Benched

by Charles, Colleen

  “Miss Wales, is it true that you were the one who suggested that Adam Spencer use steroids to recover from his ACL injury? How do you feel about the ban?” The reporter piped up, waggling a microphone under my nose, past Heather’s elbow. The bright light above the camera blinded me and I raised a palm to shield my eyes.

  “What?” My brain was caught in a loop. Drugs? Ban? “Adam,” I murmured.

  “That’s right,” Heather said with tears in her eyes, her voice choking although I could see the state of sublime joy hidden beneath the sorrowful exterior. And the Oscar goes to… Heather sniffed. “He’s been banned from hockey until further notice. They have to investigate the charges that he’s been doping.”

  “Doping. Drugs? Adam would never do that. He loves the game to much.” I had that flashback of Adam kissing the ice at my house so long ago. “He’s always played with integrity. You’re lying about this!”

  I searched Heather’s blue gaze for some sign that this was just a cruel joke. I half expected Ashton Kutcher to jump out and tell me I’d been Punk’d. But the press wouldn’t be here for a practical joke. They had to have some kind of proof, or they wouldn’t have come all the way out to… wait a second, why were they after me? None of this made any sense.

  Heather grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me onto the yard of the Kennilworths’ home. I didn’t bother stopping her, unwilling to create a scene, and the reporter hovered a few feet from us, wavering back and forth.

  The Kennilworths set out across the lawn, heading toward their media-infested house, frowning.

  “You’ve finally been caught, bitch.” Heather hadn’t let go of me. She dug those sharpened claws into my skin. “Everyone knows you stole Adam away from me. They know you got him to take steroids.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I asked and clapped a hand over my mouth, glancing at the camera. “Adam hasn’t taken any drugs and I would never help him do something unethical. And besides, it was you who was screwing his –”

  “Now, you’re going to try to trick all of us with your innocent little Susie Homemaker persona?” Heather spat, cutting me off before I could expose her. “Well, I don’t buy it. And neither will anyone in the entire city of Duluth when I’m done with you. Buckle up and enjoy the ride. This is the biggest scandal since Lance Armstrong and it’s all thanks to you.” Heather burst into tears. Fake tears. “You’ve ruined him. You’ve ruined Adam once and for all. Duluth will never forgive you. He’ll never forgive you.”

  Mr. Kennilworth shoved past the reporter, worming his way onto the sidewalk.

  “What’s going on, Julia?” Mr. Kennilworth grumbled, gesturing frantically for his wife, Dorothy, to join him. I extricated myself from a group of sharks, hungry for news, and hurried into the house. I slammed the door closed behind me.

  Heather trailed behind, and stopped crying immediately with the absence of her rapt audience. “I’m so sorry for the intrusion, Mr. and Mrs. Kennilworth. I had to come to see Julia right away. There’s been some terrible news.”

  “Oh dear, what is it?” Dorothy asked, clasping her wrinkled hands in front of her chest. “Not anything too serious, I hope.”

  “Oh, you could say that,” Heather replied, then turned so that the couple couldn’t see her expression. “He’s never going to play again if the second screening doesn’t check out.”

  “You’re a liar,” I whispered, not wanting to upset the Kennilworth’s further, “and I’ll prove it.”

  Heather smirked in response and spun back around to address the elderly couple. “There’s no use pretending, Julia, what’s done is done. I think your best option is to leave Duluth before it’s too late. This kind of information could ruin your reputation,” Heather said, feigning concern in front of the Kennilworths.

  “My God, what’s happened?” Mr. Kennilworth asked.

  Heather turned toward him, ready to spit more lies on top of her previous lies. “Julia’s accused an innocent man of attempted rape and then she stole my fiancé from me. On top of that, she introduced him to steroids. You’re familiar with Adam Spencer of the Caribou.”

  “My favorite team,” Mr. Kennilworth said, turning cold eyes on me. He’d never looked at me with anything but kindness and admiration until this moment.

  “Is this true, dear?” Dorothy asked, but she didn’t step forward to offer comfort, even if her words seemed comforting. “We’ve always been so pleased with your work, Julia. With your reputation. Heavens. We’ve known your parents since college. Please tell us this isn’t true.”

