by Vivian Lux
What would she have done?
She would be sympathetic. Everybody is the hero of their own story, Ian, she had told me. We all have our reasons, and while they may not be the best in the eyes of others, they still make sense in our own lives.
Okay, so the dude must have had a reason for getting his dick sucked. In the morning, once Candace left, I would go and find out exactly what that reason was.
And then I would force him to make things right. Tell him how to be the good guy in this, even though all I wanted to do was shake him.
And if he didn’t listen?
Maybe then I would punch him.
That was an appealing thought, and it made me smile.
Feeling like I had my shit together, I filled both glasses to the very top. Cheers to being a nice guy, I thought to myself.
Candace came out of the bedroom, dressed in one of my T-shirts. It was gigantic on her, stretching nearly to her knees, and she looked so fucking sexy that it was all I could do not to throw her back onto the bed.
“You’re dressed,” I complained, handing her a champagne flute.
“You’re not,” she giggled.
“I’m a little overheated right now,” I said, clinking my glass against hers. “Somebody gets me all hot and bothered.” I raised my glass. “Plus, the weather is getting warmer, and it’s too damn hot outside.”
“It’s March thirty-first,” she said. “It is not warm in the slightest.”
I grinned. “Whatever. Let’s toast. To us.” I said. “To your launch. To the playoffs. To winning.”
“To winning,” she grinned and took a sip. “Damn,” she sighed. “You have good taste in bubbly. This is going to go straight to my head.”
“That was my plan all along. To get you drunk and have my way with you.”
“You did it a little backwards then,” she giggled, then drained the rest of her glass. “Hoo!” she said. “That went down way too easy.”
I waggled my eyebrows at her.
“Watch your mouth, Carter or you’ll find I go down a lot harder next time.”
“I’m not saying a word, then.”
Candace sat down heavily on my couch. “You okay?” I wondered.
She leaned forward. “I’m just remembering that I barely ate anything at the party,” she said, cradling her head in her hands. “I’m feeling a little woozy. You have anything to eat?”
I went back and looked in my cupboards. “I haven’t had a chance to get groceries since I got back from being on the road. I’ll order a pizza.”
“At one in the morning?”
“Of course!”
I dialed my favorite place, where they knew my number on sight. Candace’s head lolled to the side and she closed her eyes as I gave the order, but then she popped back up once I ended the call. “How long?” she asked.
“Ten minutes.”
Her eyes widened. “How the hell did you get them to come so fast?”
I grinned. “They want to keep me happy, I’m a frequent customer.”
She smiled. “I fucking love you.”
“Say it again.”
She stood up and swayed over to me, draping her arms around my shoulders. “I said,” she stood on her tiptoes and kissed me, “that I love you.”
She loves me.
That incredible realization expanded in my head, crowding out all of the other thoughts that had been competing for space in my brain: Tim infidelity, Jake’s competitive weirdness, the looming playoffs. Nothing else mattered anymore. I would deal with all that later. Right now, Candace loved me, and I loved her, and there was nothing else that could compete with that.
“Good,” I told her, kissing her hard. “Because I love you.”
She reached down to close her hand around mine. “Hold that thought,” I told her. “I need to jump in the shower.”
“Boo, hygiene sucks.”
I laughed. “I’m an athlete. I’m used to hitting the showers after a workout like that.” I drained the last of my champagne. “If the pizza comes, you’re all set, I already paid.”
She flopped back onto the couch. “I hope I hear the door,” she murmured sleepily.
I kissed her forehead. “I’ll be out in like five minutes. Don’t go falling asleep on me now, I’ve got more training regimens we need to work on, Coach.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Candace
I heard the pipes groan and then the splash of the shower, but I didn’t see anything because my eyes were shut tight.
The room was spinning. I gripped the couch, and took a deep breath. When I told Ian I hadn’t eaten anything at the party, it was an understatement. In my nervous anticipation, I had completely missed lunch, too.
