44
Nash
“Is Kennedy bored with you already?” Mitchell chuckled when I stepped into his apartment. We were scheduled to leave for Pittsburgh in the early afternoon.
“You’re so funny,” I muttered with an eye roll, handing him the cup of coffee I’d picked up at the café down the street from his apartment. “Actually, she’s still sleeping.”
“Oh.” He took a sip of the coffee, then added, “Thanks, man.”
“I need your help with something,” I said, holding up Kennedy’s phone it its sparkly case.
His eyebrows shot up. “Nice phone,” he said dryly as we headed to the couch by his living room window and sat down.
“I’m gonna show you what Kennedy did.”
She’d played the recording she’d taken of Josh a couple times before falling asleep last night, and I’d listened to it on my own a few more times this morning.
But the more I replayed it, the less sense it made.
I didn’t understand what he meant, and it wasn’t like I could confront him about it either.
Especially not now, with both our jobs hanging by a thread.
If anyone could help me figure out what the hell Josh was getting at, it was Mitch.
“Man,” Mitchell grumbled after we’d listened to the recording three times in a row. “Sampson’s more screwed up than I thought. I figured he was just hung up on Kennedy, but this? This is something else.”
I exhaled hard, sinking back into the chair.
“He’s jealous of you,” Mitchell said flatly.
He was right. Josh definitely seemed envious of me, though for the life of me, at this shaky point in my career, I couldn’t understand why.
“I must say, I’m impressed with Kennedy,” Mitchell said with a grin. “She stayed calm and still got him to spill that much. She must’ve learned that from growing up with you.”
That compliment came with a dig at me, but I didn’t care. I was proud of her. She’d done a great job. Just having the presence of mind to hit record was impressive enough, but then again, she’d always been smart.
“She was top of our graduating class,” I told him, “and she graduated college with some serious honors.”
“So what’s she doing with a loser like you?” he shot back, smacking my shoulder.
I huffed. “Maybe I helped her study?”
Mitch snorted, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, right. I’m pretty sure she was the one helping you.”
I chuckled because of course, he was right.
“Anyway . . .” I stretched out and met Mitchell’s familiar blue eyes. “I just wish I knew what Josh meant. What exactly do I have that he doesn’t?”
“Endorsements, maybe?” Mitch suggested. “Clearly, you’ve been voted MVP more times than he has, and you got the girl he wanted. I don’t know about the draft, do you?”
“No, but does that really matter? We know I was before him. Does it matter how many spots behind me he was?”
“Guess not. Unless he was right behind you.”
Mitch picked up his coffee and took a long drink, watching me steadily over the rim of the cup as he waited for my answer.
“He wasn’t.” I was certain of that. “It was a guy from Ohio behind me, and he doesn’t even play anymore.”
“Then we’re back to the women again, Nash.”
Mitch leaned back into the couch, crossing his legs while I groaned out loud, throwing my head back like a kid in the middle of a tantrum.
“Was he right?” Mitch asked calmly. “Did you cheat on Kennedy?”
“No.” The word came out sharp. “Mitch, I didn’t.”
He rubbed a hand over the three-day scruff on his chin, studying me.
“He seems convinced you did. So, what is it he thinks he knows? Did anything happen that night he took Kennedy out to dinner?”
“Nothing,” I snapped, my irritation flaring as I started to defend myself again. I’d never cheated on Kennedy, and I never would, but then I froze as the realization hit. That was the night I’d gone home with Amy.
“Fuck.”
I groaned and buried my face in my hands. Did Josh seriously know about that? Could he know about that?
“Nash, what the fuck, man?” Mitchell pressed, picking up on the shift in my mood. “What did you do?”
I sounded defeated when I answered him. “I slept with Amy the night Josh took Kennedy out to dinner. It was the last time I was with anyone else. I was fucking jealous, okay?” The words tumbled out like a confession, like admitting it might somehow make it better.
But it didn’t. If anything, saying it out loud only made it worse.
Mitch’s expression said he wasn’t impressed, but he nodded for me to continue.
“I honestly don’t know who he means, Mitch. Before Amy, it was that soap opera star . . .”
Mitch shook his head, rubbing at his jaw. “You need to figure out which girls you’ve been with that Josh knew about.”
“Fuck if I know.” The frustration burned in my chest. I took a long sip of my coffee then put the cup down just to pick it back up again, turning it slowly as my mind spun.
“Clearly it’s important, Nash.”
“Yeah, unfortunately, it won’t be that easy. You fucking know that, Mitch,” I snapped. It wasn’t like I was the only guy on the team who’d hooked up. Mitch was no saint, even if he acted like one now, firing questions at me. “I’ve never had a relationship before Kennedy.”
