Cost of Redemption, page 3
I took a step toward him, not actually trying to be threatening, but it spilled out of me regardless. “We’re not some San Francisco pole dancing team,” I growled. “This is hockey, Patrick.”
He didn’t look like he accepted my argument. To me, it was very simple. Flukes like those Arctic Titans from Detroit happened once in a while, pulling a stunt for the public so they could end up on cover pages of tristate magazines. They’d put together a nice little campaign, capturing the zeitgeist and riding the wave of support in order to brand themselves a little better. They’d only wanted to stay relevant.
And just because it worked for them, we had to follow? Bullshit.
“There’s more to life than hockey,” Patrick said, but the vigor was gone from his tone. He pulled away from me and marched toward the cafe on the other side of the footpath.
As I walked back to my dorm room, I tried to think about the last thing he had said. It simply wasn’t true. What else was there? Maybe Patrick had things outside the Saints. He liked frat parties, had friends beyond the campus, and went to events that weren’t just about hockey.
Good for him.
But my life was empty when you carved the Saints out of it. I studied, and I practiced. I ran after waking up and worked out at the campus gym before going to bed, and that was it. That was my life. And I wasn’t letting stupid shit like Kyle and Easton’s disputes get in the way of my success.
TWO
JAXON
I threw my phone across the room.
The headlines hadn’t been so frequent in a long time. I’d almost dared to hope that the Mercer name was beginning to fade into obscurity. It was inevitable, although not nearly as fast as I had let myself believe.
Top Ten Most Embarrassing Falls From Grace in Football History, the article said, probably written by someone whose experience with football was having a can of beer on a Sunday morning, watching the game with one eye and staring at naked women with the other, using those few hours of alone time while the family was at Sunday Mass to indulge in a more private sort of hobbies.
I didn’t open the goddamn thing. The thumbnail was enough to fill me with hot rage I’d gotten used to living with a long time ago. Ronan’s face was in the very middle, ten times bigger than all the other faces of the disgraced superstars.
I knew how the story went without any need to read it. There were only two articles on this topic: in the first, the author begrudgingly typed out how obvious the first place was. “No surprises here, folks.” In the other kind, the author thrust their tongue into their cheek and pulled a little plot twist, crowning some obscure player as the biggest disgrace while evoking Ronan’s name as too obvious to be included on the list, gloating in their originality.
Damn them.
I rummaged through my wardrobe and found my shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt I hadn’t soaked in sweat yet this week. There were only ever two things I could fall back on when I was as heated as this. Running and porn. And the image of my older brother with that disgusting headline was a quick way to make my libido die a quiet death. I dragged on my yellow shorts, threw away my black hoodie for a white T-shirt, and stormed out of the room with only my keys and a few cash notes inside my zipped-up pocket.
I had spent a total of two weeks on the Westmont campus, only just learning my way around it. I hoped against all odds that leaving New Haven and the team would give me a fresh start, unburdened by past mistakes—none of my own making—and not haunted by the very name I was trying to clear.
Not clear, I reminded myself as I broke into a trot as soon as I stepped out of the building. The campus sprawled before me, its lawns a vibrant, northern green, and its trees turning more orange with each new day. Some small part of me had always been drawn to this place, like an opportunity that had gotten away from me, never letting me forget what I had missed. Now that I was here, I couldn’t remember what magic I had expected to discover all these years.
I ran. My pecs ached from a particularly strenuous workout last night each time my foot landed on the ground. I ignored the dull, throbbing pain and reminded myself what I was setting out to do, what I had been doing for years.
I wasn’t clearing our name. It was impossible to clear it. I was doing something far more challenging—giving it a new lease on life.
One disgraced Mercer didn’t necessarily mean all were doomed from the start. It haunted me, yes, but if I were only a little better, maybe people would forget about Ronan and focus on Jaxon.
