by KB Winters
Fuck. Yes, she was. And I knew it. She’d gotten closer to me than anyone had before and now that I’d let her in—she was trying to find her way out. Just like everyone else. I was a temporary, fleeting thing. Her fling. Her distraction until her real life started.
I squeezed my eyes shut and pinched at the bridge of my nose. “I’ll call you later. Have a good night, Gwen.”
I clicked off before she could object, pocketed the phone, and made a quick exit, not stopping to smile at anyone or make small talk. I hit the exit and started running.
Chapter Twenty-One
Gwen
“Gwen, you’re a real bitch, you know that?”
“Did you say something, dear?” my mom asked, peeking back around the corner as she exited the kitchen.
I shook my head and set my phone down on the counter. The coffee pot finished its final sputter and I reached for a mug. “Just talking to myself.”
“Okay, dear. Your father and I are going to bed.” She dropped a glance to the full coffee pot. I could almost see her biting back a nugget of motherly advice about not drinking caffeine so close to bedtime. She discarded it, smiled, and left the kitchen.
I poured a large mug, dumped in two spoons of sugar, and a liberal splash of milk before returning to my place at the island. All of my notes and pictures and files were spread out as I tried to write my opening argument. I’d managed to petition the courts for an appeal to a judge to retry the case and while it wasn’t quite the same format as a real court case, I still wanted a strong statement and my thoughts were too jumbled inside my own head. I needed to purge it all out and write it down, like a speech.
But after my meeting with Saul O’Brian and unsettling phone call with Carson, I was more fucked up than ever.
I propped my elbows on the edge of the smooth countertop and planted my face between my palms, my fingers digging through my hair. “What the fuck am I doing?”
Carson was the best thing that had ever happened to me, but over the last week, since passing my bar exam and starting my new job, the cracks in our blossoming relationship were starting to show. Every time we’d gone out, I’d been so distracted by the loud questions blaring in the back of my mind that I hadn’t been able to focus on having a good time. I’d even been distracted in bed. Sure, the sex was still mind-blowing and hot, but it was like I was detached from it, as though I were some kind of voyeur, simply watching someone else with Carson.
I’d thought Carson was seeing it too, but after the phone call with him, I realized that we were on two different pages entirely. He wasn’t seeing the signs that I was, and I’d gutted him by not being there to cheer him on in his last game before the Super Bowl. The strained tone of his voice was still echoing in my head and twisting my heart into a thick knot.
I picked up my phone and scanned through to find his number. My finger hovered over the button but I couldn’t make myself press it. I needed to get my statement done. He needed time to think about what he wanted. There wasn’t anything left to say tonight that could fix it or make it all clear.
With a heavy sigh, I set the phone face side down and picked up my pen.
****
The following morning, I made my way to Harvest House. In the excitement of passing the bar and starting my new job and the meeting with Saul O’Brian, I’d forgotten to visit Cassie and get the video footage she’d mentioned on the flight back from New York a couple of weeks before. I doubted there was anything on the video that would help, but I hadn’t seen her since that afternoon and with all the chaos inside my head over what to do about Carson, she was the one person I knew would understand.
I’d never been to Harvest House before but as I pushed through the main doors, I smiled to myself, seeing that it was essentially just the way I’d pictured it in my head. Colorful, cheery, bright, and organized. All very Cassie.
“Gwen?”
I turned at Cassie’s chirpy voice and flashed a smile. “Hey!”
“Hey! I didn’t know you were coming? Did we have an appointment?” She fumbled to flip through the pages of the leather-bound planner in her hands. She was wearing a thick pair of glasses and I noticed she wasn’t wearing makeup.
“No, do I need one?”
She breathed a sigh of relief and closed the book. “Oh, good. I thought I was losing it.”
“Late night?” I asked, arching a brow as I smiled over at her.
She giggled and a red twinge flooded her cheeks. “Yeah. I’m sure you heard about the big win?”
“Yeah,” I said, a stab of guilt sinking into my chest. “I spoke with Carson last night.”
Cassie smiled. “Well we had an after party and I don’t think I got to bed until three or something. I’m having a very Monday kind of Monday.”
I laughed softly and tucked my hair behind my ears. “Well, I won’t take up too much of your time. I was just stopping by to get that video footage we were talking about on the plane.”
“Oh! Yeah, of course. Come to my office and I’ll grab it for you. I saved it to a flash drive.” She started through the center and I followed half a step behind. “I was actually going to pop it into the mail, but this is nice. I’m glad you could stop by.”
We reached her office and I glanced around from the doorway as she rounded the desk. It was a small space, a lot smaller than I’d pictured, but it was still filled with Cassie. Artwork that looked like it had been painted or drawn by some of the center’s more talented little artists hung on her walls, a homemade looking clay bowl was on the corner of her desk and held a set of keys, lip gloss, bobby pins, and an elastic band.
“To be honest, we were expecting to see you last night. What happened?”
“I uh—I had a work thing pop up at the last minute.”
Cassie’s eyebrows rose over the frames of her glasses. “Work? On Sunday?”
