Chapter 21 Vince
Vince
The service corridor smells like industrial cleaner and the faint sweetness of abandoned pastries.
I find Adrian exactly where I expected him to be, clipboard in hand, cross-referencing inventory against his checklist, completely absorbed in the kind of methodical work that lets him pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist.
He doesn’t look up when I approach him. He just keeps marking boxes on his list, pen moving in quick, efficient strokes. His shoulders carry the same tension they’ve held since Ayaka’s revelation three hours ago, rigid like he’s bracing for impact.
“Adrian.” My voice echoes off the concrete walls. “What Ayaka said about the commission work…why would she say something like that?”
The pen stops moving. He doesn’t lift his head, but I catch the slight tightening around his eyes, the way his grip shifts on the clipboard. “She probably just remembered wrong. It was a long time ago.”
“No.” I step closer, and now he has to acknowledge me. “She was specific. She mentioned you commissioning something for the scout.”
Finally, he looks up. The careful neutrality on his face doesn’t quite mask the conflict underneath, like he’s fighting a war I can’t see. “Vince, just leave it alone.”
“What were you really doing at that hotel, Adrian?”
Adrian’s shoulders drop almost imperceptibly, and the wall he’s been keeping between us thins.
I watch him arrive at some internal decision, one that doesn’t seem to bring him any relief.
He sets the clipboard down on a stack of linens and runs both hands through his hair, a gesture I remember from high school when he was trying to work through a particularly difficult piece.
“I was at the game,” he starts, voice steady despite the tension in his shoulders. “The one where you punched your teammate at the sidelines. I watched you fall apart out there, watched the scouts leave early. I knew you’d lost everything because of that fight.”
He pauses, gathering himself before continuing.
“There was this woman sitting near me in the stands, part of some alumni group. When the scouts started leaving, she was talking to her friends about this scout, Mitchell, from Golden State University. She mentioned how she and her husband had coffee with him earlier that week when he came to town. She kept going on about what a shame it was that our players weren’t at their best that day, especially you. ”
I watch him carefully as he continues.
“Then she started talking about how Mitchell collected local artwork, how he had this passion for commissioning pieces for his home in Orange County. She even mentioned he was staying at the Marriott for an extra night before flying back.”
My stomach tightens as the pieces start falling into place.
“I thought if I could get to him, if I could approach him about commissioning something, it would give me a chance to talk about giving you another opportunity.” Adrian’s voice grows quieter.
“The woman made it sound like he genuinely appreciated art, and I thought my portfolio might be the key to opening a door that had been slammed shut.”
I struggle to breathe. “You were trying to help me?”
“I thought it might make a difference. You deserved every opportunity.” His voice softens just enough to let something real slip through. “We were friends.”
The word friends hits like a punch to the chest. Because even now, even after everything, he’s protecting me from the truth of what we were, what we might have been.
He stares at me for a long moment, and I see the exact second he decides to stop protecting me. The careful mask falls away, leaving something raw and tired in its place.
“I’ve never told anyone the whole story, not even my parents.
” He leans back against the wall, suddenly looking exhausted.
“I called the hotel that day after the game. I told the front desk I was a local artist interested in discussing a commission with Mr. Mitchell before he left town. They connected me to his room, and when I explained that I’d heard about his interest in the local art scene, he seemed intrigued.
He said he had some time the next evening before his flight. ”
Adrian’s hands shake slightly as he continues. “I spent all day preparing my portfolio. Some of my best pieces from senior year. Sketches, paintings, work I was proud of.”
He takes a shaky breath.
“I got there and spread out my portfolio on the desk by the window. I started walking him through my pieces, explaining my process, and what I could envision for his space. He nodded along, asked the right questions about technique and vision. When we started talking about compensation, I plainly brought you up, thinking I might as well get straight to the point. I talked about how much raw talent you had, and how that one game didn’t represent who you really were as a player. ”
His jaw tightens. “That’s when everything shifted.
He closed the portfolio without looking at the last few pieces, studying me like I was something he was considering purchasing.
He said he knew your father from way back, that he was well aware of your talent and potential.
But he couldn’t be seen recruiting some hothead who couldn’t control himself.
Then he brought up the ‘rumors’ about you hitting another player over a guy.
And that’s when he put it together. That guy was me. ”
The words hit me like a cold wave. I can see eighteen-year-old Adrian in that sterile hotel room, realizing too late that he’d walked into something he couldn’t control.
“He made it clear the artwork was secondary. I have talent, yes. But he said there were other ways people in my position could demonstrate their commitment to someone’s career. He said that coaches appreciated loyalty, especially the kind that showed real sacrifice.”
Adrian’s breathing becomes shallow. “When I told him I didn’t understand, he spelled it out.
He said boys like me, who cared that much about their boyfriends’ success, usually found creative ways to show their appreciation.
That if I really wanted to secure your future, I’d prove just how far I was willing to go. ”
Something clenches in my chest, not just at what Mitchell suggested, but at the realization of how calculated it all was, how Adrian’s earnest hope had been twisted into something predatory.
