by Kennedy Ryan
“Fuck!” I scream it so loud, conversations in the lobby stop, and all eyes turn to me. I don’t care. I’m spiraling, thinking of that son of a bitch violating Iris. Of him abusing her. Beating her. I kick the table, and it spins a few feet into the path of a couple walking to the elevators. I turn to the wall and punch it, denting the lobby wallpaper. Denting my hand. My knuckles swell and redden immediately.
“August, stop it.” Deck grabs my arm, his frown stern. “We don’t have time for tantrums.”
“Tantrum?” I croak, my voice like sandpaper. “If someone raped Avery, someone beat her, what would you do?”
He goes quiet, a flare of violence in his eyes. “I’d want to kill them.”
“Right. Then let me go find Caleb.”
“But I hope I’d have at least one friend who would stop me,” he says. “Look, Caleb’s going to get his. That file didn’t just go to Avery’s station. It went to every major station.”
“Shit.” I drag my hands over my face. “This’ll be a media circus.”
“Yeah. You might want to sort through all your feelings later and worry about Iris right now. I think Avery was one of the first to get it, but there’ll be reporters and TV cameras at Iris’s door very soon, if not already.”
“I can’t . . .” I pull my phone out to check the time. “How much time you think we’ve got?”
“It’s late on the east coast,” he says. “That helps, but we may want to get her out of there and get some PR on this. You can best believe Donald Bradley is already lawyered up and has his spin machine hard at work.”
“Fuck him,” I spit. “What are the odds he didn’t already know about this? Caleb doesn’t piss without him signing off on it.”
“I’ve already got our PR team working on it.” Deck glances at his phone when it dings with an email alert. “Matter of fact, this is from them. I sent the file over as soon as Avery told me so they could vet it and figure out a statement since the public knows about you guys now.”
If I’d gone to Houston, I’d have forty-five million dollars, and maybe I’d even be on my way to a ring, but I wouldn’t have Deck—someone who’s truly a friend and looking out for me.
“Thanks, Deck. I . . .” Emotion clogs my throat. “I just . . . Iris? God, she’s the sweetest thing in the world. And she’s . . . she’s so small. How could he . . .”
Deck hooks an elbow around my neck and brings me in close.
“Hey,” he says gruffly, pulling back and placing his hands on my shoulders. “We’ll work through all of that. I promise you he’s gonna get his, August.”
“You sure about that, Deck?” I ask bitterly. “Did he ‘get his’ when he broke my leg? No, his daddy and the powers that be protected him. And you and I both know how it is—how there’s a different set of rules for athletes. How we close ranks and protect our own. Consequences aren’t ever guaranteed. I’m not having it this time. I’m telling you, if he gets out of this, I’ll kill him myself.”
“Keep your voice down,” Decker says through clenched teeth. “You don’t get to be a hothead. You hear me? You got a bright future that most guys would give anything to have. And you got a girl most guys would give anything to have. Would you sitting behind bars make this go away? Would it take away what happened to her? Is that gonna help her raise her kid?”
I’m quiet because I know the right answers, and I can’t make myself say them. My rage needs an outlet, and I don’t know one more deserving than Caleb.
I want my dad.
The thought comes from nowhere and doesn’t even make sense. Who even knows if he’d have the right words to say. Despite having so little time with him, he always comes to mind in trouble or triumph. It strikes me how important a father is, and Caleb, that sorry, degenerate asshole, is Sarai’s.
He can’t have any part of her. He can’t be in her life. He can’t touch her.
“Okay.” I nod at Deck to let him know my head is in the game. “I got it. You talk to the team. I’ll call Iris. I need to get her out of there.”
“Car’s on the way,” Deck says.
“What?” I do a double-take. “What car?”
“Already got a car on the way to her house ready to take her to the airport. Team plane will take her and Sarai wherever you say.”
My shoulders slump with gratitude and a tiny measure of relief. I don’t have my dad, but I do have Deck.
