment route.

  “Do you really think the Ice Knights will stick by him after the TMQ story with all of this comes out?” one of the female reporters shouted at her. “Will you? Is he hitting you? Blackburn’s mom said it was a question that haunted her.”

  Fallon slammed to a stop, the sounds of the reporters’ questions drowned out by the blood rushing in her ears. Is he hitting you? An ugly certainty settled deep in her belly. That was where it would go next, a way for his parents to up the ante in their quest for more money. It made her want to puke.

  She couldn’t count the number of domestic violence victims she’d seen come through the emergency room over the years. Some swore they’d slipped down the stairs, broken their arm, and gotten a black eye—or worse. Others didn’t say anything. The third group spoke up despite the threats made against them and their children. Some of them even got out. That Zach’s parents—just to score a payday—would make a mockery of those women and men who really had survived
domestic violence made her sick to her stomach.

  If his parents were willing to go public with this level of bullshit, they wouldn’t quit, not until they’d drained him of absolutely everything—money, belief in himself, hope. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—let them do that to him. Zach deserved better. He deserved someone who would fight for him, not just use him.

  Pivoting around, she faced the scrum of reporters, their eager faces hungry for a scoop. Everybody used everybody, that’s what he’d told her. But it wasn’t true. She’d fight for him.

  “Zach’s parents took out loans in his name for millions, skimmed money from his accounts, and sucked him dry like a pair of vampires before leaving him holding the bag for it all,” she said, her voice shaking despite her best efforts to remain calm. “That’s why he’s living in a house the team pays for, doesn’t have any furniture, and doesn’t have a car. Because all of the money he earns is going to pay off the millions of dollars of debt his parents ran up in his name.” The pure awfulness of what they’d done still astounded her—almost as much as the fact that somehow, some way, Zach acted as if he’d deserved that kind of treatment. “And he didn’t take his parents to court or turn them into the cops. Why? Because even though they did that to him, he still protected them. It’s what he does on the ice and off of it.”

  They were staring at her slack-jawed by the time she finished. Her lungs were heaving, and that adrenaline rush that came with standing up for what was right, for who was right, was whooshing through her like an arctic blast—cold, clean, and clear. Zach might not understand at first—he’d probably be pissed as hell. But she’d explain that she was fighting for him, for what was right, and he’d understand. She was sure about it.

  “Do you love him?” the male reporter asked.

  Yeah, because a woman can’t be trusted to tell the truth if her heart is involved. “Why? Does that make me biased about his parents’ bullshit if I do?”

  “Nah.” He shook his head. “It just makes the story better.”

  That dude was fast moving up the list of punchable people that Fallon had had to deal with in her life. She let out a deep breath, counted to ten, and looked the reporters dead-on because, this, they really needed to understand.

  “This is more than just a story,” she said, using the same do-not-fuck-with-this-shit-anymore tone she employed when she was talking to someone brought back from an OD, praying that this time they’d listen. “It’s his life. Leave him alone and let him live it.”

  And since there was nothing left to say after that, she turned back around and strode into the madness that was the St. Vincent’s emergency room when the skies were thunderous. Phone in hand, she was texting Zach the details about what had just happened when the call went out about multiple traumas headed their way from a multi-car pile-up. She hit send and shoved her phone in her locker and rushed out front to help.

  …

  As soon as Zach got back into the locker room after a killer practice that had left him ten pounds lighter from skating his ass off, he grabbed his phone. After Lucy’s phone call this morning, the notifications had been going off like crazy, and he’d turned it off. Fallon was going to be off work soon, though, so he swiped his thumb across the screen to power it up.

  His phone started vibrating with a million incoming notifications right at the same time as Fallon appeared on the big-screen TV at the end of the locker room. She was in blue scrubs, her hair braided with the tail draped across her shoulder, and she was giving whoever was talking a glare that would shrivel most men’s balls. So all was normal, right up until what she was saying to the reporter penetrated his brain.

  Parents stole from him.

  He’s millions in debt.

  They skimmed money.

  The team pays for his house.

  He can’t afford furniture or a car.

  Those may have been the words she used, but it all translated in his head to “failure,” and “loser,” and “fool.” And with each one, he sank deeper and deeper into that dark place where he was alone and no one could touch him. Not his parents. Not his critics. Not Fallon. There wasn’t any anger or hurt or bitterness here. It was just acceptance that this was how the world worked. People betrayed and used each other.

  You should have known better, Blackburn.