Still, there had never been a mention of me without the adage. Disgraced NFL superstar’s rising younger brother. I was beginning to fear that this would forever be my introduction. I was always the promising one, the talented one, the ambitious one, but such words were almost invisible next to the rest.
My anger led me to run faster, my legs burning, my heart racing to supply me with enough fresh oxygen to keep the lights on. I rounded the entire campus twice, sprinting the length of a marathon against every shred of common sense. And when my knees buckled on my run back, I stopped in the middle of the pedestrian street, bending down and heaving air into my chest. Sickness welled in me, and heat radiated from my body. My hair, face, and clothes were soaked with sweat. Saliva filled my mouth like I was about to retch, but I straightened my back and squared my shoulders. Down the street, there was one of the student cafes, and I headed there. I needed a sugary drink to refill the reserves of my energy. My vision was already narrowing with a deep burgundy vignette.
The cafe played some jazz crap, and a bell rang above the door as I entered, making my head hurt. A few people glanced up, probably expecting someone, but I wasn’t the person they were looking forward to seeing.
I walked to the bar and ordered my drink, lifting the can as soon as the pink-haired barista with a pride badge on her apron opened it. “Thanks,” I muttered, draining half of my soda before setting it down.
There was only one other person sitting alone at the bar, a blond, elf-like guy, his wrist stacked with leather bracelets, his forearm tattooed, and his green gaze downcast. He glanced at me, not finding what he was looking for, and turned that moody gaze away.
I finished my soda, crushed the can, and glanced at the cute guy at the bar. He forgot that I existed by this time, showing no further interest at all. Not that it mattered. I’d told myself I would make this a fresh start. Flirting with the first handsome guy I saw wasn’t a change from my New Haven days.
If I kept letting every mention of Ronan’s downfall get me into the mood to fuck a stranger, I wasn’t going to get better. I wouldn’t get that golden ticket I needed.
Mom and Dad weren’t thrilled about my transfer to Chicago. Their time in New Haven and the blossoming romance that defined their lives held too much sway over their opinion. But it didn’t take long to demonstrate to them just how badly I needed a change.
I was good. I was damn good on the field, and the coaches could see it. But there was always that lingering question in their minds. Do we want to make another Marcer a star? Maybe they didn’t know it. I doubted if they asked themselves that question aloud. But somewhere in the back of their minds, they hesitated, and then they held me back.
Truth be told, I had expected it. On my first day of practice—which was delayed by two weeks thanks to a broken nose—I had bristled and expected the judgment of my brother’s career to be placed squarely on my shoulders. In a short while, I found myself spiraling down the drain of college life, boozing up and letting any and every bi-curious jock have his little moment with me. Some returned for more.
Frat parties were the gayest ones of all. With testosterone dripping all over the carpets, those guys were going wild, their fantasies only tickled and teased in the best of circumstances until someone like me came along. Someone who had little to lose. You wanna know what it feels like? You wanna do something daring? Let me help you with that. Sitting around, drinking beer, having a joint to take the edge off, and talking about girls so much your mouth ran dry inevitably led to fooling around.
And you’d think it was good. You’d think that sitting between two horny jocks who not-so-discreetly scrolled through a sea of porn on either side of me would make your stomach flutter with excitement at the possibilities. It did, now and again. I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t exciting.
Except, when all was said and done—and there had been a lot more doing than saying—I’d drag my ass to my dorm room, shower the reeking embarrassment off, and drop on my bed with the same grace and emotional fulfillment of a sack of potatoes.
I was done with that.
I had to be.
The crazy drive that tempted me even now, as I walked back to my dorm room with my legs burning and my sweat cooling, had to be resisted.
It tickled and fluttered in my stomach. It promised that everything would be just fine if only I let myself go for it. What do you have to lose? I’d ask myself. And the answer was always a simple, unequivocal: “Nothing. Not a thing under the sun.”
