by Lexi Lewis
He sighed and rubbed at his head, giving Eve an imploring look. “Can I have ten minutes? Please? Wherever you want, and Devin doesn’t have to be there. Just… please.”
Eve was all geared up to tell him where he could shove it or offer to help shove it there for him, when Michelle put a restraining hand on her shoulder. She looked up at her aunt quizzically and was disheartened by the curious look on her face. Surely she couldn’t actually want to hear anything that he had to say. Not after everything that he’d done.
“Aunt Michelle,” Eve said, shaking her head. “No. We don’t have time for this, and I don’t care about anything he has to say. How can you even be considering this?”
Michelle looked thoughtful. “I think we should hear him out. If nothing else it will say that we tried, and if it’s nothing more than his usual crap, then we can walk away and have every reason to never want to see him again.”
“I already have every reason to never want to see him again!” Eve practically exploded. She ducked her head and blushed when several people who were walking around them turned to look at her.
“Eve,” Michelle said firmly. “We’ll go to my hotel. It’s neutral ground, or as neutral as things are likely to get here. If we don’t like what he has to say, then he can leave. And he will leave. Won’t you, Jason?”
There was nothing but firm threat in her voice, and Jason seemed to pick up on it. He nodded. “Yeah, I will”
“See? Nothing to worry about. Let’s go check out and then we can meet him there.” She gave Jason the name of the hotel and her room number and then ushered Eve along to the registers.
Eve, for her part, was having a hard time understanding what had just happened. One minute she had been righteously indignant and the next she was being pushed along. Anger curled in her because the last thing she wanted to do was sit in a room and listen to the man who was supposed to have raised her, or helped, at the very least, give excuses.
There was never going to be a time when she didn’t loathe Jason Hunter for what he had done to her mother, what he’d wanted to do to her, and she didn’t understand why Michelle thought there was anything he could say that would make this any better.
There wasn’t. There was no excuse he could give that would make things alright again, and she folded her arms while Michelle paid for the groceries and then helped her get them to the car, still not talking.
The ride back to the hotel was silent, and she put some effort into trying to keep her temper under control.
“Eve,” Michelle said, and her voice was soft and soothing. “I know you hate him, but I’m curious as to what he wants. There has to be something we don’t know that’s making him think he can request to see his son or talk to you. I’d like to know what it is.”
Alright, so she could understand that. “How do you know he’s not just crazy?” she muttered under her breath.
“I don’t. But I’m sure we’ll find out soon.”
When they arrived at the hotel, Jason was already there, leaning against a red truck with his arms folded. There was something slightly vulnerable about his expression, and Eve didn’t like it. She didn’t want to think of him as vulnerable or pitiable in anyway, and she scowled as they got out of the car, staying behind Michelle.
This was her thing, and Eve was just there so she could say that she’d known it all along when this turned out to be just another game.
Jason kept glancing at her as they took the elevator up to Michelle’s room, but Eve didn’t even care. She didn’t look back and she just kept her jaw firm and her eyes focused on the numbers lighting up over head.
He sighed softly, and it took a lot of energy not to tell him to suck it up.
Michelle seemed to sense the tension (and honestly, it was so thick there was no way she couldn’t pick up on it) because she hurried them out of the elevator and to the peace and privacy of her room.
“Alright,” she said, taking a seat on the desk. “You have our attention. Talk.”
He took a deep breath and then let it out, ignoring Michelle pushing out a chair for him. Instead he chose to pace, not making eye contact with either of them as he went.
“I know I haven’t given you any reason to trust me,” he said. “And I’m not trying to say that I’m a changed man all of a sudden or that I’m going to be a paragon of goodness or whatever.”
“Then what are you trying to say?” Eve snapped. “That you’re the same old piece of crap that made everyone’s lives a million times harder than they had to be? Because I didn’t need to come here to hear that. I already know it.”
“I’m saying that I’m trying, Eve,” he replied, staring at her. “I’ve been trying. Do you know why I left your mother?”
“Which time?” she retorted.
“The second time.” And he at least had the good grace to look somewhat sheepish. “After I got her pregnant.”
“Because you were a coward?” Eve opined. “Because you never cared about our family or my mother or any of it? Because you care more about yourself than about anyone else? Feel free to stop me when I get close.”
He sighed. “Because I knew I couldn’t handle being a father. I didn’t… I didn’t want to do the same things to Devin that I did to you. I mean that. I knew that I couldn’t be what any of you needed, so I left.”
Silence greeted his words, and Eve frowned, working through that. “Then why did you even bother to come back? Nothing had changed. You were the same lazy, abusive bum that you were the first time. What did you think coming back was going to accomplish?”
