by Tijan
“If we could interrupt?”
Natalie had made her appearance. An older man was next to her, and first Natalie came to me, holding her hand out. Six months ago, I would’ve given her a kiss on the cheek, but tonight I gave her a nod and a brief hug. “Natalie.”
She stepped back, sending me a small frown before introducing her husband.
He was a fan, and his firm had season tickets, so they’d be attending the games a lot more now. Natalie and her husband introduced themselves to Margo, who came over to join our circle.
Natalie said, “I’ve known Cut most of his life.”
“Really?” Margo cast me a shrewd look.
I knew Natalie had apologized to Cheyenne, extending her an olive branch, but it was too long in waiting. That shit never should’ve happened, and she could’ve made Cheyenne’s life a lot easier. That was my opinion, and my other opinion was that it didn’t matter what I thought.
It all came down to Cheyenne.
If Chad made it right, somehow.
If Cheyenne was cool with it.
If Cheyenne was cool with Natalie.
Once all those pieces fit together, then I’d take up my woman’s side. That was all I thought about regarding people I’ve known since I was a kid, or a teenager in Deek’s case.
Speaking of Deek, I saw him now.
I must’ve made a sound because conversations lulled around me.
Margo’s eyes were a whole lot more alert.
Natalie turned, approaching her ex-husband first. The two husbands were gracious toward each other. How fucking fitting.
Hendrix asked under his breath, “Cheyenne’s dad?”
“No. It was just his sperm that helped create her. That’s all he is to her.”
Margo’s eyes now had a mean glint to them. She touched my arm. “Go. Do whatever you’d like. I’ll run interference.”
Hendrix looked in love. “Margo, you are one fierce owner, and if you weren’t married, and I wasn’t your player, I’d try to get in your pants.”
Margo smothered a laugh. “Dear Lord, get lost, Hendrix. I say that with affection.” Margo skimmed me over. “But you have a few things to explain, hmm?”
I had lied to her in her office. But I didn’t care.
Hendrix motioned for me to walk with him. “I noticed your boy isn’t here.”
“That’s a relief.”
“Everything good there?”
I gave him a look. “You know it’s not.”
Another chuckle from him. “I know, but I’m just double-checking because I’m moving in on the Not-Russian. That okay with you?”
“That’s Chad’s problem if you make headway, but fair warning, if somehow he pulls his head out of his ass, I will be telling him about you and the Not-Russian.”
Hendrix laughed. “I’d expect nothing less. I’m almost looking forward to that.”
We headed over to the girls, and I drew Cheyenne to my side.
There was a lot of mingling. The donation buckets were brought around, along with drinks and the food they always had at these places. There was press set up by the corner, and Dean came over at one point to ask Cheyenne if she’d go and talk to them.
“No.” Her voice was flat. “Go away, Dean.”
He went, and then Melanie leaned over to whisper to Cheyenne, “You can be a beacon whenever you’d like.”
Cheyenne started laughing.
The Reba lady made a speech, and a few of the volunteers whom I recognized from my stint here yesterday came in, and each took a turn at the microphone. They all talked about their time helping out, and how they’d been touched or inspired by the individuals who ate there, and also the staff. That seemed to be the general consensus.
Each of the volunteers came over to hug Cheyenne, as well as Boomer and Reba.
I had no clue where the Dean guy went, but I also had ceased giving a shit about anyone except my teammates and Cheyenne and her group. It was at this point that I knew we’d done enough time at the event. People looked ready to keep drinking and celebrating, but I bent to Cheyenne’s ear. “Wanna head home?”
Her hand came to my chest and her lips to my ear. “Please.”
“I’ll bring the vehicle up. Want to ask your girls if they want a ride?”
“Okay.”
I was just leaving through the back door when I heard from behind me, “Do you know what you’re doing?”
I looked back as the door shut.
Deek was standing there, and he looked like he’d been waiting for me, smoking a cigar. He waved it around, motioning to me. “You and Chad were friends since you were little, and I used to think of you as a son. A long time, Cutler. A long time. Then, you moved on. You joined the NHL and that was around the time the divorce was happening. I thought to myself, “I gotta let him go. He’s Chad’s now.” And you were. You had your own family, good people. Great people. Solid people, but my heart was being ripped out of my chest.”
“Why are you telling me this, Deek?”
“Because of how you’re looking at me right now. You look down on me, and you’ve got no right. You’re a pup still in the world. You think you know what was happening when I let Cheyenne go, but you don’t. I lost everything. I loved Natalie. I loved Chad, and I lost both of them. And Hunter. She took him away from me. I only got to see him every other weekend, but I love those times with him. I look forward to them, and he’s such a good kid. He’ll be a great man someday. He’s going to big places. A big future before him.” His voice broke. “I’m proud of him. He’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”
“You’re exactly right.”
He narrowed his eyes.
“You had nothing to do with Cheyenne and the kind of person she is today.”
He started to sneer, taking a long drag of his cigar. “You’re making a mistake with that one. She’ll be just like Donna. I already see it, the beginning. Those two friends she’s hanging out with. They’re into drugs and they’re probably hooking on the side. Same as Donna. She ask for money yet?”