“Yeah,” I said, sinking down into one of the two plastic chairs in front of her desk. “He’s another attorney and has been offering advice on Vinnie’s case. We’ve been emailing back and forth and were supposed to meet in person today, actually, but he called yesterday and told me he was going out of town and wanted to move it up.”
“Gotcha.” Cassie straightened and handed over a silver flash drive.
“Thanks.”
“Did you get the answers you needed?” she asked.
I scoffed and rolled my eyes. “Not exactly.”
Cassie lowered into her own chair and leaned forward. “What happened?”
“He was an ass,” I said, meeting her large blue eyes.
She straightened in her seat. “What?”
I pinched my eyes closed and nodded. “I guess he thought after all the emails we’d struck up some kind of connection. Thank God Mr. Bennington was there.”
“Mr. Bennington?”
“My boss. He didn’t want me there alone. Especially on a Sunday when no one was there.”
“Does Carson know?”
“Yeah, and I think I messed up. He was so…” My voice cracked and tears filled my eyes. “Cass, he sounded so crushed when I told him I missed the game. I told him it was a work thing, and he was devastated.”
“I can imagine, he thought you were there.”
“I know. But this case is so important to me.”
“Yeah, so is the Super Bowl.”
“I know. He wasn’t mad or anything, just really sad.”
“Which is almost worse,” Cassie said, more to herself than me.
“Much worse.”
“I’m sorry, Gwen. Is there anything I can do to help?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not even sure I know what I want. My career—the one I’ve been working on for so many years—is finally starting and…and Carson’s is too. This is his big shot. Hell, this is my big shot. And the fact that other teams are looking at him, I just can’t see it working.”
“So you’re giving up before you even start? I know I just barely met you, but that doesn’t seem like y
ou, Gwen.”
“I’m not giving up. It’s just hard enough now that I’m working full time and he’s in the playoffs. And with the Super Bowl coming up—I just don’t know if I can meet his expectations of a real fangirl girlfriend. He could end up in a different city, halfway across the country, and we’d never be able to see each other.”
Cassie made a tsk sound. “This lifestyle isn’t for everyone. I’d hate for you to miss out. But if I may, you and Carson are good for each other. I know we don’t know each other all that well, but we don’t have to for me to be able to see how happy you are together. It’s obvious. Langston told me that before Carson met you, he was shut off. The quiet one hanging out in the corner—by himself. Now, he’s more involved and opening up. I’m sure some of that comes with the confidence of crushing it the past few games and leading the team forces him to open up some, but I also think a lot of it has to do with you.”
I sighed and sagged back in my chair.
“I’m not saying that to put any pressure on you. Obviously, you have enough of that. It’s just my two cents. Or really, four, since Langston thinks so too.”
I smiled at her and we laughed together. “Thanks, Cassie. I really appreciate your honesty. I’m sure we’ll figure all of this out. I just…I’m scared. That’s what it boils down to.”
Cassie gave me a sage nod. “Fear makes us do a lot of stupid things. I’m sure you’ll sort it out.”
I held up the flash drive. “And thanks for this. I’ll see what I can dig up.”
“Good luck.” We both stood and she walked me back to the front entrance of Harvest House. We embraced and she held the door open for me. “Tell Vinnie we all have his back too.”
“I will. Thanks, Cassie.”
****
Back at home, I slipped the drive into my laptop and waited for the files to open. I found the video and pushed play, not really sure what to expect. As Cassie had said, it was shot at a non-profit basketball tournament held at Harvest House’s gym. The coverage showed the players and the beginning of the game. I scanned the crowd as the game went on and slowed down when I spotted Vinnie in the stands. He looked like he was sitting by himself, but as people came and went, he smiled and interacted with him. It was obvious, even without knowing what they were saying, to see that he was well liked.
But then, halfway through the second quarter, a blur of action caught my eye. “Wait…” I stopped the footage and rolled it back a minute. I played it slower and narrowed my eyes to make sure I’d seen what I thought I had.
Vinnie was sitting in the crowd, cheering on the team after a three-pointer, when someone passed in front of him and dumped the soda in his hand. The soda spilled all down Vinnie’s front and he shot to his feet, his face red, to confront the guy who’d bumped him. The two got into an argument and Vinnie stormed off. I followed him as long as I could until he walked out of the frame. I watched the rest of the footage but Vinnie never returned to the game.
The time stamp on the video showed it was half an hour before the assault had taken place. I sighed and leaned back in my chair. The assault took place a few blocks away from Harvest House, in a rough patch of the city and the convenience store was halfway between the two. I had no idea why Vinnie never returned to the basketball game—or, at least, not to his original seat. But I did see what had him so agitated when he stopped in at the convenience store. But that still wasn’t enough to prove anything. The prosecutors could simply argue that in his state of mind, he’d snapped and lashed out at the victim who’d had nothing to do with the argument at the basketball game.
I watched it back a couple more times and then it hit me. When Vinnie had originally taken his seat in the stands, he was wearing a backpack. But when he left, there was no backpack. Midway through the game, when the players were off the court, the camera had zeroed in on the crowd and when it hit Vinnie’s abandoned seat, there was someone walking away with the backpack. I flipped through my digital files and pulled up the clip from the convenience store’s security cameras that showed Vinnie interacting with the clerk—the one that had testified against him at the trial.
