Chapter 6
6
Liam
I woke up Wednesday morning with Wyatt standing over me, dripping water on my forehead like we were still sleeping in bunk beds in the house on Lancaster Ave in Cushing, Vermont.
“What the…” I cried and sat up, swiping the cup out of his hand. Water sprayed the bed. The cup hit the floor and rolled under the dresser.
“Nice one,” Wyatt said. He wore a baseball cap, an ancient pair of jeans and a faded green t-shirt. He did not look at all like a millionaire professional athlete.
“What are you doing here?”
“It’s Wednesday, remember?”
Right. The day we were meeting our secret brother. Honestly. A secret brother? What kind of life was I living?
I rubbed a hand over my face. It had been a late night at the End Zone. Fuck. Kit worked at the End Zone. I remembered her tight little body in those shorts. That ridiculous shirt. Henrik had watched her like he was hungry and she smelled delicious.
She looked at me like she was daring me to do my worst.
It had, at the time, made my cock hard.
Still did.
“Did you break into my house?” I asked my brother, getting my mind off Kit.
“Mike let me in. I can’t believe you hired Mike as your bodyguard. You beat him up in junior high.”
“He needed a temporary gig and all he has to do is stand there and look scary,” I said and got out of bed. As soon as I stood up I longed to get back into it, even with the glass of water spilled over it.
“Holy shit, you smell like a bottle of scotch,” Wyatt said.
“We’ve been celebrating.”
“Go hose off. I’ll make coffee and we’ll get on the road.” Wyatt turned around for the door.
“Wyatt?” I asked.
He stopped at the door and looked over his shoulder at me. He’d trimmed his beard and didn’t look like a man who lived in a tree stump. His brown eyes glowed in the sunlight trickling through my shades.
“Is this a good idea? Nick didn’t seemed thrilled to be related to us.”
This was putting it lightly. Once the private investigator found him, we’d sent all kinds of emails and letters through lawyers. Copies of our birth certificates, Mom’s birth certificate. Photographs. Our dad offered to write a letter. Not sure what good that would do, but it was nice of him to offer.
After no communication for weeks, we finally got a return email.
Sure. I’ll meet you in Boston.
I mean, you almost had to give it up to the guy. I’d never met anyone less excited to meet me. And I was awesome.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Wyatt asked. “He’s our brother.”
“Yeah, but…” I trailed off. My brain could not connect the dots between what I was thinking and my mouth. But I wanted to say – Mom broke this kid’s heart. She left him behind like he didn’t matter.
If I was Nick, I wouldn’t want to know shit about what she did after that.
“We’re going,” Wyatt said and he walked away, his shoes squeaking on the floor of my hallway. My hangover pounded behind my eyes and I couldn’t shake the idea that this wasn’t the best idea, but that could be the scotch talking.
I sighed and thought about the real problem.
What did a guy wear to meet his long-lost brother?
“You look ridiculous,” Wyatt said, looking at me from the driver’s side of my truck.
That’s right. Even when it was my truck, Wyatt still drove.
Fucking older brothers.
We were flying down I-95 past trucks and family camper vans. There were lots of Bruisers bumper stickers and each time we passed one I reached over and honked the horn in celebration.
“You’re a child,” Wyatt growled. “And what the fuck are you wearing?”
“Please, you don’t understand fashion,” I said. I wore a Versace silk t-shirt that was very subdued. I was being respectful of our situation.
“T-shirts should be t-shirt material,” Wyatt grunted. “You’re wearing a blouse.”
“A blouse,” I snorted.
We passed a Peaks bumper sticker and Wyatt honked twice.
“Now who is the child?” I asked him.
My brother was not the best conversationalist, so I could let my head rest on the car seat and think. The problem when I did, was that I kept thinking the same thing.
Kit. In those shorts. In that shirt.
Her face had been a whole lot of fuck you and a little bit of please don’t .
Damn it, I was hard again. What was it about Kit Barrington that got so under my skin? If she was any other woman in any other situation I’d say – let’ s just fuck this out of our systems so we can get on with our lives.
