Chapter 27
Half the guestsopted for a spa day. The other half—Booker and his former friends included—had a great time outside playing games, drinking beer, and having a good time.
Hellcat: You’re missing a heavenly mud wrap.
Booker: Not my idea of heaven, but I’m glad you’re having a good time.
Hellcat: Could be. You never tried.
Booker: There’s a reason I never tried.
Hellcat: What if we got naked together and did it?
Booker: Still no. I’ll wait till you wash off the mud and then show you a better way to get dirty.
She sent a video of her wiggling her toes, shiny with pale pink polish.
Hellcat: Look how pretty! If you were here, we could get matching nail polish!
Booker: No one’s getting near my toes.
Hellcat: Except me, right?
Booker: Including you. You’ve got access to every other body part. My feet are off limits.
She sent a GIF of a child throwing a tantrum.
Hellcat: How’s archery going?
Booker: It’s fun. But the Renegades’ enforcer’s a wild man. Good thing you kept the kids away today or Stevie would be hanging off a tree with an arrow through her T-shirt.
Being out here with the guys, almost felt like old times. Same stupid jokes, same blood-sport level of competitiveness. Even when it was as simple as shooting an arrow at a target.
It was bittersweet, though. Because he was with them—just not part of their group. They didn’t turn to him when they shattered a clay pigeon. They turned to each other, slapping backs, laughing, and making fun of the way one of them squinted or the other one jerked when he pulled the trigger.
He’d missed out on a lot.
Hellcat: Let me know when Xander and Lulu arrive for the cooking competition.
Booker: Will do.
After a full day of bows and arrows, shotguns, and flag football, everyone changed into swimsuits to join the other half in the spa’s hot springs. Booker found it exhausting to keep up the friendly fa?ade, so he headed into the kitchen to put the baskets together for the cooking competition. Not all fifty guests wanted to participate, of course, but they had enough for three rounds with four chefs competing at a time. It should be fun.
When he heard voices at the back door, he figured it was the chef and his staff. Then again, it could be Xander and Lulu.
His mind instantly shifted into agent mode. Xander Wilder was one of the best quarterbacks in the league, well on his way to earning a spot in the Hall of Fame alongside his dad and brother. Of course, he had an agent, but Booker never missed an opportunity to make a connection.
But when he turned to greet them, he found it wasn’t them.
It was Jaime and Declan.
His neck went hot, and his pulse rioted. “Hey.” He quickly schooled his features. “Forget your trunks? I didn’t bring any, so I can’t help you there.”
“No,” Declan said. “We’re hoping to have a beer with you.”
“I’ll have to catch up with you.” He gestured to the table. Of course, this kind of setup was the chef’s job, so he did have the time to hang out with them. He just didn’t want to.
He noticed Cole wasn’t around. He’d adopted two kids and had twins, so maybe he wanted to step away from owning the team. Booker was the only other one left. They had to know that wouldn’t happen.
“We just want to talk,” Jaime said.
He scrambled to think of an excuse, some work call he needed to make, but then, he realized he didn’t need to fake anything.
All these years later, he understood that no one had done anything wrong. He’d thought the friendship was more than it was—an immature miscalculation on his part. There was no fixing that.
“Here. Let me grab you some beers and set you up on the terrace. It’s a nice day.” He started across the expansive kitchen. “Have you been out here before?” Of course, they hadn’t. Why would they? They didn’t know Lorelei.
It wasn’t like him to get flustered.
“No,” Jaime said. “But it’s pretty cool that she owns one of the few privately owned properties inside the park.”
“And it used to be a camp, so it’s set up with all the activities.” He sounded like a fucking tour guide. At the rink or in meetings with them, he kept his composure. But alone with them, when they wanted to talk, it was different. He pulled open the refrigerator and instead of naming the choices, he gestured to it. “Help yourself.”
Once they chose their beers, he rummaged through the kitchen drawers, looking for a bottle opener. He stopped when he heard the hiss of carbonation as they twisted the tops off.
Get it together.
What’s your problem?
Instead of following him to the back door, Jaime leaned against the counter and tipped his beer. “Did your mom tell you I came to your apartment about three years ago?”
“Yeah, of course.” So, that’s what this is about? His guilty conscience?
“I tried to follow up.” Jaime swallowed, his cheeks flushed. The dude never could hide his emotions. “But I didn’t hear back from you. I need to apologize to you in person.”
“Nothing to apologize for. Come on, man. It was a long time ago. Besides, you didn’t make me come over that night, and you didn’t make me jump.”
