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For a few precious moments, we are kids again. Kids without a care. Kids having fun, laughing freely, filling each other with joy.
The moment ends all too quickly.
“Do you want to come stay with us tonight?” He asks.
I shake my head.
“Do you need to come stay with us tonight?”
I shake my head again and place a hand on his thigh. “No.”
Then I look him in the eye and refuse him again, this time answering the question he is really asking.
“I’m not okay, but I’m not going to take a drink. I promise.” I know it is a promise I can keep, despite our current surroundings. Brady must have a similar thought because he looks around the room and toward the bartender wiping down the gleaming copper bar top.
“I promise,” I say once more.
I’m not tempted to drink. Oddly enough, what I really want…I want to see Davis.
Now that my anger has reduced to a simmer. Now that I’m seated here with my brother. I want to clear the air with Davey without fists and see if we can somehow move on. If we can co-exist for the sake of the man seated next to me. A man we both care deeply about.
But then there is the matter of having kept an unsettling truth from Brady for far too many years. There is no way to just expose it now without causing damage. Adults. We are all adults. We were kids when we buried what happened. Buried it to fester until neither of us can contain it anymore.
He nods. “You’ll call if that changes? Or, at least, call your sponsor?”
“I will.”
“You’re gonna want to get some ice on that, and soon,” he gestures at my hand. “Trust me.”
I smile. He knows better than I do. He was never a fighter on the ice, but that doesn’t mean he never dropped his gloves. And when he did, he meant business. None of that has really changed. He may not literally drop his gloves and get into fisticuffs.
Nobody in their right mind messes with Brady Michaels.
Chapter seven
Brady walks into my office and surveys the damage done to my face.
His expression is hard to read, though. He doesn’t seem angry or on the verge of firing me or adding any additional decorations to my face. He hadn’t stormed in, either, just casually strolled in like he has done several thousand times before.
“Wow,” he says. “You actually look worse than Carter.”
I could only chuckle at that. After all, other than that initial punch Carter hadn’t been ready for, he had indeed done more damage to me than I had to him. Reflexively I reach for my face, dabbing my bruised cheek and letting my fingers stall along my busted lip and chin, which are slowly healing.
“Am I safe in assuming you two have gotten whatever this is out of your system and can behave like adults now?”
Did you ever wonder? Carter said. Did I? I honestly can’t remember. I just hid on the ice. I didn’t think about Carter’s friends. I thought about Carter, though. I thought about Carter a lot. I thought about Carter too much. But being outed because I lived with Luke? Yeah, I guess I knew deep down, people might assume. But I buried that fear, along with virtually everything else, and focused on hockey. Did I ever wonder… about what?
Brady clears his throat, bringing my thoughts back to the present. But I still have no answer to his question. Does he really expect one?
Whatever this is? Hmmm. And what is this now? I’m not sure how to answer that. I’m even less sure how to get this out of my system. I can’t get this out of my system. I’ve tried to get this out of my system. Worse, I’m not sure I really want Carter out of my system now. The fight probably needed to happen. Get the anger out there instead of letting it continue to fester. With it released, I expected to feel different.
Maybe the anger is going to build back up. But when I saw his matte green Bronco in the parking lot this morning, anger is not what I felt. Carter makes me feel things, things I probably shouldn’t. But for the first time, possibly in my life, definitely in decades, I feel alive. I feel alive when I look at him. Alive when I think about him, which is admittedly way too much these days.
“I’m not sure it’s that simple,” I say.
Brady eyes me, seeking more of an explanation. I answer without fully processing his demeanor and his ‘whatever this is’ remark. My brain kicks in a split second too late. The words are already spilling out.
“It was a bit of a shock to see him here. I guess I knew he was helping Levi, but I still didn’t expect to have to see him… I’m not sure why… but…I guess I thought he’d been working remotely from Minnesota…”