But she was Kit. And fucking her once had been a terrible mistake.
My cell phone buzzed and I fished it out of my pocket, expecting to see something from the front office about the parade plans, but it was from Kit.
I sat up from my slouch in my passenger seat. My whole body on full alert. Fuck, the way she reacted when I touched her face last night. If just that touch made her gasp and blush, what would she do if I kissed her? If I palmed that ass in my hands? What would she do if I licked my way down her collarbones, across her chest? What if I sucked those nipples into my mouth, grinding my cock into that soft sweet spot between her thighs?
How could one person be so prickly and so needy all at once? It made me crazy.
Kit: Can I Venmo you this week’s money?
Me: Why?
Kit: Because I don’t want to walk into some kind of raging party the day after the parade.
Me: A little anti-social of you.
Kit: Can I?
When she’d first approached me, wanting to pay off her father’s debt, she offered to send me weekly Venmos for an amount that would have taken her years to actually pay me back. When I pointed that out, she just lifted her chin and asked for my Venmo address.
I had stood there with my cock getting hard remembering every second of that night with her in Nashville. So bright and beautiful. Flirty and fun. Sexy as all fuck.
Except it had all been a lie. Every bit of it, as it turned out. The money wasn’t the point. The debt wasn’t the point.
Punishing her a little…that was the point.
So I told her if she was going to pay me back, she needed to deliver the money to me every week. In person. I didn’t think about the logistics of it. Where she was currently living, how she would make that happen. Those were my demands.
The next Sunday she showed up with four hundred and eighty-two dollars in cash.
A ping of guilt ricocheted inside my head, which didn’t help my hangover. I texted her back.
Me: Save it until next week.
Kit: You’re ridiculous. Just let me send you the money.
Me: If I let you send me the money, I’ll never see you in that cat suit again.
Kit: …
Kit: …
Kit: You want the cat costume, it’s going to cost you.
Me: How much?
“What are you grinning at?” Wyatt asked, breaking me out of the spell texting Kit put me under.
“Nothing. No one.”
Wyatt laughed. “You have always been a shit liar, Liam.”
“What’s the plan with Nick?” I asked to distract him.
If Wyatt knew what I was doing with Kit, he would not be a fan. At all. Forget the fact he’d tell me it was her father who stole from me, so it should be her father paying me back, he’d hate the idea of me inflicting punishment on a woman.
Except it wasn’t that simple. My problem with the whole situation was that I didn’t have…what was that fancy therapist term?…closure. I didn’t go to that trial. I walked away when anyone started talking about it. I didn’t watch any of the coverage and I didn’t come forward when they looked for athletes Barrington had stolen from. I tried to erase the whole thing from my mind.
And then she showed up at my door.
Now, I needed closure with Kit, and until I got it, she could keep showing up at my house until she confessed what she did, or I no longer cared.
“I don’t know?” Wyatt said. “We talk to him. He talks to us.”
“Instant family?” I asked.
Wyatt grunted.
“What if he doesn’t show?” I asked. “Maybe we should have paid him.”
“That’s your fucking solution for everything.”
I shrugged. We had money. Lots of it. Should use it for something.
An hour later, Wyatt and I were sitting in a back booth in a dive bar on the south side of Boston where no one was going to notice us or care that we were there.
About ten minutes later a man walked in. Tall. Sandy brown hair. Mom’s eyes.
“Holy shit,” I breathed. He looked so much like Mom it took my breath away. He had that careful look about him. Wary. It made my protective brother instinct go full throttle.
“Be cool,” Wyatt muttered.
“You be cool,” I shot back. “Try not to scare him off.”
I stood up and lifted my hand in a wave. Trying to project as much, don’t worry we’re not going to hurt you, as I could.
Nick, wearing a Carhartt hat and a pair of work boots, nodded his head once as if to say, calm the fuck down, I’m here.
“I like him already,” I whispered.
Nick – our brother – slowly approached until he was standing next to the booth.
“Nick Steffens?” I said, like I didn’t know. But the guy bristled.
“Name is Renard now. Nick Renard.”
