Chapter 28

brADY

When I saw that it was Julia, not Grace, waiting for me outside the county jail, my hopes plummeted.

“Hey, Brady,” said Julia. She didn’t look happy to see me. “Let’s get you out of here.”

I considered telling her no, that I’d walk home if I had to. But Julia didn’t look like she’d take no for an answer. I gritted my teeth and followed her to her car outside.

“How did you know to bail me out?” I asked.

“I guess you wouldn’t have seen all the news stories about you getting arrested,” she replied, her tone scathing. She started driving after asking me for my address.

Shit, shit, shit. “Sorry,” I muttered.

“Sorry? That’s all you have to say?” She glanced at me, incredulous. “You just spent the night in jail after assaulting somebody! Did you even call somebody to get you out?”

I shrugged. I didn’t feel like explaining that I hadn’t remembered anybody’s numbers.

Julia sighed. “Never mind. I’m just glad I could figure out where you were easily enough. Oh, and you owe me five hundred bucks.”

“I’ll pay you five hundred thousand if you can drive me home without lecturing me,” I said.

“No way in hell.” Julia got onto the interstate. “Look, I know you’ve been having a hard time lately. I’m very sorry to hear about your mom passing. When I lost my dad, it was really, really difficult. So I get it.

“But that doesn’t mean you can throw your life away, either. You’re digging yourself into such a deep hole. It’s getting to the point that Silas is talking about having you off the team, and I don’t think Coach is far behind him. Is that what you want? To ruin your career?”

“Of course I fucking don’t.”

“Then you need to pull yourself together. I don’t care what it takes. Do you need to go to therapy? Go to some nature retreat? Go volunteer at a shelter and play with puppies? Whatever it takes, Brady. But you need to do something other than self-destruct.”

I knew she was right. I knew it, but I didn’t want to hear it.

Besides, she didn’t know the half of it. She had no idea how I was feeling, how the woman I loved wouldn’t even let me near her now. That I’d ruined my life way before last night.

“Did you hear what I said?” Julia asked, her voice rising.

I hadn’t, so I just shrugged. “I know you’re pissed at me. And so is everybody else in my life.”

“They’re pissed because they care about you. Even I care about you. I know you think I’m just around to make your life more difficult, but it’s because I want you to succeed.”

I snorted. “You only care about making sure the Blades look good.”

Julia’s expression was the definition of if looks could kill . “Yeah, I care. It’s my job to care. Your behavior hurts not only yourself but also everybody else on the team. And I know you’re not so selfish as to not care about that.”

I sank down in my seat, pulling up my jacket to my ears. “I have a headache,” I groused.

“Shocking, with how much you’ve been drinking. But I don’t care. I just want you to hear me.”

“Of course I fucking hear you! I hear all of you. I’m a fuckup, and I know that. You don’t have to keep telling me over and over again.” I groaned as my head started pounding for real. “Can’t you just let me figure this out on my own?”

“And let you set the entire organization on fire? No damn way.”

Julia parked her car in front of my apartment and gave me a strange look. “Is this where you live?”

“Yeah. I don’t need a huge place.”

She was silent a long moment. Then she gave me an awkward pat on the shoulder. “Call me if you need anything, okay?”

No way in hell. I just nodded and got away from Julia as fast as I could.

I had a game that night, and I couldn’t miss it. Not since I’d missed our last game because of Mom’s funeral.

When I showed up, everybody refused to look at me, like they were embarrassed for me. Mac, at least, took me aside and asked me if I was okay. I just shrugged him off and told him I’d talk to him later.

I probably should’ve called in sick, because we ended up having one of our worst games of the season. I couldn’t concentrate, not with my mind going every which way. It didn’t help that seeing Coach made me think about Grace, and then I couldn’t stop seeing Ben’s car wrapped around that fucking tree.

We lost—spectacularly. I missed more than one goal, to the point that Coach pulled me from the game early. But at that point, we were too far gone and couldn’t regain the ground we’d lost.

Coach was so pissed that he didn’t even speak to us after the game. We were all exhausted and pissed at each other. I knew that if one person said something to me, I’d probably start punching like I’d punched that random guy at the bar last night.

“Carmichael!” Coach yelled as I left the locker room. He motioned at me. “My office. Now.”

Mac shot me a look. “Good luck, man,” he mouthed at me.

At this point I didn’t even care what Coach had to say to me. How could shit get any worse?

Coach was just shaking his head when I came into his office. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but this ain’t it,” he said. “You won’t have a job or a girl if you keep acting like this.”

I was flabbergasted. “That’s all you have to fucking say to me?”

Coach pointed a finger at me. “Don’t swear at me, Carmichael.”

“What do I care about this team or my career when I don’t have Grace?” I felt like everything around me was crumbling before my eyes. “And you know whose fault that is? Yours. You were the one who said I could never tell her the truth.”

Coach reared backward. “I did it for your own good. I did it for my daughter’s own good. How can you not understand that?”

“Well, Grace knows everything now. She knows I gave those damn keys to Ben, and now she won’t speak to me. I guess that makes you happy since you never wanted us to be together anyway.”

Coach was silent. His lower lip trembled. I wondered whether he was going to start crying. I almost wished he would. At least I wouldn’t be the only one feeling this kind of pain.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Coach, his voice hoarse. “Get out of my office. Now.”

I didn’t need to be told twice. Coach could be pissed at me all he wanted.

If he wanted me off the team? Fine. Who gave a shit? I had nothing if I didn’t have Grace in my life, anyway.

