#Player

by Cambria Hebert

  “Will do.”

  “Awesome. See you next week at the airport.”

  When the call was over, he gave me a knowing look.

  “Are you trying to set up Missy and Trent?”

  “Just evening out the numbers. Can’t be outnumbered by a bunch of women,” he quipped.

  He was totally trying to set up Trent and Missy.

  “I’m not sure if that’s going to work,” I said.

  He shrugged. “Well, at least with Trent around, she’ll see there are more guys in the sea than just Braeden.”

  I glanced out the windshield and realized we were almost to my dad’s. “Turn here,” I instructed.

  A few minutes later, we turned into a modest neighborhood with mature palm trees, sidewalks, and houses that weren’t new, but not quite old.

  Most homes here looked the same. They all had vinyl siding with varying colors. The driveways were concrete, and the yards were fairly simple because the heat made it difficult to have large, full flowerbeds. Almost all the houses had pools in the backyard. Pools were pretty much a staple in Florida. If you didn’t have an in-ground, then you almost always had an above-ground one.

  Except of course for my house.

  My house had an empty space where a pool used to be.

  “It’s this one,” I said. My lighthearted mood evaporated as I gestured to the next street, the street I’d grown up on.

  Romeo didn’t say anything as he turned and slowed the car to snail’s pace.

  “It’s up here on the left,” I said. “Third one down.”

  Romeo pulled up to the curb of a two-story white home. It seemed smaller now that I was older, less grand and maybe a little worn.

  “This one?” he asked.

  I nodded, and he cut the engine.

  My father’s truck was sitting in the driveway. It was a late model, and it too looked a little worn.

  “So,” I said to Romeo. “This is my house. This is where I grew up.”

  And as I stared up at the place I’d once loved, an unwanted thought taunted the recesses of my mind.

  This is also where your mother died.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Romeo

  Her nervous energy filled the car. Just the way she stared out the window at the house made me want to wrap my arm around her and drive away.

  This was hard for her. I understood why. I just wished it didn’t have to be this way.

  But wishes were for stars and birthday candles.

  This shit was real life.

  I stared at the home Rimmel had spent the majority of her life in. It was small compared to my parents’ home. It explained the awe I’d seen in her eyes when she’d been inside the first time.

  It was a white home with a large window to the left of the front door. The door itself was painted a shade of yellow that I knew had probably once been more vibrant. On either side of the door was a white column that held up a small roof to keep the rain off the entrance.

  There wasn’t much landscaping, a few large bushes and a palm tree farther out in the yard. I’d bet it was once more kept, but when her mother died, everything changed.

  On the right lower side of the house was a one-car garage with a white-painted garage door. Above it was another pair of windows.

  There wasn’t much detail to the place. It was simple and straightforward, kind of like the girl sitting beside me.

  “Think he’s home?” I asked.

  “His truck is here.” She shrugged and reached for the door handle.

  “I’ll get our bags,” I told her.

  She came back into the car and touched my arm. “No, don’t. I don’t know what’s going to happen…” Her voice trailed away.

  I touched her face. “We’ll do whatever you’re comfortable with. If you want to go, you say the word, give me a look—whatever. You let me know and we go.”

  “I’m really glad you’re here,” she whispered.

  “Me too, baby.” I kissed her before she got out of the car.

  I waited at the end of the driveway, and we walked up the concrete together. Her dad drove a late model Ford pickup. I could respect that.

  At the top of the drive, we followed the path that led up to the small porch and front door.

  Rimmel hesitated before pulling her key out of her bag and inserting it in the lock. Seconds later, she pulled it back out and glanced over her shoulder. “It’s already open.”

  She dropped the keys back into her bag and pushed open the door. We stepped into a two-story entryway with a small side table and round mirror on the wall. There was mail—weeks worth—piled on top of the table. The floor was tiled, an off-white shade of ceramic with matching grout. The flooring stretched out through the entry, past the stairs, which were to the left, and straight ahead and into one great room that appeared to be the kitchen and living room in one.

  Rimmel hung her bag on the wooden post at the bottom of the stairs. “Dad?” she called out.

  The walls were painted a neutral beige and the room should have been bright, if the blinds covering the large windows at the back of the home had been open.

  We walked farther in. The kitchen was to the right with a large island separating it from the living room. It was a standard kitchen with laminate countertops made to look like granite, white cabinets, and a tiled backsplash.

  On the other side of the kitchen near a set of French doors that led to the back was a small dining table.

  There was a man sitting there with his head in his hand and a mug off to his side.

  Rimmel saw him the same time I did, and her footsteps halted. She stood there like she was unsure what to do, like finding him just sitting alone in a darkened room wasn’t normal.

  “Dad?”

  He rubbed a hand down his face and then dropped his arms and looked up.

  “I’ve been expecting you.”

  “Gran called you?”

  He chuckled. “Oh did she ever.”

  Rimmel hesitated again, and frustration lit me up. What the hell kind of greeting was this? If he knew she was coming, did he have to be sitting there like this… so morose and morbid?

