by Rose, Callie
His eyes flashed with red-hot fury and I immediately regretted my words. He was already hurting. Why was I rubbing salt in the wounds?
Because I’m hurting too. So fucking bad.
The flames in his eyes died quickly, freezing over in an unreadable expression.
“You have your story,” he repeated coldly. “Now get the hell out.”
I opened my mouth to argue, then snapped it shut again. There was no point. Fighting down a sob, I ran upstairs. Tears blurred my vision, and I ran headlong into the gargoyle candy dispenser on the landing. It fell to one side and popped open, spilling mini booze bottles all over the stairs. Rage exploded in my brain. I grabbed one and shrieked as I threw it. The shatter of glass against the bannister shocked me back into control.
Sawyer appeared at the bottom of the stairs. He looked up at me, concerned, but his concern quickly twisted in disgust. Shaking my head, I turned on my heel and left him there with the mess.
I had never been so heartbroken as I was on the plane home. I must have slept the whole time, and then continued to sleep for an entire day when I got home. I had never let a guy affect me to that degree, and I hated myself for letting him get me here.
But eventually I was going to have to return to my real life, and Edwards was going to want to see something good, unique, and original. That Thursday, I got up early in the morning and got right to work, feelings be damned.
25
Sawyer
“What the hell is your problem, kid? That’s the third game in a row you’ve tanked!”
“Sorry, coach,” I mumbled. My head was killing me. I wished he would stop shouting, but at the same time I wanted him to keep going. A tiny, sane part of my brain was begging him to kick my ass into gear, to force me to get myself together. But it wasn’t the first time he’d done it, and I knew that his patience was running out. The thought made me want to drink.
Coach rubbed a hand over his balding head as he paced the room. He rubbed his hands over his face, then looked at me.
“Al gave me an ultimatum during that last little fiasco out there.”
Panic shocked my nerves but never made it to my face. I gazed blearily at him, trying to interpret the look he was giving me.
“You’re screwing up, Dawson. I talked Al into giving you one more chance. You better shape up before the game on Saturday or you’re going to be benched for the rest of the season.”
Benched. Damn. Well, that was still better than I thought it would be. I thought for sure I would be on the chopping block by now. Coach sighed heavily and sat down next to me, thumping his heavy hand on my shoulder.
“Listen to me, Sawyer.”
His use of my first name shocked me alert through the hazy hangover. Guilt ripped through my soul. Fuck. I was trashing his team.
“I know it must’ve been hard to lose your sister. I lost mine last year… car accident… and I’ll tell you, it hurts like hell no matter how old you are. And shit, if my sister’s death had been plastered all over the tabloids, I’d lose it too.”
“I want to hurt somebody,” I said numbly.
“Right now you’re only hurting yourself and your team. Is that what you want?”
I shook my head. I had wanted to hurt the person who had leaked this to the press, but even that rage had faded into a sickening disappointment. The depth of her betrayal notwithstanding, she was still the most captivating woman I had ever known. I wanted to reset time, to break her computer before she could ever send a message, to figure out which red flags I had missed.
“Then get it together,” Coach said, clapping my shoulder again. “Or at least don’t drink before game day. Okay?”
I nodded. He looked like he wanted to say something else. Instead, he slapped my back and hustled away. I assumed he was off to talk to Al, to promise him that I was back on an upswing, and that he wouldn’t have to do anything drastic. I hoped he was right, but I didn’t have the force of will to ensure it. That was all wrapped up in forcing myself to forget about Addison.
But the memory of her presence haunted my whole house. Things she had touched just barely out of place, things she had commented on which now stood out like beacons in the cluttered mess of random crap. The bedroom right across the hall from mine was the worst of it. I had started sleeping on the couch downstairs just so I wouldn’t have to look at it anymore.
That, and because getting up the stairs had become more of a feat lately. With as much as I’d been drinking, the long staircase had become unmanageable after dark.
I shook my head at myself. Elyse would fucking hate me if she saw me now.
Damn it. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. I was going to talk to Amelia, I was going to get help. I would get myself together if it killed me.
But not tonight. Tomorrow. I left the stadium and made a beeline to the bar.
26
Addison
“Thank you for meeting me,” I said to Amelia as she sat down across from me. I had been fighting with the article for three days and finally realized that I simply didn’t have enough to work with. A quick social media search told me that Amelia lived in Buffalo. To my surprise and relief, she had agreed to meet me at a little café halfway between New York and Buffalo.
“Don’t thank me,” she said tiredly. “My mother insisted I come and tell you off.”
“Are you going to tell me off?” I asked.
“No. I’m just going to tell you who you’re messing with.” I raised a brow and she shook her head. “It’s not a threat. Be quiet and let me talk.”
I nodded. She ordered coffee, black, then sucked in a heavy sigh.
“Sawyer’s public track record is crap because he’s always been super protective of Elyse’s memory. Now that it’s out… well. He isn’t in any state of mind to make this decision. I made the executive decision as his big sister to set the record straight.”
