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“Am I going to like your version of events any better than Davey’s?” Brady snarls.
Well, fuck. I shook my head. Dammit, I wish I’d been the one to tell this story. But I had my chance, didn’t I and I didn’t take it. Fuck, Davis. What did you tell him? “Result is the same.” That sounds crass and flippant, but it’s the truth.
Brady finally takes that breath Levi urged him to take and runs his hands across his face. “Did you not feel you could come to me?”
“No, it’s not that. It was your senior year. You were about to get drafted,” I sigh. “But it wasn’t even entirely that. I knew I could come to you. I knew you’d do whatever you could to help. I didn’t want help. I didn’t think I deserved help. I didn’t deserve to feel better. I just…ran.”
“That’s why you transferred.”
I nod. “When the distance wasn’t enough, I started drinking.”
“God, Carter, it’s been over twenty years… why—”
“Those were my demons.” I scrub my hands across my face and groan. They still are my demons. Still hanging on my shoulder. They may have been dozing for many years, but they are awake now, laughing every time I think they will go away. Every time I think I can deal with them. Seems to be the cycle of my life. Just when I think I have things under control…boom…
“I didn’t feel the need to share, it just… well, I thought I had them under control until Davey and you started working together and even then, I was fine… but then Casey’s funeral…”
“Casey’s funeral?” Brady interrupts me. The fury that had dimmed boils back up.
I swallow. Clearly, Davis saved a few details for me to share. Thanks D. “That’s the first time Davey and I had seen each other since…, well, since Luke’s funeral. I thought maybe he had forgotten. Well, not forgotten, of course, but maybe forgiven, moved on… but not so much.”
Brady exhales again and looks at Levi, then back at me. I look away and catch Levi’s eye. His expression told me he knows everything… everything. Does Brady need to know all those details? Surely not.
“And you knew about this?” Brady snaps at his husband.
Levi doesn’t flinch. “Just the other day.”
“What about Devyn?” Brady snaps again.
Devyn? Oh shit. Now he’s trying to gauge the depth of the betrayal.
Levi looks at me and shrugs. “I don’t really know. I’m guessing she knows what Davey has been willing to tell her. But based on what Davey told me, he left a lot of details out… until now.”
Brady shakes his head and paces around a bit. I know him. It’s not the secret itself that bugs him. It’s that we kept it a secret. And now Levi and Devyn are in on it, to a degree. He doesn’t miss much, but he missed this. And to be the last to know is burning a fire in his gut. I look at the floor, not sure what path to take here, so I take the simplest route I can think of.
“B, I’m sorry.”
My apology is met with silence. I look again to Levi for help. He raises his eyebrows and looks at Brady. Both of us wait. Brady says nothing. I know his mind is racing. Trying to sort out whether to be furious, or at least how long to stay that way. He’s also trying to calculate how to fix it. But he knows he can’t, and that has silenced him for the moment.
Well, fucking hell. I don’t know what else to say. I wonder if I should say it again, but he heard me the first time and well, that’s enough. Or maybe it isn’t. But saying it twice, three, twenty times will change nothing.
Brady finally nods. But that nod does nothing to convince me we are okay.
Chapter nine
Gusting winds and whiteout conditions greet me as I step out of the practice facility.
Fantastic. Flurries. The weatherman said flurries on the news this morning. I also did not expect I would stay so late, either. In my defense, I lost myself in some game films. For several hours, thoughts of Carter did not fill my head. And that was a refreshing change.
My inability to chase him from my thoughts was one reason I rode my motorcycle this morning. I left home early, took a long meandering ride out onto the plains and then back into the city. Those rides soothe me. That’s what I do when I need to clear my head. When lacing up my skates and spending time on the ice isn’t an option.
Flurries. That is all they called for.
These are not flurries. I can barely even see my bike across the nearly empty lot. Nearly. There is one other vehicle there. I stiffen when its owner steps out the door and stands next to me.
“Great day for a ride,” he quips.
I say nothing.
