Hot Shot (Hot as Puck Book 2)

13. Blake

I don’t know what to say. I can’t fathom how any human can hurt another, never mind a defenseless baby. At the time the media reported about the accident…

“But she fell down the stairs…they tumbled down the stairs. It was an accident. You couldn’t have saved them.” I know that as well as I know my own name. If Bran could have stopped them, he would have.

“No. We were arguing. Then Laura woke up and Celeste went to get her. I let her. Wanted the break from the yelling and I thought…maybe she was finally feeling maternal. But I heard her. Through the baby monitor. Knew she was going to do something, could hear it in her voice. But I was at the other end of the house and by the time I got there, Laura was crumpled on the floor next to her crib…” he swallows hard, tears rolling down his face. “After, when I went over the video?—”

“Oh, Bran.”

“I scooped Laura up, knew it was bad, she was like a rag doll in my arms, and I knew I had to get her to the hospital. Fast. Celeste followed me, yelling and screaming and when I didn’t listen, she threw herself down the stairs. Begged me to take her with me, to say it was an accident and at that point I just wanted to get Laura to the hospital. She came in the car with me, kept muttering about it being an accident. We went through the motions in emergency, Celeste hysterically telling a bullshit story about falling down the stairs with the baby in her arms, and of course Celeste had the bruises and broken wrist to prove it.”

“She lied about how Laura was hurt?”

“I think she knew she was done. Whatever happened, she knew she’d gone too far. And while I was in with Laura and the doctors, she was discharged, her injuries not life threatening or warranting admission. She went home and erased all the security footage from that point until the week before.”

“But you?—”

“Yes. She didn’t know I had a backup. Everything gets stored in cloud storage as it’s filmed. All she got was the in-house copies.”

“She was never charged with?—”

“No. When the police were called because some of the tests were showing it wasn’t a simple fall, Celeste and I had already spoken. I knew she’d hurt Laura on purpose, called her on it. When she taunted me with lack of proof I told her about the cloud copies. She lost it. Was completely inconsolable and of course everyone thought she was distraught about Laura. The doctor sedated her and gave her a script for sleeping pills.”

“I thought Laura died from a brain injury from a fall. It’s what the press reported.”

“She didn’t. After Celeste’s meltdown the police decided to wait before questioning either of us further because the doctors were already talking about Laura’s lack of brain activity. When Celeste woke, I made it clear I would use the tapes, would tell the police she deliberately hurt Laura, and she left. I had no idea she’d taken the bottle of sleeping pills with her or that she’d gone straight to the house and swallowed them with two bottles of alcohol. I found her after—” a sob cuts his words off.

“She committed suicide.” The devastation Bran must have felt.

“She took the easy way out.”

“I don’t think it would have been easy.”

Bran’s laugh is laced with disgust. “Oh, she thought it would be easy. Said as much in the letter she left me. The one explaining everything from our first night together to our last when she wanted to take away the one thing I loved. Laura.”

“She must have been depressed or?—”

“Celeste was completely cognizant every step of the way. She knew what she was doing, what her actions could cause. She made my life hell to get what she wanted and for the most part she succeeded. Until the last night when she came home after her failed hookup with Carl.”

“How did you know they’d hooked up before?”

“He told me. At training. Before Laura was born. And after everything had happened, he told me about meeting up with Celeste. Made it out like she came on to him that last time but he couldn’t give an explanation as to why he was at the hotel they met at.”

“The Knights traded him around the time…” I can’t bring myself to say Laura died.

“No. He asked for the trade. Gerald Cantrell agreed it would be a good idea. It was one of the last things he did for me before he died. The other was releasing me from my contract without penalty and refusing to bring charges against me for assault when I decked a couple of the training staff and coaches at my last game.”

“And then you came here.”

“No. Not right away. I locked myself in the house for a couple of months first. Ignored everyone. Gannon Byrd turned up on my doorstep one day, got in somehow. He handed me a key and an address and told me if I wanted to get lost, I should do it for real.” His gaze moves over the yard. “He knew what he was talking about. This is the perfect place to get lost.”

