The Publicity Stunt

23. Chapter Twenty-Two

Bri appeared at her first concert for the last leg of the tour in January after everything that happened with the hopes performing would help distract her. She starts in Cincinnati, then she files to Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis, and ends in Denver. As much as she wishes it would help her move on a little, it just makes everything worse.

Her band knew better to ask how she was holding up, and they quickly learned the new songs she wrote during the break. During sound check, they stayed patient with her when she broke down. Considering the statement Nia released in December, it seemed fitting to play these songs to let the world know how much pain she feels knowing what she lost. That it wasn”t fake for her.

Her makeup team also had a lot of work to do. She hasn”t been able to sleep, and she knows how pale and sickly she looks. Tessa forced her to eat to make sure she didn”t pass out on stage, but everything other than writing music seemed to take so much more energy than it should have. Like she had no strength to do anything but pour her heart into lyrics and chords.

Every time she thought about breaking down and calling Kace, she played Rudy”s interview instead. She”s watched it so many times she doesn”t even need the sound to know every word that either Rudy or the interviewer says. They”re burned into her brain and her heart.

The crowd cheered for the new song, and they even chanted horrible things about Kace. Even though she knows she shouldn”t, and it”s her fans’ right to do what they want, she stopped the show to ask everyone to be kind. Then she had to go back to performing as though her heart hadn”t been ripped from her chest and hung up in the town square as a spectacle weeks before.

After the first show in Cincinnati, she walks backstage and takes a few deep breaths while leaning on a brick wall. Normally, the energy from the show invigorates her and has her on a high for hours, but all she wants to do is crawl into her bed and sleep. If she doesn”t snap out of it soon, she”ll have to schedule an appointment with the therapist she saw shortly after she cut ties with her family.

Heavy footsteps catch her attention, and Bri looks up to see Brett and Rudy when she”d secretly hoped to see Kace. For swift hockey players, they walk like horses clomping in a hallway.

The moment her eyes land on Rudy, all she sees is the interview where he told the entire world her relationship was fake. That Kace had been sleeping with many other women the entire time she was falling in love. Turning her head, she shouts, ”Bobby! Bobby, I need you!”

”We just want to talk,” Rudy says and holds his hands up. ”Please?”

He stands in front of her wearing an expensive pair of jeans and a button up blue shirt. Brett stands next to him in ripped jeans and a long-sleeve t-shirt that shows off his arm muscles.

”I don”t want to talk to you,” she says and looks at Brett. ”Either of you.”

She turns to leave, and Rudy grabs her arm, turning her to face him. ”Please, I”m begging you.”

Her eyes look at his arm, and she has no energy to fight back the tears spilling onto her cheeks as she pulls her arm from his grasp. ”What did I ever do to you? What horrible thing did I do that warranted that level of humiliation?”

”I”m sorry.”

”I”ve been going over everything in my mind, and I may not have been the kindest to you and Sasha, but I don”t think the punishment you doled out fit the crime. It was cruel.”

Bobby runs up with the rest of her security team. ”Back away!”

”We just want to talk to her,” Brett says. ”We”ll only be a minute. Please, I”ll get on my knees and beg you if you need me to.”

Bobby”s hands rest on her shoulders like a protective big brother. ”How the hell did you even get back here? You”re on the no contact list right next to your friend.”

”We play here from time to time. We know people,” Brett says. ”Bri, please?”

Both Brett and Rudy get down on their knees and fold their hands as if praying, and Bobby sighs. ”If you don”t want to talk to them, we”ll throw them out. But if you want to give them a chance since they look like they”re on the verge of crying, we”ll stand right over there. Watching.”

”Why not, I guess,” Bri says and sighs as she wipes her tears. ”What could you possibly have to say to me?”

”I”ll be right here. Watching and listening. And Rudy Marshall, I know exactly who you are. Give me a reason, just one, and I”ll break something. Something painful,” Bobby says.

Bri smirks and looks at the ground. Bobby and his threats. ”Are you here to twist the knife a little more? Or would you like some more information to take to the media? What do you want to know? If I climbed into bed with him? How old I was when I lost my virginity? Why my parents and I haven”t spoken without lawyers for the past three years? At this point, I don”t know you could do much more damage to my mental health, so just tell me what you want to know.”

”That”s not what I”m here. I... I wanted to explain,” Rudy says as he and Brett move from their knees to stand in front of her again.

”What”s there to explain? I started a fake relationship with a guy and was stupid enough to fall in love. He was hurt and betrayed by you, and he wanted to stick it to his ex. He got what he wanted. A woman who looked good on his arm, brought the attention he wanted, and someone to fall into his bed willingly. Along with multiple other women.”

Brett”s eyes widen. ”You slept with him?”

Her stomach churns. Maybe she said too much. ”I”m surprised he didn”t give you that little detail. But there you go, you got something to share to embarrass me more. For the record, he has quite a few lines he could teach you to get the women swooning. If they worked on someone as untrusting as me, it has to be easy for... what did you call them? Puck bunnies?”