I frowned, confused, but didn’t interrupt her. She tapped her fingers on the table for a moment, then turned those piercing eyes back to me. “Have you ever heard of Friedreich’s ataxia?”
“No. Is that what Elyse had?”
She nodded. “It’s a terrible disease. It destroyed her body. Left her mind intact. She died of a heart attack when she was just eighteen. That first year that Sawyer was in school, do you know what he was majoring in?”
I shook my head.
“You should if you went digging around.”
“I didn’t even know he’d had a false start until the story broke,” I said with a helpless sort of shrug.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “We’ll come back to that. He was on a path to study genetic diseases. He wanted to find a cure.” She shook her head, blinking back tears. “But Sawyer wasn’t ever meant to be a doctor. He was meant to be a hockey player. The class load was too much for him, and when Elyse had a couple of really bad moments that fall, well… he quit. He came back home to spend time with her. To help her in whatever way he could. That’s all he ever wanted to do, but it was never enough for him. He never felt like he did enough.”
“Have his standards for himself always been so high?”
She nodded somberly. “Always. He got a B on a test in high school once and grounded himself until he brought the grade up. He doesn’t accept failure.”
That worried me. He had become the epitome of failure on the ice lately.
“That’s why he lost it this time,” she said softly. “It wasn’t as much about the story breaking as it was about him failing to protect the family. And, of course, his failure to recognize you as a threat.”
I shook my head. “That wasn’t his failure,” I said sadly. “I never broke that story. I swear. I didn’t know half of the stuff they broadcast, which was my own failure.”
She twisted her lips. I couldn’t tell whether or not she believed me. I guess it doesn’t matter now, I thought. Not as long as she tells me what she came here to tell me.
“Anyway,” she continued without addre
ssing what I said. “When he went back to school, he switched his tactics. He majored in business, but everybody knows that. What they don’t know is that his focus was non-profits. He spent his time learning how to set up and manage charities.”
I cocked my head to one side. “Did he ever do anything with that?”
A ghost of a smile brushed her face. “He wouldn’t be who he is if he didn’t. He’s the owner of LP Life, the investment company. He personally owns and runs three charities, all of which raise funds to study genetic diseases.”
“LP Life? How did he come up with that name?”
She swallowed hard, fighting back tears. “LP stands for Little Princess. He created these charities for Elyse. Little Princess was what our grandma called her from the day she was born.”
My heart thudded painfully in my chest. I breathed against the knot in my belly. “I knew he was hiding something,” I said shakily. “I just didn’t know it was something wonderful.”
A genuine, if watery, smile lit her face. “You really didn’t know, did you?”
I shook my head. “If I had found that much, I would have gone deeper. I would have discovered… maybe not all of this, but some of it. My approach would have been much different.”
She furrowed her brow curiously. “What would your approach have been?”
I grinned. I suddenly knew exactly what to write, and I couldn’t wait to tell her about it. With the ice broken between us once more, Amelia felt like a friend again. It was a load off my heart; I had grown almost as close to her as I was to Sawyer during my stay. Now that we were talking again, I felt like everything might actually be okay.
She hugged me when we parted ways and promised to call soon. I was walking on air. Before I started my car, I picked up the phone and called Rebecca.
“Meet me at my place in two hours,” I told her. “I have so much to tell you.”
“What? Did you find out more awful things about Sawyer Dawson?” She sounded disheartened. This whole media storm had been terrible for her long-standing crush.
“No,” I said. “It’s something way better, but you’re going to be sworn to secrecy. This story doesn’t show up in any magazines, tabloids, or posts. Got it?”
“Cross my heart,” she said, intrigued. “Can’t I come now?”
“I’m not even close to my place. Two hours, okay?”
“Okay!”
I drove home with a smile on my face. Sawyer was nothing like the demon he had been painted as. Quite the opposite, in fact.
He’d made mistakes, there was no denying that. But the personal demons that haunted him didn’t make him a bad person; they made him human. I didn’t have any siblings, so I could only imagine how awful it must be to watch your little sister wither away and be powerless to save her. There were better ways of dealing with grief than drowning them in a bottle. I wouldn’t defend his decision to go on a bender.
But the grief itself? That, I understood.
In the relatively short time I’d known him during our whirlwind relationship, one thing I’d learned about Sawyer was that he gave his whole heart to things. And to be on the receiving end of his heart had been truly incredible.
I had no doubt that he’d loved Elyse with all the brotherly caring he possessed, and that her loss had devastated him. He had stumbled, made some bad decisions… but he’d also made some amazing ones.
My bad opinion of him melted away with perspective, and once again, the feelings I had developed for him rushed back into my heart, warming my chest.
He was worthy. More than worthy. He was absolutely wonderful, and the world was going to know it.
27
Sawyer
“Lookin’ good, Sawyer,” Damian sneered. “Hung over again, or still drunk?”
“Neither,” I said through gritted teeth as I tugged my skate on.