“Except you’re not lost, you know exactly where you are. You’re hiding and you have every right to do so. Bran.” I slip a hand over his, where it rests on my shoulder. “You need to come out of hiding now. You need to reclaim your life. No one expects you to forget Laura but you also shouldn’t forget yourself. You deserve to find peace, find happiness again.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible.”

“Of course it is. And no one can or would expect you to be happy all the time.”

“I need help. I don’t think I can do it on my own. No, I know I can’t do it on my own.” He waves his other hand around us. “Look where doing it myself has gotten me.”

“I think you did fine. There’s no timeline for grief and you have more than that to work through.” I’m not sure if I should bring it up now, but Mom’s words play in my head and even if I can’t get him to agree to it right this minute, I can float the idea, get him used to it. “I think you should see someone trained in grief counseling.”

“I don’t?—”

“Not now, when you’re ready. One thing at a time. You’ve told me what happened, why you married Celeste after you told me we should wait and as much as I hate that, hate that you made us wait then went and tied yourself to someone else, I understand it. I would have supported it.”

“No, Blake, no. You can’t think the way I dealt with Celeste and the baby was right.”

“I can. You’re a very instinctual person, Bran, if you felt marrying her was the only option then it was. She would have gone through with her threat, I have no doubt about that.”

“Manipulation and threats were her standard. In many ways she used them to isolate me and keep me prisoner to her whims. She’s the reason I stopped answering your calls, ignored your family, my friends.”

“You’re not her captive anymore. But you can’t just shake it off. It’s unreal of you or anyone else to expect you to return to normal now that she’s out of your life.”

“I didn’t claim her.”

“What? You married her.”

“No, not that. Her body. I donated Celeste’s body to research. There was no memorial, no burial, no grave.”

“She didn’t deserve one. You gave those things to Laura. You might not remember most of it but I do, my family—your family—and friends do. We were all there. Watching you break that day and knowing you wouldn’t let any of us help was the worst day of my life.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No.” I place my hand over his mouth. “No more sorries. No need to apologize anymore. I won’t accept them after this.”

“I need to apologize, to tell you how much I regret?—”

“Show me.”

“Show you?”

“Yes. Show me! Stop hiding here. Stop keeping everything inside. Stop thinking you have to carry this burden alone. What happened to Laura was not your fault. You are not to blame for Laura getting hurt, for having to make the tough decision and tell the doctors to turn the machines off. That is not on your shoulders.”

“But—”

“No. Not your fault.”

“I don’t think I can do it.”

“You can. You will.”

“But what if I can’t?”

“I’ll be here to help. I can’t do it for you, but I can hold your hand or listen when you need to talk or whatever it is you need to come back from this place you’ve put yourself. This isn’t how your life should be. It’s not what you deserve. I’ll fight for you, Bran, but you have to fight for you too.”

“I can’t ask you to?—”

“You’re not asking! I’m offering, but you have to want my help. You have to want what I’m helping you go after. I can put everything I have into it and get nowhere if you’re not fighting for it too.”

“I don’t know what I want.”

I can tell he does. He’s too fearful to reach for it yet. “You do, deep down you do.”

“What if what I want is impossible?”

“You won’t know until you try. When we were young, there were days when Dad worked us until our legs were jelly and we thought we’d never be good enough, never be tough enough, to make it to a professional level, but we did. We did it because we wanted it and we worked hard for it. Getting your life back isn’t going to be easy and I have no doubt there will be days where you’ll think you don’t have it in you, but I can guarantee you do, I know you, and when you need a little bit more steam to keep going, I’ll be there to share mine.”

“I can’t ask that of you. Not after everything. Except I’m going to. Because, Blake, as much as I don’t think I deserve your support, I don’t think I can come back from this without you.”

“Good thing you won’t have to.”

“And if I want to get us back on the path we were on before I let Celeste detour us?”

“One day at a time. Let’s get you out of your hidey-hole and back to life, then we’ll revisit that question.”

“That’s not a no.”

“It’s not. But it’s not a yes either, Bran. So much has happened and I’m not ready to make a decision about what type of friendship we’ll have going forward. For now, I’m an old friend with a new offer.”

“And I get this week here with you before we venture out into the world.”

“Well, not the world exactly. At the end of this week, we’re doing something you need to do first. We’re going home.”