Benched

by Charles, Colleen

  “That’s fantastic news,” Barb replied. “Adam’s always been a fan favorite. The Caribou could really use him right now. I have to admit, I didn’t think it would ever happen.”

  The camera focused on the sportscaster. Fred continued in a more serious tone. “With Adam Spencer back in the mix, the Caribou are set to have a game-changing season. According to inside information, only a few screening procedures stand between Spencer and his position on the team.”

  What the fuck? I’d just had surgery. Another major fucking surgery. Now, if I went through all the pain and suffering of that second procedure and didn’t make it back, I’d never live it down. Never hear the end of it. Damn the press and their bullshit rumors reported as fact. Couldn’t I catch a break? I wondered who was responsible for the leak. It better not be Harry.

  I muted the TV with the click of a button and closed my eyes, resting the back of my head on the edge of my sofa.

  The past few months had been a dream. I’d followed through with the specialist and had gotten a graft to fix my ACL, the physiotherapy going fantastically so I’d recovered quicker than anticipated, and Julia… she was nothing short of perfection. Because of Heather, I’d never realized a relationship could be like this. So supportive and loving. My best friend. But I should have known because I’d grown up with an epic love right in front of my face. How did I not realize I needed to emulate my folks, and not a bunch of immature NHL jocks only looking for arm candy?

  Our relationship was everything I’d never had with Heather and never realized I needed. Meaningful conversations, mind-shattering sex, and feelings. Holy shit, the feelings. Sometimes for a dumb jock like me, the feelings could become overwhelming. But when that happened instead of getting surly or pulling away, I just rode out the tempest and took out my frustrations in the rink.

  I frowned. She’d been stressed of late, though and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. She wouldn’t tell me, either. Julia was always trying to make my life better since she excelled at giving. I’d have to teach her that it was my job to provide and protect and all she needed to do was respect, admire and receive.

  “I’ll ask her again later,” I murmured. “Even if I have to fuck it out of her.”

  I smiled at that proposition. It was my favorite way to get her to say what was really on her mind. If I slid down that curvy body, licking all the way, I’d know the classified information within five minutes. But, today was supposed to be the day I’d hear back about the drug screen. I wasn’t nervous in the slightest, since I hadn’t touched any form of steroid ever. Hell, I’d hardly taken a painkiller in the entirety of my career, so this was a formality. Once it was done and dusted, my path would be clear.

  I could get back to training with the guys. Back on the ice. I just might get down and press my face against it. Kiss it like I had so many years ago on Julia’s pond. I balled up my fist and punched the air, excitement causing my stomach to whoop over an invisible bump.

  After my mini-celebration, I rose and walked to the fireplace, fiddling with my parents’ picture on the mantelpiece. I’d burned the one of me and Heather. Pitchforked some cow shit on it too for good measure. My folks would be proud right now. And more importantly, they’d already loved Julia so they’d be so happy for me. This would have been a perfect family fit had they still been alive. I shivered at their vivid memory. I could almost feel my mom’s soft touch on my shoulder. Supporting me.

  I placed my palm over the cool glass in the frame.

  The sharp ringing of the phone jolted me back to the present. I shuffled to the coffee table and snatched the receiver from the rough wood surface, hewn by my dad.

  After clicking the green phone icon, I placed the cold metal against my ear. “Hello?”

  “Mr. Spencer?”

  “Yeah, this is Adam.”

  The nasal whine of a doctor’s assistant, no doubt. “Hi, I’m Claire, I’m calling from the test center. We’ve got your results. The doctor wants to meet with you.”

  What the fuck? Why would the doctor need to meet with me over a routine tox screen?

  My heart started to pound. What more could possibly go wrong to derail my journey back to the National Hockey League? “You can’t just tell me over the phone?”

  I frowned, turning to face the TV again. A banner of words filled the bottom half of the screen, rolling along. Fred jabbered on, brow creased, the corners of his flappy mouth turned down.

  “Mr. Spencer, the doctor said it’s imperative that he speak to you. Today.”

