Chapter 16 #3
There’d been teammates and coaches in Baltimore, of course, but there it had always felt different.
Like he only earned their approval as long as he was perfect.
As soon as he’d stopped being perfect, their support hadn’t exactly ended, but it had faded away over time, until it had felt like he was alone.
“You okay?” Cameron asked, coming over to him and putting a hand on his shoulder.
Dawson let out a short, unsteady breath. There was the truth and then there was what he might’ve said, to anybody else.
He’d thought it would be a lot tougher decision, but in the end, it wasn’t at all.
“No,” he said.
Cam’s face creased with worry. “You were right,” he guessed.
“Yeah. Yeah, it seems that way. I need to call Simon. And God, Alex.”
“Alex?” Cam’s arm looped all the way around Dawson’s shoulders now, pulling him in close.
“My agent.” Dawson’s throat clogged. Alex had been with him from the very beginning. How could he have conspired with Simon against him? He’d known how devastating the blows of last season had been.
“Shit.” Cam gestured down the sidewalk. “You wanna deal with them on the walk home or when we get home or . . .”
“I’m going to call Simon first.”
“Alright. Whatever you need.” Cam’s hand slipped down his shoulder and then grasped Dawson’s, gripping it tightly and not letting go as they started to walk back towards their building.
He didn’t have to repeat again that he was there for Dawson, no matter what the fallout, because Dawson felt it. Solid and unshakeable.
Of course he’d felt that way about Brynn too, at one point. But by the time things had come to a head last year, things between them had already disintegrated into ash. Burned up and burned out.
Dawson stared at his phone. He was really tempted to call Alex first. He’d known Alex longer. But the way the reality was taking shape in his mind, he had a feeling whose idea this had been. Before this, he’d have trusted Alex with his life. Simon he’d trusted too, but less.
There’d always been a worry in the back of his mind that Simon was a little too smooth, a little too easy. He’d told himself it was just the natural distrust of lawyers, but now he looked at that and wondered if deep down, he’d already known the truth.
So he called Simon first.
Simon picked up on the third ring, the sound echoing like he was in the car. “Hey, Daws, what’s up?” he asked.
There was nothing to do but rip the Band-Aid off. Dawson had spent enough time shying away from the truth; too much time already worrying that he was right.
“I just got off the phone with Natalia Kaminski,” Dawson said bluntly.
“I told you—”
“I know what you fucking told me,” Dawson retorted, suddenly full of blinding rage. “I know all the lies you told me.”
“They weren’t lies,” Simon said entreatingly. “We were worried about you! You nearly flushed your career down the drain in Baltimore. The last thing you needed was for you to get dragged into all this bullshit again. It’s what I kept telling Kaminski, but she wouldn’t accept it.”
“We?” Dawson asked in a low voice. He’d assumed that it had to be Alex, too.
Simon sighed. Admitted reluctantly, “Alex and I. It was my idea, but he went along with it. He was so worried you’d never get over what happened last season, and I told him the best thing was for you to just move on.”
“That what you wanted too?” Dawson asked bitterly.
Cam squeezed his hand again. Dawson squeezed back.
Simon must be seeing the writing on the wall, because he actually admitted it. “For the gravy train to keep chugging along? Fuck yes. You know how many clients I got because I had Dawson Hall on my list?”
There it was. The bald truth he’d never wanted to see, right out there in the open.
It felt awful; he wanted to fall to his knees and vomit the poison out of his system until it was all gone.
But he also knew, different from last year, that it would eventually be okay again.
One day he’d wake up and it would be better.
Just, God, he didn’t want to give any of this up.
He hoped that it would be better before he could finish what he’d started last season.
Because Simon wasn’t wrong. He’d nearly flushed his career away over this.
“You’re fired,” Dawson said.
“You can’t—”
“I can and I am,” Dawson interrupted in a hard voice.
“Well, don’t be stupid about Alex,” Simon said ruefully. “He didn’t like it. No killer instinct, that one.”
“You mean he actually gave a shit about me?” Dawson asked.
Simon just made a disgruntled noise and Dawson was done. He hung up.
Cam didn’t say anything for a whole block as Dawson tried to stop shaking.
He didn’t know if it was better or worse that the terrible thing he’d suspected, the worst-case scenario he’d told himself a thousand times was only a product of paranoia, was true.
It would’ve made him trust his instincts more, except that he’d trusted Simon in the first place. Trusted Alex, too, even though he didn’t want to think it was the same. But maybe it was.
“You gonna call your agent?” Cam finally ventured, softly, when they were halfway down the next block.
Maybe it was needy to squeeze Cam’s hand again, but he did it anyway.
“I should. I want to. But I’m so fucking pissed.
And hurt. And what if he . . .” Dawson swallowed hard.