I hadn’t been back to the bar all week. The first few days had been hard, as self-recrimination for letting my family down beat at my chest like a party guest who’d overstayed its welcome. Sadness at losing Addison was a constant companion these days too, but I refused to use her as an excuse to tank my life again.
The way I saw it, I’d already been down that path once, and if I went down it again, I’d have no fucking excuses. The first time, after Elyse’s death, I hadn’t been thinking straight. But I was supposed to be older and wiser now, damn it.
My game was still shit—I was still in a rough place mentally—but at least I’d turned my shit around. Hopefully some kind of peace would follow. And hopefully it would come soon, before Coach had to boot me off the team.
Damian leaned toward me, sniffing the air near my face like a human breathalyzer. “Ah, I see. Bet you’re not sleeping well these days. Hoo, boy! I know I wouldn’t be.”
I scowled at the floor and yanked my other skate on.
“What makes you think I’m not sleeping?”
He scoffed. “Oh, please. Don’t try to pull that with me. Your whole life blew up! It’s only a matter of time now before they dig a little farther and find out everything else you’ve been hiding. Man, you should really learn who to trust.”
“You volunteering as trustworthy?” I said dryly.
He grinned at me savagely. “I ain’t trying to get in your bed.”
I heard it as a dig at Addison and was on my feet in a heartbeat, staring him down. He only laughed.
“Man, I knew you still had feelings for her! No wonder your cute little journalist took off running. You’re still stuck on your last one!”
I blinked, trying to figure him out. “What?”
“Game time,” Coach shouted. “Wrap it up and get out there!”
Damian snickered and walked away to finish getting ready. I glared daggers at his back as he went. My mind raced all the way out to the ice. Could Addison be innocent? Could it have been the she-witch who’d messed me up before?
But that didn’t make any sense. She and Damian hadn’t spent any time together as far as I knew. Well, there were the parties. And the games. She definitely would have seen him around, but when would she have had time to tell him something I didn’t know?
I didn’t like mysteries. I definitely didn’t like being laughed at, and that was all Damian was doing. As we slid onto the rink, he shot me a jeering grin.
“I can’t blame you for telling her your life story,” he shouted, loud enough for everyone to hear. “She was such a good lay I almost told her mine! Got to love a crazy blonde, man.”
A bubble of clarity burst in my mind. I started to laugh. Damian’s face darkened with confusion and it only made me laugh more.
“Man, what is your problem?” he demanded.
The confusion in his furious gaze had me gasping for breath and holding my side. It was all so fucking clear now.
Damian snapped. He broke ranks to skate across the ice and shove me. The referee’s whistle blasted in the frigid air. I slid my foot sideways to catch myself, then held my ground as Damian began bashing his helmet against mine.
“You think it’s funny? I got your girl, man!”
“And lost her to a football player,” I shot back in amusement. “You think I care?”
“I think you should,” Damian said darkly. “She told me that crap and I told her to take it to the tabloids, stat. But no, she didn’t think there was a story.” He shook his head and shoved me again. “Just like that journalist of yours. I handed her everything she needed to take you down, and what did she do? Nothing!”
The referee was blasting his whistle and trying to get between us. I met his eyes apologetically. What was I going to do, slap Damian upside his dumb head? Coach was on his way over, and I was on thin ice. Metaphorically speaking.
“What’s all this? Damian! Get back in position!”
Damian wasn’t listening. “You know what they say, man. You want something done right, you gotta do it yourself.”
“You leaked the story,” I said, still stoically holding my ground against his chest
shoves and helmet bashes.
“You’re damn right I did! I just wish I’d done it earlier, could have gotten you off this team months ago!”
“That’s enough! Damian, you’re out of here!” Coach and the referee muscled Damian off of the ice. He didn’t go quietly. He shouted to the whole world how he had stolen my girl and revealed the truth.
Congratulations, I thought. Way to out yourself as an ass.
He spent the game on the bench, seething and glowering in my direction. I spent the game playing better than I had since before Addison left. I finally had my mojo back, thanks to Damian’s inability to keep his betrayal to himself.
“You brought it back,” Coach said after we had won. He wiped the sweat off of his shiny head and gave me a relieved smile. “Al’s happy. I don’t think he ever really wanted to bench you.”
“Kind of you both,” I said, giving him a lopsided smile. “Sorry it took me so long.”
“You brought it back,” he repeated firmly. “That’s what matters. Now you just keep hold of that. You got it?”
“Got it, Coach.”
Chase clapped me on the shoulder as we headed for our cars after the game. “I’m fucking proud of you, man! You killed it out there.”
I dipped my head. “Thanks. Sorry I’ve been such a shit teammate lately.”
“Hey, you’ve been working some shit out. As your friend, I get that.” He chuckled. “And as your teammate and friend, I’m glad you’re getting it sorted.”
My high from the game began to fade as I drove up the winding streets toward my house. The place was as empty as ever as I stepped inside and flipped on a light. It didn’t hit me like a semi-truck filled with regret, but it still wasn’t entirely comfortable. This house had been built for people. Where it now held useless junk, it had once held purpose.
“I’m ready now,” I said to the empty room.