I loved hockey.
Deek kept on, “Because she will. Same thing with Donna. Donna waited until Cheyenne was eleven before telling me I even had a kid. After that it was a phone call every now and then, a nice ‘do you want to see your daughter?’ But then the demands for money came in. She tried blackmailing me, holding Cheyenne over my head.”
I loved the competitiveness of the sport. I loved how ruthless you could be on the ice.
“Then she figured out I didn’t care.” This was the first pause he made, frowning before taking another drag from his cigar. “I should’ve cared. For that, I feel a sort of way, but then I start thinking that maybe I’m not feeling a sort of way for a reason. Like there’s something wrong with the kid, that’s why I don’t care for her. Donna figured that out, and then it got real. That’s when she tried blackmailing me for money. You don’t want to know the lengths she went to find out about me to extort. She said nasty things, really nasty things. All untrue too. I’d about had it with her, then we found out that she was arrested and taken to rehab. Social services called me, told me that they found Cheyenne, and she looked like she hadn’t eaten in a while. Donna locked her out of the house. You believe that shit? What kind of parent would do that? I’d never. Not with Hunter.”
Ruthless. Violent.
It was a controversial part of the game, but I loved the violence.
I wished I were on the rink right fucking now.
Deek was almost done with his cigar. “I’m not the best father there is, but I tried. Brought her in. Gave her shelter, food, clothing. I tried. I did, and then I found out what happened with Chad, and that was it. That was the final straw. Couldn’t stomach seeing Cheyenne after.”
Violence off the rink was bad.
I needed to keep telling myself that because I was three seconds from snapping. I wanted my stick in hand, skates underneath, and I’d check this guy on the most perfect angle of coming around the goalie�
��s net.
I was envisioning it.
Deek standing there.
Me coming around.
I’d hit him so hard, his head would— “I did what I had to do, and I wouldn’t take it back.”
I snapped out of my thoughts and I saw Deek was swaying a little.
He wasn’t sober, at all. I hadn’t noticed.
“What are you talking about?” What did he do?
“Stay away from her, Cut. Love you like a son, like Hunter, like Chad. I never thought I had to look after you, but I do. That’s what I’m doing here. I’m looking after you. You stay with her, and your life will be over. She’ll ruin you, just like her mother ruined me. It’s in the blood. It’s between the legs. A cunt. That’s what Donna was, what she did with Chad. She didn’t think I’d find out, but Chad came home that night and I knew right away what she did. She did the same thing to me. She was going to ruin Chad’s life, too.”
I started for him, but checked myself.
He reeked of brandy. A mostly empty bottle was on a chair behind him.
He’d been drinking and waiting for me.
He hadn’t answered. I lifted my head back up. “What did you do, Deek?”
“She was just there, lying in the bathroom.” Deek faltered now, the words starting to slur from him. “I had no clue where Cheyenne was. Donna’s pants were still undone, and there was a needle by her. A full needle, but she’d already taken what she needed. She was gone. Off.” He whistled, waving his hand in the air. “She wanted to go. I could tell. It was in her eyes, how she was looking at me.” Another falter. His gaze grew distant. “I helped her.”
“How did you help her?” I grated out.
I couldn’t believe I was hearing this, but I was.
“I put the other needle in her arm, and I pushed the drugs in…fast.”
Another man had never made me physically sick, until now.
“That was the night she overdosed, wasn’t it?”
Deek didn’t answer. He was gone, off somewhere else in his head.
I had no clue what he was thinking about, but I knew it was the same night.
“Do you know what you just told me, Deek?”
His eyes were glazed over, and the cigar dropped from his hands. He didn’t notice.
He whispered, “Yeah.”
I looked up, and it was more a sixth sense. I felt her.
She never said a word.
I never heard the door open, or saw it open, but standing in the doorway, just behind her father, was Cheyenne. She’d heard the whole thing.
I reached into my pocket.
I pulled my phone out.
I called the police.
54
Cheyenne
I thought police stations were supposed to be busy late at night.
Or was it early morning by now?
Either way, the hallway they’d put me in wasn’t busy. It was almost abandoned. I was sitting on a lone bench. The lights were flickering and one of the bulbs was out. It must’ve been a hallway they never used because I’d see people go past the hallway, farther down. Cops. Cops bringing in whoever they were arresting. Other people being led by cops. I didn’t know the time so I was only guessing.
I had my purse, but my phone was dead.
They’d taken Cut into a back room for his statement.
Then they asked for my statement, and when I was done, they led me out here.
This was where I still was, waiting. Sitting. Cut was back there.
So that’s where I was when I turned and saw Chad walking past the hallway.
He was back.
For sensory-wise, this hallway was nice. A small echo from the people down there. The low lights were almost soothing. I could’ve slipped into a trance from the flickering above me. It wasn’t hot or cold, but I was also slightly numb. I must’ve been, which wasn’t my usual. I felt all if I went a certain way, but this time, I was numb.
How odd.