Jaime set the beer down and pushed off the counter. “Yes, I did. You came over because I’d lost my shot to play hockey. It was a bad day for me, and you guys showed up. And that would’ve been fine, but I made the stupid decision to go BASE jumping the night before you were leaving for training camp.”
He shrugged. “My choice.”
“No.” Jaime was adamant. “I stole the choice from you. There was no other way down the mountain.”
“Look, man. It’s fine.” For some weird reason, he showed them his arms and legs. As if more than a decade later, they’d expect him to still be bruised and broken. He had no idea why he did that. “Everything’s fine.”
“Yeah, I know. You didn’t miss a beat.” Jaime’s gaze lowered to the floor. “You went to Yale, got a job at Elite right out of law school. You turned a shit situation into a great career. I get it. It all worked out. But we were best friends, and you never talked to us again. Even after Kurt died, you couldn’t stand to be around us.”
Anger ripped through his body. “I never talked to you again?” He shook his head. “That’s an interesting take, but okay.”
“What does that mean, ‘an interesting take’?” Jaime asked. “We’ve all reached out to you over the years, and you’ve blown us off. At the barbecue after the funeral, you said you were going to the bathroom, and you never came back. Obviously, you’re pissed. You can’t stand the sight of me. And I don’t blame you. I stole your hockey career from you, and there’s nothing I can do to fix it. I can’t change a damn thing, but I need you to know how sorry I am.”
“Apology accepted.” He gave them a look that said, Conversation over.
“If you’re so cool about everything, why won’t you look me in the eyes?” Jaime asked. “Why won’t you talk to me? To any of us?”
He thought of the festival, the guys and their wives at the table, kids on their laps. It fucking hurts, okay? But he’d never say it. “We’ve all moved on. We’re busy with our own lives.”
“You forget that we know you,” Declan said quietly. “We grew up together.”
“Okay?” What’s your point?
“You’ve changed,” Declan said. “At least around us.”
“And we want you back.” Jaime was losing his shit now.
“Oh, now you want me back? What can I do for you, Jaime? You need me to be your agent? What about you, Dec? Is there a player you want? You heard about the Canadian kid, right? And you want me to bring him out for a skate?” What utter bullshit.
“I don’t want anything from you,” Jaime said. “Other than your forgiveness.”
“And friendship,” Declan said. “We miss you. It’s not the same without you.”
Fuckin’ Declan. The quiet one. The real one. He always laid it out there.
Booker didn’t know how badly he’d wanted to hear those words, but the fact that they were pure horseshit turned them into gasoline for the fire raging inside him.
“We lost a lot of friends along the way,” Declan began.
He knew they were all thinking about Griffin, who’d quit hockey early on to get a job so he could spend time with his now-wife Stella.
“But they didn’t leave a hole,” Declan said. “It’s always just been the four of us.” He smiled. “You’re the smart one. You were the one who kept us from killing ourselves.”
Jaime nodded. “So true. I’ve never met anyone who could size up a situation that fast. I don’t know how you did it, but you could take in the scale and size and magnitude, figure out weight and velocity, the impact of gravity...” He tapped his head. “Brain trust.” But the smile faded, and he watched Booker for a moment. “What did you mean by ‘interesting take’? We’ve all tried to reach out to you over the years, and you’ve ignored us. What else could we assume but you wanted nothing to do with us?”
And that was the flame that ignited him. “When did you try to reach out to me? When I signed with Elite and Cole needed an agent? Or was that right before you signed with the Renegades and needed me to look at the contract? Or did I get it wrong? You wanted endorsements, right?”
Declan straightened. “Cole’s had an agent since high school. He didn’t need you for that.”
“You think I showed up at your apartment after ten years of no contact because I needed you to look at a contract?” Jaime asked, wild-eyed. “I fucking owned the team. I had my pick of agents and a staff of attorneys. Jesus, man. I came to apologize. You never fucking let me apologize.” Shouting, he ran his hands through his hair.
“How about when I was laid up in a hospital bed?” Booker was done playing this game. “Would that have been a good time? Or what about the year of physical therapy when I was in a strange city and didn’t know a goddamn soul? How about then? Think that might’ve been a good time to talk to me?”
It had never occurred to him they’d have a different perspective on what happened. That they’d be angry at him. That’s wild. “I never heard from you guys again. You didn’t visit me in the hospital, and you didn’t check up on me. The first person I heard from was Cole, and I didn’t care enough at that point to talk to him.” He moved to go around them, but they shifted, blocking his way.
