8. Miles
8
MILES
HOOPSNEWS UPDATE: GARRETT RELEASED FROM HOSPITAL AFTER ALL-STAR GAME AMIDST RUMORED DRUG USE
“ I promise I’m not lying in a ditch, Grams,” I insist over the phone. “I’m fine. Good as new.”
“But HoopsNews said?—”
“Don’t listen to that crap. I’ll come visit tonight. We’ll play Monopoly and you can finally sell me Indiana Avenue.”
She chuckles, and for a moment, it’s as if she’s here at the practice facility with me. “I’m grateful Brooke was with you.”
My chest twinges. “Me too.”
I’m thinking back to that night. Too much of it is hazy, and my regret deepens.
“Miles. Doctor’s here to see you,” one of the trainers says from the doorway of the locker room.
“I heard that,” Grams says over the line.
“Abundance of caution and all that. I’m healthy as ever. Promise.” I say goodbye and click off.
I go to review my reports with the doctor and one of the assistant trainers—a fit guy named Josh I haven’t worked with much before—and do some physical tests.
“This really necessary?” I grunt as I lift progressive weights while Josh watches and the doctor makes notes on his tablet.
“Unfortunately.” He grimaces. “I get it. When I was injured at division finals for high school, it felt like all I did were tests.”
“Yeah? How’d that work out?”
“You tell me.” He shakes his head. “You’re the one playing ball on an NBA team’s payroll and I’m the one helping you rehab.”
“Fair enough. But I wasn’t injured,” I remind him.
“Your body was. Just because you didn’t tear a muscle or strain a joint doesn’t mean otherwise.”
His rebuke has me groaning internally.
When I’m done, I head to the weight room. We don’t officially have practice for another few days, but Rookie’s there, plus Clay and Jay.
“There he is,” Atlas crows.
“Never had a chance to properly congratulate you,” Rookie adds.
“If you wanted to hang out at some billionaire’s penthouse, there was an easier way.”
We exchange fist bumps, and I take up a spot by the leg press, ready to work in when Atlas finishes.
“Are you going to tell us what happened?” Atlas asks.
“Someone hit my drink with ketamine.”
Whistles and groans go up.
“That happened to a friend of mine in college,” Rookie says. “It was a prank.”
As a guy who pulls more than my share of those, I can see it happening. It’s probably what happened to me.
“Made for a pretty good night, actually,” Rookie goes on.
“I’m telling you guys. I didn’t sign up for that.”
That’s what I didn’t want—for my teammates to think I did it on purpose.
“You know me, right?” I look around the room to grudging nods.
Relieved, I shift into the rig and lower the plates.
Fuck, this is hard. Am I weaker?
“So, getting your drink spiked is what you blame this on?” Atlas holds up his phone with a video of me dancing in the club.
I’m sweating but find a grin as his joke slices through what’s left of the tension. “Those are some serious dance moves.”
“Seriously weak.”
I finish the rep, plus two more.
“So is Hawkins nicer in person?” Rookie asks as I step out so Atlas can swap in.
“Nah, he’s even more of a prick,” I say.
“Did you see what he said on social?” Damon pulls up a clip from what looks like a podcast interview with Hawkins.
“Garrett was definitely partying hard. But cut him slack—it’s his first time, and he doesn’t know any better.”
I’m starting to see why Jay has it in for this guy.
“We need to bury him and Boston,” Jay decides.
I turn to Jay and Clay. “Brooke said you were at the hospital. Thanks for being there.”
Jay nods. “Brooke was stuck to your side the entire time. I haven’t seen her that stressed since school.”
“I didn’t mean to worry her.”
His eyes cloud. “If you make my sister cry, I don’t care that we need your shooting to get to the playoffs. You’re going to be begging to feel as bad as you did in that hospital bed.”
He crosses the room to another machine, and I rub both hands over my face.
I want to tell him there’s nothing I want more than keeping Brooke happy.
Speaking of which, Valentine’s Day is this weekend, and I’ve been trying to think of what to do for her. It has to be special, but I’ve discarded each idea that’s come up so far.
“What did you do for Nova your first Valentine’s Day?” I ask Clay.
“You seriously asking me for what to get your girl.”
“It’s inspiration, not imitation,” I promise.
Still, my teammate flushes under his tattoos. “Top secret.”
Fine. Whatever.
“It’s just that I’ve known her for years, you know? Since we started hanging out, I bought her a phone. A few, actually. Clothes. But nothing seems like enough. I want to do something special.” I’m thinking of the hot air balloon ride we took on the morning of her sorority retreat.
“But there’s no one who likes clothes more than Brooke,” Rookie points out.
A lightbulb goes off. “You’re right.”
brOOKE
“Does your face hurt yet? From all the smiling?”
My mom cuts me a look. “First-time politicians think you have to get voters to fall in love with you. You don’t.”
