He was a stranger, and I loved him anyway because he was family, and because you’re supposed to love family unconditionally, even when they’re assholes.
Especially when they’re assholes.
My mother always said that the people who’re the hardest to love are the ones who need it most. Bryce most definitely fell into that category. That category was invented for people like him.
“I’ve got an Uber downstairs ...” the guy points down the hall toward the elevator. “You can ride with me if you want. I’m Shane, by the way. I’m the team captain.”
I’m not sure if we’re supposed to be shaking hands or making this into an awkward, formal exchange of some sort, so I motion for him to come in and ask him to give me a minute to freshen up.
When I emerge a moment later, Shane is standing by the fireplace, looking at all of Bryce’s framed photographs. For a guy who didn’t ever talk about family, his place is plastered with photos of himself with his dad, and a few with his mother, who passed away tragically when he was in high school.
“Ready?” I ask.
Shane nods, moving a wooden picture frame back into place and sticking his hands in his pockets. I lock the door as we leave and slide my bag over my shoulder. He checks his phone and fires off a text when we step into the elevator.
“Where are we going?” I press the button for the ground floor.
“This little bar by the arena,” he says. “It’s called Shotsky’s. Little place we all used to go after practice on Fridays.”
“Okay.”
Shane doesn’t have an affinity for small talk and I don’t have the energy, so we ride down in silence and trek side by side across the lobby to the waiting Uber parked beyond the black awning. He gets the door, and I slide across.
It’s the middle of July and it’s humid, and I’m wishing I pulled my hair off my neck because it’s going to double in size by the time we get to this bar, and I’d like to make a halfway decent first impression on the last living connections I’m ever going to have with my brother.
He gives the driver the address, and we merge into traffic.
“We were all kind of shocked when Coach said Bryce had a sister,” Shane says, slipping his phone into his suit jacket. He angles his body to me as best he can, but the backseat of this Honda is pretty close quarters, and his knees are brushed up against the back of the passenger seat. “Where are you from?”
“We weren’t close,” I state, hands folded in my lap. “I live in Los Angeles.”
“Oh.” He lifts a brow. “Actress?”
I shake my head. Everyone always assumes that. “Writer.”
“What do you write?”
“Little bit of everything. News articles. Blogs. Books. I take whatever work I can get,” I say.
“Interesting.” He drags his fingers across his lips and chuckles softly. “I don’t think Bryce ever read a book in his life.”
I don’t say anything because I wouldn’t know if the guy read or didn’t read. I don’t even know what kind of movies he liked or what his voice sounded like. I watched him grow up in photographs, mostly via social media until his accounts were locked down with every available privacy feature, and then I had to check ESPN and hope they were covering the latest Spartans game.
They rarely did.
Our car stops outside a small bar with glass-front windows and a black front door. The sign on the awning says SHOTSKY’S and the letters are crafted from mini hockey sticks except for the ‘O’, which is a puck.
Naturally.
Shane gets the door for me, and I follow him through the narrow space, past the fans wearing RENNER sweaters and the teammates with their matching Spartan-green ties and somber black suits. Everyone has a drink. Everyone’s smiling, celebrating Bryce’s life.
Two empty bar stools wait for us at a counter height table, and his teammates watch me, taking me in.
“God, you look just like him,” one of them says. “I’m sorry. I just ... wow. But you’re, like, a prettier version. You’re a girl version. You’re-”
He shuts up when his buddy elbows him, and another teammate offers to buy a round.
“He’s seeing things. You look nothing like Bryce. Want a beer?” he asks. I nod. I don’t usually because it’s bitter and bland to me, but I’ll make an exception tonight, all things considered. He cups his hands around his mouth and shouts across the room to the bartender, who gives him a thumb’s up and begins filling pitchers at the tap.