“What if he knows that and takes advantage of that? What if he weasels his way back in with an apology that I listen to because I don’t want him to be as shitty as Simon was? ”
Cam hummed under his breath. “I think you’re not gonna know one way or the other until you listen to him say it.”
“How are you so smart?” Dawson asked wryly. That was better than asking, how did I get so goddamn lucky?
“Not sure, but just happy it’s helping,” Cam said, shooting him a bashful smile.
Dawson nudged him with his hip. “Don’t be modest, now.”
Cam beamed up at him. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“I think . . .Simon was one thing, but I wanna see Alex’s face when he says it. When he tries to worm his way back. When he gives me whatever excuse he’s going to cook up.” Dawson sighed. “I’m sure that the first thing Simon did was call him up.”
“Might help you figure it out,” Cam agreed.
Sure enough, it was less than five minutes later—they hadn’t even made it back to the building yet—when Dawson’s phone began to ring.
Dawson met Cam’s eyes and nodded.
“Hey, Alex,” he said when he picked up. It was easier to keep his voice steady with Cam’s hand clasped in his. Maybe he should’ve been able to handle it either way, but was it so terrible to take the help when he needed it? Dawson wasn’t sure.
“Oh, God, Daws. I’m so sorry.” Alex sounded truly, horribly repentant. “I wanted to tell you the truth. I did.”
As Dawson expected, he did want to believe him. “Then why didn’t you?”
“I . . .you were so fucked up last year, Daws. So fucked up. And I know it was the divorce and everything else, too, and once things started disintegrating in Baltimore, it was like you couldn’t stop it. But this was going to be your fresh start. I wanted to give that to you.”
Dawson hummed under his breath. It was, nearly word for word, what he’d expected his agent to say. “I’ve got to focus on this game in two days,” he said, “but you should come to Toronto for it. We’ll talk after.”
“Okay. Yeah. I can do that.” Alex sounded relieved, like he hadn’t just invited him-slash-insisted he come to Toronto at the end of October.
“Yeah, you can. After everything, you’d fucking better.”
“I know. It was fucked. The whole situation was fucked, Daws.”
Dawson didn’t need Alex to tell him that. He’d lived it. He knew exactly how fucked it had been. And how fucked it was that after knowing everything, Alex had still gone along with Simon’s plan—if that was what had happened.
Dawson still wasn’t sure if he believed it.
“Trust me, I know,” Dawson said.
“Yeah. Yeah, you would. Shit. Well, I’ll be there. Gonna come to the game, and we’ll go out after, alright? Nice dinner, just the two of us.”
Dawson nearly said, make that three, ’cause I want my emotional support rookie to come too, but he didn’t.
Because they weren’t dating, and only someone who was invested in that kind of relationship would be willing to sit through a dinner like this.
Because it was going to suck. Dawson was going to have to play hardball.
Listen to Alex whine and worry and generally vomit up any and every kind of apology in the hope that Dawson might listen.
“Alright,” Dawson said.
“See you in a few days, Daws,” Alex said.
Dawson nearly hung up then, but Alex continued in a halting voice, “I really appreciate you being willing to listen. I know you don’t have to. I know you already fired Simon.”
“I did,” Dawson confirmed.
“You didn’t have to give me a chance to explain,” Alex said quietly.
Dawson didn’t want to go into it; why he’d trusted Alex, but something about Simon had always made him feel uneasy. Probably because he was still worried he’d make the wrong call again.
“Yeah, I did,” Dawson said.
“Well, I’m glad you did,” Alex said. “See you on Sunday.”
They were approaching the apartment building now. Cam tapped his keycard against the side door’s sensor and they took the elevator up to Cam’s floor in silence.
They’d taken off their coats and shoes before Cam turned to Dawson. “You still wanna watch a movie or . . .?”
Dawson took it as a good sign that Cam had already figured out that he didn’t want to be alone. He hadn’t even asked if he should press Dawson’s floor when they were in the elevator. He’d just taken them to his own apartment, no hesitation at all.
That felt new, like something unfamiliar but good, solid even, shifting into place between them.
What did he want to do? Did he want to half-watch stupid car chases and explosions and way too much masculine posturing, all while he could barely drag his mouth off Cam’s mouth for long enough to know what the fuck was even supposed to be happening?
Dawson turned to Cam and smiled. “Yeah, actually, I do. It seems like it might be a good distraction.”
He didn’t know how much any of this was going to fuck him up.
Specifically how these new betrayals would impact him. How committing to helping Natalia Kaminski might affect his focus and his game play for the rest of the season. It was all a risk. He should be freaking out; he kind of was, a little.
But it was hard to freak out too much when he was pressed up against Cam on Cam’s crappy couch, his weight warm and solid and real against his body.