Grizz #2
He raises his glass, grinning wide, eyes unfocused. “To having no memory. Just like your old man, huh? Not a single memory of what’s come before.”
I freeze over at his thoughtless words. The lights keep flashing, the music keeps pounding, people keep dancing—but it all fades, muffled, distant. My molars clamp together and a flush of heat creeps up the back of my neck.
Tanner doesn’t even realize what he said. He’s too far gone, laughing, clinking glasses with one of the girls. But I can feel the room closing in, that old pressure behind my ribs that makes my hands itch for a face to hit.
Then I see Daisy again.
She’s watching me now. Really watching. Her expression’s changed—curiosity, confusion. She heard what Tanner said about my dad and maybe she’s piecing it together in real time. I only know she’s an investigative journalist and this is going to start the questions flying.
I can’t do this here. Not now. Not ever.
I toss the shot back, let it burn all the way down, and set the glass on the table. “I’m out.”
Tanner squints at me in confusion. “What? The night’s young, baby!”
I clap him on the shoulder. “Yeah. So are you. Don’t drown in it.”
Then I turn, push through the crowd, through the strobe lights and thumping bass, and hopefully leave the ugly feelings just dredged up far behind.
Outside, the air is heavy and hot and real. I suck in a breath, trying to ease the pressure in my chest.
Behind me, the music keeps pounding. I just want to get back to the damn hotel. I shove through the line of people waiting outside the club. I tug at the collar of my shirt and raise my arm to flag down a cab. Mercifully, one slows, headlights sweeping across me.
“Grizz—wait.”
I curse under my breath, ignoring Daisy as the cab pulls up to the curb.
She catches up fast, heels clicking against the pavement, breath uneven. “You okay?”
“Totally fine,” I mutter.
“I’m not trying to pry,” she says quickly. “But what Tanner said clearly upset you.”
I shake my head. “He’s drunk. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”
“Now that’s just not true,” she says, softer now. “He knew what he was saying because I saw how it affected you. What did he mean about your dad and memory?”
“Drop it, Turner.”
She doesn’t. “Is that why you donate to the Alzheimer’s Foundation? Because your father—”
“Enough,” I roar, hands clenched into fists.
Her voice lowers but she leans in, not cowed in the slightest. “Does he have it?”
I feel my blood pressure spike, anger flaring hot and fast. “It’s not relevant to your job, so drop it.”
She steps closer and the scent of her perfume distracts me. “I want to understand—”
“I said drop it.”
I reach for the cab door even as she continues to talk.
“You don’t have to pretend it doesn’t get to you,” she says. “Whatever happened, whatever he did—”
That’s it. The last thread snaps. I turn on her, words penetrating. “You want to know what my father did?”
Her expression turns wary and she doesn’t answer.
I step into her now. “I’ll tell you what he did.
He was a relentless monster bastard who thought pain was the only way to make a man.
Miss a shot? I’d skate suicides until I puked.
Lose a game? I’d have to run home behind his truck with all my gear still on.
If I slowed down, I got the stick to the back of my helmet.
Said it would teach me to keep my head up.
Said hockey was war and I had to learn to bleed without flinching. ”
Daisy’s eyes fill with sorrow and she shakes her head. “I’m sorry… you don’t have to—”
“No, you pestered and now you’ll listen,” I growl, unable to control the rise of fury and unable to stop the words as they flow.
“Every time he hit me, every time he yelled, he excused it as discipline to make me better. And there was no love to balance it out. That was absent. Praise was foreign. Pride, a concept he didn’t recognize.
And the worst part? It worked. It made me what I am today…
tougher and meaner. It also turned me into a winner. ”
“I’m so sorry,” she repeats, and I think that might be the end of it, but she can’t stop poking for the full truth. “So, your father—” she begins again.
I scrape my fingers through my hair, nodding through an exhausted breath. “Yeah, he has it. Early onset.”
Her gaze slides off as she considers, then comes back to me. “That must be awful, him having a disease that makes it so he can’t appreciate all your accomplishments.”
I snort, a caustic laugh following. “You think that’s what bothers me? That he doesn’t have any clue the success I’ve achieved?”
She nods hesitantly.
“It’s cute you’d think it would be that simple. I couldn’t give a fuck if he knows that I’m a professional hockey player.”
“Then why are you so angry?” she asks, tilting her head.
“Because he can’t remember all the shitty things he did to me. He has no recollection of the hell he put me through. I can’t even tell him the truth of things. He’d fucking forget it.”
She goes still.
My voice drops, rough, shaking with everything I’ve tried to bury. “You have no idea what it’s like… the pain of seeing someone who put you through hell now be blind to the hell he created. To look at you like none of it ever happened.”
The words hang between us, jagged and final.
The cab idles at the curb, engine humming. I open the door, climb in, and don’t look back.
Daisy’s still standing there in the wash of neon and brake lights, her face unreadable but her eyes wide like she’s finally glimpsed the real story hiding under the headlines.
“Hotel Adolphus,” I tell the driver.
As we pull away, the club fades behind me, swallowed by darkness and sound. I have no idea why I shared that with Daisy. Very few people know the hell I went through growing up, and yet I just blurted it all out.
I don’t think about my dad or the shitty childhood I had. Instead, I try to figure out what it is about Daisy Turner that made me trust in her enough to share my darkness.