21. Chase

TWENTY-ONE

chase

"Gimme another, Al."

Al raises a bushy gray brow and leans on the bar, the requisite bartender towel draped over his shoulder. "How you gettin' home, Hanover?"

"Home"—I point at him—"is a crock of shit. You mark my words."

Nonplussed, Al says again, "How you gettin' home, Hanover?"

I glare at him and dig my keys out of my pocket, tossing them on the bar. They clatter loudly on the well-worn, wood bar.

"There. Happy? Now, give me another Jameson. Double this time. And another beer."

"I'll get you a ride." Al swipes my keys, not bothered by my little temper tantrum.

"Whatever. Where's my drink?"

Al shakes his head and turns away. I'm a grumpy bastard most of the time, without having the reasons I do tonight.

Tonight, I'm just a straight-up prick, even to Al, whom I'm nice to any other time .

I've been a surly shithead to every soul unfortunate enough to cross my path since Eden left.

It's been three days since she walked out.

But this time, I pushed her away.

That's right folks, I got her before she could get me.

Too bad my whole motherfucking body hurts with a pain that seems immune to any type of painkiller.

The first two days, I spent inside a bottle at home. Linda had shown up, ready to clean up and do the job I pay her to do.

But when she tried to strip the sheets on my bed to wash, I yelled at her not to touch a fucking thing and sent her home.

I'm not ready for the scent of Eden to be cleared away. It's all I have left.

It's all I deserve.

When I woke up this morning, a.k.a. day three of purgatory, hung over like a motherfucker, shame spread through me for yelling at Linda yesterday.

I sent her a text, apologizing and giving her another week off with pay. I'm grateful she forgave me, but her messages conveyed how concerned she is about me.

I don't need her concern. I just need time to work Eden out of my system.

After cleaning up the pigsty formerly known as my living room, I showered, dressed, and made my sorry ass be productive.

Regardless of what went down, I have a life to live, things to straighten out.

I called the insurance company, bought a new truck online, and stopped at the local funeral home and paid the tab for Stan's funeral, then went to the florist and sent a large arrangement to his family.

The accident might have been his fault, but it had been just that—an accident. The family had lost their husband, father, brother. This time, my losses had been superficial.

Stan had sunk every dime they had into his shop, and while he did a good business, I also knew the family didn't have much in the way of extra money to pay for a funeral. And life insurance took forever to come through.

It's a fact I know well.

Since it'll be a few days before my new truck is delivered, I extended the rental on Eden's SUV and paid it in full.

That pain-in-the-ass little voice in my head likes to mock the masochist I am, telling me I only kept her rental so I could smell her perfume.

Little fucker.

I drove around, surveying the damage on the island, and decided to check on my properties.

Something I should have already done. Thankfully, they all came out unscathed, except for some tree debris in the yards.

Several times along my drive, I stopped and helped out where it was needed.

Anything to keep me busy, away from the house, and thinking about her .

I'd worked so hard to build a fortress around myself, and Eden had waltzed in, wearing her four-hundred-dollar heels, and torn the walls down in just seventy-two hours.

Everywhere I look in my house I'm reminded of her.

Shit, I may have to move.

All in all, my day had been productive, but I didn't feel any better.

After helping the high school baseball team clean up the field, I decided to head to Al's for one drink to take the edge off before I go home.

I tried to stay straight for a night but the thought of going back home ?

I can't bear it.

Which is how I'm now drunk being a piece-of-shit customer to Al, who just placed a double shot and beer in front of me with a click on the wood.

I toss the whiskey back and hiss at the burn. It lands in my belly alongside the other shots I've had, but I'm beginning to get to the point where I no longer feel the comforting warmth spread through me like the first ones had.

How many have I had?

I try to count on my fingers, but I keep losing count when I get to three and have to start over.

"You're on number five. But this one was a double so it's more like seven."

Nate appears on the stool beside me like he's a fucking magician or something. I look around, my whiskey-and-beer-addled brain confused.

"Where'd the hell you come from? The wall?"

"Al called me to give you a ride." Nate nods at Al. "Just a Coke for me."

"Give me a ride. I don't need a fucking ride," I mutter under my breath. "What I need is a lobotomy."

I squint over at him when Al slides the soda in front of Nate. "You come to a bar to get a Coke?"

He shrugs. "Not usually, but someone has to drive your sorry ass home."

I shake my head. "Whatever, dude," I grumble, sipping my beer.

"So…want to talk about it?"

"Not really."

"Okay, that's cool." He sips his soda.

Christ, why the hell doesn't he drink a beer with me?

I squint at him again. "You know what? I don't like you. "

He just grins. "Well, now that's too bad. I'm pretty fond of your grumpy ass."

"No, I mean it." I swallow another swig of beer and start back in on him. "You got it freaking all, man. A woman that loves you, a family. And your career didn't end in disgrace.."

"True. But that's just one part of you. You can have the woman and the family too. We aren't all that different in that area."

I shake my head. "Oh no. We're totally different. You have the woman you want."

Holding up a finger, swaying slightly, I continue. "And you're a fucking model for sports clothes. I mean, seriously?"

Nate leans back and gives me the side-eye.

I think.

In my inebriated state, it's a little hard to tell what he's doing. "You could have the woman too if you'd get your head out of your ass. You know, a lot of guys would give their left and right nuts to be sitting where you are right now."

"You mean a lonely drunk guy in a bar?"

He rolls his eyes at me. "No, dumbass. I mean,"—he leans forward on the bar and drops his voice like he's telling me a secret—"you're a baseball legend. You've broken long-standing records. You have multiple houses, cars, every toy known to man."

