Chapter 18 #2
After the game, they drive me to Gabe’s house in Gabe’s big SUV. The media is camped out at the stadium’s gate and Gabe manages to lose them when he calls the police to escort him to his house. He has security surrounding the place, a paid police detail to keep the media away.
“That was a close call,” Max says as we pile into Gabe’s house where Mia is waiting with a late-night dinner.
“Which?” I say. “The game or escaping the media mob?”
Max laughs and slaps my back. “Both, when you put it that way.”
Cat says, “We can handle this with our own spin. How bad is your back? I was worried after that hit today, especially because they carried you off.”
I shrug. “It was just a precaution.”
“I know that, but it was scary from the stands. So how is it now?”
“Fine. I got a booster shot and I’m juiced on pain meds. Nothing heavy duty, but enough so I can walk around without screaming for my mommy.”
My friends laugh. I try for a smile. The distraction of the game is wearing off like a shot of Novocain, the numbing effect of focusing on the game and the team and the injury wearing off, leaving a deep trench gashing my soul.
“Seriously,” Cat says. Everyone turns to me. They all want to know, all care.
“Honestly?”
“Yes—off the record.”
I smile because everyone has an agenda, after all. Cat is Coach Marini’s daughter, but I trust her not to run to her dad with whatever I say.
“Lucky for me we have a bye week.”
“Then take an extra week if you need it,” Gabe says.
“We’re playing—”
“We can fucking handle Pittsburgh after a bye-week,” Hunter says. “Their offense is tough, but we’re tougher,” He smiles and adds, “We have your back.”
I punch his shoulder. “That’s for a bad pun and bad timing. Don’t you know I’m not in the mood?” But I smile because I love the team, love these guys like brothers.
“Shit. I have to call my family. They’re probably worried about my back too.
” Mom and Dad didn’t stay for the game once the media crowded the building’s lobby and out front.
I had a limo take them back to the airport—the kind with darkened windows for the passengers.
Pulling my phone from my pocket, I turn it back on to find a jazillion fucking missed calls and texts from everyone I know, from every damn person who ever had my number. Including Chloe. Shit.
“Before you call Chloe, I have to tell you—”
“Who says I’m calling Chloe?” I think about it, but force myself to get a fucking clue.
Cat gives me a look and continues. “She called me two days ago, before the story aired, and told me that she stole the file and cleaned out the hard drive and quit the station. I just wanted you to know that—”
“I know all about it.” I’m surprised Chloe told Cat, but I knew Chloe was telling me the truth about deleting the files and quitting. “I know she stole the file and erased it from the station’s hard drive, but that hardly erases everything leading up to that. The idea for the Perspective was hers.”
Just because Chloe had a change of heart doesn’t mean she’s trustworthy.
Or does it?
Cat talks fast about the media and how they have a job to keep people accountable and give different perspectives from the ones we want to give because everyone has an agenda.
“Have you seen the show?” she says.
“No.”
“We’re going to watch the damn show together tomorrow night. Make sure you’re here. Don’t worry—I’m having dinner catered by Louie’s.”
Max slaps me on the back and says, “You need to see it, need to get the specter out of your head. Your imagination will make it worse than it is.”
“Why not. I’ll bring the whiskey.”
I didn’t plan on spending my free time during bye week watching a fucking sports news special about my own past, but I think Max is right.
Sean drives and we leave from the stadium after treatment for my back.
We arrive at Cat and Hunter’s house after stopping for the promised bottle of whiskey and walk in the back door without knocking.
The first person I see, standing at the kitchen island, looking like frosting on a cake, looking like she’s waiting for me, is Chloe. Fuck. My damn heart races and my cock responds in the usual Pavlovian way. She stands frozen, her damn violet eyes pinning me.
Cat invited me,” she finally says. Sean walks past me and the kitchen clears out. I don’t even know who was in there, but they’re gone. The lights are bright and I see the sorrow in her eyes.
“Good trap. Now I can’t trust you or any of my friends.” Part of me feels that way, but not all of me. What I really think is that I can’t trust myself. Can’t trust the feelings I have for her, or the fucking desire I have to go to her and wrap her in my arms right now and kiss her silly.
“Don’t blame your friends. Cat feels responsible because she fixed us up.
She thinks we need closure.” She takes a shuddering breath and gestures for me to come in and have a seat, but I don’t move a muscle because if I get any closer, I’ll reach out for her.
And fuck if I know if I should or shouldn’t because I’m fucking messed up.
“I have some important things to say.”
“Say them. Then I’ll leave. You can stay.”
“The Perspective was a terrible idea and it was all mine and I tried to undo it, but . . . that didn’t work out and I’ve never been sorrier for anything in my life.
” She pauses. I stand like a stone, trying not to feel anything, letting her words bounce off me.
I know what she’s saying, understand it all.
And maybe a couple years from now I’ll think it’s perfectly reasonable to forgive her.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me—”
“Good.” My voice is too sharp and I clamp my jaw shut when she flinches. Her eyes sparkle with tears, but she holds them back because she’s brave and strong. As I’m standing here trying to hold myself together, I have to admire that in her.
“But I wanted to tell you that all my feelings for you are real. You’re the best man I know—that I’ve ever known.”
I wonder if that includes her dad. Her words bounce around but they don’t penetrate. Not that I don’t believe her, because I know exactly how she feels. But I can’t do anything about it.
“How is it that you feel?” I say because I’m a sadistic SOB and maybe I need something to haunt my dreams later. Hell, something to haunt me the rest of my life—that spectacular woman who—
“I love you, Tate Fontanna. I’m madly in love with you and I wish it wasn’t true right now, but it is.”
“If that’s true, I wouldn’t want to see what you do to the guys you hate.
” I’m trying too hard to be mean and she sees through me and smiles.
I don’t smile back because there’s too much sadness bubbling up in me everywhere, inescapable sadness.
Seeing her doesn’t cure it. Only makes it worse.
I want to trust her, to get back to that vulnerable loving spitfire, to the sparring and the heat, but there’s unmistakable distance, an unbridgeable distance between us.
My silence drags on and she bows her head.
“I’ll go. You stay.” She picks up her bag and slips past me without meeting my eyes and I know she’s crying as she goes out the door, letting it bang closed behind her.
I stay and we watch the Perspective without her.
I’m mostly numb, but the clips from the funeral scene don’t have the same power over me that they did once upon a time and I realize that’s the key.
Even the insinuations of my guilt don’t make me flinch, don’t make me feel any guiltier than I am.
When I question whether I really am guilty, all my friends call bullshit and I find I’m starting to believe them, to believe Chloe Smith’s voice when she called me human, not guilty.
Chloe is human, not guilty too.
I’m not certain whether it’s my dick or my conscience talking, but I hear the voice loud and clear just the same. I wonder if she’s going to call me again and whether or not I’ll answer.
Hell. She doesn’t have my number. I trashed my old one and got a replacement today courtesy of the front office, courtesy of Cat’s office, Public Relations. I know Chloe did the same with her phone and I don’t have her new number, but Cat does.
No way am I ready to ask Cat. It’s between me and Chloe and I’m still in limbo, still finding a new way to think, to act. And Chloe is still a fucking sports reporter down to her bones and always will be. That much I know.
That’s what I’m not sure I can ever wrap my arms around fully.
I make my calls to my parents and brother and eat a late supper with my friends, feeling half there. Half alive. Half broken.
It’s easy and it’s hard at the same time to let the weeks go by without Chloe, without reaching out or reconciling the unsettled feelings in me. I know I need closure one way or another, but I have no idea what that looks like.