I stretched out my hand for him to shake, but he hesitated. He was stubborn and silent. So much like my brother. A man of few words. Little did this guy know, I’d spent my life learning how to interpret Wyatt’s silences. I’d win this guy over eventually. It was my special skill.
I smiled a little harder and waited until he put his hand in mine.
Brother.
“Sit,” I said, gesturing to the side of the booth I’d just gotten out of. Nick sat and I scootched in next to my other brother, elbowing him in the side to give me room.
Nick and Wyatt shook hands and I waited for Wyatt to say something. This had been his idea, after all. I figured the guy had a script in his head.
But no. Silence.
From both of them.
Of course, our newfound brother would be more like Wyatt than me.
Awesome.
I smiled, the same smile that had been on last month’s cover of GQ. Crooked. Cocky as fuck. Easy. It was my signature move. “You a hockey fan, Nick?”
“Our mom is dead,” Wyatt said, without any hesitation or preamble.
“Jesus, Wy,” I groaned, hanging my head.
Nick sat there like the news didn’t even affect him.
“We didn’t know about you,” I jumped in to fill the void. “Until after the funeral. She left a letter.”
Nick nodded. Still silent. Wyatt… still silent.
“We hired an investigator, to find you,” I said. This was like pulling teeth. “That’s why it took so long for us to get ahold of you.”
“You grew up with your father?” Wyatt asked.
“Until I was fourteen,” Nick said.
Wyatt and I exchanged a glance. His eyes told me to shut up and let the guy tell his story and my eyes told him to say something helpful for once.
“Look, I get why maybe you thought you should contact me,” Nick said. “And obviously, I was curious enough to come meet you both, but I think this was a mistake.”
He shifted, about to pull himself out of the booth. I put one leg out, blocking his way.
Aggressive, sure. But the guy literally just got here.
“Come on,” I said. “One beer. It’s not every day you find out you have a secret brother.” I lifted my hand to the bored woman behind the bar. “A round,” I said.
“Stop,” Nick said, shaking his head. “This isn’t going to be a thing. I have my life. I have my family. It’s all I need.”
“We’re brothers,” Wyatt declared, his voice like thunder. “That’s family too.”
The word brother clearly affected the guy. It was like he got blown back for a second. Mouth open and a little dazed. I imagined there’d been times in this guy’s life where all he wanted was a brother. Someone to share the load. I remembered all those days when it was my brother and me against the world. Holding each other up in the storm our mom created, and our dad couldn’t protect us from.
It was – no exaggeration – the most important relationship in my life.
And Nick didn’t have it when he needed it most.
Broke my fucking heart.
“You’re not my brother,” Nick said, his voice low, his emotions raw. “We share DNA. That’s all.”
“Don’t you want to know about her?” I asked. “About us? About what happened? You came all this way.”
“I know what happened,” he said, his hands clasped together so tightly his knuckles were white. “She took off and left me behind, my father used me as a punching bag when he felt like it, until I stole a car to get away. A few foster homes later and I found my way to Calico Cove. That’s my home. Those people are my family.”
“That’s…I mean, I’m sorry she left you,” I said. Which was like putting a Band-Aid on a missing arm.
“I don’t know. Seems like it might run in the family,” Nick said, turning those eyes my way. Damn. It was like Mom looking right at me.
“What the fuck does that mean?” Wyatt asked.
“Wasn’t there a story about a woman saying you abandoned her when she was pregnant with your kid?” Nick said, with a raised eyebrow.
Fucking Google didn’t let anyone forget about anything.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Wyatt growled, and I put a hand on his arm, telling him to keep his shit together.
“Yeah, it was a story,” I said. The anger and sadness all coming back in a rush. “But it wasn’t true. I wasn’t the father and she just…she needed help. Okay? So I helped her out and now she’s doing better. Lives with her mom, has a good job and is raising her son.”
“You weren’t the father but you helped her anyway?” Nick asked.
“What can I say?” I smiled. “I like to help people.”
“Fine,” Nick snorted. “You’re not an asshole. Now if we’re done here…”
“We’re not done,” Wyatt said, his fist hitting the table with a dull thud. “I get that you’re hurt. Pissed even. But this is shit you need to hear.”