“You mean you don’t have to outrun a bear—you just have to be faster than the other guys?”
A gust of wind blows across the path in front of us, and she wraps her scarf more tightly around her.
Mom is the one who got me started hiking. When I was young, she had precious little free time. Now, she has less, but it still feels like being with her out here is better than being cooped up in some office. The natural environment takes the edge off.
“It’s about time you came to me,” she says, keeping up with me easily.
“I’ve been busy.”
We got back to Denver yesterday, and I’m committed to making a decision about Chloe’s job offer. But, all the chaos with Miles these past few days has meant I haven’t had a second to think about it.
“With that Vivaro company?”
“I’m not working for them.” I fill her in on their investigation.
“You did the right thing,” she says, surprising me. “If only you’d put as much effort into your own business you did into the campaigns you used to help with.”
“I guess I liked helping you more than myself.”
I take a breath and refocus what I wanted to talk to her about.
I debated how much I should confide in her. But my mom’s an expert at dealing with all sorts of crises. Despite having an entire team around her, she’s a one-woman Olivia Pope and Associates.
“He had ketamine in his system.”
She pulls up and turns toward me, her styled brows drawing together. “He should know better than?—”
“He does,” I insist.
Miles wouldn’t take a party drug, not even at all-star weekend when he had a few days off to unwind.
Someone slipped it into his drink.
“You think it was an accident,” she reads.
“What else?”
It could have been anyone—a fan, another clubgoer? A party drug intended for someone else?
Probably. But the worst part is not knowing.
Harrison King reviewed the security footage himself and couldn’t find any evidence.
It’s strange and probably a fluke, but it’s frustrating anyway.
She considers. “Miles Garrett might have millions of fans but his stock is about to tumble. You should distance yourself.”
“It wasn’t his fault,” I say sharply as she starts to continue along the trail. “He’s not someone you can look down on, Mom. We’re dating.”
She flinches. “Being caught up in a public fight is bad for business. Toppling like a giant redwood in the middle of a nightclub and getting wheeled into an ambulance is worse.”
Her words are tossed over her shoulder, carried away on the wind as she starts back along the trail with a grimace.
I stomp after her. “You’d rather I was dating your favorite donor’s son, wouldn’t you?” My frustration escapes in cold puffs of breath. “You care more about your political wins than about my happiness.”
“No, dearest. Men like Kevin can be controlled. You find out what motivates them, and you use it.”
She makes it sound simple. As if every curveball life throws at her is manageable if only she’s smart and careful.
Resentment builds up in my chest. “I need to tell you something,” I start. “Back in college, the drugs my sorority sister found in my room were Kevin’s. They weren’t mine. He wanted me to go down for it, was going to let me do it.”
She pulls up ahead of me. The expression on her face is tired and a little irritated. “I know.”
My mouth falls open. “You knew this the entire time? And yet you still wanted me to date him?”
She shakes her head. “His family has a deal in the works that would make them even more powerful. With power comes responsibility.”
“That’s a Spider-Man quote, Mom.”
Her sigh echoes off the trees. “Do you know how I met his parents?” I’m not sure how it matters, but she’s already continuing. “His family’s law firm has been operating for generations. His brother was a board member on a cause I supported. He was implicated in some abuse-of-funds charges. He used to be a partner in the firm. They cut him out and all but disowned him. Quietly, of course, privately. He died by suicide a few years later.”
I feel a pang of grief. Kevin had mentioned his brother’s death to me but never wanted to talk about it.
“Well, nothing happened to him after he tried to frame me in school. There were zero consequences.”
“I wouldn’t be quick to assume that,” she says.
What consequences could there have been? I suppose we were broken up at the time, but whatever punishment Kevin suffered or didn’t is none of my concern. There are bigger issues than whether he got his wrist slapped.
“In any case, the campaign has been working overtime to distance us from your ‘boyfriend’ and his incident,” Mom says.
“I’m sorry we’re costing you money.”
“It’s not the money. I’m concerned.”
Mom never says she’s worried because worrying sounds as though you’re out of control.
But she’s scared. She doesn’t know how to manage this.
As much as I want to tell her off, I can’t bring myself to do it.
I take a breath. “It was an accident. Miles wasn’t doing drugs. None of our friends do. You can sleep at night.”
We walk in silence for a few minutes.
“The campaign is having a dinner next week.” Her words tilting up at the end. It’s her good cop voice, not her bad cop one. “It would be good if you were there.”
“There are people you still trust me to charm despite my problematic choices?” My voice is drier than crisp leaves clustered in snowless patches of the trail.
“You can sit with whomever you like. I’ll make sure my assistant has a note of it.”
I turn that over.
I do want to help her. She makes a genuine difference in the world, provides hope and opportunities for a lot of women, and works tirelessly to do it.
Plus, I can solve this Kevin problem myself.