Page 115 of Break Point
Henry clears his throat, rests his forearms on his knees, and stares at his feet for a second before carrying on.
“I tried to stop Robbie, but there was no way to make him understand there probably was no gift to begin with. We were stuck in an elevator with two conniving women with an obvious plan. At first, I thought it was bad luck and bad timing that the paparazzi had been so lucky to be there when we got into that elevator. But there’s no doubt they planned it all the way through. We had just walked into Zoya’s suite when you called me,” Henry says, looking at me with a pained look on his face.
“In his drunk wisdom,” Henry carries on, cutting a look back at my dad, “Robbie thought it was a kind and thoughtful gesture for Zoya to want to patch things up with a birthday gift or whatever. So after I talked to Belén and went back inside to pull him out of there, Zoya’s publicist made some snide comment about how the real gift would be available on every magazine stand next morning.”
He shakes his head, the muscle in his jaw ticking.
“That was all the confirmation I needed. They played him. Playedus.”
Henry looks at me again, not shying away from taking his part of the responsibility. Not hiding from the fact that, yeah … he should’ve dragged Robbie to his room kicking and screaming. But also?
God.
He looks tired.
Not the Henry-tired I usually see: end-of-practice tired, jet-lag tired, grumpy-coffee-deprived tired. This isbone-deeptired. Tired of drunks. Tired of babysitting grown men with poor impulse control. Tired ofbeing expected to clean up someone else’s mess because hecan.Because he’s better at holding his shit together than the rest of us.
And it hits me that I didn’t register that last night. Not in my rage. Not in my hurt. Not when I left like that, like I was the only disaster in his orbit. Like my pain was the only one that mattered.
But I see it now.
Dad asked him to take care of Robbie because he’s exhausted, too. Maxed out in his own way. A husband tired of his own wife’s mistakes. A man tired of damage control. But more than that? He’s tired of carrying someone else’s addiction on his back. Of playing firefighter to my mom’s mess. Of patching things up so no one else sees the cracks.
Maybe that’s why handing Robbie over to Henry felt easy. Automatic. Like delegation was just survival at this point. Like it’s easier to offload the chaos before it swallows you whole.
And Henry? God help him, he said yes. Of course he did.
Because he’s built like that. Because he’shim. Because none of us, not even me, stopped to think about the fact that Henry’s been playing this game longer than any of us realized.
That might piss me off even more.
Because it complicates things. Because it ruins the clean, easy version of this story I was telling myself. The one where Henry’s the villain. The one where I’m the victim. The one where I get to stay mad without feeling anything else.
But this? This is worse.
Knowing he’s been here before. Knowing he’s had to drag his dad out of countless disasters that weren’t his to clean up. Knowing that part of the reason he evenknowshow to do this, how to pick up the pieces of somebody else’s ugly night, is because life forced him to.
It pisses me off because I’m no stranger to it. I know I haven’t lived it like Henry has, but I’ve seen enough of it at home to know how it goes. What itfeelslike.
And it could be that what I hate most is realizing that underneath all my anger, the real, sharp, deserved anger, there’s this other awful thing brewing.
I feel bad for him. For what he went through. All over again.
And I don’twantto.
Anger’s easy. Anger keeps him at arm’s length. But compassion? Compassion pulls you closer. And I don’t know if I can survive that. Not when it makes you stay. And I’m so goddamn tired of staying for people who won’t stay for me.
“Then I hauled Robbie out of there. Took him to his room like I should have the moment we arrived at the hotel. Put him in bed. And left.”
Dad exhales through his nose, slow and measured. Like he can’t summon the energy to be mad anymore.
“That’s what you should’ve done from the start,” he says, his voice flat. Not unkind. Not forgiving either. Just tired of the drama.
Drew leans back on the sofa, shaking his head like he still can’t believe any of this happened, but he’s already half-moving on and ready for his next assignment. “Hell of a night for a rookie mistake,” he mutters. Then, after a beat, “But it happens. To all of us.”
He pats my dad’s back as if kindly reminding him:you weren’t exactly a saint or a PR genius back in your Yankees days, either.
“Why don’t you go find Robbie,” Dad says to Drew. “Might be more helpful if you lay it out for him from a public relations point of view. He’s not exactly ready formyapproach.”