  My heart hurt for her in that moment. It literally ached right there beneath my ribs. Is this how she grew up? Is this how he’d always been?

  If so, this went a long, long way in explaining how it was she was so desperate for affection at the age of thirteen that she gave her virginity to some guy down the block.

  I wondered if he still lived there. Maybe I’d go beat his punk ass.

  “I tried to call,” Rimmel said, shaking out of her momentary surprise and moving past the island to open up the blinds on the door and windows. “But you never answer your phone anymore.”

  “I’ve been busy,” he responded, but we all knew it was a lie.

  Sunlight filtered in the room and with it a clearer view of the man sitting a few feet away.

  He was probably in his late forties and had dark hair peppered with gray. His skin was weather worn like he spent a lot of time in the Florida sun, which given he worked as a contractor most of his life, I would say it was an accurate assumption.

  He wasn’t a huge man, but he wasn’t slight either. I’d estimate him to be around five foot ten standing and maybe one seventy. Like the house, he appeared as though he’d seen better days, with scruff darkening his jaw, uncombed hair that needed washed, and tired bloodshot eyes.

  His flannel shirt was rumpled and I hoped to God he was wearing pants.

  “Why are you sitting here in the dark?” Rimmel asked and glanced into the kitchen. She wrinkled her nose. “When’s the last time you cleaned?”

  “You didn’t come here to ask me about my housekeeping skills,” he replied and reached for the mug near his elbow. He picked it up and took a slow sip.

  Our eyes met over the rim of the cup.

  After he swallowed down what was inside, he leisurely lowered the glass. “You the boyfriend?”

  “Dad, this is
Romeo. And yes, he’s my boyfriend. Romeo, this is my dad, Brock.” Rimmel motioned for me to come forward.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Hudson,” I said and held out my hand across the table.

  He looked at it but didn’t offer his. “What the hell kind of name is Romeo?”

  “What the hell are you doing sitting in your house in the dark in the middle of the day?” I replied.

  I shouldn’t have said it. But I wasn’t about to let him think I would be pushed around. Or that I would let him push Rimmel around.

  “We need to talk, Dad,” Rimmel said and pulled out a chair at the table.

  Her father looked at me pointedly.

  I looked back.

  Rimmel sighed. “He’s staying. Romeo knows everything anyway.”

  “And just what is everything?” Brock looked away from me and focused on his daughter. I sat down beside her.

  I wondered how long it would take her to notice he was drunk.

  “I read the police report, Dad. I know Mom’s death is listed as unresolved. I know you were a suspect in the case.”

  “Then you know they had no evidence that I did anything.”

  “I’m not here to accuse you,” Rimmel said. “I’m here because I want the truth. All of it.”

  “Your mother was my entire life. When she died, I might as well have died too.” He stared at Rim. “I would have killed myself before I would ever kill her.”

  Did he not hear what he just said? Did he not know what she would read between those lines? He basically just told her she hadn’t been enough.

  “Rim,” I said softly. “Maybe we should let your dad get some sleep and come back, talk then.”

  “I’m fine,” he argued.

  Rimmel wrinkled her nose when his alcohol-laced breath wafted out. “Are you drinking?”

  She grabbed his cup and sniffed it, then pulled it away like it offended her senses.

  “It’s been a long day.”

  “Have you been to bed at all?” she pressed.

  “How could I sleep when I knew you were coming here to question me?” he bit back.

  She recoiled, and I barely held on to my temper. This guy was a piece of work. I never in a million years expected this when we pulled up to the house.

  Rimmel pushed away from the table and snatched his mug. She dumped the contents down the sink.

  “I was drinking that!” he protested.

  “I’ll make you some coffee.”

  He pushed away from the table and stood. Because her back was turned, she didn’t notice how he stumbled a bit.

  Thank God he was wearing pants.

  “You can’t just come home and start bossing me around.” He walked into the kitchen and pulled a bottle of bourbon out of the cabinet.

  “When did you start drinking?” she asked and snatched the bottle off the counter before he could get a glass. “When you lost your job?”

  “I’ve had a rough couple months.”

  “I was just home for the holidays. You weren’t like this then.”

  He averted his gaze.

  “Or was that just a lie too? You’d go off every day like you were leaving for work, but instead, you’d go to some underground place and gamble away all your money.”

  “How did you find all this stuff out?” His eyes narrowed. “Those records were buried. What I do when I’m alone is private.” He glanced at me. “This your doing? You trying to turn my daughter against me?”

  “You’re doing a fine job of that all on your own.”

  “Romeo,” Rimmel said, a note of warning in her tone.

  I clenched my jaw.

  Brock looked back at Rimmel as she finished putting on a pot of coffee to brew. “Is that it, then? You my judge and jury? You here to tell me you never want to see me again?”

  “Of course not,” she said wearily. “I just want to know the truth.” She pinned him with a gaze. “What really happened to Mom?”

  “Someone killed her, but it wasn’t me.”

  “Do you know who did it?”

  He averted his gaze again.

  Rimmel pressed. “Do you know why?”

