by S. J. Bishop
"Angelo?" I asked. "What the hell are you doing here?" I was surprised to see him. And for the first time in his presence, I felt a little scared. Why was he hanging outside my home in the dark?
"I came to talk to you about that proposition I mentioned."
Heat boiled up in me, making even the cold rain feel hot against my skin.
"I'm not interested," I said, turning toward the stairs that led to my apartment. I walked a little ways, Angelo following me. There was an overhang along this part of the walkway, and Angelo and I stood under it, avoiding the rain.
"I'll make this fast," Angelo said, completely ignoring what I'd said about not being interested. "One hundred million dollars."
Angelo had my attention.
"All yours," he said.
I knew a price tag like that didn't come easy.
"For what?"
"Throwing the Super Bowl."
I laughed, already shaking my head. "No. No way. It'll never work. Besides, you don't have that kind of money."
"Not when you knew me I didn't, but things have changed. I assure you, if you throw the game, I'll have the money."
I hesitated. Angelo was not a good man, but he had never lied to me.
"Give me the rundown." I heard myself ask the question and wondered what the hell I was doing listening to even this much.
"If you can guarantee a Giants’ loss, I stand in a very good position to make a lot of money. Your end of that money will be one hundred million."
"And after that?" I asked, waiting for the catch.
"After that, our business is complete. We walk away from each other."
I hated that I was thinking about it. My phone rang, and I denied the call without checking to see who it was. It was probably Coach, and I couldn't talk to him now. I'd never felt so bad about hitting anyone in my life. In that one punch, I'd betrayed him.
Was I seriously worried about betraying Coach Walker with a punch when I was standing here considering throwing the goddamn Super Bowl? Coach had worked so hard to help us get here. The Super Bowl meant everything to him. Could I betray him like that? Could I betray the team?
My phone rang again, and again I denied the call. I needed it to be quiet. I needed to think.
"Clock's ticking. I need an answer."
"Now?" I asked, immediately sorry that I'd given such an honest reaction. I should have played it cool. Always cool.
"The Super Bowl is next week. If you're in, then I have steps I must take to ensure my bets. I don't have time to waste."
My thoughts raced, and my brain tried to keep up with them. The most dominant thought in my mind was betrayal. Not betraying Coach or my team, but how the Giants had betrayed me. Randall Nielson had pissed all over my deal. If he had it his way, I'd be a rookie forever. How was I supposed to buy my mother a house? How was I supposed to get her out of Vinegar Hill? Sure, she was mad at me now, but wait until I showed up on her doorstep with the deed to a brand new mansion. My phone rang again, and I closed the call without even looking.
"I'm in."
"Excellent. I'll be in touch."
I watched Angelo walk into the darkness, and my blood ran cold. I ran up the stairs to my apartment and was still fumbling with my keys when my phone rang again. Geez, this person didn't give up.
"What?" I snapped.
There was silence on the other end. The rain was coming down hard now, and I couldn't even hear anyone breathing. I was about to hang up when Clarissa's voice came clearly through the speaker.
"Lars," Clarissa's voice broke into a giant sob.
"Clarissa? What's wrong?"
"M-my father." I could hear her trying to get control over herself so she could talk. "H-he's been in a car accident. It's bad. I'm at the hospital. They don't know if he's going to make it."
21
Clarissa
I waited for the doctors to come out and tell me something—anything!—about what was happening with my father. My heart seized with panic each time the door to the emergency room opened and a surgeon stepped out. I'd stood up a half dozen times already, expecting the doctor to approach me, only to discover that he was looking for one of the many other people waiting for news on their loved ones.
Stable. That's all they'd said. Correction: Stable for now. What exactly that second part meant I had no idea. My phone buzzed, and I glanced down at it, hoping it was Treena. I'd called and left a dozen messages at her police station in Colorado, but she had yet to call me back.