  By the time the phone he was white-knuckling stopped vibrating from all of the delayed notifications, the interview on the TV was over. His secret, the one he’d been hiding from everyone, was out in the open because he’d been dumb enough to think that Fallon wouldn’t betray him.

  Standing there in the middle of the locker room, his hair still damp with sweat, he looked around. None of the other players were talking, and no one was looking at him, either. It was the kind of heavy, uncomfortable silence that takes over a locker room after a player suffered a season-ending injury.

  “Blackburn,” Coach hollered from the doorway. “My office. Now.”

  Zach nodded to the coach and looked down at his phone. All of the text notifications were from Fallon. She needed to talk to him. It was important.

  Not really. Not anymore.

  He tossed his phone into his open duffel and started forward toward the door, going through the motions like he was a man still in control, even though his entire world had just fallen apart.

  …

  Heart hammering in her chest and panic clawing at her skin, Fallon pressed the buzzer outside Zach’s gate, sending up a prayer that he’d answer. She’d been texting throughout her shift with no response. She’d called repeatedly on her way over, and it went straight to voicemail. Sure, it wasn’t like he was out fighting fires or arresting mobsters, but he could have gotten hurt at practice. He could have fallen down his steps.

  She jabbed her finger against the buzzer again and again, desperation making her movements jerky. Finally, the light went on.

  “Thank God.” Letting out a relieved breath, she sent up a thank-you to the heavens. “I was afraid something had happened to you when you didn’t respond to my texts and calls. We really need to talk.”

  “Did you bring the reporters with you so they could document everything?”

  Ignoring the way his voice was coming through the speaker, giving it a harsh, icy tone, she looked up at the closed-circuit camera perched on the gate. “I’m so sorry, I know it’s not what you wanted but—”

  “Not what I wanted?” he asked, a cruel edge to his words that she couldn’t blame on the speaker. “You could have remembered that before you opened your mouth.”

  No. This was not how it was supposed to go. He had to listen. He had to understand. She’d done it for him. “Your parents were telling lies.”

  “Yeah, it’s what they do.”

  She gripped the strap of her backpack slung over one shoulder tighter, needing to feel it bite into her clammy palms and ground her in this moment. Warning sirens were screaming in her head, and the sick dread of having fucked up was making her eyes burn.

  “No,” she said, her voice shaking. “They were going to tell people you punched your dad out, left him with medical bills. That you ignored your mom when she begged for financial help from her rich son. They were intimating that you hit me.”

  “Your point?”

  “I couldn’t let that stand,” she said, her voice breaking as realization set in. She hadn’t just fucked this up. She may have ruined it. “I had to fight for you.”

  “Why? Am I just another charity case for you? Like your clinic?”

  “That clinic changes people’s lives.”

  “Good.” The single word blasted out of the speaker. “But my life was perfectly fine.”

  A wave of angry heat slammed into her at that obvious lie. Okay, he could be mad. He could be wrong about how this whole thing should have been handled. He did not get to play it off, though, with some crap about his life as the most-hated man in Harbor City being the one he wanted. All that toxic bullshit needed to end. He was more than that if he’d give h
imself half the credit he deserved.

  “Really?” She put her hands on her hips and glared up at the camera, oh so much more comfortable in this space where there was yelling instead of a panicked desperation to make things right. “You expect everyone to screw you over, and you don’t trust anyone.”

  “I wonder why. It’s not like I didn’t get screwed over by anyone new lately.”

  “Is that what you think I did?” Was he joking? She may have messed up royally, but she hadn’t screwed him over. She’d defended him. “Are your ego and your pride more important than fighting for yourself, because it sure as hell seems that’s what this is really about.” She wanted to smack her own head at the realization. “You didn’t want the truth out there because you are embarrassed, when you have absolutely no reason to be. This isn’t about what you let happen to you, it’s about what awful thing was done to you.”

  Her chest was heaving and her cheeks burning by the time she got the last word out because they’d fallen over an edge. She could see that now. She’d tried to fight for a man who didn’t think there was anything worth fighting for, not even himself.

  After a few beats of silence, Zach’s carefully neutral voice came through over the speaker. “Go home, Fallon.”

  The light above the security system blinked off, and no matter how many times she pressed the call button, she knew he wouldn’t answer again.

  Her chest ached from the power of the invisible hands squeezing her lungs tight and not letting go. Her head throbbed from the effort to hold back the tears threatening to fall. A whole ball of emotion had taken up residence in her throat, making it nearly impossible to swallow. Even her skin was too sensitive. It was all too much, and she couldn’t take any more, so she did the one thing she wanted least in the world. She walked away.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Blackburn Back to Being A Bust?