Page 10 of Rushing Her: Seattle, Westerners
I spring from my chair at the sound of her name.
“No,” I shout, and Mildred joins us. She stands next to her man with a hand on his shoulder. “No, she wouldn’t have done that. I don’t believe you.”Where is the quickest exit? I need out of here.
“Brayden, he’s dying.” Mildred’s words stop me cold. My chest aches, but I hold my head high. “It’s stage four pancreatic cancer.”
“That’s no excuse. What did you do?” My voice cracks with despair. I don’t want to lose him, but it must be awful if he’s this torn up about it, and part of me doesn’t want to know. It’ll change everything. How can it not?
“Here.” He hands me the folder. “I told her if she wanted to be not only a good agent but a great one, she’d learn to sacrifice for her clients. I threatened to expose you both. Ruin both your careers if she didn’t break up with you.”
The look of torment on Lexi’s face flashes by. Her anger with him at the party. “That’s what you were arguing about last night.”
I begin to pace in front of him, leaving the folder unopened because it doesn’t change anything. She took his word over mine. She didn’t trust me.
“Yes.”
“She stayed away from me for all this time because of whatever this is?”
“Look, son.”
“Don’t fucking call me that,” I bite out. “My father wouldn’t have made me choose between football and Alexandra. He’d have known my choice.”
“That’s why I did that. Football needed to be your focus, not a girl. Football. I protected your career, so you’d have one. I buried that, and no one ever spoke of it again. Look.”
He pushes me to deal with the folder. I flick it open and find pictures of me and Alexandra exploring our sexuality. She was tied to a piece of equipment in the team’s equipment shed as if it were a St. Andrews cross. We were indecent on campus property; we both could have been punished, or worse, expelled. Her face is clear to see, and most people would have guessed it was me. My newly bald head rested against her naked shoulder as I held her. It was her fantasy. One I’ve thought of repeatedly through the years. She awakened a beast in me that night, and since then, I have struggled to find a satisfying sex life that is on the vanilla side. Until she came back to me last night. Now, she’s mine, and we will walk this line no matter what.
I stumble back and find my ass planted on a bench at their picnic table.She broke it off to protect me. She sacrificed everythingfor me.
“Now you see why she’s stayed away. As you both got more famous, this would have come out and blown up her life just as much as yours.”
“People are more progressive now,” I correct him.
“Are they?” He cocks his head to the side and raises a brow.
He’s right, people say they are, but most are still bigots and prudes. Behind closed doors, they’d give the woman they desire her fantasy, no matter what, but in the public eye, they’d never dream of anyone finding out that they would tie up a woman.
“I could have spun this to appear as though you forced her; I didn’t. I just kept the pictures and deleted the camera footage. Those are the only copies. She’s been protecting you since then. That’s why she would never take you on as a client. Well, that, and she has scruples. She’s good. But when I did that. When she cut it off with you, it broke something inside you. You haven’t played the same since. It’s time to fix that, Brayden. Be the player you were always meant to be. Not this arrogant asshole.” He waves his hand up and down at me.
Leaning toward him, I growl, “You created this monster. Look at it one last time, and don’t ever contact me again.”
Storming out of his house, I need to get away from him. Mildred yells for me, but I don’t care. My tires squeal while peeling out of their neighborhood, and I hit the freeway home.
Three hours later, my G-Wagon sits in front of my house on Washington Lake in the exclusive Laurelhurst neighborhood. The folder lies on the seat beside me, taunting me. The proof that my life was fucked over because a man thought he was doing me a favor; that the woman I despised for so long broke my heart because she truly loved me.
Time to fix this messed-up situation. I grab the folder and unfold from the seat as I stroll up the front walkway toward the bridge that spans the open space below, leading to the front door of my house. I called ahead and told my housekeeper and thedog sitter that I was on my way home. So, I’m greeted by all three of my dogs.
“Hello, boys and girl.” I chuckle as Teal’C jumps up on me. “Down boy,” I order the just over one-year-old Boston Terrier. He growls as he rushes off back through the house. The dog is good, but he’s lucky he made it to this age. He chewed up a pair of my cleats from my first year of college. They were a good luck charm, and still are, but don’t look as nice as they did before he came into my house.
I lean down to pat the head of my old guy. Alfred has been with me for ten years, and I pray he’ll always be here, but after growing up on a ranch and seeing animals have to be put down as they age, I know he won’t be around forever. The English Bulldog already moves around slowly. I got him as a puppy and had to name him after my favorite English comic book character, Alfred Pennyworth—Batman’s butler.
Then there’s my girl, Helena, named after my hometown. She’s a Staffordshire Bulldog. I had to pay the homeowner’s association an extra fee when buying my house five years ago because she looks like a Pitbull, and they are prejudiced against them.
Walking through to the great room past the center fireplace, my view of Mt. Rainier is breathtaking—the lake bustles with people enjoying the day. After taking a moment to soak it all in, I move on toward the entrance of the primary suite to change into a pair of shorts and a Batman t-shirt.
Practice comes early tomorrow morning, but I intend to go see Alexandra.Oh, that reminds me; I never rechecked my phone after leaving Coach’s house. Doing so now, I see the messages from her safety team.
Immediately, I dial her head of security’s number. “What’s up, Warner?”
“She got home before five this morning. She was followed from the private airstrip to her home. We got the plate number, but it’s a rental. We can’t get any more information.”