But I would put it behind me. I couldn’t always be the creature of impulses and desires. Maybe there was something else in this world to save myself for. Maybe I didn’t need to give myself away so cheaply.
And before I even thought of the big, bad word, I tossed it out of my mind. Not that. Never that. I wouldn’t do that if you paid me. Love. It was for losers who didn’t know better. But they all learned this lesson eventually.
Love was a one-way street to hell.
THREE
ELIO
Patrick didn’t speak to me much when he showed up in our room. I didn’t feel the particular need to discuss the day, either. Books were stacked on my desk, notes were scattered on the bed, and my laptop was overheating with the number of open tabs in the browser. To leave all that and talk about a drug dealer, a steroid-riddled teammate, and a queer team captain seemed like a waste of time.
“Coming to the party?” Patrick asked. I was supposed to take this as an olive branch.
It was probably one of those Delta Kappa Phi parties that happened nearly every Saturday. A bunch of Saints were going to be there, and I could imagine the gossip. “I’ll pass.” My evening plans rarely changed. Saturdays were great because the entire campus was busy drinking and screwing around, rendering the gym nearly empty. I had my headphones and a playlist to pump me up; I didn’t need to tell everyone my account of the day.
Too much had happened.
“Suit yourself,” Patrick said as he got ready. He headed out after another thirty minutes, leaving me to stew in my rotten mood. The room was shrinking, walls closing in, and I noticed sweat breaking under my arms.
Why did this keep happening to me?
I grabbed my duffel, stuffed it with clean training clothes, and hurried out.
Bright lights filled the gym’s two floors. The large, floor-to-ceiling windows showed only a couple of people on the treadmills and near the glass. It was going to be a peaceful one. I sent a quiet thanks to whatever higher force allowed for this. The way my day had been going, I would have expected an asteroid to strike the gym down.
I walked in, waving at the willowy girl working at the front desk, and passed through. Stairs led to a basement locker room for guys.
Carrying my stuff in my left hand, I pushed the door of the locker room open. Its first small section only had empty benches, a door leading to the showers, and, after rounding a corner, the lockers and benches. I glanced around and spotted four or five pairs of shoes, breathing a sigh of relief. Likely, everyone I knew was at the party, so I didn’t have to answer any questions everyone had by now.
I opened a locker, tossed my duffel on the bench, and pulled off my T-shirt. After folding it and putting it inside the locker, I turned my back to it and kicked off my shoes, bending over to place them under the bench.
The shower door opened and closed, and a figure stepped out. The towel around his waist was long, reaching well under his knees, but his feet were bare and his lower legs smooth.
I forced my gaze down.
All this nonsense with Easton was getting to me. It sparked that occasional curiosity, pulling it to the forefront of my mind. My instincts were muddled. Normally, I couldn’t care less. I didn’t look, and I didn’t show. My gaze was firmly away from the muscular figures that populated locker rooms. It was the only way to behave if you didn’t want people wrongly assuming things about you.
But my damned eyes betrayed me. The stranger’s towel was thick and white, wrapped tightly around his chiseled waist. My gaze only brushed the muscular torso briefly as I looked up, passing over the ridges between the muscles as if to taunt me. I didn’t know why it made me feel so jittery, perhaps because I risked the very assumptions I wanted to avoid. Why did innocent people pickpocket small items in stores? For the thrill of it. For the sheer naughtiness of it.
My gaze reached the stranger’s face, a perfectly natural thing it would do in a gym, as I straightened.
My heart dropped into the cold pit of my stomach. The light brown eyes looked back, some of the light dying as his face hardened. Whatever had been on his face was gone now, and I took a sudden step back.
“I figured this would happen sooner or later,” Jaxon Mercer said in a dead voice.
I stared at him, not yet believing my eyes. It couldn’t be him. Jaxon was in New Haven, nine hundred miles away from here, yet this person wore his face and spoke with his voice.