”Hey! You got the term right... not the point. Sorry.” Brett says. ”He wouldn”t have told us that, and he”s certainly not saying anything now because he”s not talking to either of us. Not that he really talked to Rudy before, but he”s done with us.”

”I”m sure he”ll come around. You”ve all been friends forever.”

Rudy shakes his head. ”No, he won”t. Listen, this whole mess started from a big misunderstanding.”

”What kind of misunderstanding?” Hope fills her momentarily before the cynical, jaded version kicks in and reminds her just who they”re talking about. Kace Lyons, master manipulator and sex god.

”I was dating this girl named Amanda. She dumped me over a year and a half ago, and her reason was because she cheated on me with my teammate and best friend, Kace.”

Kace slept with Rudy”s girlfriend? ”So, he cheated on Sasha before he was publicly dating me and sleeping with other women?”

”He didn”t. That”s the thing.”

Sniffling, she leans against the wall again. ”I”m confused. I”m not getting much sleep these days, so forgive me. What the hell are you talking about?”

”Amanda told me she slept with Kace, but she never did. They both disappeared from the same party that night, and I thought it was right because it made sense. Turns out, he never even met her.”

Brett nods. ”He left because another chick, Tiffany, did a keg stand and puked all over Kace. He left because, well, he was covered in vomit.”

”That”s gross. Really gross. I still don”t understand the point of telling me this.”

”Because I thought he cheated. That’s what Amanda told me, and it all seemed to fit. That”s why I went after Sasha. I told her about Amanda, and she fell into bed with me. We kept it from him for a while until she said she found a ring in his place, and she was pretty sure he planned to propose. She wanted to get back at him, and that”s when we decided to tell him.”

Tessa walks out into the hallway. ”There you are! Wait, what the hell is this?”

”They”re giving me a really long story, and I don”t really understand any of it, or why they”re telling me,” Bri says.

”I”m surprised Bobby left this asshole standing,” Tessa says, looking from Bobby to Rudy. ”Although, I think Brett deserves just as bad of a beating.”

”He”s standing and waiting. He promised not to break Kace”s knees, but I don”t think I owe either of these two anything,” Bri says.

Tessa points to Brett. ”By the way, you”re just as big of an ass as this douchebag right here.”

”Do I know you?”

Rolling her eyes, she crosses her arms over her chest. ”Yeah, you”re definitely an ass.”

”Oh! You”re Bri”s best friend. The hot blonde that came with her to the first game. Wore my team”s jersey in the Bootlegger”s box. Wait, aren”t you dating our trainer?”

Her jaw clenches, and Bri grabs her, pulling her back. ”Bobby, can you bring her to the dressing room to wait for me?”

Bobby grabs Tessa and throws her over his shoulder. ”Got it.”

”If you need me, holler. I would really love to claw someone”s eyes out.”

Bri sighs and leans back against the wall. ”You are the king of saying all the wrong things, aren”t you? Your trainer, Trevor, dumped her for another girl. It”s a whole thing, so thank you for picking at that wound. We”ll do really well feeding off each other”s heartbroken energy tonight. I”m glad we just replaced the tequila.”

”Sorry.”

”Back to Sasha... what does this have to do with anything?”

Rudy nods. ”The only reason I did that was because I thought he cheated with Amanda. And then you and he were getting all this attention, and I thought he didn”t deserve it. It made me angry, and I wanted to hurt him.”

”I”m still confused,” she says and waves a hand in the air. ”When did you find out he didn”t sleep with Amanda?”

”The night the interview was released when he came to kill me for it. We called her when it finally came to light why we had such an issue.”

Tilting her head, she crosses her arms under her chest. ”Why didn”t you just confront him when she told you she slept with him? Besides the fact you”re friends, you”re also teammates. Why opt for plotting revenge for a couple of years only to be wrong?”

”She”s got a point,” Brett says. ”I didn”t even know why he had such an issue with Kace.”

”You know, you”re right. It would have been better to do that. I don”t know if I would”ve believed him at the time, but I should”ve talked to him.”

Blinking, she stares at him. There must be a point somewhere, but she isn”t sure what it is. All she wants to do is shower, go to the hotel, and curl up in her bed and cry, so she really needs him to move this along.

”Brett and I were out celebrating one night after Kace ditched him again to spend time with you. He”s normally the one who reminds us to keep the drinking under control, so we got tipsy. I started talking about your relationship, and that”s when Brett let it slip about the arrangement.”

Her eyes lock with Brett”s. ”I was drunk. There”s no other excuse, Bri.”

”You saw us together. You really thought we were that good at acting?”

”I mean, I knew you two were attracted to each other, but I didn”t know for sure it moved beyond that. He was still hung up on Sasha the last time we had talked, and you”d had that whole thing with Erectile Dysfunction.”