His teammates all look the same: brawny, broad shoulders, rounded biceps that strain against their suit jackets, chiseled jaw lines, and oversized hands. They’re all about mid-twenties, give or take, and their left ring fingers are bare. Just a bunch of non-committal, ice-grinding, handsomely-paid athletes living the dream. I bet women throw themselves at these guys, and I bet they love every minute of it.
The Spartans are going through their phones, laughing and showing pictures of my brother. Someone’s phone gets passed to me, and I recognize several of the pictures from the slideshow that played at his funeral this morning. From what I gather, Bryce didn’t smile for pictures. Maybe he was self-conscious about his smile because half of it had been knocked out over the years and rebuilt by the team dentist, or maybe he was just a miserable sap. Could be a combination of both.
He also liked to dress up, from what I’m seeing. When he wasn’t playing hockey, he was dressed like he was someone important going somewhere special. One of the guys tell me he was quite the lady killer, but before he can elaborate, another guy gives him a death look that silences his commentary.
“It’s too bad you two weren’t close,” Shane says.
“Yeah,” I take a drink of the fresh beer someone has placed before me. “It is.”
“He was a hard son of a bitch to get along with. Tough as hell on the ice. Fast as hell too,” he waxes poetic, wearing a dopey smile. “Didn’t score a ton, but the kid could grind. Nobody worked harder than he did.”
The rest of the guys around the table lift their glasses and toast to Bryce’s grinding skills, and half of them chug their beers to completion.
Leaning closer to Shane, I ask, “Would it be okay if I could talk with you guys sometime about him? I’d love to hear stories. I have no idea what he was like.”
“Hell yeah,” Shane says, slipping his arm around my shoulder like I’m one of the guys. I’m thinking he’s well past buzzed already. “Who you should really talk to is Rhett.”
“Who’s Rhett?” I glance around, counting eighteen green ties.
“Rhett was his best friend,” he says, staring into his beer. “They were like brothers, really. Inseparable. Rhett knew him better than all of us combined.”
As far as I know there are twenty men on the team, so taking my brother’s absence into consideration, someone else is missing, and judging by the way they’re talking about Rhett like he isn’t here ... it’s pretty easy to narrow it down.
“Thought we weren’t going to mention him today?” The guy sitting across from us with a bushy red beard covering most of his face slices his hand into the air and glares at Shane.
“What? Why not?” My gaze travels between the two of them. Their silent exchange makes me need to know what’s going on here. “What happened with Rhett?”
The redheaded player excuses himself. Shane pinches the bridge of his nose and rests his elbows on the table, and then he blows a stern breath past his lips.
“So you know the girl who was killed in the accident with Bryce?” Shane asks. Turning to me, his face is washed in seriousness and his eyes narrow on mine.
“Yeah.” My brows meet, and I nod. Everyone knew Damiana Westwood, Victoria’s Secret Angel and video vixen extraordinaire. Holding contracts with Dior and Smart Water and Neutrogena and the proud owner of the face plastered on at least one fashion magazine in any given month, she was one of the most highly sought after names in the business until her tragic demise.
“That was Rhett’s fiancé
e,” he speaks slowly, and his gaze moves to the half-empty beer stein resting before him. Gripping his hand around the finger-smudged glass, he tosses back what remains before pressing his lips into a hard line.
“I ... I had no idea.” I knew they were in the accident together, and I’d read at least half a dozen articles about what transpired that day, but none of them mentioned that Damiana was engaged or so much as involved with another man.
“Not a lot of people knew,” he says. “Rhett is extremely private. He didn’t want people to know about the engagement because he didn’t want to commercialize their relationship. He didn’t want to turn it into a PR stunt because he loved the hell out of that woman. The gossip sites love a good supermodel-athlete combo, you know?”
I take a sip of beer, thinking of all the trashy magazines I used to buy with Giselle and Tom on the cover, Derek and Adriana, Derek and Kate, Derek and Jessica ...
“Anyway, none of us know how long Bryce and Damiana were hanging out on the side,” he says. He’s kind to call it ‘hanging out.’ “But far as we know, nobody knew anything about it until the accident. Not even Rhett.”