I scoff. "Those are just things."

"Exactly. Don't forget all the good you do here. You donated money to repair baseball fields. You've paid for the high school baseball team to get new uniforms. You give your time to them and your money whenever they need it. People around here love your grumpy ass."

"They wouldn't if they knew me."

Nate's brow furrows. "What do you mean if they knew you? "

I drain the last of my beer and signal for another one. Al purses his lips but pops the top off another amber bottle. "Last one, Hanover."

I wave him away. I point at Al's retreating back with my thumb. "Think Al loves me?"

Nate chuckles. "Maybe not this very moment, but it's only because you're being a dick on purpose."

He stares at me as though waiting for me to spill my guts. When a few moments pass and I don't say anything, he says, "So what do you mean, if they knew you?"

I sigh and rub my hands down my face. "Look, I'm toxic, okay? When I was fourteen, my mother died. Want to know how?"

"How?"

"From the flu. She had an undiagnosed rare lung condition. Her body couldn't recover from the virus."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Guess who gave it to her?" I ask, ignoring his platitudes, and point to myself. "This punk, right here."

I raise my voice and stand in a theatrical way. "Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Chase ‘Hollywood Golden Boy' Hanover, selfish bastard extraordinaire, decided to go to a party I wasn't supposed to go to. And guess what parting gift I left with that night?"

I point at Nate. "Would you like to guess, my friend?"

Cupping my ear like I'm waiting to hear his response, I give him a go-ahead motion, but he just stares at me with a bland look.

I take that as permission to move on and plow ahead. "Ding, ding! That's right. The flu! And she did what mothers are supposed to do and took care of me. And then want to know what we did a couple of weeks later? We buried her."

I sway on my feet until I sit with a thump on the stool .

Bitterness stings my tongue and I stop talking, unable to swallow around the knot in my throat. I can still hear my father yelling at me, accusing me of being a selfish little bastard who only thought of himself.

I clear my throat, trying to continue, but I have no more theatrics for this part of the story. "My father accused me of getting her sick and killing her. He never looked at me the same after that."

Rolling my lips in to hold back any sort of emotion, I pause. "Could be because he stayed drunk after that until he died. He lived just long enough for my little brother to graduate from high school. Then when little bro went off to the military, Dad drank himself to the grave."

"That's a shitty deal, man. And I understand shitty deals."

I wave a hand, not wanting the pity. It's why I never tell anyone my story. "What's done is done."

Nate sips his soda. "That's true." He shifts on the stool. "But do you really believe you killed your mom? If she had this rare condition, she could have died from it some other way. And who says it was you who gave her the flu?"

"What do you mean?"

"Did she not ever leave the house?"

My brows furrow. "Of course she did. She volunteered all over town, with the kids, in the hospital."

"And you think you're the only way she could have gotten sick?" Nate asks.

"I—" My mouth snaps shut. "My father always said it was me who made her sick. Me who killed her. That's the way it happened."

Right?

It had to be.

My father hadn't been father of the year being an alcoholic and all, but he still did things with us at times, and he never physically abused any of us.

"But what if it wasn't?" he asks.

"Why would he tell me I was the cause of killing my mother?"

I rub my hands over my head and down my face.

Nate sighs. "I don't know. And since he's dead, his reasoning went with him. But if I had to guess? I'd guess it was because he was helpless and needed someone to blame."

"Yeah, well, fuck him."

Nate's quiet for a moment. "Why do I feel like that's not the only thing?"

"Because you're also smart. There was Eden. I chose my baseball career over her. She needed me when her mother was sick. And I left." I throw my hands up in the air. "Just left. Got mad at her for staying behind. I mean, what kind of prick does that?"

"A young one with his head up his ass?"

Nodding, I drink my beer, sloshing some of it around in my mouth. "Exactly. Guys like me. I do that." I rub at my chin with the back of my hand. "And then there's Heather."

I look around surreptitiously, half waiting for some paps to jump out at me like they used to when the topic of Heather arose.

"I know I heard a few things about that, but I also know how these rags work. Want to tell me what really went down?"

I sigh and lay my forehead on the bar for a moment, enjoying the cool, smooth surface against my skin, before lifting up again and almost falling backward off my stool.

"Long, long, long story short. Between the video of me fighting with Ty, Heather's family suing me—even though it was thrown out of court—plus all the lies Ty and her family spouted to whoever would listen, the media had a field day participating in the downfall of me and my reputation. The story got twisted to make it sound like I caused the crash."

"But I didn't think you were the one driving."

I shake my head, and the room tilts around me a bit. "I wasn't. Heather was."

"Then…why do they think you caused it?"

I sigh. "I made the mistake of trusting her family and told them the details when they asked for them. We'd been arguing just before it happened. She'd told me she was pregnant. And it wasn't mine. It was Ty's. She wanted a divorce."

His eyes widen. "Holy shit."

I nod so much I think my head might roll off my shoulders. I point a finger at him. "Yep. See why your life is better than mine? And don't forget, your heart and body isn't owned by a fucking woman you can't have because you and Charley made it work."

Eden's face pops into my brain and the world spins around me.

As I start to fall off the stool, Nate comes up underneath my shoulder and props me up. "Come on, Chase. I'll take you home."

I pat his shoulder—at least I think I do. "You're a gurd friend, dude."

For some reason, I start laughing. Nate half drags, half walks me to his truck and pours me into the passenger seat.

The last thing I remember is the image of Eden swimming in my mind before everything goes black.