Bri glances at the ground and hides her smile at the affectionate nickname more people have adopted for Easton thanks to Tessa. ”He never told you the relationship was real. That answers that question. He would”ve told you if he felt it was more than how it started. Not so much you,” she says and looks at Rudy, ”but it was just a game to him.”

”That”s not true,” Rudy says. ”About the game part. He totally wouldn”t have told me shit. For good reason, it seems, now. It was real, and I could tell. Which, I guess, is why I wanted to hurt him. We were getting along better on the ice, and it didn”t feel like he hated me anymore. The only reason he”d do that was if he”d moved on with someone else. With you. And it didn”t seem fair he was moving on with someone so great who everyone in the world loves. Like he was rewarded for doing something terrible that I believed he did.”

”Or, it could have been the numerous women he was bedding when I wasn”t around,” she suggests.

He shakes his head. ”I made that up. That was a total lie.”

”It sounds like you do a lot of that. Why the hell would I believe anything you have to say?”

”Because he loves you.”

If their goal was to hurt her, they succeeded and found her trigger. ”He never told me that, so nice try.”

”It”s true,” Brett says. ”What Rudy did was wrong, but he”s telling the truth.”

”So, let me get this straight. Kace, who hasn”t wanted a thing to do with you since he found out you were sleeping with his girlfriend for six months that he was going to propose to, told you he loves me?” Bri says to Rudy before turning and pointing to Brett. ”And he never told you, who he considered his best friend, that what we had wasn”t fake after telling you about the arrangement from the beginning? You understand why none of this sounds truthful, right?”

”Remember when I told you she has a great memory? It”s this type of memory and logic that gets us in trouble. Even though we”re telling the truth, it sounds like we”re lying,” Brett says.

Rudy shakes his head. ”No, he told us when he came to kill me. Punched me in the face, and if Brett wasn”t there to stop him, he probably would have put me in the ground for how I hurt you. We found out about Amanda, and I have never felt more terrible about anything in my life. He was angrier than I”ve ever seen him, and he hates us now. We hurt you, and we cost him everything.”

”What exactly has it cost him?” Bri asks.

Brett gives her a sad smile. ”Besides you? Who he does love, by the way, he also got benched until this week because of the bad publicity from your fans. Turns out, they fucking love you. And they more than hate him. He”s starting again tomorrow, but his heart isn”t in it.”

”We went to see him and his father over Christmas, and he said he”d give up ever making it to the NHL if it meant it would take away your pain. It”s been our dream since he was twelve, but his dream changed when he met you. He also admitted he”d been planning on trying to make amends with me because he fell for you and didn”t give a shit about Sasha anymore. But he”s done with me completely now. And he”s also done with Brett.”

”His father yelled at us. Ripped us a new one,” Brett says. ”That was kind of scary, actually.”

Bri didn”t know Kace had been benched because of the scandal. But knowing he doesn”t want to be friends with Brett anymore sounds like he may actually care about her. Assuming any of this is actually true.

”What is it you want from me?” Bri asks. ”I legitimately have nothing left to give anyone.”

”Talk to him. Listen to him, and he”ll tell you the same things we told you,” Brett says. ”He”s miserable, Bri. Completely defeated.”

Her heart wants to believe them so badly, but it all sounds so farfetched. ”Anything else you need to get off your chests?”

”Yeah,” Rudy says. ”I”m so sorry. It was stupid of me to not think about how my words would also affect you. Everything you”ve ever said to me or to Sasha was valid and much nicer than we deserve. I would do whatever I could to take it back, I really would. I never intended to hurt you, but I know that doesn”t take anything away. I just need you to know I didn”t seek out to do that.”

”He”s just really stupid,” Brett says.

”I appreciate your apology. The tour takes a lot out of me, and I really need to take a shower and head to sleep.”

”Will you call him? Or at least think about calling him?” Brett asks and gets back down on his knees. ”Please, Bri, I”m on my knees again. I”m begging.”

Looking at the ground, she shakes her head. ”I don”t think there”s any way to come back from this. Part of me wants to believe you because I don”t remember being happier than I was when I was with Kace. And his family was so warm and welcoming. The rational part of me, the pragmatic part I”ve had to learn to utilize after so many terrible situations, tells me this is just what happens when I trust people. There”s a reason I don”t let people in and can”t trust anyone. It”s the perfect example to remind me of this fact that he”d so easily made me forget.”

”Bri-”

”Goodbye.”

Turning, Bri hurries to her dressing room and looks around for Tessa. She doesn”t see either her best friend or her head of security. Probably for the best, as she hurries into the bathroom and turns on the shower. Climbing in, she doesn”t wait for the hot water, and she doesn”t bother to change out of her last outfit before sinking to the floor and sobbing.

”Why won”t this pain just go away? I just want it to go away,” she cries and lets the water wash over her.