That champagne was hitting me, hard.
I sat for several moments, just breathing. Then I heard a very soft knock at the door.
“Oh thank God,” I breathed. “Food.”
I opened my eyes and made my way slowly and painstakingly to the door. After a few seconds of fumbling with the deadbolt, I finally managed to throw it open. “Thank God you’re…”
I trailed off.
A seemingly familiar woman straightened up from where she had been crouching, an envelope in her hand.
“Oh,” she said. “I thought no one was home.”
I swallowed weakly. I recognized her face.
“You’re Lisette,” I said, keeping my voice as even as I could. “You’re Ian’s ex.”
She straightened her shoulders, and looked down her nose at me. Then her shoulders slumped a little. “Yeah. I guess I am his ex.”
Be nice, I whispered to myself. But something had jarred loose my sense of politeness. “I almost didn’t recognize you with your clothes on,” I said coldly.
She winced. “Okay, fair enough. I suppose I deserve that.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. This repentant behavior was completely different from the Lisette who had been waiting for Ian in his bed, naked and stretched out like some kind of buffet platter.
She glanced down at the envelope in her hand, and twirled it in her fingers. “It’s just, I read about the playoffs, and I was so, so proud of him, and it got me thinking…” She swallowed, and for a second I thought I saw tears glittering in her eyes just before she blinked rapidly. “I wrote him a letter,” she held up the envelope, “telling him how sorry I was.”
“Sorry?” I echoed, folding my arms across my chest and leaning against the doorframe. “You’re sorry?”
She nodded quickly. “Ian treated me well. He’s really a nice guy, if a little rough around the edges. What happened between us, that was totally my fault.”
“No shit,” I said, feeling my blood boil up defensively.
She nodded again. “This is the first step—I’m taking it right now. Apologizing to those I have hurt.”
I blinked. “First step.” Something slid in place in my blurry, confused brain. “You mean like AA?”
“NA, actually. Narcotics Anonymous.”
“What?”
“Ian never knew,” Lisette said, still staring at the envelope and refusing to meet my eyes. “Because I did it in secret, kept it from him, but I was using pretty heavily throughout our whole relationship.” She slumped against the wall and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I used him,” she said, shaking her head, “And I’ve tried a million different ways to justify why I did what I did, and I just keep coming back to the truth—I used him.” She sounded almost nauseous. “His money meant I always had a supply of junk flowing. I was completely out of my head, willing to do anything and everything to keep that money train going.” She chuckled ruefully. “But, junkies are stupid, even when they think they’re smart. And I thought I was being so, so smart, but he caught me.”
“Cheating on him,” I hissed through my teeth. I still wasn’t buying her contrite demeanor.
“Yes. I cheated on him. I was cheating on him the entire time we were together.” Lisette lifted her head and looked me in the eye for the first tim
e, and for a moment I saw just how beautiful she actually was. And how terribly, terribly sad. “Junk made me feel like there were no consequences to my actions.” She cleared her throat and straightened up. “Now that I’m clean, I see that everything has a cause and effect. I caused our breakup, and the effect was that I lost him. My addiction caused me to cheat, and the effect was I lost one of the best men I’d ever had the good luck of meeting.” She looked at me, her eyes filled with sadness, and something loosened in my chest.
“I believe you,” I said.
She swallowed and nodded, her eyes filling with grateful tears. “I’m not going to mess with you guys anymore, I promise that. Just, please, take care of him, okay?”
“Of course I will,” I said.
She nodded. “I know he’ll take care of you.” She peered in to the apartment. I know she was noticing the bare floor when her face fell even further. She stepped back. “It’s funny how I didn’t really start loving him until I lost him,” she said, her voice full of the deepest, saddest regret. “He was my ‘one,’ and I never even knew it until he was gone.”
I swallowed, my throat too tight to do anything but nod. She glanced at me one more time, then placed the envelope deliberately into my hand.