When I saw the message was from Phil, my heart fluttered. He'd sent me an email with the upcoming rehearsal schedule as well as performance dates and wardrobe information. They wanted me back in tomorrow for a second fitting. I cringed at the thought. Looking at our opening date, I realized I'd be right at the beginning of my second trimester. How was I supposed to hide that? The answer was, of course, that I couldn't.
Shit shit shit shit shit!
It wasn't just the pregnancy anymore. I was supposed to be in rehearsal tomorrow and all this week. How could I do that with my father lying in the hospital? I screwed up my courage and hit reply, deciding the best thing to do was be honest—mostly—and keep it short.
Phil,
My father's been in a terrible car accident. I'm at the hospital right now. I can't make it to fitting or rehearsal tomorrow. Will keep you apprised.
Clarissa
A moment later, my phone dinged once more.
Clarissa,
Sorry to hear about your father. Don't worry about tomorrow. However, we only have a few weeks before we need to finalize the details...one of them being our actors. Please let me know if you will need more than a week out. I need to know if we will have to go with Jerry's backup.
Phil
Fuck! Jerry's backup? Did he mean that skank who blew him to get my part? That's it. I couldn't dick around anymore. I had to take care of this baby situation now. I should've just stayed at the clinic today and gone through with it. I was such an idiot. I picked up my phone to call the clinic and reschedule my appointment when Treena's call finally came through.
"Treena!" I shrieked, my voice thick with tears.
"Clarissa, what the hell is going on? The station says you keep calling."
"Dad's been in a car wreck. I'm at the hospital."
There was silence from her end. For a moment, I was afraid I'd lost the connection.
"Is he...?"
I heard the desperation in her voice.
"No, he's not dead. But it's bad. And I can't get any answers from anyone. They just keep telling me he's stable for now. I've been trying for an hour to figure out what the hell that means. Does that mean he might not be stable in another hour?"
I knew I was getting loud, but I didn't care. What the fuck was I supposed to do sitting here in a hospital waiting room? I wanted to be in there with him, wherever he was, whatever was happening.
"What happened?"
"He was in a car accident!" I cried. "I just told you that! Aren't you listening?" I could feel myself losing control but was unable to stop it. I laughed hysterically at that thought. Unable to stop is precisely what losing control meant. I pictured a big "Duh!" sign strapped across my forehead and bent over in my chair, laughing and laughing.
"Clarissa..." I could hear my sister being careful with her words now. She was a cop. She was probably trained to handle shit like this. Hell, she'd probably been the one to break the news to other people about losing their loved ones in an accident just like this, just like the cops who had shown up at my door tonight to tell me about my father's accident.
"Are you still there?" she asked.
"I'm here." I'd finally stopped laughing.
"So, do you know how the accident happened?"
"It was raining. His car skidded out of control at a stoplight. A truck plowed right into him."
I could hear her breathing, and it was oddly comforting. At least it meant that she was alive. She was safe. Even if my dad wasn't. I left out the p
art for her about the fight he'd had with Lars right before running out the door after him.
"How's the other driver?"
"Fine." A lump swelled in my throat. Sure, he's fine. He was driving a truck. My dad was in a freaking Lexus. "Oh God," I groaned, a fresh batch of tears rushing over my cheeks. I jumped out of my chair and started pacing the floor.
"It's okay. I'll book a flight tonight. Right now. As soon as we hang up. I'll be there by the morning."
But I wasn't groaning because of her absence. I was groaning because I'd had to call Lars. It was the only other thing the hospital had told me when I'd shown up. He'd been asking for Lars. I was almost jealous. Of all the people in the world he could have asked for, it wasn't me or Treena. It was the violent, idiot quarterback I'd fucked outside a bar one crazy, drunken night. Whose child I was now carrying and whom my father knew nothing about. Would he still be asking for Lars now if he knew the truth?
Suddenly, I wasn't just sad, I was angry. Angry at my dad. Angry at the world. Angry at Lars.
