#Player

by Cambria Hebert

  “Come along,” Gran said. “I have some freshly brewed sweet iced tea with your name on it.”

  Romeo offered her his arm, and she took it. The pair went ahead, leaving me to stare after them. He held open the front door for both of us, and when I walked past he grinned.

  “Where’s Grandpa?” I asked, taking in the familiar home.

  It hadn’t changed since I was a child. It was neat and tidy with a basic layout and basic furnishings. My grandparents weren’t fussy people, and they hardly ever bought anything new. My grandpa always said, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” and according to him, their home wasn’t broken.

  “Golfing,” she called from the kitchen. Romeo was looking at all the photographs lining a shelf. He picked up one of me when I was maybe four. I had pigtails, glasses, and a missing tooth.

  “Who’s this brat?” he asked with a grin.

  “Ha-ha.”

  Gran bustled in with three glasses of iced tea and a plate of cookies. She looked as she always did, full of energy and youth despite her age. Her hair was gray, but she kept it highlighted so it was a platinum shade and not dull. It was a pixie cut and she styled it so it stuck out in a messy, modern way. Gran was taller than me, probably around five foot five, and had a thin frame. Her eyes were blue, and she always wore nice, matching outfits, even at home.

  Basically, we were opposites.

  But we loved each other.

  “We weren’t sure when you were coming, and you know how he is about getting in his games.” She set the tray on a wooden coffee table and handed a glass of tea to Romeo.

  “It’s fine,” I said. “I’ll see him later.” In truth, I was relieved. One less person to have to try and get the truth out of.

  “Have you been home yet?” Gran asked, getting right to it.

  “Unfortunately.”

  “Oh, honey. I’m so sorry you had to see him that way.” She patted my hand, and I glanced at Romeo. His thoughts clearly mirrored my own.

  She knew what kind of state he was in. It made me wonder how often he was like this.

  “He was beyond conversation,” I told her. “He was drunk.”

  She nodded, a sad look written on her face. “We’ve tried to help him. I’m afraid we’ve probably only made him worse.”

  “How’s that?” I asked.

  Romeo picked up a cookie and shoved the whole thing in his mouth. Gran smiled. But when she refocused on me, the smile was gone.

  “Your father has a gambling problem. It’s been an ongoing addiction since he was a teenager.”

  The gambling wasn’t a surprise to me. But the fact that it started so long ago was.

  “He started betting in high school, nothing really major, just boy stuff. Sports, cards, races. When his father and I found out, we put a stop to it. We got him therapy, and he got better. He stayed that way for many years. He met your mother.” She smiled softly. “Fell in love, and they got married. They were so young and happy. And when they found out you were on the way, well, life was just perfect.”

  “So what happened?” I asked. How could a life so perfect go so horribly wrong?

  “Life, I suppose. They had you, bought a house, took on a car payment. Your mother stayed home to be with you—something they both agreed on—but I think the sole responsibility to take care of everything and everyone financially started to strain him. He worked hard, long hours. To help blow off steam, he started playing cards with a few of his work friends on the weekends. Poker mostly. I think that’s when it started again.”

  “He didn’t go back to therapy?” I asked.

  “No one knew what he was doing, and he couldn’t admit he had a problem. Then one day they got a letter in the mail about the missed house payments, and your mother was beside herself. When she called, I knew right away what must be going on.”

  “So what happened?” Romeo asked and spread his arms across the back of the couch. I leaned just a little closer to him.

  “We confronted him, of course. He admitted he’d been using all the household money on cards and bets. Your mother was so upset, and that hurt him. He promised to get help.”

  “But he’s still gambling,” I said. Clearly, he didn’t get help.

  “He did stop. At the time. He went to meetings for addiction and got a sponsor he could call. Your mother loved him and she forgave him. We offered to help them as much as we could. Grandpa and I paid the mortgage up so it was current and helped out with a few other overdue bills. The last thing we wanted was for them to lose their home.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “What does any of that have to do with my mother’s death?”

  “Because it went beyond the mortgage and utilities. He’d run up a debt of over fifty thousand dollars. He didn’t tell anyone that. He was afraid it would push your mother too far and she’d leave him. So despite the help we’d given them, by that point, he was in far too deep to just walk away.”

  “So he had loan sharks after him,” Romeo surmised, his voice tight.

  I could only imagine what he must think of my family and, by extension, me. This went beyond a nosey, meddling mother. These were deep-rooted problems… problems that likely caused my mother’s death.

  “Yes,” Gran said. “Look, I don’t know all the details. To be honest, I didn’t want to know. When your mother died…” Her eyes took on a faraway and sorrowful look. “The details of those, those men just didn’t seem important. Maybe revenge should have been my focus or maybe even justice, but this family was too broken.”

  She looked at me with a regretful frown, and I swallowed thickly.

  “You were just a little girl. I don’t know how much you remember from that time, but I remember exactly the way you looked when I walked into the house that day. It still haunts me.” Gran’s eyes shifted over to Romeo. “Her clothes were all stained with pink and her eyes were so hollow it scared me.”

  “Gran,” I whispered. I didn’t want to hear about how I looked that day. Sometimes I still felt the panic and shock vividly.