Or I must’ve felt numb because when I saw Chad, I didn’t feel a thing.
Those bruises were still on his neck from me. He was here. Someone must’ve called him or told him to come down here and the police would ask about his bruises.
He’d tell them, because why wouldn’t he? He’d gone back on his word to Cut before so I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t this time, even though he said he’d ‘make it up’ to Cut. Pfft. He was a liar.
Like Deek.
Who was a murderer.
They both hurt me. They both hurt my mom.
She was sick. She was a junkie.
She didn’t ask for that second needle. Deek decided. He wanted to be rid of her. He didn’t do anything for me. That was a sick man’s justification, the excuse he was telling himself, but he killed her because he simply didn’t want to deal with her anymore. As long as she lived, as long as I lived, he’d have to. And Chad--maybe I wasn’t so numb after all? My stomach rolled over thinking about Chad and my mom again.
I’d been blasé before, telling Cut that it hadn’t been a ‘bad night’ in my old world, but it took on a different feel now. Now that I knew what he’d done with her before, and then what Deek did to her later. Everything took on a different feel. A more raw feel. Primitive. I felt scraped open, my insides were on display for everyone to see and judge.
I felt like scum, like the byproduct for what they did to her. They did it to me, too.
I felt like a victim. I hated feeling like a fucking victim.
They took her away and no one questioned it. Not even me.
Someone should’ve questioned it. Why then? Was it accidental? Had something happened earlier that might’ve made her do it, if she did it herself? No one asked. It was an overdose and that was it. They were all wrong.
She was a person.
She was my jailer at times.
She neglected me.
She emotionally abused me.
But she was my mom.
She was taken from me.
Yes. The world felt a little different now.
I heard footsteps first, and I looked.
Chad had spotted me. He was coming toward me, and he paused, seeing me look at him. I didn’t know what he read on my face, but he faltered mid-step. He stopped. He frowned. He started to turn to leave. He stopped.
He looked at me.
And he looked at me.
And he still looked at me.
The fucker couldn’t decide.
Then he must’ve.
He pushed his hands in his pockets, his shoulders lowered, and he started for me again.
I was glaring the whole time.
This was not Happy Zen-like Cheyenne.
“Hey.” He was rigid, waiting.
I bit out, “Hey.” Fuckface.
He grimaced, then coughed. “I—uh—Sasha called me, told me what happened.”
That made me laugh because what did happen? A drunk asshole confessed to killing someone. How does that get relayed over the phone?
“Why did she call you? You’re not his son.”
He flinched, his hand coming out and running through his hair. “I—uh—I don’t know.” His hand went back in his pocket. “Is that what I should do? I’m not going to call Hunter, but I could call Natalie?”
“No.”
That came out as a guttural bark, like it was forcing its way out of me.
Natalie would know—though, maybe she did? Everything went down discreetly, as far as a confession and an arrest. Cut called the police. He waited outside with Deek. He made sure I went back inside, but I didn’t leave the door. I stood just inside and Sasha and Melanie stayed with me. I think Hendrix played guard duty, keeping anyone from seeing us after that.
We waited an hour.
It took an hour for a squad car to come over.
The police arrived, no lights were blaring so it looked like a normal car in the dark.
They got out, talked to Cut. Handcuffs were put on Deek, and he was escorted into the car.
They talked more with Cut, then one came to find me. It wasn’t hard to find me. He opened the door and there I was, and I gave him a brief statement of what I overheard.
That’s how Sasha knew. She would’ve heard me then.
They remained there for twenty minutes, but I didn’t know why.
Then they took him and we were asked to come down as well.
That took another hour, longer even.
The drive to the police station.
Going in. Waiting.
Then the statements, and I was back to waiting.
Now Chad was here.
“How did you get back here?”
“What?” He’d been looking the other way, but swung back to me.
He was being nice.
That registered in the back of my mind. Why was he being nice? He was always so mean to me.
“How did you get back here? It’s a police station. I doubt they want someone just wandering around.”
“Uh…” His mouth was open and he gaped at me a second. “I don’t know. I just walked through. No one was out there, and the door coming back here was open. I figured they left it open on purpose.”
“I highly doubt that. You should go back out there.”
“What?” He laughed.
Why did he laugh? This wasn’t a laughing matter.
“Are you serious?”
“Deadly.” I chose my words on purpose. I wanted to see his reaction.
He flushed, swallowing, and then he winced once more. “You don’t want me around you?”
“When do I ever?”
He frowned, his hand in his hair once more.
Yeah, yeah. I wasn’t being normal Cheyenne, well, fuck that Cheyenne. Fuck who that was—“Do people like you think about the people you hurt?”
“What?”
“People like me. People like my mom.”
“Huh? I didn’t hurt your mom. Your mom, she—”
“She was a goddamn junkie, Chad! You were a teenager, but in that moment, you were the adult--”
“No, I wasn’t! I was a teenager—”
“You took advantage of her and you know it. You and your fath—”
He surged toward me, getting in my face. His finger was pointing and he was red. “He’s not my father! He’s yours!”