Then she ducked her head, took a deep breath, and yanked the engagement ring off of her finger. She jammed it into my hand, avoiding eye contact, and turned to the waiting elevator. The doors closed, and she slid out of sight.
I didn’t move until I heard the gears stop and I knew she was really gone. Only then did I look down at the envelope. It was addressed to Ian in an assertive hand, the pen marks deeply grooving the paper. It looked like it took every ounce of will she had to write his name.
I staggered back in to the apartment like a zombie, only to be greeted by a naked Ian toweling off in the bedroom doorway, water pooling by his feet. He shot me such an open, happy smile that I almost didn’t want to tell him what had just happened.
“Is the pizza here?” he asked, rubbing the towel behind his ear.
I shook my head silently. The envelope was in one hand, the ring in my other. They both suddenly weighed as much as an elephant.
“Candace?” Ian said cautiously. “Why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost? Is my apartment haunted?”
I bit my lip. “Kind of, yeah,” I said, stretching out my arm and holding out the ring for him to see.
The towel slid from his hands, leaving him opening and closing his fists around nothing.
“Where did that come from?” he asked, his knuckles white.
“From her,” I said, exhaling heavily. I closed my eyes. “Ian, don’t get mad. She came by to give it back to you, and to give you this,” I held out the envelope.
“I don’t want anything of hers,” he said, his voice dark and terrible.
“No, it’s okay,” I said, swallowing my nausea and trying to sound more confident than I felt. “She wanted to tell you—to tell me, actually—that she wasn’t going to bother us anymore.” I opened my eyes and looked at him imploringly. “Did you know she had a drug problem while you two were together?”
His head twitched slightly, then he shook it emphatically. “Bullshit.”
“It’s not bullshit, and if you read the letter—”
“I don’t want to read the letter.”
I stretched out my hand. “Ian, come on, please. If not for her, then do it for me. For us. I can’t keep having her ghost looming over our relationship. Especially not when she came by expressly to apologize, and promise that she wouldn’t bother us again. Read the letter. Put it behind you.” I had been walking towards him, with each word, closer and closer. The fabric of his too large T-shirt clung around my legs. I could feel the heat rising from his skin, smelling the soap. “Please, Ian,” I implored him. “Being cheated on, that’s awful, and I know how much it hurt you. But you have to have closure, in order to move forward with me.” I lifted the envelope, “It’s right here. Not too many people get that. Be happy! Be happy that you’re able to move on.”
His expression was unreadable, and his lips worked like he wanted to say something, but no sound would come out.
“Fine then,” I said shortly, thrusting the envelope into his hand. “I’m just going to give you a moment alone with that…”
“Candace?” he said hesitantly.
I held up my hand. “No, you need to deal with this. I’ll be out in the living room.”
I stepped away from him, my anger rising. He was such a stubborn fool sometimes. The same things I loved about him were the things I hated the most. How could that be?
My thoughts were interrupted by the shrill ringing of my cell phone. I knelt and dug around in my purse, and caught it just before it went to voicemail. “Donna?” I asked. It was well past two in the morning.
“Candace?” she choked out, then dissolved into sobs.
“Oh my God, Donna, are you okay?” I asked, springing to my feet. “Were you in an accident? Do you need me to come?” I was already yanking on my jeans, and rifling through my purse for my keys.
“No. I’m fine,” Donna said. “I mean—no, I’m completely not fine, but I’m not in an accident.”
“Then what’s wrong?” I demanded.
“Candace, the party, Tim said—”
“Donna, please, slow down, I can’t understand you, honey.”
Donna took a deep breath. “Tim cheated on me!” she wailed.
I sat down heavily on the couch. “What? How? When?”
“He just told me, just blurted it out now,” she said, in between hiccupping breaths.
“Has it been going on for a while?” I cringed.