“The hell we didn’t try to visit you,” Jaime said, always the emotional one.
“They wouldn’t let us see you,” Declan said. “Hospital security blocked us.”
Booker’s heart thundered. Was that true? “Bullshit.” He needed to get out of there.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Jaime’s hands hit Booker’s chest. “We saw you land. All of us stood there and watched it happen. Do you know what that did to us? Cole drove the truck, but I was in the back with you. You were in so much pain you blacked out.” Crimson red stained his cheeks. “You were my best friend, and you think for one second that I didn’t try to see you in the hospital? Do you know me at all?”
The truth glimmered like sunlight on a lake. He couldn’t deny it.
This rings true.
“After security blocked us, I came back the next day.” Pain flickered in Jaime’s eyes. “I snuck in, but when I got to your floor, your parents were sitting there. Jesus, Booker. Your mom was falling apart. She didn’t know if you were going to live. She told me to get out.” His voice broke. “She said, ‘If he dies, you’ll have to live with that.’”
“My mom said that?” That wasn’t like her at all. In fact, when she’d been with him, she was calm, positive. Encouraging.
“You think I’m making it up?” Jaime scraped his hands through his hair. “You think I don’t hear those words in my head every night before I fall asleep?”
“Since we couldn’t see you in the hospital, we went to your house, but you’d moved,” Declan said. “About six months later, we called your mom to find out where you’d gone. We asked if we could visit you. Figured she’d have calmed down by then.”
“What did she say?” What had his mom done?
“She told us you didn’t want anything to do with us.” The color washed out of Jaime’s features, and the starkness in his eyes drove home the truth in his story. “And I didn’t blame you. How could I?”
“When I asked her, she said you guys had moved on,” he said. “You guys wanted to have fun, and I couldn’t keep up anymore.”
“Fun?” Jaime practically shouted. “You think we had fun after you nearly died?”
“Cole was so wrecked, he gave up the NHL and went to Canada to play in the Juniors,” Declan said. “I played in college until my grandfather got sick. Jaime?—”
“Was a total fuckup,” Jaime said. “It wasn’t until I got my one-night stand pregnant that I finally got my shit together. None of us talked to each other until Kurt’s funeral. And even after that, it took a while for me and Cole to reconnect.”
He knew they weren’t lying, but to hear they hadn’t kept their friendship this entire time…well, he had to readjust the story he’d concocted, and it was going to take a moment.
“Did you really think we’d dump you in the ER, and then fuck off?” Jaime asked. “Go back to hanging out and forget about you?”
His mouth opened. Then, shut. Finally, he jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Yes.”
“I can’t believe you thought so low of me,” Jaime said. “Was I that much of a selfish prick?”
“No.” It actually sounded pretty lame now that they were airing it out.
“Then, what did you think?” Declan asked.
“I just told you. Out of sight, out of mind.”
Jaime went wide-eyed. “So, that’s what my friendship meant to you? Cool. Awesome.” He snatched his beer bottle, took a slug, and headed outside. “I’d rather get a fuckin’ mud mask than listen to this shit.”
That left him alone with Declan. “Tonight, when he’s in bed and thinking about this conversation, it’s going to hit him.”
“What is?”
“How we lost thirteen years.” Regret pinched Declan’s features. “He thought you never forgave him for ruining your life. You thought we stayed friends and forgot all about you. And all it would’ve taken was a simple conversation.”
Booker stood on his balcony overlooking the “hole,” as locals referred to a valley out here. The slant of the sun sent rays filtering through the pine trees that sloped down the hill. The air smelled of freshly mown grass and propane from the grill.
Laughter and conversation floated from the back of the house where the wedding guests gathered for drinks and dinner.
But he couldn’t get Declan’s words out of his head.
All it would’ve taken was a simple conversation.
Had his mom really done that? If so, she not only withheld the truth about his dad, but she’d flat-out lied about his friends. At a critical time in his life, she’d manipulated the story to her advantage.
For years now, he’d kept his distance from her. And Lorelei was right. It was because he’d never gotten to talk to his dad about the adoption papers. His parents had stolen one of the most significant conversations of his life from him.
And now, it turns out, his mom had ripped him from his friends—after he’d asked about them.
Fuck it.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and called her.
“Hey, sweetheart.” She answered on the third ring. “How’s the wedding going? How’s sunny St. Lucia?”
Fuck the pleasantries. “Mom, when I was in the hospital, did you talk to Jaime?”