Mitch chuckled.
“How the hell am I supposed to know which girls I’ve been with that might’ve been friends with him?”
“I don’t fucking know, Nash.” He threw his arms up. “Maybe focus on the ones that were more than just a quick hookup. There were a few girls that lasted longer than a week, right?” he added, sarcastic as hell.
I rolled my eyes. There had been a few. “When do I even start counting from? College? St. Louis? New York? I have no idea.”
Mitch groaned and rubbed at his forehead. “Why do you seriously think I can help you with this shit?”
“Who else can?”
“Kennedy, maybe. She’s great at organizing and that kind of stuff, and she usually asks the right questions.”
“Yeah, well, you better channel your inner girl, because there is no way in hell I’m going through my sexual history with her like that.”
Mitchell groaned like I’d just kicked him. “You got a point, I guess.” He dropped his head onto his folded arms on the table and sighed. “I wish I had a beer for this shit.”
Him and me both. I would’ve taken vodka, gin, whiskey—hell, anything with alcohol. “Can’t risk it,” I said like a good boy, thinking how proud management would’ve been if they’d known.
“I know.” Mitchell sat up straighter and studied me like he was trying to figure me out. “Do I need to take notes or some shit?”
“God, I hope not.” The last thing I needed was a written record of this conversation. It was humiliating enough going through the list of girls I’d been with in front of my best friend—though, to be fair, he probably knew of most of them anyway.
“Okay, but if we come up with some theories, let’s just make a note of them somewhere,” he pushed.
“Fine.”
“All right.” Mitchell leaned back, then shook his head dramatically like he was flicking long hair out of his face. “If I were Kennedy analyzing this,” he said, making me grin, “I’d start with what we know about Josh. Where’s he from? Where did he go to college?”
“That’s actually a good point, Mitch. You’re doing a good job as a Kennedy stand-in,” I teased, winking at him.
“Fuck you, Reed.” He tossed his empty coffee cup at me. “Where’s Sampson from?”
“Massachusetts. I think he went to Boston College.”
“That should be easy enough to check.” Mitchell pulled his phone from his back pocket, scrolled for a minute, then nodded. “Yep. Boston College.”
“Okay. We know he was the same year as us. What else?”
“Uhh . . .” Mitchell dragged it out, then he rolled his eyes dramatically. “Do you know if any of the girls you were with were from Massachusetts?”
God, this was awkward. “I don’t fucking know. Amy’s from New York, Chloe was from here somewhere, like New York or Connecticut, and Ruby Roe is from, like, Arkansas or something, even though she pretends she grew up in Hollywood.”
“Focus, man.”
“Okay, okay. Fuck, this sucks!”
I pushed to my feet and started pacing, the way Kennedy always did when she was frustrated or needed to think.
As far as I could remember, there wasn’t anyone recent I’d been with from Massachusetts.
But a couple of girls from college might have been.
“There were a few girls back in college,” I admitted.
“All right, that’s going back a while,” Mitch said. “What about that model you saw last year? Wasn’t she from there too?”
“Angie? Yeah, maybe. But Josh didn’t know her.”
“Damn. All right, well, what about the college girls?”
This was so fucking embarrassing. “Just Julia,” I admitted, thinking about it. “She was the one who said she was pregnant.”
“Oh shit!” Mitchell’s head snapped up, his brows shooting sky-high. “That was her? Did she know Josh? Because that would make sense on so many levels.”
“I have no idea.”
Julia had mentioned once that she had an ex-boyfriend back in Boston who played hockey, but she’d never told me his name, and I hadn’t cared enough to ask.
· · ·
I met her at a Halloween party at her sorority house sophomore year of college.
We’d won an important hockey game that afternoon, and by the time we showed up, half the team was already wasted, me included. Most of us were “dressed up” in the laziest costumes possible—our own jerseys and gym shorts—even though it was barely twenty degrees outside.
I noticed her the second I stepped into the kitchen. Something about her reminded me of Kennedy. Maybe it was her blue eyes or her dark hair. Whatever it was, it caught my attention.
“Do you want a beer?” she asked, handing me one before I had a chance to answer.
“Sure. Thanks.”
I took a sip from the beer and studied her outfit, hair piled high on her head, glitter across her collarbones, a low-cut green top with a short tutu-style skirt.
She had a smoking body, and she knew it.
“Who are you supposed to be?”
She laughed. “Tinker Bell.”
“From Peter Pan?”
“Yes.”
“Come play, Nash!” Mitch yelled from the living room, where beer pong had taken over the coffee table.
I looked back at her. “Want to play, Tinker Bell?”
“Are you any good?” she asked, a teasing glint in her eyes.