  “No!” I snapped. “It’s not true. It’s a blatant lie manufactured by Heather.”

  “What? How could you say that? I thought we were friends!” Heather replied, tears springing to her blue eyes again.

  She’d suit a career in acting. For Erotic Hour.

  “Don’t you dare,” I said, shaking from head to toe. I’d never wanted to slap another woman in all my years, but Heather had come close to bringing out that side in me. “Don’t you dare insinuate that we were ever friends. You’ve gone out of your way to make my life a living hell since high school.”

  “I would never do anything to hurt you,” Heather whimpered, dropping her chin to her chest in order to appear demure. “Never. I can’t believe you’re saying this.”

  “Stop lying!” I shrieked, my emotion ratcheting up on the wings of my frustration with her. “Stop it! Don’t you realize you’re hurting Adam? If you really loved him, you’d stop this right now.”

  “I do love Adam,” Heather said, raising her head again, her left eyebrow along with it. “I always have and I always will. And Adam loves me. We have years of history that you can’t erase even though you’ve given it your best shot. Which is why I have to protect him from you.”

  “I can’t even,” I said, lifting my palms and putting them out in front of her, trying to distance myself from this. Adam and I had been together for months. “I can’t even deal with you right now.”

  “I think you should leave,” Mr. Kennilworth said. “You’ve obviously upset Heather, and I don’t want to have to explain this to her father during our golf league Tuesday night.”

  I met his gaze and gasped. He’d directed that at me. He wasn’t asking Heather to leave, but me instead. These were my clients. The only clients I had left. Or they had been.

  “I think that’s wise,” Heather said, nodding encouragement at the old man. “You’ve caused nothing but trouble for everyone. God forbid the mayhem you could bring down on this house.”

  I blinked back moisture, tears threatening, trying to deny the hot lump of grief lodged in my throat. This couldn’t be happening to me. I’d worked so damn hard for years to build up this business and now it was all gone. Slipping through my fingers at the hands of Heather McNeal. I couldn’t believe the amount of power the other woman wielded. I needed to get away. Be alone. And then the horrible little voice in my head asked… Could it be true? Could Adam be doping after all? Could his intense desire to get back on the ice cause him to make a stupid decision and hide it from me?

  I looked from Dorothy to Steven and then to Heather. Their expressions varied from disgust to triumph. Triumph was Heather’s emotion. She thought she’d won, and maybe she had.

  She’d won.

  And the worst part was that in my haze of love for Adam, I hadn’t even seen it coming. Couldn’t prepare. I pushed past the blonde devil and strode to the door, ripping it open and hurrying by the men and women lined up in the driveway. They screamed questions at me, but I ignored them all. I focused on escape as one lonely tear slid out of my eye and down my flushed cheek.

  Then, I broke into a run and dashed to my car. Getting in, I flipped the key over and drove all the way to my house. Once safely in my driveway with no sign of the press, I rested my forehead on the steering wheel. Only then did I let the tears come in earnest, a torrential downpour of shattered dreams.

  Chapter 22

  Julia

  I sobbed u
ncontrollably, tears dripping onto the lap of my jeans, wetting them through to the skin. This was the end of my business. The end of me. I wasn’t taken to hopelessness, but I knew a lost cause when I saw it.

  God. How would I ever face my friends and family? I had only known hard work and integrity since it had been modeled for me. My family had been a shining example. And now here I was, the family embarrassment.

  I’d be forced to leave Duluth, the only town I’d ever loved and move somewhere no one would recognize me. That was it, I’d get a fresh start. Where they had a lot of barns. Maybe Iowa. As my mind raced, I just couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. The beauty of the twinkling blue lake, the breeze coming off it in light puffs or strong gusts. The snow. The cold. I loved it all. But now… my people had turned on me. They didn’t want me in their town and I’d become the home wrecking slut who’d led the great Adam Spencer astray.

  I shouldn’t have gotten involved. I should’ve followed my mind instead of my heart.

  Knuckles rapped against the glass of my window and I flinched.