“Well, hello, to you, too.” She stuttered out a laugh. “Honey, we’ve already talked about this. I told you I’d forgotten about it until I talked to Jaime in your apartment.”
“You said he’d visited, but you never said you told security to keep my friends away.”
“Are you blaming me for keeping away the boys who nearly killed my son? I don’t think you understand how many hours it took for a doctor to come out and talk to us and tell us the extent of your injuries. Do you understand how traumatic that was?”
“Okay, but what about later when they asked if they could visit, and you told them I didn’t want anything to do with them? You told them to stay away from me. That was six months later.”
“Booker, you were in physical therapy. Do you remember how grueling that year was? You think I wanted you back with those awful boys?”
“Mom, that’s not the point. I asked you why my friends hadn’t contacted me.” He’d been on the verge of tears. His voice had cracked. She had to have seen how upset he’d been.
“You did. I remember that.”
“And you lied. You said, ‘I guess they’ve moved on.’ You said, ‘Out of sight, out of mind.’”
His mom let out a breath. “I know that sounds like a terrible thing to do, but that accident cost a year of your life. You were applying to colleges.” Her tone grew more insistent. “You were just getting your life back on track. We didn’t want you pulled into their circle again. We knew if they came out to see you, you’d have been rappelling off the Empire State Building. And don’t try and tell me you wouldn’t, because that’s exactly the kind of thing you boys did with each other. You didn’t go out for coffee. You car-surfed.”
“That wasn’t your choice to make.”
“You were eighteen and living under our roof. You bet it was our choice.”
He didn’t agree, but there was no point in arguing the point. “And we didn’t do stupid things.”
“Snowboarding off-trail through the trees isn’t stupid? Look, we moved to that little town thinking it would be a safe place to raise you. And it turned out to be a nightmare because you chose a reckless group of friends, and we lost control over you.”
“You’ve got it all wrong. The reason we became good friends was because we weren’t reckless. Think about it. We didn’t get hurt until that night. And that wasn’t because of stupidity. That was turbulence. No one can control that or even factor it into a jump.”
“You have no idea what it’s like to wait for your child to come home at night, knowing the kinds of things you boys were doing. It wasn’t just skateboarding down our block. No, you guys took it to a whole other level by terrorizing the town. What did you call it?”
“Parkour.”
“On a skateboard.” Her tone got heated. “You didn’t just dirt bike—that would’ve been fine. You trespassed onto other people’s property and tore up their land. How many calls did we get from the police? Honest to God, Booker, the older you got, the more risks you took. You wait till you have kids before you judge me, and then, you tell me how it feels to know they’re jumping off a cliff with no parachute.”
An image hit of Stevie leaping, and his body clenched so tightly he saw spots in his vision. Electric fear jolted him. The thought of her riding a skateboard down the handrails of Town Hall had his pulse skyrocketing.
How many times had they fallen before they’d gotten it right?
“I will never forget when you tried to ice skate on the Snake River,” she said. “One of your friends got hypothermia. You were lucky none of you lost a limb or died. You have no idea what it was like for me.”
“You’re right. I don’t. But I don’t like lies. I don’t want you or anyone to manipulate the story of my life.”
“I understand that.” She calmed down. “I do. I just hope you understand why I did it.”
“I get that you wanted to protect me, but I don’t accept the lying. It makes me not trust you. And it’s the reason we don’t have much of a relationship right now.”
His mom was quiet for so long, he had to check his phone to see if the call had dropped. “I know you’re upset about the adoption papers, and I’m sorry.” She sounded like she might cry. “I don’t know how to fix it. I can only hope, if you ever have kids, you’ll come to understand our choices.”
He supposed it was time to tell her.
But before he could, she said, “You were everything to your father, and he didn’t want to do anything that would hurt the bond between you. We thought if you knew you weren’t his biological child, you’d question his love, and he didn’t want that. He wanted you to feel every minute of every day that you were his son and that we were a family. Your dad’s highest value was giving you the best childhood.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, you understand?” she asked. “Or okay, I don’t want to hear your excuses anymore?”
“I get it.”
“I’m not sure you do. Your dad and I talked about it so many times, wrestling with the decision, and I’ll tell you why we decided not to tell you.”
He held his breath, the anticipation almost painful.
“He was worried that every time he was angry with you or distracted by work or just in a bad mood, you’d see it through the filter of knowing he wasn’t your biological dad and think it meant he didn’t love you. That you were a burden to him. He wanted you to see through one lens and one lens only—that he was your dad, and he loved you unconditionally. But again, you can’t understand it until you have children of your own.”