I ended up at a bar not far from the rink. I knew I should’ve gone somewhere farther away where I wouldn’t have been recognized, but I didn’t care anymore.

Eventually, fans realized I wasn’t interested in being friendly and stopped coming up to me for autographs. I sat at the bar and drank the night away because that seemed like my only solution.

I was plastered when the old man next to me said, “You okay there, son?”

I shot him a smile without any humor in it. “No. But that’s okay. I have all this.” I motioned at my empty glasses of booze.

The old man shook his head. “You’re too young to be drinkin’ like that.”

I couldn’t help but point out the irony that the old man was also knee-deep in his own drinking.

“I ain’t got nothin’ left,” the old man said, shrugging. “I’ll go out and sleep on the sidewalk and do the same thing tomorrow. Nothin’ really matters. But you’re too young for that shit. I can tell.”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

The old man chuckled. “Why do I get the feelin’ you’re gonna tell me?”

He was right. I spilled my guts to this random old man, who nodded and just listened without comment. It was freeing in a way that I would never have thought possible.

Of course, by the end, I asked him what I should do next. The old man had kept drinking through my spiel, and now he was nodding off and about to fall asleep.

“I told ya,” he kept saying, his eyes rolling back into his head. “Nothin’ really matters.”

I laughed, but it sounded like sobbing. I groaned. How the hell had I ended up like this?

But to my surprise, the old man roused himself enough to say, “I let my demons get to me. It ain’t worth it. There’s a lot more to life than drinking it away.”

I snorted. “Tell that to my mom,” I said darkly.

“Your mama? She loved you. Mamas always love their kids.”

The old man wiped his eyes. “My mama, God bless her soul. My daddy died, and then she was stuck raising six kids on her own. She married a bastard because she needed the money. He beat her up all the time. When I’d tell her we could run away, she’d tell me it’d be all right and just went back to takin’ care of us all.”

“That’s awful,” I said, unsure what to say.

“Only good thing my stepdaddy did was die. Anyway, what was my point?” The old man stared off into the distance for so long I assumed he’d forgotten what he’d even been talking about.

“I remember now.” He wagged a finger in my face. “Your mama loved you. Even when she drank. My mama drank because it was better than feelin’. I don’t blame her for it. Now, I do it, too. It’s shitty, but it is what it is. But don’t be like us, hangin’ on to the past. That’s what I’m sayin’.”

I nodded. I was already too drunk for any philosophizing, although I sort of understood where the old man was coming from. That didn’t mean letting go would be easy—or if I could even do it.

My phone rang, interrupting this strange conversation. It was Mac.

I answered, trying to sound sober, but it took all of five seconds before Mac realized what was wrong.

“I’m coming to get you,” he said before hanging up.

Mac showed up shortly after. He took one look at me and hauled me up. “I’m driving you home,” he said.

I laughed because this felt like Julia all over again. “Don’t lecture me, though,” I mumbled as I staggered to Mac’s car.

“I’m worried about you, man.” Mac helped me into the passenger seat. “What is going on with you? You get arrested for assault and drinking, and now you’re back to drinking again?”

The world was spinning. I knew it was from the alcohol, so I closed my eyes and hoped it would stop soon.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I admitted.

Mac hadn’t started his car. My head lolled to the side as I looked over at him. My body felt so heavy all of a sudden.

“Brady, talk to me. Please. You’re freaking me out,” said Mac.

Even in my drunken haze, I could tell my best friend was genuinely worried about me. That realization made me feel worse about myself.

Why did I keep causing the people I loved so much pain? They didn’t deserve that.

I didn’t even realize that I’d started crying. And then I was sobbing and bawling like a baby. Mac just sat with me and let me cry, not saying a word but simply being there when I needed him.

I told him everything: about Ben, the car crash, the keys, Coach’s demand that I keep my part in the tragedy silent. How Grace found out and wouldn’t talk to me now. How I didn’t know how my life had fallen apart so quickly.

Mac sighed. “God, man. I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

“I don’t deserve my career, or Grace. I know that.” I swiped at my face, tired of crying. “So why do I keep hoping things will change?”

Mac frowned. “Whoever said you didn’t deserve those things? That’s bullshit. Besides, does Grace know that Coach made you keep that whole thing secret?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think it’d make a difference at this point.”

“Uh, yeah, I do think it would.” Mac’s gaze was intense now. “Grace thinks you were lying to her because you were a coward, not because you wanted to respect her dad’s wishes. She needs to know everything .”

I wanted to believe Mac, but at this point, I didn’t know what to believe. For all I knew, telling Grace about her dad swearing me to secrecy would only make things worse.

“Coach was the closest thing you had to a dad. Of course you listened to him. I mean, it sounds like he didn’t even give you a choice,” Mac pointed out.

“You didn’t see Grace or hear what she said. She wouldn’t even let me touch her. It was like she was looking at a stranger.”

“Well, maybe things won’t change. But what do you have to lose at this point?”

I sighed. I was exhausted. I just wanted to sleep until my life felt normal again. Maybe if I just gave Grace some time, she’d come around.

“You’re coming home with me,” said Mac as he started the car.

“I’m sure Elodie will love that,” was my wry remark.

“Elodie will understand. But I don’t want to leave you alone right now. And the last thing you need is to get into another fight and end up arrested again.”

I didn’t have the strength to protest. If Mac wanted to tuck me into bed at his place, fine. It wouldn’t change the fact that my life was in pieces, the woman I loved hated me, and that I didn’t have the wherewithal to give a shit anymore.