  Please don’t be the press. Please, God, just give me a break.

  I looked up and my heart skipped a beat, then a bucket of ice dropped into my stomach. No. Not now.

  “Go away,” I said, my voice wracked with heaving sobs. I turned my face away from him as if I hadn’t seen him standing there. “I can’t talk.”

  Adam stood beside my door, his face tight with anger and concern. “Get out of the car, Julia, we need to talk.”

  “I don’t want to talk to anyone, least of all you.” I said, extending a finger to press the lock, caging myself inside and him outside.

  But he had lightning fast reflexes and he slid into the passenger seat before I heard the click of the automatic locks. “Come on,” he said, “don’t let Heather get to you. You know this is her handiwork. And Mark’s. Although I think he’s simply led through a ring in his nose like a Spanish bull.”

  “I know it is,” I said, but my mistrust didn’t dissipate. Was she going to continue with this blatant bullying as long as I remained in a relationship with Adam? “But that doesn’t matter anymore. Things keep happening. It seems hazardous for us to be in a relationship. She’s destroyed everything, Adam. She’s destroyed me. I can’t even hold my head up after this.”

  Heather was behind it. But just how much of it was her handiwork and how much was due to Adam himself? I had no idea how he’d handled their break-up. Why Heather seemed to be hell-bent on revenge.

  “Let’s talk about this,” he said, glancing up and down the road, searching for paparazzi no doubt. “Inside.”

  I got out of the car and slammed the door shut. I didn’t want him touching me. If he caressed my skin, I’d weaken. I needed to walk away from him while I still had something left to walk toward.

  “No, we can talk out here,” I said, “I’ve got nothing to hide from the media and I sure as hell have nothing to lose.”

  “I understand you’re hurt and angry, but this is all some big setup,” he said, trying to reach for me. “I can fix it. Please just let me.”

  I batted his hands away, trying but failing to ignore the sheer size of them and the memory of them travelling across my skin, all over my body, pleasuring me in ways I’d never imagined.

  “A setup,” I said. “So you’re not doing steroids?”

  He gaped at me, and I felt a stab of regret flow over me. “How can you even ask me that? You know I’d never do that shit. God, what the fuck do you think of me? You’re killing me here, Julia.”

  I bent left, then stepped back in front of him again. “I don’t know what to think anymore, Adam. I have no fucking clue. Because everything in my life was going just fine until I met you.”

  “I didn’t ask for any of this,” he muttered, gritting his teeth until they squeaked from the pressure. “All I ever wanted to do was be with you, and play hockey again.”

  “Yeah? Well, I just wanted to be with you, too. Since the first time I saw you kiss the ice at my parent’s pond. But you know what, Adam Spencer? I don’t think I ever really knew you at all. And you didn’t answer my question,” I snapped. “Are you doping? Is that why you and Heather broke up?”

  I was so out of line and I knew it. I knew that he wasn’t that kind of person. But I couldn’t stop myself. My life had just been shattered into a million pieces at this man’s hands. And the need to hurt him, too, to lash out irrationally was just too damn strong. I would probably feel ashamed of myself tomorrow like a drunken text messaging floozy after bar close.

  Another Julia had taken over. One I didn’t recognize and didn’t like. I felt outside of myself, floating above and watching as the angriest, darkest part of my personality took control and raged. Raged at the only man I’d ever loved.

  Loved.

  And now, he’d never know. But before I ended it, before I walked away, I wanted answers. I wanted – needed – Adam to admit that he’d never wanted me, or worse that he’d used me to cause a scene to further his career. The part of me that was based on insecurity took over, demanding to be seen and heard. The small, dark shadow part of me that still felt I didn’t deserve him.

  The same part that knew Heather McNeal was better, prettier, sexier and more deserving of Adam Spencer’s time and attention.

  “Fuck you,” Adam growled, knuckles cracking at his sides, as he formed fists and released them again. I reared back in surprise at the intensity of his words and tone. I’d drawn a line in the sand and he’d just jumped over it. “I would never do that shit. I don’t need performance enhancing drugs, Julia. I’m the best damn hockey player in Duluth. Hell, I’m one of the best centers in the entire NHL. I don’t need that shit. Or this shit.” He pointed at the ground in front of my feet. “I never thought you’d do this to me. All you fucking women ever do is betray me. You know what? This time, I’m going to learn my lesson.”