“Thank you,” I tell him. “God, thanks, Deck, but redirect the car. She and Sarai are at my place. She was cooking dinner for us there.”
I pause, dreading the call I need to make.
“She’s been so happy, Deck,” I say. “We’ve been so happy, and now this shit—”
“This shit will pass.” He starts toward the elevator and says over his shoulder, “Call your girl so we can take care of her.”
Take care of her.
I didn’t do that. I let her down. How did I miss this?
Was he beating her when I saw her at the All-Star Game? I know I didn’t see her often then, but from the first night we met, I’ve always felt so connected to her. How could I not have known? Why would she not tell me?
It doesn’t matter. I know now, and she needs me more than ever.
50
Iris
“Weather delay?” I look at the food in various stages of preparation in August’s kitchen, a veritable Louisiana feast. Etouffe, shrimp, beans and rice, and bread pudding. MiMi would be proud.
“It’s okay,” I tell August, my phone pressed between my shoulder and ear as I measure whiskey sauce for the bread pudding. “The food will keep. It’ll be here tomorrow. You will be home tomorrow, right?” Forget the food. I just miss him.
“You got me all Lou Rawls over here,” I joke, waiting for him to laugh back.
There’s just silence on the other end.
“‘You’re Gonna Miss My Loving’?” I sing a little part of it . . . badly. “Remember?”
“Yeah, I . . . I remember,” August finally says, his voice sounding as if it’s passing through a cheese grater. “Babe, there’s something I need to tell you. We don’t have much time.”
I tilt my head up to hold the phone properly. “Don’t have much time? Why?” I ask. “August, you sound weird. What’s going on?”
“Decker came to me a few minutes ago and told me . . .” He clears his throat. “He told me that Avery received a file at work today.”
“Avery, his girlfriend? The sports anchor?”
“Yeah. It was a file about . . . baby, it was a file about you.”
I drop the measuring cup, and shards of glass litter the floor.
“A file?” My breath is choppy. Blood surges in my veins like the Mississippi primed to overflow. “What kind of file?”
The question is superfluous. I already know. I’m as shattered inside as the glass at my feet realizing that the world will know what happened to me. What was done to me.
That August knows.
“It’s pictures of you,” he says, swallowing so hard I hear it over the phone. I hear the anguish in his voice before he says the words. “Beaten, Iris. He beat you?”
He beat me? No, I beat him at his own game. I escaped. I got away.
I survived!
But all anyone will see is a victim. Not Iris, but the black-eyed Susan in those pictures with her lips split open and her jaw swollen twice its normal size. All they’ll say is he beat you? You let him beat you? You stayed?
Weak.
Fool.
And they’ll have no idea who I am.
“August, I wanted to tell you.” I say, pressing down my shame. “I signed an NDA.”
“You could have told me, though. Iris, you should have—”
“Excuse me, but I don’t need a lecture from anyone on what I should have done.” I fight back tears of hurt and anger. Not at him. At Caleb, and whomever leaked this, and at the whole world. “My situation was complicated beyond what you can imagine. If I had just left Caleb, he would ha
ve gotten joint custody of Sarai, and that was never going to happen. I would die to prevent that from happening.”
I almost did.
“We’ll talk about that later,” he says. “I’m not mad at you. God, do you think I’m mad at you? For not telling me? No, baby. I’m mad at myself for not seeing it. For not . . . I’m furious at him for . . .” He pulls in a fortifying breath and goes on more calmly. “Right now, we need to get you out of there. Avery isn’t the only one who got this file. Every major news station has it.”
My knees buckle as the scope of my humiliation comes into full view. I grip the counter and raise a shaking hand to my mouth. “What? Oh, God.”
“A car’s on the way to my place,” August says, and I hear the deliberate calm of his voice trying to soothe me. “Grab a few things for you and Sarai, and the car will take you to the airport. Wherever you want to go.”
Spanish moss. The Mississippi River flowing through my veins.