“I don’t know! A second chance. Something. I just… I wanted to be there, okay? I wanted to. But I just get so mad, and then…”
“And then you start hitting people you’re supposed to love,” Eve spat. “I don’t know what you want from me. I don’t know what you’re expecting me to say. I don’t care if you have some anger management issue. I don’t care if you’ve got split personalities or something, and you’re really kind and mild mannered until the dark side takes over or whatever it is you’re trying to say right now. I. Don’t. Care. All I care about is the fact that I spent so many nights listening to my mother cry because you were the worst husband in the history of bad husbands. So if you’re looking for pity or for me to declare it all water under the bridge, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
It was like having déjà vu. All of this was stuff she’d said to him when he had been at the hospital, and nothing had changed. She didn’t care any more about him now than she had then.
“Jason, what did you come here to say?” Michelle asked. “Excuses aside, just say whatever it is.”
Jason glanced at Eve and then back to Michelle. “Fine, alright. The first time I left Amanda, it was because I knew something was wrong. I was messing up. I was pissed off all the time, and I couldn’t control it, it seemed like. You can think I didn’t regret what I did to her all you want, but I did. I didn’t want to hurt her, that was never the plan. I just… went into these rages. Saw red and then lashed out. It was wrong, yeah, I know that. So I left. Took some time to try and get a hold of myself and then came back. But I wasn’t better.”
“That’s for sure,” Eve muttered.
“I know. When I left the second time it was because I knew I couldn’t do it on my own. I needed help or therapy or a lobotomy or something. Amanda was pregnant, and I didn’t want to take any chances with hurting her or the baby. So I left. And it was… it was hard. Fell into the bottle a lot, got arrested once. Kind of a wakeup call.”
“What did you get arrested for?” Michelle wanted to know.
“Hit a guy. He pressed charges. They made me go to anger management and do community service, and I learned a lot there. Learned about what triggers rages and ways to deal with them other than lashing out. I’ve been making an effort.”
Eve opened her mouth to tell him that she didn’t care one way or the other, but Michelle got there first.
“That’s…actually fa
irly admirable,” she said. “None of us thought you were aware that you had a problem.”
“I know. And I wasn’t at first. I was just… I dunno. Going with what felt right to me. But I know it was messed up and wrong, and I want to make it right if I can.” His words were clearly addressed to Eve, and she hated it.
The person he had wronged the most was her mother, but since Amanda was dead now, Eve was the next best thing, apparently, and she didn’t like it. She didn’t want to forgive him. That part of her life was firmly in the past, and she had pushed herself so hard when it came to raising Devin and getting her work done with the aspiration to never, never be like her father. She would be a better parent and a better person all around. That had always been her motto, even before the death of her mother and her having to actually step into the role of a parent.
And now he was asking her to drag up all those feelings and try to explain them away with the fact that he had been having problems.
Eve didn’t know how to do that. She didn’t even want to, and she scowled at him.
“You can’t just… make something like that right. There’s no amount of apologizing or backpedalling you can do to make it right.”
“She has a good point,” Michelle said, and Eve was a bit gratified to see the crestfallen look on Jason’s face. Of course, that didn’t last long. “You can’t go back and make the past right, Jason. What you did was terrible, and quite possibly unforgivable. It definitely seems like Eve isn’t going to be able to forgive and forget easily, and to be honest, neither am I. You did awful things to someone I loved very much, and you can apologize until you’re blue in the face, and it won’t make those things go away.”
“I…”
Michelle held up a hand. “I’m not finished. What you can do is try to be different from now on. Don’t ask us to believe you’ve changed, prove it to us. Show us that you’re worthy of being in Eve’s life again or being in Devin’s life at all. Because he’s a brilliant little boy, and he needs a father, but I can guarantee you won’t be allowed near him until you prove you deserve it.”
Eve was taken off guard by the way Michelle seemed to be speaking for her, as well. Eve had never agreed to give the man a second chance. In fact, she’d been pretty explicit about not wanting to give him any chances at all.
She got up from where she had been sitting and grabbed her purse, heading for the door.
“Eve, where are you going?” Michelle asked.
“To wait in the car. It’s obvious you don’t need me here for this conversation, so I’m just gonna go.”
“Eve.”
“No. No, you go on. You apparently don’t care what I have to say about it, so I’m not just gonna sit here and listen to this. I’ll be in the car.”
And she slammed the door behind her as she left.
CHAPTER 8: PUBLIC FACE
“Good morning, and welcome to Up and at ‘Em in the Morning. Today we have a special guest joining us. Following up our interview with Reese Abbot is former extreme sports hopeful Chis Hamilton. Good morning, Mr. Hamilton, and thanks for being here.”
Deirdre Hicks was not any less annoying in person than she was on television. In fact, Paul was tempted to say that she was more annoying in person than television could ever portray.
He was backstage again, lurking and watching as Chris gave his interview that would announce more officially than the article that he was coming back to the games. Paul knew that Chris was hoping some of the sponsors would see it and try to court him, but Paul thought that was pretty much wishful thinking. What Chris didn’t seem to understand was that it wasn’t Reese’s fault that he had never succeeded.