  “Betray you?” I snarled, disbelieving. “You’re not the one who’s been labeled home wrecking trash. Who’s been accused of being a dirty whore who’d introduce the great and beloved Adam Spencer to drugs? Who grabbed him by the hand and manipulated him down the garden path to eat Eve’s apple. Who’s lost my damn business because of this? My whole fucking life!”

  Adam shook his head and the anger abated from his eyes as quickly as it had come. “I’m sorry. I really am. I never wanted any of this for you. I love –”

  “Don’t you dare say it right now! You don’t hurt the people you love. Not like this.” I shook my head, wilting slowly. The fight drained from me, the desire to make him pay even though it wasn’t his fault.

  God, I just want to be alone.

  I’d been so afraid of trusting myself with him, but I’d done it anyway. And now this.

  “I didn’t hurt you. I didn’t do anything to hurt you. I wouldn’t. You’re everything to me,” he said, his voice breaking under the force of his passion. “I didn’t think I would love again until you, Julia. And then I realized I’d never really loved at all until you. I can’t believe you’d think this of me.” He didn’t cry, but his eyes glazed over and emotion cracked his voice.

  I’d truly wounded him with my accusations. Angry, retributive me disappeared to be replaced by the soft, broken version of me, who’d built my life around a town that no longer wanted me. A man who had never wanted me, either. In spite of his words. They were simply that…words. Missives of verbiage that carried no meaning.

  “I don’t –” I choked on the words. “I don’t know. I need to think. I need time alone. I’m sorry.” I said that with every ounce of feeling in my soul. I truly was sorry for everything.

  For accusing him, for not believing him. For meddling in his life when I should’ve stayed the hell out. When I’d known better. But I’d wanted him, and I’d selfishly grasped for what I desired. Because I’d yearned for this man and my fantasy of what we could become for over half my life, now we’d both pay the ultimate price.

  “Julia, don’t leave,
” he said, softly, a low grunt coming from deep within. “Let’s go inside and talk about this, properly. Please.”

  I stared at him. A van rolled around the corner, followed by a familiar-looking car. They’d found me again. Or they’d found him.

  “Won’t this ever end?” I asked, looking at the van with the antenna towering high into the sky from atop the vehicle, tears coursing down my cheeks.

  “Go,” Adam said, setting his jaw and staring at the approaching cavalcade. “I’m used to this and you’re not. Go somewhere you can think about this. Get away. Out of Duluth. We’ll talk later. All right?”

  “All right,” I said, stepping away from the car.

  He caught my arm, sending shocks into my core. That was the moment I knew I should let him go. How could I allow a man into my heart when the barest of caresses caused me to lose thought? Breath? Sanity? “Julia, promise me we’ll talk about this. I can’t lose you.”

  I nodded, my brain foggy. I’d say or do anything to get away from him and the emotions he caused. Too much had happened. “I promise.”

  “Then go,” he said and let go of me, turning to face the press. The music.

  I turned and ran down the street in the opposite direction. Toward downtown. I ran until my lungs burned with exerted fire.

  Chapter 23

  Julia

  I walked the streets of my beloved town for hours with my head bowed, avoiding the gazes of passersby. I needed to walk, yet I couldn’t stand the stares, the pointing fingers and hushed voices. They’d all seen the news and they loved their Caribou as if the men on the team were their sons, fathers and brothers.

  A little designer from Duluth had transformed overnight into the hockey version of Yoko Ono.

  Shame curled around my lungs and compressed them. But it wasn’t the shame from the false accusations, it was from the fight, from my accusations hurled at Adam. At myself. At us as a couple. No. A couple no longer.

  He hadn’t deserved it. In the defining moment when we’d needed to stand together, we’d both chosen to pull apart and I’d erected a wall. I’d gone ahead and done my best to destroy everything we had. I was so confused about all of it but that was a reason and not an excuse.