MiMi left Lo and me her tiny house on the bayou. We haven’t sorted through what we want to do, so it’s just sitting there empty, waiting.
“I want to go to Louisiana,” I say. “Not many know about MiMi’s place, that I’m connected to it.”
“Okay. The Waves have a plane that’ll take you there.”
“And you?” I don’t want to sound pitiful, but I need him so badly. I never wanted to be dependent on a man again, but it’s too late. Our hearts are interdependent, and when mine is aching, it needs him. Wants him. I want him.
“I’m coming to you, of course.” He growls over the phone. “God, I’d be there by now if it weren’t for this damn snow in Denver. As soon as I can get a flight out of here, I’ll come. Just text me the address.”
“Okay.” My heartbeat slows just a little.
“A driver will take you to the airport, and a guy from the security team will go with you to the house.”
My blood congeals. “No,” I croak. “No. I don’t want that. I don’t want a bodyguard or security or . . . no. Just you, August.”
“Iris, there’s no way in hell I’m letting you and Sarai go to the middle of nowhere by yourselves during this shit storm,” he snaps.
“That’s right. You’re not letting me do anything,” I snap right back. “I’m telling you that I’m not having some strange man staying with me and my daughter. End of story.”
“But Iris—”
“Did you read the file?” I ask abruptly.
We’re separated by miles and an ocean’s worth of silence floating between us.
“No,” he finally replies. “You wanted to tell me yourself, and I know you hate your story, your life being out of your control. That everyone else gets to judge and interpret you. At least with me, I want you to be able to tell your story yourself. That’s how I want to hear it.”
My prince.
He sees me. He knows me. He loves me, and I thank God for a second chance.
“Thank you for that, August,” I say, gulping back tears. “Caleb’s bodyguard kept me in that house. Made sure I could never leave. He stood by while Caleb beat and raped me.”
The word rises from hell and climbs up my throat, burning and sulfurous in my lungs.
“I was . . . I was raped by Caleb on a . . . on a regular basis at gunpoint.” I pause for the softly uttered expletive from the other end. It all rushes back so vividly that my scalp stings when I think of Caleb jerking me by the hair.
“Iris, God.” I managed to hold back my tears, but I hear them in his voice—the agony for me. “Baby, I want to be with you right now.”
“I know. I want that, too. Tonight?” I ask hopefully. “You think you’ll make it there tonight?”
“If I have to drive a bus to the nearest city that can get me a flight out, I will. I promise.”
“Just no bodyguard. Please,” I whisper. “I know it’s silly to you, but—”
“No bodyguard,” he agrees, still reluctantly. “The driver will drop you guys off at the house. You’ll only be there a few hours without me, and I’ll see you tonight.”
I turn off all the food and abandon everything. I know this feeling. I remember my family running, chased by a pending storm. The panic, the hysteria. The terror. I feel it all riding to the airport and flying to Louisiana. Thank God for Sarai. Occupying her, soothing her on the plane, feeding her when she’s hungry—the business of motherhood helps take my mind off the storm whirring around me, picking up strength with every person who sees that file. I’m not googling or surfing the web. I don’t want to know what’s going on. When the time comes, I’ll speak.
It’s only when we are inside and the driver is on his way back to the main road that I really stop to think. To take myself off autopilot and process the implications of the file coming out. Was someone out to get Caleb? It wouldn’t surprise me, of course. Surely, I’m not the only one he’s been cruel to. August knew he was a jackass. Andrew knew. Andrew helped me with the medical reports.
Andrew?
Caleb had something on Andrew to keep him under his thumb. Was this Andrew’s revenge?
If so, thanks a lot, buddy.
Sarai is bathed and in her nightgown of choice, a San Diego Waves T-shirt, and I’m wearing one of August’s button-ups I grabbed from his place when my phone rings.
“Story, Mommy,” Sarai says plaintively, holding up her copy of Goodnight Moon.
“Mommy will read. Just hold on.” I run into the kitchen where I left my phone, making sure to check the caller ID before I answer.