No backpack.
An idea was percolating in my mind and I couldn’t seem to make my fingers move fast enough over the keys as I dug through my files for one last video—the dashboard camera when the cops had pulled over and picked Vinnie up two days later. He was wearing the backpack.
I tapped a pen against my lips and tried to fit the pieces together. After a few minutes, I picked up the phone and called Cassie.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Carson
The week after the stunning victory crawled by. My life became an easy rhythm of wake up, scarf down a pre-workout meal, head to practice, drag myself through the drills, and only go home when my body felt like it had been sent through the spin cycle on an industrial-sized dryer. Nothing mattered to me. I didn’t care what I ate or what I wore or who I talked to. I had to shut that side of my brain down or else I would fall into a dark pit, wondering what in the world had gone wrong with Gwen. We’d texted a couple of times since the heated phone call after the game, but hadn’t made plans to meet up and talk. It was like an awkward dance around the real issue. She was always busy with work and I was busy with practice and prepping to fly to LA for the Super Bowl.
Thursday’s practice was the last one before we’d leave and as I was leaving, Langston sidled up to me in the locker room. “Hey, Stiles. You all right? Your ass was dragging a little on that last drill.”
He smiled, but his comments sparked a slumbering rage and I jumped up from my seat at the bench. “Fuck you, Rose. Worry about your own shit, all right?”
Several heads spun in my direction and a flurry of whispers followed the outburst. I raked a hand over my head. “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t—shit.”
Langston crossed his arms. “What the hell is going on with you?”
I slammed my locker and shrugged into my coat. “Nothing. I’m just ready for all this shit to be over with.”
“This shit? You mean the biggest fucking game of our lives?”
I groaned. “You know what I mean.”
“No, actually, I don’t. We all play our fuckin’ hearts out for this chance, this one shot, the big game. I want to soak up every minute of it and I think that the Carson I’ve been getting to know lately would agree with me. This funk you’re in has nothing to do with the game.” He leveled me with a firm stare. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re wrong,” I repeated without flinching. “Night, Rose.”
I stalked away but couldn’t escape the smothering feel of the locker room before Langston called after me, “Call her, Stiles.”
I raced home, going faster than was wise considering the shit conditions of the roads, as though I could outrun Gwen’s memory. Things between us were bad. I wasn’t sure when or where, but at some point, we’d hit the rocks and the ship had gone down. Startlingly fast. I wasn’t sure what else there was to do.
Once home, I took a quick shower, not letting myself linger on the steamy memories Gwen and I had created inside the glass stall. I warmed up my dinner and pulled a six pack from the fridge. I had a day off before my flight to LA and I was planning on spending it drunk off my ass so I didn’t have to think or feel anything.
Halfway through a rerun of Seinfeld the buzzer for my door rang. “What the…” I pushed up from my recliner and wandered over to check the security camera. No one was there but the door was slowly swinging shut. I was about to go back to my dinner, chalking it up to a wrong number, but just as I hit the volume button on the remote, a knock pounded against my front door.
A peek through the peephole showed me that Gwen was standing on the other side. Somehow, she managed to look beautiful and angry and nervous all at once. I drew in a breath and swung the door open. She dropped a glance down at my Spiderman pajama pants and pressed her lips together to suppress a smile, but the dancing glimmer in her eyes gave her amusement away.
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br /> “What? They’re whimsical,” I growled.
She held up her hands. “No judgment. Whatever makes you feel better prepared to deal with the monsters that live under your bed…”
I crossed my arms. “What do you want, Gwen? You didn’t come all the way here to heckle my choice in sleepwear.”
She met my eyes for a long moment. “All right, this is ridiculous,” she said, huffing as she pushed past me into the living room. She spun around as I shut the door and planted her fists on her hips. “Let’s talk.”
“Go for it.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, all traces of the brief moment of levity instantly gone. “You’re still pissed at me?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, dropping my arms. “I think I’m mostly confused at this point.”
Gwen’s face softened and she glanced at the sofa.
“Come on,” I said, taking the lead. I grabbed her hand and tugged her toward me. It took every ounce of strength and resolve to keep myself from pulling her against me and kissing her until our problems were erased from our minds.
We got situated on the couch, our knees touching as we angled toward one another, and I kept a hold of her hand. “I’m not too tough of a guy to say that it fucking hurt that you weren’t at my last game. That was a big day to me and I wanted you there. And fuck it, if I’m going all out, I was jealous that you were spending it at work. I wanted you to be there.”
Gwen dropped her eyes to our intertwined hands. “I’m really sorry about missing your game. I wish I’d have been there. Work was kind of a bust anyway.” She paused just long enough for me to wonder what was going on inside her head. She lifted her eyes back to mine and a glossy coating shimmered in the soft light of the overhead track lighting.
“Hey,” I whispered, brushing away a stray tear as it slipped past her lashes. “What’s wrong, baby? Talk to me.”
“I want to,” she replied, nodding her head. She glanced down again and whispered, “I just don’t know what to say.”