“I felt like the walls were closing in. All that confidence I’d walked in with, thinking I was some promising artist who could somehow help your scholarship situation, it just crumbled.
I was just some stupid kid who’d stumbled into a trap.
” His voice cracks. “When I tried to leave, he grabbed my arm, said we weren’t finished talking yet.
I had to pull away hard enough that my portfolio scattered across the floor.
I scrambled to gather everything while he stood there watching, like he was enjoying seeing me on my hands and knees. ”
I feel like I am about to throw up.
Adrian’s hands shake as he touches his upper arm unconsciously. “I finally got out of there. Walking out of that corridor, I knew I hadn’t just failed to help you. I’d probably made everything so much worse.”
He pauses, his breathing unsteady.
“Were you there?” he asks quietly. “Did you see me?”
I nod once, the memory bitter, the guilt sits heavy in my chest. “My father brought me there.”
His eyes land on mine, sighing. “I know what you must have seen then. I looked like I’d done something shameful because I felt shameful.
I’d brought it on myself by being so arrogant, thinking I could waltz in there and change anything with a few paintings.
I should have known better.” His voice drops to barely above a whisper.
“The timing of it all…you being there right when I came stumbling out. It felt like someone knew exactly when to bring you by.”
A chill runs through me as the threads start weaving together in ways I don’t want to examine too closely. My father’s insistence on that meeting, and the perfect timing of my arrival at the hotel corridor. It all feels less like a coincidence and more like deliberate orchestration.
Raw pain flickers across his features. “From that day forward, I swore nobody would ever put me in that kind of situation again.”
His words settle heavily between us. I find myself understanding things about Adrian I never wanted to piece together. The way he carried himself during our bachelor party weekend, the control he maintained even in situations that seemed chaotic. It all takes on a different meaning now.
The corridor tilts around me. The fluorescent lights buzz overhead, casting everything in harsh, sickly shadows.
Adrian stands there, shoulders shaking slightly, and I see him as if for the first time.
He’s not the person I thought I knew, not the betrayer from my nightmares, but just a kid who’d walked into hell trying to help.
“You couldn’t tell me.” The words come out rough, scraped raw. “Because you knew what I’d do.”
Adrian’s hands tremble as he grips the clipboard. His knuckles are white, and when he speaks, his voice cracks. “You would have gone after him. You would have destroyed everything you’d worked for, everything your father wanted for you. Your dreams. I couldn’t let that happen.”
The exhaustion in his voice tells me how long he’s been carrying this. Ten years of keeping this poison locked inside, protecting me from a truth that would have sent eighteen-year-old me into a blind rage.
He’s right. At eighteen, I would have found Mitchell and beaten him senseless. I would have torn apart anyone who tried to stop me. I would have burned down the entire system that allowed predators like him to exist.
The thought still makes my hands shake with the need for violence.
“What happened to your art after that?” The question comes out before I can stop it. I know if there’s one thing that would be affected by all this, it would be what he does best.
Something flickers across his face, a vulnerability he can’t quite hide.
“I shifted into different mediums after high school graduation. More commercial work. Abstract installations during college and beyond.” His voice takes on a careful neutrality.
“I excelled in other areas, found success in spaces that didn’t require the same kind of personal investment.
But the work I was passionate about, the portraits, the human studies…
I may have tried to revive it over the years to come up with some pieces for the gallery exhibit, but that part of me just barely functions. ”
“Why?”
“Because that required something I don’t have anymore.” His voice carries a quiet surrender. “When your inspiration comes from connection, from understanding people on a deeper level, and that ability gets taken from you, the work changes.”
The emptiness in how he says it makes it worse, like he’s accepted that the best part of his artistic soul died that night in the hotel and with me leaving him, and he’s made peace with the trade.
“I’m going after Mitchell.” The words come out before I can think them through.
Adrian’s head snaps up, eyes wide with something that looks like panic. “No.”
“He’s a predator. He hurt you. He’s probably hurt others.”
“It was ten years ago. He didn’t actually…it didn’t go that far. I couldn’t produce evidence anyway. And there are people who won’t want this stirred up.”
The warning sends a chill through me. “You mean my father.”
Adrian doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t need to.
“He orchestrated this whole thing, didn’t he?”
Adrian remains silent until he says weakly, “I don’t know.”
The corridor feels like it’s closing in around me. Ten years of living with my father’s version of events, of carrying the anger he wanted me to carry. Ten years of hating Adrian because that hatred served Victor Holloway’s purpose perfectly.
Ten years of being molded into exactly the son my father needed me to be.
“I have to get back to work,” Adrian says, picking up his clipboard with shaking hands. “And you need to let this go. Some wounds are better left buried.”
“Adrian, wait.”
But he’s already walking away, leaving me alone with the echo of his footsteps and the crushing certainty that my father’s web of control extends into places I never thought to look.