The Hot Corner

by Amy Noelle

  “Maybe. But he should have told me. I wasn’t a child.”

  “He didn’t want to distract you. You know your father.”

  He laughed bitterly. “Yeah. Which is why I should have known he was sick without his telling me. What else would have kept him away? Work? I don’t think so.”

  “You believed a lie you’d been told. Many of us do that.” Some of us believed lies our eyes told us, instead of truths our hearts should have recognized.

  “I went home, and he was . . .” Brad closed his eyes and pinched his nose. “He wasn’t my dad. I mean, he was, but he didn’t look like him. He was so pale and sickly. I felt like I couldn’t even hug him for fear I’d break him.”

  I continued to stroke his hair and tried to ignore the way my guts were churning inside my stomach. This wasn’t about me. I needed to hear Brad out and then, God help me, I needed to tell him what I’d done, why I’d left him alone to deal with his father’s illness. I would do it, but not here. This perfect place, the place where he’d opened up to me and given me the one thing he’d been keeping locked away, was not going to be soiled by my lack of faith in him, in us.

  “He was so happy that I’d won. I swear, I think a little light came back into his eyes when he saw my trophy.”

  “I’m sure it did. It was what he wanted for you.”

  “I didn’t yell at him. I wanted to, but how could I? He was so fragile. I had less than two weeks with him.”

  Brad looked out at the water, but I wasn’t sure if he was seeing the ocean or his father’s withered body in a hospital bed. “At least you got some time.”

  He nodded. “He was full of plans for me. He wanted me to finish school, to marry you, to become a big leaguer and have a huge family. He always regretted that I was an only child.”

  All those dreams, gone, because of me. “I’m sorry.”

  He sighed. “It wasn’t your fault. I didn’t tell him about us, obviously. I still had hope that maybe . . .” He gulped. “It doesn’t matter. He went to bed one night and didn’t wake up the next morning. He was gone, and I had nothing left.”

  My fault. The words echoed through my head, and I was afraid that I was going to throw up at any moment.

  “After the funeral, I packed up everything I could, told a friend of my dad’s to sell the house, and declared myself for the draft. I thought about coming to get you, but by that time I just didn’t have anything left in me, and I figured you were better off without me for a little while.”

  “I wasn’t. I was never better off without you.” It just took me way too long to realize it.

  A ghost of a smile crossed his face. “Same goes, Red. I’m glad you’re here with me now. Maybe my dad’s dreams can come true after all.”

  If only. He was never going to forgive me, and I’d never forgive myself.

  “Brad, can you take me back to the condo? We need to talk.”

  Chapter 25

  He laughed. “I thought that’s what we were doing.”

  “We are, and I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you told me all that. What I have to say . . .” I tried to find the words. “I don’t want to say it here. I don’t want to say it at all, really, but I have to.”

  He studied me for several seconds, looking for all the world like he was trying to see into my mind to get at what I was thinking. If only he could. “Why do I have a feeling I’m not going to like this?”

  Because he was a perceptive guy and he knew me better than anyone ever had. “Can we just go somewhere else, please?”

  “Okay.” Brad got to his feet and helped me up. He held me for a moment and I clung to him, knowing it might be the last time. He was going to hate me. I hated me, so how could he not?

  We rode back to the condo in silence. I could feel Brad looking at me periodically, but I just stared out the window, cursing myself for running away from him the last time. If only . . . no. It didn’t matter if I had it to do over again. I’d ruined everything and I had to face it.

  I had a death grip on Brad’s hand as we rode up in the elevator to his floor.

  “You’re scaring me,” he said, pulling me close. “Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it.”

  I nodded against his chest and fought back the tears that were coming already. I wasn’t going to cry. I knew what it did to him when I cried, and I wasn’t playing that card. I deserved whatever was coming to me. Anger, hate, sadness . . . all of it and then some.

  When the elevator stopped, we stepped out and I pressed a hand to Brad’s chest before he opened the front door. “Just remember that I love you. I always did and I always will.”

  His smile reappeared, and I savored the moment as his lips moved toward mine. The kiss was soft, sweet, and perfect, exactly what I needed to give me the strength to do what I had to do. He pushed open the door, and I pulled him into the living room.

  “Sit, please.”

  He did as I asked, leaning back against the black fabric and looking tense. I paced in front of him, trying to come up with the words that might take him away from me forever.

  “Do you have a kid or something?”

  “What? No! Why are you asking that?”

  Brad shrugged. “I don’t know. It was the first thing that came to mind. Anyway, if you did, I would love it, because it’s a part of you.”

  Of course he would. “Well, no, I don’t have a kid.”

  “Okay, what is it?”

  “I screwed up,” I blurted out. He cocked an eyebrow and gave me a go-ahead gesture. “When I broke up with you, it was wrong. I was wrong and stupid and I’m sorry.”

  Brad actually looked relieved. “Is that all? I know that, Dani. Of course it was a mistake, but you’re here with me now and that’s all that matters.”

  No, it very much wasn’t. “I lied to you.”

