Chapter 29 Angel #2
“I don’t,” I said, but I knew he could hear my smile.
“Owen got the exclusive. It’s on ESPN tonight,” he told me.
“Joy. Exactly what I need, my drama on TV,” I sighed. “How’s Ronnie?”
“You and that kid,” Cooper grumbled. “The kid’s a little weirdo who fucked you over.”
“Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. He got a psych eval, and he’s to see a therapist.” Cooper’s look told me what he thought of that.
“Will was always a nice guy,” I said as I plucked at my bedcover. “You know, nice, well spoken—”
“Potential pedophile.”
“I didn’t know that, Coop.” I paused. “And Judd was older.”
“But was he when he started on him? He’s grooming young kids and forcing them into a relationship, the guy’s a pedophile.”
“We don’t know that for certain,” I corrected him.
Cooper thought about it. “True. Still a sick, twisted fuck.”
“Agreed.”
We sat in silence, and I thought Cooper had fallen asleep when he spoke quietly, making me jump. “This isn’t your fault.”
“I feel like it is,” I admitted.
“I know, but it isn’t.” He opened one eye to look at me. “You did nothing wrong. Will Hershman was fucking up that boy’s life long before you ever came into it. He coerced him into a relationship, he told him he wasn’t good enough, he fed the same lies to Burt and Ronnie as he did Judd.”
I wiped away the tear that spilled over. “I know.”
“Then stop analyzing it.”
“Okay.”
He closed his eyes again. “You’re a shit liar, Balan.”
“I know.”
I saw his smile, and we were quiet. It was all such a mess.
Judd Christie had been involved with Will, they had explained to me, but still, I struggled with it.
Will had been excited when I took an interest in Judd, but then he was scared because I knew him.
Scared that I would mess up his life by telling people he was homosexual.
A fact he had kept hidden. Which was sad because there was no need to.
Will, fearing for his reputation, encouraged Judd to act out more and more.
As the police looked deeper into it, more doubt was cast on whether Judd was as willing in their relationship as they first thought.
When I decided Judd and I wouldn’t fit well, Will was there to tell Judd why he was a failure. Judd hit Ryan Carmichael in the car that night. His own guilt and his own demons had led him to a dark place and later a tragic death.
My heart broke for Judd Christie, and I still felt like I had let him down.
When Will went to see a college basketball game at his little sister’s college, he recognized Ryan as being the son of the driver of the car Judd had hit and inevitably killed himself over.
I didn’t think we’d ever understand what happened to Will. Cooper was calling it a psychotic break, but when Will had called me to look at Ryan, they thought he snapped when I agreed. Either the fact that I had gone or the fact that I was willing to sign Ryan, when I had rejected Judd, broke him.
He vowed revenge on me and dragged in Judd’s father.
A lowlife who had no connection with his sons, but Will had told him that I was the one driving the car, not Judd, and I was responsible for his death.
Burt Christie was in it for the blackmail opportunity.
He never knew his son’s relationship with Will and had been willing to believe that Will was merely incensed over the loss of such a potential star.
Ronnie had been told a watered-down version, and I knew they were asking if Will had moved on to him. I was scared that he would have, which is why Will had been able to get him to play along.
Ronnie had never been to Nashville; it was all Will. He had moved here, uprooted his life temporarily, in order to avenge Judd’s death. A death that I felt sad for and still wasn’t sure I could say I was blameless for.
“Stop thinking about it,” Cooper scolded me from his seat.
“It’s hard not to, Coop,” I replied. “It’s so very hard to let it go.”
“Yeah, I know how you are about letting things go,” he muttered.
“Just tell me,” I said softly. “You’ve helped me, you held me as I lay beaten and bloody, you’ve been here every day — just tell me what happened in the library. It may not matter anymore, I mean, despite everything I know . . . what you’ve done for me, I’m thinking you may be an okay guy.”
Cooper looked at me for a long moment. “Well, that just emphasizes how fucked up we both are.” His head tipped back again, and I thought he wasn’t going to talk anymore. “She wanted a Devil.”
“The girl in the library?”
“Yes, she wanted to get fucked by a Devil, didn’t care who it was or where it was.
” He let out a long sigh. “I was actually studying, and I must have fallen asleep. I woke up to hands trying to tug my jeans down as I had my head on the fucking desk. I jumped back. She says I kicked her, maybe I did, but she shouldn’t have been under the fucking table trying to suck my dick. ”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh. I stood up, still not really sure what was happening, and this bitch crawls out from under the table. All eager and desperate.” Cooper glanced at me.
“I don’t like desperate. I asked her what she was doing, and when she realized that she wasn’t getting any Devil that night, she started to cry.
” He rubbed his hand over his forehead tiredly.
“When she saw tears don’t work on me, she cried harder and told me I’d kicked her. ”
“Which is when I turned up.”
“Which is when you turned up,” he confirmed. “And saw a Devil and a crying girl and made the assumption it was obviously me that was in the wrong.”
“You made a bet for your friend to have sex with me,” I told him quietly. “I’m not going to apologize for thinking the worst of you back then.”
“Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?”
The sincerity of his tone contradicted the gleam in his eye. “You’re so full of shit, Coop,” I told him. “There is nothing innocent about you.”
“True,” he said honestly. “But I never touched that girl.”
“I believe you,” I admitted softly. “I do,” I reiterated when I saw his reaction, doubt clearly stamped all over him.
A few hours later, Brenna chased him out, and he left grumbling about nurses with too much authority on a power trip, and she beamed at his back as he left, delighted she had wound him up.
“Will he be back tomorrow?” The expectation in her voice told me she wanted him to be.
“I imagine so.” He’d been my one constant visitor.
“Good, he can take you home,” she said with a flourish.
“For real?”
“Yes, should I go catch him, let him know?” she asked.
I shook my head. “No, it’s fine.”
“Is there someone else you want me to call to come and get you?”
Yes.
“No, I’m fine. Cooper will do it.”
“Okay, so,” she made a drum roll sound, “chicken or pasta for dinner?”
“It’s chicken pasta again, isn’t it?”
Brenna lost her smile. “Yeah, but tonight, there’s chocolate pudding.”
“Well, in that case, roll it on in.”
Her light laugh followed her out the door, and my smile faded. One more night of pretending I was fine, and then I could go home, back to reality.