Chapter 20 #2
“Blythe isn’t a badass.” Shay stares steadily at the table, avoiding our gazes.
“She is charming to everyone in her orbit. Bloody hell, she was even charming to me at the start. She’s glamorous.
Having just turned eighteen and being away from home for the first term, I was flattered that this posh third year was taking an interest in me.
She manipulated me with love bombing and by offering a glimpse into her cultured world.
Ironically, she’s a true ice queen. She could slice me with a word, as much as the slash of a belt.
She looks like the perfect English aristocrat, being the heiress to some business that’s been running since Victorian times.
The thing is that she’s entitled because she’s always got her own way.
She doesn’t know what it’s like to be hungry or not to be able to buy what she wants, even a person.
She doesn’t know what it’s like to struggle.
I never felt good enough but like I was lucky to even be looking up at such a… ”
He breaks off, frustrated.
“People like her are skilled at making others feel like that.” D’Angelo pushes a fresh open beer across the table to Shay.
Shay raises it, then tilts the beer.
We all clink our glasses and bottles against his.
“To your win on Thursday night,” I say. “And to winning on Saturday.”
Shay takes a drink; his long neck bobs.
He places the bottle down and wipes across his mouth. “Cheers to that.”
“If this Blythe person comes anywhere near you,” my brother declares, “I will kick her glamorous ass.”
Michael pats him on the knee. “How about we come up with a more permanent plan than that?”
“It would be permanent.”
Shay glances at Cody, surprised.
I’m not surprised.
My brother doesn’t look like a fighter. Yet he’s the most protective person I know.
The sad thing is that Dad punished him throughout our childhoods because Cody stood up for me against the bullies who made my life hell at high school, despite being my younger brother and having his ass handed to him most days.
I would help Cody limp home, knowing that I was leading him back not to the loving arms of a parent who would care for his bruises and bleeding lip, but rather my dad who would bellow at him for fighting and drag him off to the study.
I have slowly come to realize that my brother, despite never feeling able to share with me the secrets of what happened in the study, may have also felt the slash of the belt.
I raise my own beer, hoping that my words won’t be too slurred.
The world has started to become nicely fuzzy in the way that I love after a third beer.
“Then we’re going to teach this ice queen what it’s like to not get what she wants. She can’t own Shay.” I snuggle closer to him. “He’s ours.”
Shay glows. “Hear that? I’m claimed.”
D’Angelo shoots us a warning look. “We’re in public.”
“This is a friendly hug,” Shay retorts, although he loosens his hold on me, resting his arm just above my shoulders on the booth. I hate that we need to hide our relationship like this in public. I am desperate to stop needing to keep our love secret. “Better?”
D’Angelo lets out a huff. “You’re like a koala bear.”
“Does he like climbing you?” Michael asks with a straight face.
“More that he’s normally docile and cuddly,” D’Angelo drawls, “but can turn aggressive and bite. No jokes about that.”
D’Angelo wags his finger at Shay who snaps his mouth shut with a smug look.
When Shay’s phone rings, he nervously pulls it out of his pocket.
He steels, before glancing down. “It’s coach.”
“Don’t answer it,” D’Angelo replies. “Coach has had us in practice every moment that we haven’t been talking strategy or playing games. This is our night to blow off steam. He knows that.”
Shay appears uncertain. “He’ll be angry.”
“When isn’t he?” Cody mutters.
“Is he still giving you a hard time at work?” Michael narrows his eyes.
Cody shrugs. “I’m used to it.”
“You shouldn’t have to be.”
“I love my job. I’ve worked too hard to lose my role because of Dad.”
I give Cody a sympathetic glance.
He’s stuck. He needs a recommendation from the Bay Rebels to find a job anywhere else. He can’t even leave and start with a new team apart from on Dad’s terms, which is just how Dad likes it.
“I have some news of my own.” Michael plays with his glass of brandy.
Cody perks up, straightening. “Is it about the hospital?”
“Do you remember that original research paper that I have been working on with colleagues for the last few years?”
Cody nods.
“It’s important in my field; a mix of aggregated patient data and clinical experience.
I hope that it will help other doctors to improve patient’s chances of survival.
It’s been going through peer review. It’s buttock clenching waiting to get though that stage.
This afternoon I found out that it has successfully got through and will be published in the most influential medical journal in America. ”
Cody twists, throwing himself into his husband’s arms. “That’s incredible, Mike. Is that why you’ve been working extra hard recently? You’re amazing.”
“I’m going to pretend that I understand even half of what you said and say congratulations.” I raise my beer in salute and take a drink.