  His face went blank. “You lied to me about what?” There it was, that edge in his tone that made me want to curl up in a corner and forget about saying a word. But I was already committed.

  “About why I was breaking up with you.”

  He sat back, his eyes steady on my face. “It wasn’t baseball,” he said.

  I shook my head.

  “It wasn’t because you didn’t love me.”

  I shook my head more emphatically. God, no. I’d been so crazy in love with him it made me stupid.

  “Was it someone else?”

  “I thought it was.” He winced and I hurried to correct him. “Not on my part, Brad. On yours.”

  “What? How in the hell could you think that? You knew how much I loved you. Where in the world would you get the idea that I wanted someone else?” His volume grew with each word. He wasn’t quite shouting, but he was close.

  I sighed and sat down in the chair. I wanted to be closer to him, but I was afraid he’d reject me, and I didn’t think I had the strength to handle that. “I missed you, so much. I watched you on TV every day and just kind of moped around until I could talk to you. My parents knew how much I wanted to be there for you, and they surprised me with a ticket to Omaha.”

  His hands tightened into fists on his lap. “You came to see me?”

  “Yes. I didn’t tell you. I wanted to surprise you. You were only two games away from going to the finals, and I thought maybe having me there would help calm you down, ease the sting of your father not being there. So I pretended I was busy with my mom all day and instead flew out to see you.”

  “If you were there, why didn’t I know about it?”

  He sounded so confused. I couldn’t blame him. “I came to your hotel and was about to head up to your room when I heard your voice.” The moment was still burned into my brain like it had happened only yesterday. “You came around the corner and I saw you with Bailey.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Bailey.”

  “Yes. You were telling her how happy you were to have someone there to cheer you on, which felt like a shot at me, even though I know you didn’t mean it that way.”

  “I d
idn’t expect you to fly all the way to Nebraska just to watch me play baseball. You did that all year long and you needed to go home for the summer. I understood that.”

  He had, but I’d still felt guilty. I should have been there from the start. If I had been, none of it would have happened. “I know. But do you know what I saw, there in the hallway at your hotel?”

  Brad shook his head and exhaled. “Fuck.”

  I nodded. “You were holding hands when I first caught sight of you. After you thanked her for being there, you hugged her. I couldn’t see your face but I could see hers.” I took a deep breath, remembering how I’d felt in that moment. It still hurt, although for a different reason now. “She said she loved you and asked where else she could possibly be.”

  He looked supremely uncomfortable. “She was my best friend.”

  “I could see her face, Brad. I knew she was in love with you. She looked at you just like I did. It was right there in her eyes, in her voice. I didn’t even know the girl and I could see it.”

  Brad frowned. “I don’t know. I didn’t want to see it, I guess. She was always just going to be my best friend, in my eyes.”

  “Maybe. But you were holding her and she was looking at you like you were her entire world. And then you said it.”

  “What? What did I say that was so awful?”

  God, I felt like a fool. “You said you loved her, too.”

  He stared at me blankly. “Yeah? And?”

  “And then you kissed her.”

  He gripped his jeans until his knuckles turned white. “She kissed me. And I rejected her. And you knew I loved you.” He said it like he was so sure, like I’d never had cause to question that. And I shouldn’t have, but I had. And here was where he’d start to hate me.

  “I thought I did, but when I saw that—”

  “You what? You assumed I was cheating on you? That I lied to you? That I fell for Bailey and didn’t bother to tell you about it? What, Dani?”

  Yeah, he was pissed. His nostrils were flaring and his hands were curled into tight fists.

  “I went through every scenario for those next few days. That you loved us both. That you fell for her and were too much of a gentleman to break up with me over the phone. That you had a girl in every city and I was just a blind fool. All of it.”

  “How could you think that?”

  “Because you kissed her! Right in front of me!”

  He got to his feet. “I did nothing but love you from the first moment I laid eyes on you. I never even looked at another girl. You saw that, so how could you possibly think I would ever love someone else?”

  I felt like I was drowning in guilt and self-hate, and his asking me that, so simply, sounding so hurt, just made it worse. “I don’t know. You have to remember we were just kids, and I saw the way she looked at you.”

  “And instead of asking me, you what? Dumped my ass?”

  “No! I went home and avoided you for the next few days.”

  He snorted. “I remember.”

  I closed my eyes because it hurt to look at him, seeing the anger and hurt on his face. “I didn’t want to distract you from your game. Even though I thought . . .” I didn’t want to say it again. “Even though I thought what I thought, I still wanted you to win.”

  “You don’t think it distracted me when you wouldn’t take my calls? When I’d get a text saying you were tired and we’d talk tomorrow?”

  I opened my eyes and met his angry gaze. “I thought it would be better than for me to confront you about her. And you did win and then—”

  “Then you didn’t bother to confront me. You just ended it, blaming it on baseball and leaving me to feel like I’d driven you away.” His tone was biting and his eyes shot fire at me. “What would you have done if I’d have been able to get on the plane and come to see you?”

  I shrugged. “I’d have caved. There was no way I could be around you and not be with you. That’s why I ran when I saw you with her in the first place. I didn’t have the strength to face you and hear whatever it was you had to say. If you did love us both, if you’d have asked me to let you be with both of us, I probably would have been fool enough to have done it and grown to hate both of us.”