  My entire body went on alert. The tension in the room was rising like a balloon filling with helium. He wasn’t in any shape to have this conversation. It was painfully clear to me that he never put the past behind him. He was a haunted man.

  The lies he told, the lies he lived… they broke him.

  The rich scent of coffee filled the room, but he reached for the bottle Rimmel set aside. He grabbed it up, uncapped it, and took a swig directly from the bottle.

  “Just tell me,” Rimmel pleaded. “Please.”

  He took another swig and then suddenly chucked it across the room. It made a whipping sound through the air and then hit against the wall and shattered, glass and booze going everywhere.

  I jerked out of my chair and rushed to where Rimmel stood. His sudden movements had caused her to throw her hands up over her head. Quickly, I positioned myself in front of her, shielding her with my own body.

  “It’s my fault!” Brock yelled like he didn’t even realize what he’d done. “Is that what you want to hear?”

  Rimmel’s hand fisted in the back of my shirt.

  “I might not have bashed in her head and shoved her in that pool, but I’m the one who killed your mother.”

  Rimmel gasped at his harsh, graphic language.

  “I’m the one who killed her.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Rimmel

  I couldn’t stop shaking.

  I don’t know who that was in there, sitting at the table in the dark, drinking, but that man wasn’t my father.

  I didn’t let him see how upset I was, because it felt like I was letting a stranger see my vulnerable side.

  But Romeo knew.

  The second Dad busted that bottle, Romeo stepped in. I knew by the set of his jaw and the tension in his body there was no way I would talk him down.

  I admit I didn’t even try.

  I needed a breather.

  So when Romeo told me to wait outside, I did. I took my bag and walked out. I didn’t even dare a glance back.

  I stood there chewing my nails and listening intently for shouts or breaking glass. But none came.

  A few minutes after I stepped out, Romeo did the same.

  “What happened?” I rushed out.

  “Nothing. I told him to sleep it off and call when he was sober.”

  “The coffee pot.” I worried, thinking I shouldn’t leave it on if he was going to be sleeping off the booze.

  “I shut it off,” Romeo said gently and placed his palm on the small of my back to steer me toward the car.

  When the engine was running and the AC was cooling down the interior, I looked at him. “I’m so incredibly embarrassed.”

  Romeo pulled me across the seats and into his lap. “You have nothing to be embarrassed for.”

  A broken laugh ripped from my throat. “Are you kidding? He was a complete drunken mess. And he was rude to you.”

  “I can take it.”

  “I’ve never seen him like that before,” I whispered. “He wasn’t like that growing up. He’s a good man. He never raised his voice to me and he never got drunk like that.”

  “Guilt will drive anyone to their breaking point,” Romeo murmured and stroked his hand down my arm.

  “You think that’s what it was? Guilt?”

  “I don’t know him,” Romeo said rather diplomatically.

  I laughed. “No, you don’t. Which is why maybe your opinion would be more astute than mine.”

  “Astute,” he mused. “Now that’s a college word.”

  I poked him in the ribs and smiled. Only Romeo could find a way to lighten my mood even just a fraction.

  He exhaled and leaned his head against the back of the seat. “I think your father probably carries the guilt of your mother’s death every day. He might not have killed her, but he feels responsible. He held it together
as long as he could, most likely for your sake. But when you went away to college…”

  “No one was here for him to focus on,” I finished.

  It made so much sense.

  And it was incredibly sad.

  “Where you want to go from here?” he asked.

  “I want to go to my grandparents’ house. Gran will tell me everything my father couldn’t.”

  “Want to drive over there like this?” He wiggled his hips beneath my butt.

  “I think I’ll pass,” I said and crawled over into the passenger seat.

  “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

  I shook my head, and he pulled away from curb. A few minutes later, we passed by the house of the boy who took my virginity. Since that day, every time I passed that house, a sick, regretful feeling filled me.

  But today, I didn’t dwell on it. I looked away. It was in the past and I wasn’t about to let one more thing from back then ruin my present.

  Gran opened the front door of her house the second we pulled in the driveway. When she stepped out onto the porch and waved, a feeling of love swept over me.

  “Gran!” I said and rushed across the driveway and into the grass. She met me halfway and swept me up in a welcoming hug.

  “Look at you!” she said, holding me at arm’s length. “Have you lost weight? Are those the jeans we picked out together? They look wonderful. So stylish. And your T-shirt, so you.”

  I laughed. The T-shirt was plain white, but it wasn’t so large I was swimming in it. It was more fitted. And in my effort to make it a little more stylish, I chose one with a small embellishment. Off to the side, it had a yellow pocket.

  “It’s good to see you,” I said and hugged her again.

  “How was your flight?” she asked.

  “Terrifying.”

  She laughed. I heard Romeo approaching from behind, and Gran pulled away. “And who is this handsome devil?”

  Romeo unpacked his megawatt charm-dripping smile. “Ma’am, I’m Roman Anderson. I’m dating your granddaughter.”

  “I don’t know who’s luckier. Her or you,” Gran teased.

  “Definitely me.” He winked.

  She giggled like a schoolgirl, and I felt my mouth drop open.