  Her eyes met mine. “I didn’t do the right thing back then. All I could think about was protecting you and keeping together what family you had left.”

  “So you lied to the police,” Romeo said.

  “Not really. They knew about the gambling and that we helped pay up the house. And we didn’t know—not when we were questioned—that your mother was killed as retribution for the money he couldn’t pay back.”

  And there it was.

  The truth.

  It stood out there in the open like a single blooming flower in a barren field. It wasn’t something I could overlook, something I could just forget I heard.

  My father was responsible for her death. She paid his debt… with her life.

  How terrified she must have been that day. I would never know what exactly happened, but I imagined the men broke into the home, or maybe she let them in, thinking they weren’t there to do her harm. And then they killed her.

  “Did Dad know right away what happened to her?”

  “I think he did. But I think it took a while to admit it to himself, but he couldn’t deny it for very long because he was paid a visit by the men who killed her.”

  Romeo’s body jerked. “He saw them?”

  “I don’t know if it was the same men. But they worked for the man who Brock owed money to. They told him the debt was considered paid in full and if he told anyone anything, they would come back for Rimmel.”

  I gasped.

  “He let them get away with that?” Romeo growled.

  “We all did,” Gran said. The shame in her tone made me feel sorry for her. “It was a terrible situation, and when the police came up with no leads, no connection to the money he owed to the bookies, we never said a word.”

  “So her death was listed as unresolved. My mother never got justice for what was done to her.”

  “They would have put your father in jail, honey. You would have been left with no parents a
t all. How could I be responsible for you losing the only parent you had left?”

  I shook my head. It was all so unreal. To think all this went on while I was lost in a bubble of grief over my mother.

  I was the only one who truly grieved for her.

  Everyone else was running around trying to cover it up.

  “So he kept his freedom, his life, his reputation, and was absolved of all debt,” I said, angry. “And Mom. She lost everything.”

  “He’s paid a price, Rimmel. Every day, every minute, for the rest of his life.”

  “It’s not enough,” I said and pushed off the couch. I paced, completely agitated.

  “I’m not saying what he did, what any of us did back then, was right. It wasn’t. But there was no right thing. Our focus shifted to you. To making sure you had a stable, safe environment with as little change as humanly possible.”

  “But everything was changed!” I yelled. “For years I’ve been terrified of pools, of drowning. I’ve been tormented by nightmares and the memory of finding her floating facedown. I felt alone and ignored by Dad because he spent so much time working. He might have still lived with me, but he wasn’t present. I’ve lived half my life thinking what happened to Mom was a horrible accident, but it wasn’t. It could have been prevented.”

  “Rim,” Romeo said and moved across the room toward me.

  I didn’t want to be comforted. I wanted to yell and be angry.

  “When I got into Alpha U, I was secretly thrilled. I tried not to show just how happy I was, because I was afraid it would hurt Dad’s feelings. But I wanted out. I wanted away from that house, from the memories. And now I know it was my leaving that started all this up again. Maybe if I had stayed, he wouldn’t be drowning himself with liquor and gambling again.”

  “None of this is your fault,” Romeo and Gran said at the same time.

  A sob bubbled up in my chest, but I used my anger to push it down.

  “How bad has it gotten?” I asked, turning to stare out the window. Romeo stayed close, close enough that I could feel the heat off his frame, but he didn’t touch me. “How badly in debt is he?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “He’s upset with us because we told him we wouldn’t give him any more money, that we wouldn’t bail him out this time. We can’t keep making excuses for our son. We can’t keep protecting him this way.”

  “Well, he owes enough that men are following us,” Romeo said.

  “What!” Gran said and jumped to her feet.

  “They see an easy payday because I just signed with the NFL.”

  Gran was beside herself, asking questions, and I heard the sound of Romeo’s voice answering, but I stopped listening.

  I was so utterly exhausted. My mind was spinning, and the hurt I felt threatened to strangle me. After a few moments, my anger got the better of me. “Are you going to lie for Dad again when they come after me?”

  Gran gasped. “Don’t talk like that!”

  The words hurt to say, but they always say the truth hurts. My body seemed to drain all at once. I looked at Romeo and he held out his arm. I fell against his chest with a sigh.

  “I’ll call your grandfather. Sit down. We’ll work this out. No more lies.”

  “I can’t,” I whispered and pulled back. “I need to think. I need some distance.”

  Romeo wrapped his arm around me. “We’re going to get a hotel.”

  “You can stay here,” Gran offered.

  “I think it’s better if we don’t,” Romeo said, and I could have kissed him. He went and grabbed my bag from beside the couch and moved back to my side. “We’ll call when we get settled.”

  Gran’s eyes were seconds from spilling a bucket of unshed tears. I couldn’t be here when they finally spilled over.

  “Rimmel,” she called out when we opened the door.

  I turned back, and she rushed forward and wrapped me in a hug. I shut my eyes against the emotions pummeling me.

  “Everything I did was to protect you. Please remember that. I love you,” she whispered.

  I pulled away and walked outside.