“Don’t be so shocked, El,” he said, opening a locker with a wet key he’d brought out of the shower. The door opened, and Jaxon rummaged through it.
“You can’t be here,” I whispered.
Jaxon pulled some things out of his locker and tossed them on the bench, then crossed his arms on his broad chest. “Says who?”
I didn’t offer an answer. My heart pounded so loudly that it drowned out the gym music coming from upstairs. Not drowned, perhaps, but replaced with the same sounds I’d heard two years ago. Music in the background, heartbeat in the foreground, Jaxon standing right in front of me, all alone in a room.
Despite myself, I scanned him, taking his measures. He was bigger than before, muscles bunched, shoulders broad, traps inclined steeply. His eyes were still the same bright brown, framed with long, black eyelashes, and his hair was short, sides faded high. His nose… God, his nose was a little crooked. There was a small bump in the middle of it, pushing his entire, perfect nose out of symmetry.
“I transferred here,” Jaxon said. “I’m a Westmont Hawk.”
“Quarterback?” The word rolled off my lips before I could stop myself. He’d always been a quarterback.
Jaxon nodded stiffly.
“Why?” I asked, biting the word off.
His eyes narrowed. “Not to reconnect, El. Don’t worry about that.”
I snorted. He’d burned all the bridges between us. Even if he wanted to, there was no way back. Some things just couldn’t be fixed. And I seemed to be cursed with friends who led me on and betrayed me in the end. “Of all the universities in the country, you picked Westmont,” I said. “Don’t tell me it never crossed your mind.”
He shrugged, his round shoulders rising casually and dropping quickly. “You don’t exactly factor into my decision-making process.”
“Yeah, but I study here,” I said, taking a step forward in my plain white socks and a pair of black pants I still had on. I wished I hadn’t taken my shirt off, at least. And I wished he would put something on. The sight of that towel loosening around his waist with every breath he took bothered me more than I could put into words. “You just had to come where I was.”
“Someone studies everywhere, dumbass,” Jaxon said, taking a step toward me as if to match my hostile demeanor. “And I saw a good opportunity here. Coach Erikson remembered me from my tryouts.”
“Tryouts?” I asked. He wasn’t making any sense.
But he just nodded. “Two years ago, when I wanted to come.”
Cold air washed over my bare back. His parents had pushed him to go to New Haven, but I hadn’t realized he was considering Westmont. He would have, of course. It made sense now. And it was a stroke of luck if there ever was one. He might have ended up moving to Westmont with me, becoming my roommate, and waiting patiently until a better time to do what he had done that night.
Anger, so hot and exciting, spread through my stomach. “Just remember,” I said in a low voice. “I was here first. This gym, this campus, these people, they were mine before you came along.”
Jaxon acknowledged it with half a nod. “I see you’re still an ass.”
“Maybe. Or maybe I don’t like being played,” I said.
A lazy smile appeared on Jaxon’s face. “Is that what happened? I played you?”
He was baiting me into a fight, and I was biting. I couldn’t stop myself. The smug satisfaction on his face was too irritating to resist. The fact that he was standing here right before me was too novel to ignore. “What would you call it? Because I remember you pretending to be friends with me. But all you wanted…” I snapped my mouth shut. It didn’t matter what Jaxon wanted.
Jaxon looked at me steadily, not a single emotion appearing on his face. As he took another step toward me, I bristled, but he lifted a corner of his lips. He was still four or five inches shorter than me, but it would be a fair fight if we went that far. Not that I wanted to grapple him like this, creating a terrible scene for someone to accidentally discover. I wouldn’t be able to live it down for as long as I was here. Falling on the floor, wrestling, half-naked…
“You want to hit me again,” Jaxon said coldly. “Is that it? I’m sure it is. Oh, the tension, El. Can you feel it?”
I stood my ground, not letting him take an inch from me, and bared my teeth. He was right about that. The tension was so thick it existed like a cushion between us, or rather, like a balloon blown close to bursting.