“No, at least he says it hasn’t. He says it was just a one-time mistake, a stupid cold feet thing, but it was at the party, Candace! When we couldn’t find him!” She was veering away from sadness and into rage. “When he disappeared like that. And we all were looking for him. You know, when Ian finally found him? That’s what he was doing—he was in the bathroom with some fucking slut, getting a blow job, and he says that Ian found him with his pants down, and he knew that Ian would probably call me, so he wanted to be the first and have me hear it from him.”
The phone slipped from my fingers and bounced once on the couch. I scrambled to pick it back up again.
“What did Ian do?” I demanded.
Ian stepped around from his bedroom, wearing a perplexed expression.
“Tim said that Ian caught him,” Donna said. Then she paused. “Wait, he never told you?”
I glared at Ian. “No,” I said tightly. “He didn’t say a word.”
“Why the hell did he do that?” Donna asked, confused.
“I don’t know,” I said shortly. “But I promise you, I’ll find out.” I tore my gaze away from Ian’s worried stare, and fixed my gaze on my fingers, which were digging white spots into my thigh. “Donna, honey, do you need me to come over?”
“No, no,” she sniffled. “I’m fine. Tim already left. He’s going to spend the night at his brother’s. I just, I think I just really need sleep.”
“You sleep, honey. Take a pill if you need to. I’ll call you in the morning. I love you, Donna,” I told her.
She sniffed. “Love you, too,” she hiccupped. Then hung up the phone.
“What was that about?” Ian asked.
I set my phone down, and folded my hands neatly in my lap to keep from strangling him. “I don’t know. It was a complete surprise to me.” I said. “But apparently you already knew all about it.”
First he was confused, but then his eyebrows lifted. “Was that Donna?” he said.
“Yes! It was Donna!” I exploded. “She just told me that Tim cheated on her. And,” I added, “she told me that you were the one who found him!”
Ian’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down once as he swallowed. “I did,” he said shortly.
“Why wouldn’t you tell me?” I demanded.
He folded his arms across his broad chest. “I was go
ing to handle it myself, Candace,” he said icily. “Man to man.”
“Oh, man to man, huh?” I snapped. “Well that worked really fucking well.” I buried my head in my hands. “My poor sister.”
“I didn’t think he would say something to her so quickly,” Ian ventured.
“What? You didn’t think he’d have the decency to tell her?” I rolled my eyes. “Well, I guess why would you? When you wouldn’t even have the decency to say anything yourself.”
Ian held up his hands. “Whoa, slow the hell down there, Candace. Look, I know how it feels to get cheated on. I was trying to help. I wanted to do the right thing, and now you’re pissed at me.”
“Yes, I’m pissed at you! Why wouldn’t you say anything?”
“Because I had a plan! A plan to make it all better. I knew what needed to be done,” he said emphatically.
I stood up from the couch. “Well, apparently not everything goes according to plan.” I said, slinging my purse over my shoulder. “Like my plans of sleeping here tonight.”
“Candace, come on.”
“No you come on. Your little power trip backfired, and ended up hurting my sister way more than she needed to be hurt.” I opened the door. “Call me when you’re ready to stop being such an almighty asshole.” Then I shut the door on him and burst into tears.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ian
The goal was mine. I had the puck, and was sliding effortlessly towards it, feeling everything moving the way it should, my body in tune, my mind sharp…
Something huge and heavy slammed into me, knocking me backwards so that I landed hard on my right hip.
I was only down for a nanosecond, before I sprang back up and started swinging. “You stupid asshole, you slammed into me on purpose!” I shouted, aiming a punch at Jake’s jaw.
“You skated right the fuck over me,” he protested, his face nearly purple. “Why don’t you watch where the hell you are going, Carter? Or are your eyes going in your old age?”
“I’ll show you what an old man can do,” I growled. I had him by the collar, dragging him to the side, ready to beat the ever-loving shit out of him. How dare he get in my way? We were supposed to be on the same damn team. It was a deliberate—I knew it was deliberate.