"Clarissa, are you—"
But I didn't want to hear my sister's voice anymore. I wanted to block out everything around me and wallow in my own misery. I threw my phone across the room where it hit a wall, and I dropped to my knees. The loudest, most horrible scream I'd ever heard came from somewhere nearby. I looked around to see who was screaming like that and realized with horror that it was me.
A man's voice suddenly sounded, calling my name from nearby, but I could hardly make it out. My head felt fuzzy. "Clarissa!" Lars was suddenly at my side. His arms were lifting me from the ground. They felt good wrapping around me like that. Comforting. "I've got you," he whispered. "I've got you."
22
Lars
I handed her a cup of coffee from the vending machine nearby, and she made a face. I took a sip of my own and didn't blame her. Coffee from a vending machine was never good, but it was all they had unless I wanted to leave her alone and find the cafeteria. And there was no way I was leaving her alone. Not after finding her in a heap on the hospital floor, nurses and patrons staring at her as if she were a lunatic. As if they'd never seen someone wracked with pain before. One of the nurses, a skinny redhead, had recognized me from the Giants. I was pretty sure that was the only reason we hadn't been escorted from the hospital.
"This is terrible," Clarissa muttered.
"The coffee or this place?"
"Both."
We sat in silence for several minutes, listening to the steady hum of sounds around us. All hospitals had an energy to them. It was sometimes bad, sometimes good, and always frantic.
"So you said he's stable for now?"
She cringed. "For now. Yes."
I was scared to ask her anything else. I was afraid she'd fall apart again. I was afraid I might fall apart myself. I was barely hanging on by a thread. I couldn't shake off the guilt I was feeling. The last words I'd said to Coach...the way I'd hit him and then stormed out of his house. God, I was an asshole. My hands shook, and I had to take deep breaths to make them stop. I didn't want Clarissa seeing me like this. I was a fucking man. Men didn't break. They stood strong even when things were rough. They protected those around them.
I realized, maybe for the first time, that that was probably why I'd hooked up with Angelo all those years ago. He'd offered me protection in a neighborhood where protection was hard to come by. I'd felt safe being a part of his gang. Up until the moment Ash had died, I'd felt fucking invincible. The night I'd lost Ash, though, everything had changed.
I took Clarissa's hand in mine and held it as tightly as I dared, needing her to comfort me as much as I wanted to comfort her. She squeezed my hand back, and my heart thumped once in my chest.
"He thinks I hate him," she whispered, staring at the floor.
"What?" I asked, surprised.
"My father. He thinks I hate him. Because he doesn't approve of my career choices." She looked up at me now, her eyes wet and puffy. "But I don't. He's done everything for me, and I've never told him how grateful I am."
"I'm sure he knows."
She was shaking her head. "No. My mother left when I was six, and he had to do both jobs as a parent. I wanted to believe she was gonna come back, part of me still wants to believe that even now, but deep down, I've known since the day she left that wasn't true."
"My father left when I was born. I've never even met him." I took another deep breath and let it out. The hospital air felt stale in my lungs, and the weight of the fucking world was lying across my back right now. I wasn't the type of man to talk about my past and all the ways I'd fucked it up, but sitting here with Clarissa, listening to her story, I felt like I wanted to share a part of myself with her. It was a strange feeling. One I'd never experienced before.
"You're lucky," I told her. "Coach loves you. I know he does. My mother can't stand the sight of me. I make her sick just to look at."
"I'm sure that's not true."
I shook my head. "It is. I...I haven't always been on the right side of the law, let's just say. And my mom...she tried to straighten me out when I was a kid. I told her to fuck off."
Clarissa hesitated. "You actually said that?"
I nodded, ashamed. "The day I left home. I was seventeen."
"Have you tried talking to her since then?"
I sighed. "Yeah. It didn't go so well. I don't think there's much hope for us." We sat in silence again, lost in our thoughts.