My chest tightens. I can’t imagine what it would be like finding out your fiancée is sleeping with your best friend ... and finding all of that out the day she is killed in an automobile accident with him at the wheel.
“You fucking told her.” Red smacks the back of Shane’s head, then shakes his head, turning to me. “Sorry about him. Shane doesn’t know how to keep his damn mouth shut.”
“It’s fine,” I say.
“What a way to go out, eh?” Red refills his beer with the last of the pitcher’s contents and takes his seat, his head shaking in sympathy. “So now you know.”
“It’s okay, really,” I assure him.
“So that’s why Rhett isn’t here,” Red says, as if I need further clarification.
“Can’t say that I blame him. It was a dick thing to do to your best friend.”
Red nearly chokes on his beer and several pairs of eyes land on me, and I realize I shouldn’t have said what I said on a day such as this, but I can’t help myself. Honesty is my middle name. I’ve never apologized for it, and I certainly won’t start now.
“You guys want another round?” Shane asks. The boys grunt and mutter their answers all at once, and Shane leaves to flag down the bartender.
Someone passes me a phone with a picture of Bryce on the screen, his beefy arms around two of his teammates as one of them holds a giant trophy. He’s the only one without an enormous smile engulfing his face.
“Bryce lost his two front teeth that game,” someone points out to me. “Took a biscuit straight to the kisser. Knocked out some Chiclets. But we won, baby!”
I chuckle and pass the phone around, watching everyone’s face light up as they remember that day in their own ways. Finishing my drink, I check the time. It hasn’t even been a half hour and I’m struggling to stay awake. I took the red-eye from LA to New York yesterday, then spent all day going over final funeral preparations, the ones I wasn’t able to sign off on from afar, and then I met with his coach, privately, to discuss a few details for the service.
At some point soon, I’m supposed to meet with Bryce’s attorney to go over his estate. At some point after that, I’m going to have to go through all of his belongings and decide what to do with them.
I haven’t booked a flight home yet because something tells me this is going to take a while. At least I can work from anywhere in the world, and I don’t have an article due until the end of next week. There may be a million things on my plate right now, but as long as I take them in stride, I can get through this.
Maybe in a messed up way, it’s good that we never knew each other. It’d be hard to be here, doing all of this, if I had some kind of deep-rooted emotional attachment to him. As a matter of fact, I don’t know if I could go through his things so casually and let them go so easily if they meant anything to me. Call me sentimental.
Growing up, it was always Mom and me. I never had siblings or grandparents, cousins, aunts or uncles. She told me about my father—Bryce’s father—and how he was her boss when she worked at the savings and loan back in Kennebunkport and how they’d had an affair that resulted in me. My father then proceeded to carry on as if I didn’t exist, and when his wife was diagnosed with an invasive, aggressive brain tumor, he relocated the family to Seattle so she could have access to a world-renowned team of neurosurgeons and oncologists who specialized in her condition.
Shane returns with two fresh pitchers and immediately tops off my drink.
Guess I’ll be staying for round two.
“How long are you going to be in town?” Shane asks.
I shrug, lifting my stein to my lips. “As long as it takes.”
“If you need anything while you’re here, just give me a call.” He motions for my phone, which I dig out of my bag and hand over, and I watch as he programs his number in. I can’t imagine I’ll be in a hanging-out-with-strangers kind of mood, but it’s good to have him on standby in case I need something.
My college roommate from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop moved here a year ago, so I owe her a call. I have a feeling we’re going to be making up for lost time, but I don’t mind. We used to be inseparable, and I’ve missed her like crazy ever since we graduated and went our own ways. I mentally add calling Bostyn to my to-do list and tuck my phone away.
“You want to do a shot with us?” Red asks.
“What is it?”
“Deer blood,” he says, watching my expression morph. “Just kidding. We’re doing Jäger bombs. They were Bryce’s favorite.”