“You don’t know fuck all about me,” Nick snapped. Great. Now I had two angry brothers. “Look, I came, I met you. You let me know she’s dead. I assume that’s why you wanted to meet? Mission accomplished. Now let’s forget this ever happened.”
Wyatt shook his head. “Not going to happen. You may not like it, but we’re in your life now and we’re staying there.”
My brother thought that if he just said it – he could make it so.
That it worked for him more often than not was infuriating.
“You don’t get it. I don’t want any part of the two of you,” Nick said. “Glad it all worked out for you both, but I don’t need you. Because it all worked out for me too. I have amazing parents. Siblings. A thriving business…”
“You got kids?” I asked. “Fuck! Am I an uncle?”
“No.”
“A woman?” Wyatt pushed.
Nick paused.
Oh… there’s absolutely a woman.
But Nick said: “No.”
Wyatt nodded. “It’s not about needing anything or wanting for anything. It’s about fixing something that was broken. That’s what Mom wanted. That’s what we’re going to do.”
“I’m not some fucking missing piece of your life puzzle. I said we’re done, and we’re done.”
With that, Nick slid out of the booth, stepped over my leg and didn’t look back.
“Well, that didn’t go well,” I said, facing the door Nick had just sprinted out of.
“It was just a first meeting. He’ll come around,” Wyatt said. The beers were delivered. Cold lager, spilling over three pint glasses.
“He wants nothing to do with us. I mean, I can’t say I would feel differently if I was him.” I took one of the glasses and drained half of it.
“Mom was a kid. Afraid and broken. She made a mistake and she wants us to fix it. That’s what we’re going to do,” Wyatt said. My brother was very good at finding fights. I tried to avoid them at all costs.
“Didn’t you hear the guy? It doesn’t sound like there is anything to fix.”
“Family is family. It’s what Dad taught us. You don’t leave anyone-”
“Behind,” I sighed. “Yeah, yeah. I know. We should have been Marines instead of hockey players. If only we didn’t skate so well. So, what happens next?”
Wyatt picked up his beer, but set it right back down. “We let it sink in a little bit, then we hit him up again. We’ve got all the time in the world.”
“At least until the season begins again,” I said, and picked up the beer Nick left behind. “So? What do we do now?”
I had dreams of Wyatt coming to the victory parade. Cutting loose a little bit.
“You’re going to drop me at the airport,” Wyatt said. “I’ve got that celebrity golf outing in Vegas this weekend.”
“Oh right,” I said. I couldn’t skip the parade to go with him even though part of me wanted to. All the retirement questions were wearing on him and the guy could use a good time. And I liked to be around when my brother had a good time. It was usually a legendary night.
But looking at the big man, he didn’t seem like a guy ready to cut loose in Vegas.
“You do understand these events are supposed to be fun,” I poked at him.
“Bunch of drunk athletes and celebrities driving around in golf carts taking pictures with a bunch of drunk bros who want to be athletes and celebrities. Sounds like a fucking nightmare.”
“Your super power is not just blocking slap shots. No, my brother, your super power is killing joy. You are the villain of fun. The killer of all good times. You should have a costume and a cape.”
Wyatt pushed me out of the booth and slid out behind me.
“You can drop me off at the airport.”
I drained the beer and threw a couple twenties on the table. I’d be paying for shit for a while, it’s how it worked when one of us beat the other. My rookie year I didn’t pay for shit because The Peaks beat us every time we met.
“Hey,” I said, my last ditch effort as we headed for the door. “Please try to have a good time in Vegas. Remember, anything can happen.”
He grunted and we made our way outside. This time I got behind the wheel and he frowned at me.
“I can drive, you know.”
My brother was a control freak in many ways. Always being the one to drive was just one way he showcased his special skill. We drove to the airport and I dropped him off at the curb under the sign of his airline.
“Okay. I mean it. Try to have some fun. And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“You do everything, ” he pointed out.
“Yes. Yes, I do. You should give it a try sometime.”