"My dad was the one who took care of me when I was eight and had the chicken pox. When I was twelve, he bought me my first bra." She laughed at the memory, so long ago yet obviously as clear in her mind as if it were yesterday. "He put me through school even though he thought I was wasting my time majoring in music. And I've never thanked him."
"You'll have your chance. Coach is too strong a man to let some car accident get the best of him." I squeezed her hand and patted her knee. She'd been staring off into the distance, and now her eyes darted back over to mine, almost frightening in their intensity. She pushed my hand away and stood up.
"This is all your fault." Her eyes were wild. She was looking at me as if I'd just threatened to kill her dog.
"My fault?" I asked, my heart racing as anger threatened to take hold of me. I reminded myself that Clarissa was in pain. She was scared and worried and looking for someone to blame.
"That's fine. If you need someone to blame, then blame me. But it's no one's fault. It was an accident." I was just as worried about Coach as she was, but I wasn't sure she'd believe that if I tried to tell her, so I kept my mouth shut. The truth was, the second I'd gotten Clarissa's phone call, I'd jumped on my motorcycle and sped over here as fast my wheels would take me.
"Don't you dare mock me!" she snapped. "This is all your fault!"
"Clarissa, you're upset. You don't mean—"
"He was looking for you!"
Something in my chest stopped working. I opened my mouth to speak but could find neither breath nor words.
"What?" I finally managed to squeak out.
"He was looking for you! That's why he was out driving in the rain. You punched him, and he didn't even care. He loves you like a fucking son and didn't want you to make the biggest mistake of your life. So he went after you."
Each word was a dagger in my side. Oh Jesus! Coach was out driving in the rain because of me?
"Oh God," I said. A wave of nausea rolled over my body, and my knees buckled under me. I collapsed to the floor. My head felt like it was on fire. I couldn't see anything around me. "Oh God," I said again. My throat felt raw. "He was out there because of me? Because of me!"
I couldn't take it. Angelo had only ever cared about me because I was good at beating people up and taking orders. Coach had cared about me because he understood me. Because he was a good man who'd believed in me and taken a chance with me. And how had I repaid him? I'd punched him in his house and agreed to deliberately throw the one thing in the world he cared most about besides his family.
"It should have been me in that car, not him."
I heard Clarissa's gasp as the words escaped my throat. They were true. I didn't deserve to live. Tears flooded my eyes, and for the first time since Ash had died, I let them fall.
23
Clarissa
I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Was Lars really crying? I stepped closer to him, blinking. I'd never seen such anguish on a man's face before. Suddenly, my anger evaporated. It was hard to hold on to it when he was in so much pain.
I knelt beside Lars and wrapped my arms around him as he sobbed against my chest. His breath was hot and moist against my skin.
"Lars," I said, stroking his hair. His arms wrapped tightly around me, clinging to me like a life preserver as his body shook. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that stuff. It's not your fault." Tears ran over my cheeks and fell onto his head. We held each other for I don't know how long. Finally he pulled back, his eyes red and shiny.
"I'm so sorry, Clarissa. No wonder you hate me."
"I don't hate you," I told him, my heart breaking a little. Even now, sitting here with him on the hospital floor, our bodies and minds tired and hurting, I couldn't help but feel a spark for him. Seeing him come apart like that had stirred something in me. As strong as he was, as capable and masculine and brave as he'd shown himself to be, he was still human. Knowing how much he cared drew me to him that much more. He wasn't afraid to show his softer side. He wasn't afraid of anything.
"That's fine," he said. "I hate myself enough for both of us."
I kissed the top of his head and intertwined my fingers through his. "Don't say that." He looked up at me with puppy dog eyes that melted my heart. One corner of his lips twitched upward.
"Excuse me," a nurse said. She was standing in front of us with her hands on her hips and a stern look on her face. "We do have chairs, you realize." She tapped her foot on the ground, clearly waiting impatiently for us to get up.