  “Holy shit,” I said, my jaw dropping.

  “Excuse me?” The voice sounded tinny because I’d already dropped the phone away from my ear.

  I read the headline at the bottom of the screen three times, trying to get it to sink in.

  “This is impossible,” I said, my anger growing, forcing me to speak louder, increase the level of noise until it became a yell. “What the fuck is going on here?”

  “Sir, please calm down.”

  ADAM SPENCER IMPLICATED IN DOPING SCANDAL.

  The tickertape’s words mocked me, burning a path into my brain through my retinas. Impossible. Fucking blatantly impossible. I hadn’t touched the stuff, because I didn’t do drugs. I didn’t do shit. I didn’t even toke up at a party.

  “How did this get out? I thought results are confidential.” I spat into the receiver. “Ever heard of HIPPA?”

  “I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Spencer,” Claire said, her voice trembling.

  “I’m coming down there right now and Dr. Jansen better be there to see me,” I grunted, “because my lawyer’s going to sue your asses until you’re nothing but a medical shell of used needles and biohazards.” I hung up and hurled the phone at the TV. It struck gold, and the glass screen cracked, spreading a web in every direction. I wouldn’t stand for this shit. Something or someone was out to ruin my motherfucking career.

  I snatched my coat off the back of the sofa and ran for the door, taking care to coddle my knee, swiping my keys off the front table as I went by. I wrenched the front door open and stopped dead.

  Mark stood there, a smirk lifting his mouth, arms folded. Arms that were bigger than I remembered.

  “What the fuck are you doing on my front doorstep?” I growled. “I thought I told you never to step foot on this property again. Deaf much? Or maybe dumb?”

  “I told you, this is my house too. This place belonged to mom and dad.” Mark tried to push past me, but I side-stepped and blocked him.

  “Fuck off.”

  “Lighten up, bro, I just came to give you my condolences or whatever. I just heard Mark Rosen say they kicked you off the team for good now. Because of the whole doing drugs thing.” Mark didn’t bother keeping the satisfaction from his tone. “Tweaker.”

  “You’ve got something to do with this,” I said immediately, feeling it like a sucker punch straight to the gut. I didn’t even know my brother anymore. Who was he? Mark was too smug, too happy to see my supposed fall from grace. Hell, he’d always been jealous of my success, driving him to the dark side. Without my parents’ guidance, he’d become a first class Benedict Arnold. I’d tried to help Mark, to be a big brother others would envy. And how had this little prick repaid me?

  By fucking my fiancée and betraying me. Twice.

  “I didn’t do anything, bro, you’ve done this all by yourself,” Mark said, glancing back over my shoulder at the empty driveway. “Where’s that sweet piece of ass you’ve been hanging with lately?”

  I grabbed Mark by the throat and walked him back down the front stairs of the porch. “Don’t you fucking disrespect Julia or I’ll murder you,” I said calmly, though my insides were red hot as coals. “You have a whore to fuck. I suggest you go ask her to spread her skinny legs tonight. That is, if you can find her.”

  My vision was painted red, with nothing but violence on the horizon of my future if my brother didn’t remove himself immediately. Get in his piece of shit Jeep and hightail it in rever
se down the gravel driveway.

  “That’s right, ‘roid rage,” Mark sneered, raising his palms in supplication. “Keep coming at me. The press will eat this shit right up.”

  Like they’d been conjured from the dark side of a diabolical mind, a news van full of media screeched around the bend in the driveway and pulled in behind my shiny new Ford.

  The veins in my biceps pulsed, constricted by the position of my arms. I had to let go, if I didn’t, things would only get worse. Mark would win. Why? Why couldn’t they have left me alone? Why did my brother have to betray me and call the press?

  Everything had been going fine.

  I shoved my brother back by the throat and paced back to my front door.

  “You’re going down, bro,” Mark called out behind me. “You never deserved Heather, she’s mine now.”

  “Fuck it, you can keep her, asshole. You deserve each other,” I said, though I wasn’t sure my brother could hear me. I paced up the front stairs of the porch just as Jason Wills and his cameraman jumped out of the van emblazoned with KSRJ on the side.