  I was aware of her watching us the entire way to the car and as Romeo backed out of the driveway. When he drove far enough that the house was out of sight, he glanced at me.

  “Where to?”

  I stared out the window, barely seeing the bright sunshine or the clear blue sky.

  “Anywhere but here.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Romeo

  Rimmel now had answers.

  Probably more information than she even wanted.

  Part of me was beyond livid that my mother set all this in motion.

  And the other part of me was glad she finally knew the truth.

  I drove to a local hotel, one of the nicer ones we passed. Rimmel sat in a chair in the lobby, looking small and fragile, as I booked us a room at the front desk.

  The lady tried to hit on me. Usually, I would deftly avoid it with charm and they wouldn’t even notice I was rebuffing their attempts.

  Not today.

  For the first time ever, the attention I attracted seemed like a bother. I knew that woman saw Rimmel sitting there. We’d walked in the hotel together. I don’t know what it was about Rim (her size maybe) that made people think they could overlook her or in some way shove her aside, but it was seriously starting to burn my ass.

  When she handed me the keycard and tried to slip me her number, I snapped.

  I leaned over the counter like I was going to take it. A glint came into the woman’s eyes, and I smiled. “Put that away before you embarrass yourself,” I said low. “That girl sitting over there—you know the one who looks like she’s had better days?”

  The woman’s eyes slid to Rim and back.

  I nodded. “Yeah, her. Even on her worse day, which is not today, she would still be one hundred times more than you will ever be.”

  The woman’s blue eyes widened and her mouth dropped open slightly.

  “Careful,” I murmured and pushed off the counter. “You’re gonna catch a fly.”

  I sauntered away, and even though I’d just acted like an ass, I felt a little bit lighter. I was so angry inside that releasing even a little steam was a relief.

  No, it wasn’t that blonde’s fault, but she was the unlucky person I laid eyes on first.

  “C’mon, baby,” I said quietly when I reached Rimmel. She was resting her chin in her palm and staring down at her lap. She hadn’t even heard my exchange with the receptionist.

  I wrapped my hand around her upper arm and helped her up before grabbing our bags and reaching for her hand.

  “This place has room service. I got a menu. How about a movie, some food, and a hot shower?” I asked once we were in the elevator.

  “Replace the food with your arms and you have a deal.”

  “My arms are a given,” I said and wrapped them around her just to prove my point. Her sigh tightened me up inside for so many reasons.

  I was her soft place to fall.

  I was her strength in that moment.

  I was her comfort.

  And the sound she just made totally made me semi-hard.

  The elevator dinged, and I told my cock to take a chill pill as I led her down the quiet hallway. The carpet was dark green with flowers all over it, which I thought was terrible, but it was clean and plush so I would just overlook the pattern and color.

  Along the white-painted walls were sconces every few feet that reflected soft lighting up the walls and out into the corridor. The doors were all very dark hardwood with gold plaques in the center displaying the room numbers.

  When we reached the door, I held it open, and Rimmel stepped in before me. We entered a small sitting area, with a small kitchenette to our right. To the left were a couch, small chair, and a television sitting on a large stand. Against the far wall was a window with standard hotel drapes drawn against the sun.

  Thank God the carpet wasn’t the same in here as it
was in the hall. Instead, it was a neutral color that reminded me of sand. The walls were painted white, and the couch matched the carpet. But everywhere else around the room were pops of blue and teal, giving the room a beachy flare.

  Rimmel went over and opened up the curtains. From here, I saw the top of a palm tree swaying in the breeze.

  Near the kitchenette was the door that led into the bedroom with a king-size bed. It was done in the same colors as the sitting area, with its own flat screen facing the bed.

  The bathroom was off the bedroom, and it was nice, with wooden cabinetry, light-colored granite, a single sink, and a tiled shower with a glass door.

  “This place okay?” I asked Rim after she wandered around checking everything out.

  “You could have gone somewhere less nice,” she said. “I wouldn’t have cared.”

  I would have.

  After everything I saw and heard today, I wanted more than ever to protect and spoil her. I knew she’d never allow the spoiling, so I had to get it in while I could. And while she was too upset to call me on it.

  “I think I’m going to take a shower,” she said. “You mind?”

  I shook my head. “I’m gonna order some room service. I’m starving.”

  “‘Kay.”

  “What do you want to eat?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You’re right. Steak does sound good.”

  A ghost of a smile haunted her face. I grinned and walked to her. When she didn’t look up, I tilted her chin with the back of my hand. “When you’re ready to talk, we’ll talk.”

  “I don’t want to talk.”

  Maybe she didn’t now. But she would.

  “You heard everything I heard,” she burst out. “Talk about a screwed-up family. I don’t know how to feel. Angry or grateful!”

  “Grateful?” I echoed surprised.

  “Grateful that they shielded me from it all for as long as they did. I was so messed up for years after Mom died. I gave my virginity to someone who didn’t even like me.”

  My back teeth slammed together. Just the thought of that pervert who took advantage of her made me want to hit something.

  Her hazel eyes, which were a warm honey tone at the moment, stared up at me wide and bleak. “Can you imagine what I would have done if I’d known everything else that was going on back then?”