The reason why Reese was so skilled and so popular was because he worked harder than most people Paul knew to keep his position on the leaderboard. Chris was one of those athletes who expected things to just be handed to him, and Paul was more or less sure that this second attempt to be someone in this arena was going to backfire
But he kept his mouth shut about that.
More and more he was wishing that he’d never gotten involved in this. Yes, he stood by his decision to go where the money was, but getting mixed up with Chris Hamilton was looking like a bad idea.
He seemed unstable sometimes. So committed to his goals that he was losing sight of what he needed to do to keep himself in the running.
Idiot.
Deirdre was obviously somewhat less knowledgeable about Chris than she had been about Reese, and she was referring heavily to her cards of notes as she conducted the interview. Chris was also less charismatic than Reese, and he didn’t have the audience hanging on his words. He seemed awkward and a bit combative on stage, and Deirdre seemed to be clinging to her fake smile with all she had.
“As I understand it, you were born and raised right here in our fair city, is that right?” Deirdre asked.
“Yeah,” Chris replied. “Never lived anywhere else. I got to travel when I was competing, but I always called this place home. It’s where I got my start, you know? There’s a lot of feeling in this place.”
She smiled and nodded at that, seeming to relax a little at his response. “So tell us, Mr. Hamilton. After so many months off the board as it were, what’s bringing you back to the games? What’s your motivation?”
Paul snorted, and a passing stage hand looked at him curiously. There was no way Chris could say what his actual motivation was, but Paul had coached him for this interview as much as he could. All he could hope was that Chris didn’t screw it up, for his own sake.
“Well, Deirdre,” Chris said. “It’s kinda two fold, I guess. On the one hand, I’ve missed the games. I missed the rush and the excitement. The thrill of tearing down a mountain or a ramp and then launching myself into the air. There’s not much else that compares to that, you know?”
“Oh, I’m sure,” Deirdre said. “And what’s the other reason?”
“The other reason is that I want to be the best. I want everyone else to know that I came back and came back strong. There’s been people before who thought they were better than me, and I want them to know that they’re not. Not just because they’re pretty or popular. It’s about skill, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to make sure that it’s obvious who’s the more skilled,” Chris said, and there was a gleam in his eyes that Paul could see from where he stood back stage.
“You absolute moron,” Paul whispered. Could he have been any more threatening? There was no way anyone was going to see this interview and think that Chris should be allowed to compete in anything.
If there was one thing Paul could say about Reese, it was that he had always known how to do an interview. Talking to the press had never been one of his favorite parts of the job, but he never failed to make people like him when he spoke.
Christopher Hamilton was no Reese Abbot, that was for sure. And there was no way that anyone would ever think that Chris was better than Reese at anything.
Even Deirdre looked taken aback at the way Chris was talking, and she laughed nervously. “Sounds like there’ve been some rivalries in the past, then,” she said, forcing her smile to turn up a notch. “Anyone you’d like to send a special message to while you have their attention?”
Chris laughed, and it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “No, no. It’s nothing personal, Deirdre. Just a general message for anyone who thinks they can stand in my way. I wouldn’t want them to be disappointed when I’m not so easy to dismiss this time around.”
“Fair enough. Do you think you’ll be making your return before or after Reese Abbot makes his? We spoke with him just a little while ago, and he seems as determined as you are to get back to this.”
“Hopefully before,” Chris replied, and Paul could tell it was an effort for him to keep his composure. Bad move on Deirdre’s part, talking about Reese when Chris wanted the spotlight, not that she would have known that. “Nothing against Reese, but it’s not gonna be easy for him to just claim his spot back when and if he gets back into it.
I think he’s gonna find that things have changed when he comes back.”
“Well, he seems like the type to enjoy a challenge,” Deirdre pointed out. “I’m sure he’s not going to back down.”
Chris clenched his jaw. “Probably not. So I’ll just have to take him down. On the leaderboards, of course. I’ve got my eye on that number one spot.”
Deirdre smiled at him. “I’m sure your fans are all rooting for you to claim it,” she said and then turned to face the camera. “When we come back, we’ll be chatting with local chef Kimberly Satine of Odds and Ends Bakery and hopefully getting a few hints as to why those cupcakes of hers are so addicting. The answer might surprise you.”
And that was the end of it. Deirdre shook Chris’ hand and then shooed him off to the back so that Kimberly Satine could take his place.
Most of the audience members seemed glad to get someone else on the stage who wasn’t so unsettling, and Chris let his face relax back into the almost perpetual scowl as he made his way to the table that had been piled high with breakfast foods.
Paul already knew that all the extreme sports blogs would be linking to the video of this interview by the end of the day, and he was sure that it wasn’t going to get Chris any more fans than he already had. In fact, if there were any people left who remembered his first go at being in the games, they were likely to be put off even more than they might have already been.