  Doors slammed and the hustle of the two men shuffling onto my front lawn, my parent’s lawn, scratched at the anger I’d banished to a dark recess of my mind.

  Stay calm. You gotta stay calm or shit’s going to go downhill fast. You can do this, Spencer. You’ve handled worse than sports reporters.

  I turned to face it full on, heaving a deep, cleansing breath and gracing Jason with my best smile.

  “Mr. Spencer, what are your thoughts on the allegations that you were tricked into doping? Did Miss Wales approach you outright? Has Miss Wales always shown an interest in your career? Do you regret breaking it off with Heather McNeal now that your secret is out?”

  The questions came in rapid succession, bullets fired from the media gun. My head spun, a whirling eddy of turbulent thoughts. What the fuck was he talking about? I knew about the doping from the tickertape but what did Julia and Heather have to do with any of it? I couldn’t comprehend what Jason said, so I didn’t have any answers. How did they know about Julia?

  Why did they think she had anything to do with this?

  I blinked at him in shocked surprise, my breath coming in pants. “What the –?”

  “Is it true that Julia Wales actually pointed you in the direction of an appropriate supplier for the steroids?”

  “Jesus Christ,” I said, my eyes widening. The moment the curse flew out of my mouth, I regretted it. But Jason had caught me off guard, using my shock as a manipulation tactic. “No comment.”

  I turned on my heel and ran into the house, slamming the door shut with a flick of my hand. After darting into the living room, I skidded to a halt in front of the TV. Luckily, my temper tantrum hadn’t broken the television’s screen, just my phone’s.

  I grabbed the remote and unmuted.

  “Yes, that’s right, we’ve received information that Julia Wales, a local interior decorator native to Duluth was the main reason Adam Spencer took steroids to drug his way illegally back to the Caribou.”

  “Shocking,” Barb said, shaking her perfectly coifed blonde helmet hair. “Absolutely shocking.”

  “We caught up with Adam’s ex-fiancée earlier today. Take a look at this video clip, Barb,” Fred said, pointing to the screen. “You won’t believe it.”

  A clip of Heather in front of my parents’ house sprang into view, her cerulean eyes swimming with tears. “I just knew something like this would happen from the start. The minute Adam became involved with Julia Wales, I knew it was the end for him. She’s the reason we broke up.” Heather dabbed at those crocodile tears with a manicured index finger. “She’s always been like that. She wanted what she couldn’t have and interfered in our relationship. I suspected he was involved in an illicit affair, but when I found out it was with her –” Heather broke off again and fake sobbed into her palms, to cover her lying bitch face.

  “Would you say that Julia Wales might’ve had something to do with Adam’s doping problem?” an off screen interviewer asked.

  Heather’s head snapped up, skewering the camera with a vicious gaze. “Oh yes, absolutely. I walked in on Julia and Adam discussing drugs and their options moving forward at the New Scenic Café. Julia bragged about her ability to manipulate him through sex and the opportunity she had to use him to jumpstart her failing design business. She confronted me about it in the bathroom, just to rub it in my face.”

  “Liar,” I roared, wishing I could throw the phone at the screen again. “Liar!”

  “Julia Wales is the start and finish of Adam’s problems. She used him, because she knew he was desperate to get back on the ice with the Caribou, and saw this as her chance to further her own career by using his name around town. And he isn’t the first man she’s hurt. Another well respected man in our community was singed by her petty lies.”

  “Jesus, no, Julia,” I groaned out, shaking my head. This would tear her apart. Destroy everything she’d worked for and it was all my fault. Heather’s fault.

  No, my fault.

  I stared up at the glowing face of my incredible mother.

  Why mom? Why didn’t you try harder to warn me about Heather McNeal? You had to know.