That’s funny. Those were my favorite too back in the day—when I used to take life a little less seriously.
“Yeah, count me in.” I rise from my seat and follow the guys to the bar where everyone’s lining up to take their shot.
“Hey, is that Rhett?” I hear one of the guys say. I follow his gaze across the bar, watching as a sandy-haired, six-foot-three, broad-shouldered Adonis slams a shot, slaps some cash on the bar top, then storms outside before anyone can stop him.
“Yeah,” a second guy says. “It was.”
The first guy rubs his brow, watching Rhett leave. “Shit.”
Chapter Two
Rhett
“How are you holding up?” Damiana’s mother cups her hand against my cheek Sunday morning, peering at me with the same honey brown, almond-shaped eyes that made her daughter millions. “We’ve been worried about you.”
“You don’t need to worry about me. Coffee?” I point to the machine on the kitchen counter behind me, and Irena squints.
“No, thank you.”
Damiana’s father, George, is seated in the living room, his hands spread across the arms of an overstuffed chair. He stares ahead at a blank TV screen, not moving, not saying a word.
“Thank you for coming yesterday,” Irena says, placing her hand over mine.
“You don’t have to thank me for attending my fiancée’s funeral.”
“Well, given everything that came to light this week,” she pauses, bringing her fingers to her cross necklace and twisting the chain. “We’d have understood if you ...”
Her words trail to silence and her kind, bloodshot eyes search mine, and she’s probably wondering why the hell I seem so normal. She hasn’t slept in days, Damiana’s father hasn’t spoken more than a few words in days, and I’m standing here making coffee like it’s any other Sunday morning.
“We didn’t want to stay long,” Irena says, motioning for her husband to get up. “Just thought we’d check on you before we leave the city. Call us if you need anything, okay, Rhett?”
“Same. I’m here if you need me.” I walk them to the door, noting the elongated, catwalk stride Irena passed down to her daughter. If only she had passed down her unwavering loyalty and devotion, we wouldn’t be standing here having this conversation.
Irena wraps her lanky arms around my shoulders and kiss
es each of my cheeks before dabbing a tear from her eye and looping her arm into George’s. I lock the door behind them and return to my coffee.
I didn’t tell Irena, but I haven’t been sleeping either.
Besides, I’m sure she could see it on my face, the dark circles and the cloudy eyes. My mind won’t turn off, it just keeps playing an image of the two of them, fucking, over and over again. It’s on a loop that won’t stop. Every time I close my eyes, I see them.
Reaching for a mug from the cabinet with shaky, sleep-deprived hands, I grab it too quickly and it slips from my grip, shattering on the counter. Pulling the trash out from under the sink, I begin dropping chunks of broken ceramic on top of a fractured picture frame containing a photo of Damiana, Bryce, and myself from a Mets game last year.
She’s grinning in between us, both of our arms around her, and the irony of this photo lying amongst the shattered remnants of this picture frame isn’t lost on me.
I’m not sure how long Bryce and Damiana were fucking or if they ever planned on telling me, but not in my wildest dreams did I expect to get that phone call. I’d much rather have walked in on them, then I could’ve at least had the satisfaction of kicking his ass and kicking her ass to the curb.
My phone vibrates, skidding across the counter, and Shane’s name displays across the screen. The guys have been calling me all week, checking in and making sure I’m okay. They even attended Damiana’s funeral.
“Hey.” I cradle the phone on my shoulder, picking up the remaining splintered flecks of ceramic.
“Just seeing how you’re holding up.” Shane is tense and awkward, like the rest of the team lately. Everyone’s been walking on eggshells around me. I walk in the room, they stop talking. I walk by, they all stare. I don’t need to be handled with kid gloves. I’m not in a delicate state of mind.
Angry, yeah.
Pissed off to no end, absolutely.
Fragile, breakable? Hardly.
“Yeah, you know,” I say.
He doesn’t know.
The Rebound Page 21