“You’re the hero at this table.” D’Angelo raises his glass. “To Michael’s win.”
“To Michael,” the rest of us chorus, raising our glasses and drinking.
Michael appears unsure what to do with such praise and simply shrugs. “It’s my job, no matter how tough or exhausting. I love it. I live for medicine.”
“I live for hockey,” Shay admits, quietly like it’s a revelation.
“I won’t let anyone fuck with that,” I swear. “Either these Misfit stalkers or their newbie member, KillaStar aka Blythe.”
Now, D’Angelo’s phone rings. He pointedly ignores it.
I bet that it’s Dad again.
Dad must really want to contact us.
I unlock my phone and then type a quick text to both Eden and Dad to check that they’re all right.
Of course, Dad is listed as the THE GRILL SERGEANT.
I decided to change his name from DAD in my contacts. It means that if someone finds or steals my phone, they won’t be able to pretend to him that I’ve been kidnapped.
They also won’t know who he is under my contacts.
THE GRILL SERGEANT sums up Dad’s BBQ and interrogation skills. He uses both as a coach, sometimes at the same time in his infamous team cookouts at his lake house.
I stare at my phone for a long moment.
One word response from Eden:
Okay
Then finally, one response…then two…then three from Dad.
I swallow.
D’Angelo pales. “Coach?”
I nod.
“That bad, huh?
I glance at the messages.
Where ARE u? Why isn’t J answering? Is he drunk?
I wince.
D’Angelo’s not drunk. Should I tell Dad that I, however, am happily on my way?
I force myself to look at the second message from THE GRILL SERGEANT.
Reply, unless you’re dead. Zombies can text too, remember?
Then the third.
I am NOT messing around. I want a strategy meeting with J this evening. S’s ass is on the line.
“He’s demanding an extra strategy meeting with you,” I explain.
D’Angelo’s hand clenches around the glass. “We don’t need one. He doesn’t like that as captain, the staff come to me more than they come to him now. He also hates that I am no longer his leashed puppy. Let him stew.”
“You’ve changed.”
D’Angelo gives a sharp smile. “I have, haven’t I?”
“Not to sound like Dr. Watson to your Sherlock…” Michael arches his brow.
“Don’t you mean Dr. Kink?” I say, before my drunken mouth can catch up with my drunken brain screaming at me to stop.
Cody splutters with laughter.
Michael shoots his husband a stern look, before replying, “I wear many hats, and some of them are leather caps with Daddy on the front.”
I choke on my tongue. “TMI.”
“Revenge.”
“More like your favorite birthday present. Well, along with the—” Michael firmly places his hand over Cody’s mouth.
“Code,” he warns.
Shay looks delighted. “Let me guess. Did it start with ‘B’ and end with…?”
D’Angelo leans over me to place his hand just as firmly over Shay’s mouth.
Michael gives D’Angelo a nod in thanks, tipping his glass to him. In turn, D’Angelo takes a casual drink of his whiskey.
Cody and Shay both chuckle, muffled behind their partner’s hands.
It’s funny to me that my brother has become best friends with Eden, when he shares some playful traits with Shay.
Actually, it’s lucky that these two haven’t paired up. They’d be a menace.
Although, Michael has always been able to handle my brother.
Michael calmly removes his hand from Cody’s mouth, but D’Angelo firmly keeps his over Shay’s mouth.
“I was going to say that I didn’t want to sound like Dr. Watson,” Michael continues, “but isn’t it more than a coincidence that Blythe is holding this blackmail stuff over you right now?
The card? The creepy dead roses? Controlling you through text messages?
But she’s doing it at the exact moment that your bastard of a boss is back trying to control you in the same way. ”
“Heine.” My eyes widen. “You’re right. He plays at submission but he’s obsessed with controlling you, D’Angelo.
His bet is just another attempt to force all of us to take part in his games.
He’s mind fucking us in the same way that Blythe is.
The two of them were together before Christmas. Do you think that it’s connected?”
I catch D’Angelo’s guilty expression. Dread shoots through me.
D’Angelo carefully pulls back from Shay, smoothing down his suit with jerky motions like then he can avoid meeting our eyes.
The silence between us is suddenly unsettling.
“D’Angelo,” I try, “what aren’t you telling us? We don’t need to share everything from our pasts or lives, but our whole dynamic is about trust and communication. We just had a big thing about not keeping dangerous secrets. If this is important, we should know.”
D’Angelo carefully — too carefully — places down his glass. “I try to be a good man for you. But I wasn’t. I’m still not.”