  “I’d suggest that the good people of Duluth stay away from Julia Wales and her design business. I maintain that Adam is a victim in all of this,” Heather said, then her eyes took on a softer quality, searching the depths of the camera and blinking rapidly. “Adam, baby, if you’re listening, I know this is hard for you, but you have to stay strong and remember, I’m always here for –”

  I switched off the TV, before I lost my shit. I couldn’t listen to another second of the lies dripping from her injected lips like morning dew from a blade of grass. I paced back and forth in the living room.

  What in the hell could I do to fix this?

  First, I had to phone Julia and warn her, failing that, I’d have to beat a path through the press to get to her. This was a nightmare. A fucking nightmare. I should’ve known I hadn’t seen the last of Heather and Mark. There they were, flittering in the background like flesh and blood ghosts. Plotting. Haunting me with their web of lies and deceit for the past several months. And they’d planned it perfectly, doing it right on the brink of me getting my life back.

  Now, not only were my dreams shattered, but the lifelong dream of the woman I loved.

  Loved.

  Heather McNeal could stick that in her pipe and smoke it until she choked because I’d never loved her. I hadn’t even known what romantic love was until Julia. I squeezed the remote, harder. Harder, until it cracked and broke apart, spilling batteries to the carpet.

  Chapter 21

  Julia

  I stood back and admired my handiwork, my fists on my hips. The kitchen was immaculate. I’d paired the perfect color scheme with the dark wood counters, creams and pale greens with fresh flowers in a vase on the table in the center of the room.

  Serenity was the order of the day.

  The owners of the house, the Kennilworths, were out on business for the day and had left me on my own to put on the finishing touches. I couldn’t wait for them to return and see my handiwork. They’d be thrilled. This was some of my best work yet. Satisfaction hummed through my body. There was nothing quite like the feeling of completion of a project, especially when it came together just the way I wanted it to.

  The past few months had been tough at work. Rumors of the fight between me and Heather, paired with the dark article Jessie Glyn published in the paper had slowed acquisitions. Mix in Carter’s parents telling everyone they knew what a liar I was hadn’t helped matters, either. New clients coming in had been like pulling teeth. If it wasn’t for Adam and his support, I might have thrown in the towel.

  The Kennilworths were old clients, favorites of mine and they kept coming back for more, whether it was the interior of a venue or their newly renovated kitchen.

  I hadn’t told Adam about the severity of my financial problems. I did
n’t want to stress him out with details when he had other issues to deal with. The surgery, the rehab and our budding relationship. And, I didn’t want him swooping in to rescue me with money. I’d always been able to take care of myself. Julia Wales was not a gold digger.

  I smiled and stroked my neck, remembering his hot kisses from last night. A shiver ran through me at the mere thought of Adam’s electric touch.

  The doorbell rang and I jumped. That had to be the Kennilworths returning home. Perfect timing.

  I hurried to the door and placed my palm on the bronze doorknob, then frowned. The Kennilworths wouldn’t ring their own doorbell. That didn’t make any sense. I chewed the inside of my cheek, because I didn’t have the authority to answer their door, for God’s sake. I began to walk back to the kitchen but was interrupted by someone hammering on the door again.

  “I know you’re in there, Julia Wales,” Heather hissed. It was definitely her. That too-smooth and sweet voice was unmistakable.

  What the hell was she doing here?

  I opened the door, my heart palpitating, then stepped onto the front stoop. “I’m in the middle of work right now, Heather.” I put up a smile, a fake as hell one, but it was the best I could manage. But it was more than just Heather outside.

  A reporter stood behind her, and behind that, a cameraman hefting a massive black camera on his shoulder, lens shimmering in the morning light.

  Cars were parked in the street, nose to nose. People streamed across the Kennilworths’ lawn, and the elderly couple themselves stood beside their Mercedes, their mouths hanging open.

  “What the –?”

  “You don’t know,” Heather said and gave a delighted giggle. “You really don’t know yet.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked, stupidly. My mouth flapped open and closed, and I couldn’t stop my hand from fixing my hair. I was in jeans and a sweater, nothing special. Hardly the professional image I wanted spread across the airwaves on the local television stations, but I’d been moving shelves and hanging items on walls. My current wardrobe wasn’t the best advertisement for my business.