“Lo, hey. Thanks for calling back so quickly.”
“Of course, girl.” Sympathy and anger mix in her voice. “I wish I could be there. I’m stuck here in New York ’til the weekend. How did this happen?”
“I have no idea. A copy of the file was delivered to Avery Hughes. She’s dating Mack Decker, one of the Waves front-office execs, and she gave him a heads-up.”
“Are you okay?” Concern softens Lo’s usual brashness. “You know you have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Yeah, I know.” My laugh sounds hollow. “But everyone’s going to judge me anyway. Make assumptions. Presume to know. I never wanted this to come out. It was purely a threat to keep Caleb out of our lives.” I flop onto MiMi’s flower-patterned couch. “Man, this is an ugly couch.”
“What?” Lo laughs. “The one in the living room?”
“Yeah. It’s like one of those gators in the bayou threw up a garden.”
“Yeah, it’s bad,” she says, and we share a laugh that dies at the same time. “I miss MiMi so much.”
“She was amazing.” I swipe at the corners of my eyes, surprised by the tears. “I wish I’d had more time with her.”
“You had the time you were supposed to have. I believe we go where we’re supposed to go when we’re supposed to and that people are in our lives when they’re supposed to be.”
“What if they never should have been in your life at all?” I bite my lip. “I wish I’d never met Caleb.”
“He’s an asshole, but your experience with him taught you a lot about yourself and made you stronger than anyone I know.”
“Yeah, right,” I scoff, picking at a faded flower on the upholstery.
“Listen to me, Bo.” Lo’s firm voice gets my attention. “The struggle made you stronger. Lesson learned. Move on and show the world what a survivor looks like.”
“I just feel haunted by my mistakes,” I whisper, clenching my eyes closed. “And like everyone will see me as weak.”
“Weak?” Lo scoffs. “Fuck ’em. If they haven’t walked in your shoes, haven’t had to fight for their lives and for their kid’s life, haven’t had to survive what you survived, and lived to tell it, they have no room to judge.”
“Lo.” I can’t manage anything more.
“You have Sarai. You have August. You have me. You had MiMi,” she says vehemently. “One person in your life was an asshole, and you evicted him as soon as you could. I’m proud of you.”
The words s
pread over me like salve, and I can’t speak because of the emotion choking me—because of how much that means.
“I guess August is losing his mind,” Lo says after a few seconds of silence, shifting the subject.
“Pretty much.” I shove my fingers through my tangled hair and sniff. “He was trying really hard to stay calm for my sake, but ‘lose your shit’ was all in his voice.”
“He loves you.”
“Yeah, he does.” I smile wider. “I love him, too.”
“You sound a lot better than I thought you would.”
“I feel better.” I shrug. “It’s like, yes, I hate that people will know, and I don’t know what this will mean for Caleb—his career, endorsements, and all that stuff. He’s so insulated by his money and his father’s power. I don’t think this alone will take him down. I’m more concerned about him pursuing custody of Sarai at some point.”
My phone signals an incoming call.
“Hey, this is August,” I say hastily. “I’ll call you back.”
I click over and settle back on the ugly couch. “August, hey.”
“Hey.” He sounds tired. “I’m on my way.”
“You’re on the plane?” I ask, my voice and my heart lifting.
“Even better. Flight just landed, and I’m in the car. According to navigation, I should be there in like two hours.”
“Thank you, August.” Some of the tightness in my chest loosens knowing he’s coming.
“Babe, don’t thank me. There’s nowhere else I want to be.”
“Wait.” I sit up, frowning, mentally collating dates and information. “Don’t you have a game in San Diego tomorrow night? What time is your flight back out?”
“I’m not flying back tomorrow.” He blows out a weary breath. “I told Deck I needed to take a day, and he agreed. I’m skipping the game.”
“To be . . . to be here with me?”
“I told you if you were ever mine, I’d play you at the five.” The sound of a smile breaks through his voice. “You’re the center, Iris.”