  “But I didn’t love her like that.”

  “And I should have known that, but you kissed her, and I was an idiot and I cost us all this time. Do you think I don’t feel like shit about it? Do you think it doesn’t kill me to know I pushed you away when you needed me most? But you could have told me about Bailey. If you had, we wouldn’t have had this problem. I gave you the opportunity to tell me, but you didn’t take it.”

  “What opportunity? What do you mean?” He was leaning over me, caging me into my chair.

  “I asked you what else you’d been doing in Omaha besides playing baseball. You told me you’d been eating and sleeping, and that was it. Not one word about Bailey. What was I to think?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, maybe that I loved you and would never cheat on you.” His voice dripped with sarcasm as he glared down at me. “Maybe you were supposed to think every word I’d ever said to you, everything I’d ever done for you, meant something, meant everything, and that I’d keep my promises. We made those, remember? Lots of them.”

  Of course I remembered. “What I saw and heard was pretty damning, and when you had the opportunity to tell me about her, you didn’t. So I assumed I’d been right.”

  He pushed away from my chair and shook his head. “I’d make the requisite ‘assume makes an ass out of you and me’ comment, but it really only made an ass out of you.”

  And the shot hit home. Even though I deserved it, I still felt like I’d been punched in the gut. “You’re right. I was an idiot. I can’t defend what I did. I can only try to explain why I did it.”

  “You didn’t trust me.” He didn’t sound angry anymore. He just sounded hurt and disappointed.

  “I did trust you. Until that moment.”

  Brad shook his head. “No. If you’d really trusted me, you would never have thought I could do that to you. You never really believed in me—in us—did you?”

  Was that it? Had I really been just waiting for the other shoe to drop? Had all our dreams been just a fantasy in my eyes?

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know a lot of things.” He sat back down, looking drained. “Why didn’t you just come up to me in Omaha? You had no problem taking on any girl that hit on me before that.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “I don’t know. I was young and in love and completely devastated when I heard you say you loved her, and when I saw her kiss you. It was like my heart was ripped out of my chest, and I couldn’t breathe, let alone confront you both. I wish I had. I wish I’d made an idiot of myself in front of her, embarrassed you, and maybe made you break up with me for not trusting you instead of doing what I did.”

  “The difference between you and me is I wouldn’t have broken up with you even if you had embarrassed me publicly in front of Bailey and anyone else. I loved you.”

  Loved. Past tense. “I’m sorry.”

  “I believe that.”

  Why wasn’t he yelling at me? Why did he have to sound so devastated instead?

  “When you declared for the draft and didn’t come back to school, I thought that meant I’d done the right thing. I nearly called you, so many times, but I held back. And as time went by, I became convinced you were the jerk who cheated on me. The more news that came out about you, all the women you were with, only served to confirm what I thought I knew.”

  “And you came here to see it with your own eyes—that I’m a womanizer who casts women aside, not giving a damn what they feel about me. Did you think I told them I loved them, too? That I made them soup when they were sick and called them at night when I was out of town just to hear the sound of their voices before I went to sleep?”

  He might as well have taken a sledgehammer to my chest. “I don’t know what I thought, but it’s not what I foun
d.”

  “No.” Brad stood. “What you found was a man who was incapable of loving anyone but you. Did that make you feel good? Powerful? Or were you just waiting for me to run off with the next beautiful woman that came my way, proving you were right?”

  I rubbed at my chest, hoping it would let me breathe better. It hurt, and I winced. “At first I was, but as time went by I just felt like we were right, and it didn’t matter what happened in the past.”

  He laughed bitterly. “Didn’t matter? It didn’t matter that you didn’t trust me and you walked away when I needed you the most? That didn’t matter?”

  I stood and reached for him but he jerked away from my touch. “Of course that matters,” I said. “I didn’t know, Brad. If I’d known, I would have been there.”

  “Even though I was a cheating prick?”

  “You weren’t. You aren’t. When I said it didn’t matter, I meant even if you had cheated on me then, I’d still want us now. I still love you, and I would have forgiven you if that was the case.”

  “So you’re the saint who could forgive me anything, while I’m the jerk who can’t look past the fact that you lied to me and didn’t have faith in us.”

  “I’m no saint. Far from it. But . . . are you saying you can’t forgive me? I understand if you—”

  “Don’t.” He held up his hand. “Don’t be understanding now. I can’t deal with it. I can’t deal with any of this.” He glanced around the room and picked up the framed photo of us that sat on the coffee table. “You looked at me like that, but you didn’t believe in me.”

  “I love you. I didn’t want to, but I do.”

  Brad nodded, setting down the picture gently. “That’s just it, isn’t it? I love you, but right now I don’t know if I want to.”

  I felt like a bolt of lightning shot me in the chest, pain moving through every end of my body. “What are you saying?”

  “I need to get out of here for a while.”

  “Brad.” I took a step toward him, but he backed away.

  “I have to go.” He turned and left without another word.