In that moment, he felt a clearing in his heart. A healing. Almost like his dad was talking to him through his mom. For the first time, he understood. And again, it was thanks to Hellcat who’d explained that Stevie got her sense of herself from seeing her reflection in other people’s eyes. If he viewed her as an obligation, she’d pick that up.
Whereas if he loved her the way his dad loved him, she’d be invincible.
“I do get it, Mom.” He paused before dropping the bomb. “And maybe it’s easier to understand now that I have a kid.”
She laughed. “I wish.”
“No, I do.” He needed to sit down for this. He settled in one of the padded deck chairs. “Two Christmases ago, Marcus threatened to fire me, and I had a tough decision to make. So, I headed to my cabin?—”
“What cabin? You don’t own property.”
“I bought it with the money Dad left me.”
“You bought a cabin? Where?”
“Here. In Calamity.”
“I don’t understand. But we’ll come back to that. You have a child? A son, a daughter? How long have you known?”
“I was getting there.”
“You were taking the long way,” she said it jokingly, but he could hear her impatience.
“I have a daughter. She’ll be two in September.”
“A daughter? And I’m just finding out about this now?”
“I found out three days ago.”
“You better finish the story. A daughter,” she whispered in awe.
“Right, so, I got caught in a blizzard and had to share my place with a woman.”
“Okay, we can fast forward through this part. But why didn’t she tell you about the baby?”
“We never exchanged personal information.”
“I will never understand this generation. My God, I wouldn’t touch a man who withheld his name.”
“Mom, she’s Lorelei Calloway.”
“Okay, now I know you’re pulling my leg. Look, I’m sorry for the unintended consequences of the choices we made, but I promise you?—”
“I’m not messing with you. We only spent a day together, and she didn’t want me going back to the city and selling my story. Anyhow, fast forward to now, I’m the best man for my client?—”
“Ginty. I know. You’re in St. Lucia.”
“Actually, there was a change of plans. They’re getting married in Calamity in a few days. And we’re staying at the maid of honor’s house.”
“Who just happens to be Lorelei Calloway.”
“Yeah. And so, I got to meet my…” He swallowed. “My daughter.”
His mom went quiet for a moment. “You’re seriously a father?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s her name?” she asked.
“Stevie.”
“Stevie?Is that a family name?”
He settled back in the chair, resting his feet on the patio table. “No, she’s named after Stevie Nicks. From Fleetwood Mac?”
“Yes, I know Stevie Nicks. I’m just…I’m a grandmother. I wasn’t expecting that. But none of that matters. How are you? This must be overwhelming.”
“It is, but in a good way. She’s a great girl. At first, I wasn’t sure what to do—I even considered signing away my rights, but George asked me what Dad would do, and I just…knew.”
“You knew what?” His mom sounded wary. “Why does it sound like you’re going to drop another big one on me?”
“I’m going to move out here.”
“To Calamity?”
It was the fear in his mom’s voice that drove it home more than her words. Her concern for a grandchild she hadn’t met growing up in a town that drew extreme athletes to its rugged terrain made her motivations clear. His mom had never belonged in Calamity, with its wild-at-heart residents and inhospitable land. And the quiet life she was suited to with a husband and one child never panned out for her, thanks to his need for adrenaline-fueled fun.
“Why there? Lorelei Calloway can live anywhere in the world.”
“She’s got family here.” And he really couldn’t explain the stark beauty of the place to someone who preferred a big city. Calamity was a place that drew adventure-seekers. That wasn’t his mom. “And I like it.”
“Okay, well, I’ll come out there?—”
“No. Not yet. I just found out, and I need some time with her. Let me get through the wedding and figure out what’s going to happen with my job.”
“Okay.” His mom said it quietly. “I know you were always closer to your dad. He was better at accepting you for who you were. I couldn’t relate to your need for danger.” She sighed. “Well, he couldn’t relate to it, either, but he wanted to be there for you…with you. You chose such a brutal sport, and I had a hard time watching you get slammed into the walls.”
“The boards, but yeah, I know.” It was his dad who drove him to games. Even when he played travel hockey and had games in Washington and Idaho, it was his dad who drove the team van. “I love you, Mom.”
“But you don’t trust me.” She sounded defeated. Resigned. “I don’t think you’ll ever forgive me for keeping the truth from you about your dad.” She paused. “Then again, you’re a father now, so maybe you will.”