Beck’s voice catches my attention, coming from somewhere in this room. I move between a group of bench bats as they sip beers and offer me polite nods. Their blatant surprise to see me here isn’t anything I hadn’t already prepared myself for on the drive over.
Despite all of my mental preparation, this is not what I was expecting when Jett tossed the invitation to me earlier. After Asher slipped away, he was the only one who dared confirm what had been mentioned in my office. They truly were too scared to ask me, yet somehow managed to find the one person with the nerve to do it anyway.
I was surprised to learn that Jett himself wasn’t coming, considering he made it his mission to get me to attend.
“Coach! You’re actually here,” Beck shouts.
Lounging on a hot pink, inflatable couch in an abandoned corner of the room, he’s got his legs spread wide and arms flapping in the air above his head. His eyes are fixated on me as he grins wildly and drops a hand to the small, empty space beside him. There’s no real difference in the way he’s behaving now from the way he does in the clubhouse. Whether he’s in his uniform or the shorts he’s wearing now that expose more thigh than I’d personally like and a shirt cropped a bit higher than normal, he’s the same guy.
I admire that about him, even if I still want to throttle him for getting to have his name on Brielle’s back on multiple occasions.
“Have you seen Brielle?” I ask, skipping the roundabout.
“Straight to business, huh? And here I thought you came to see me.”
“I need to find her, Beckett.”
He sobers up a bit at my use of his full name and pushes into a proper sitting position. “Is she okay?”
“That depends on what you mean by okay.”
“Ah, she’s pissed at you,” he says, an arrogant smirk curving his lips as he relaxes. “What did you do?”
I slide my hands into my jacket pockets. “Have you seen her?”
“Is she the only reason you’re here, Rome, or have you decided that we’re acceptable to be around?”
My skin tightens over my tense muscles. Reluctantly, I perch on the edge of the seat beside him. “You’ve never been unacceptable to be around.”
“Nobody wants to ask what keeps you so . . . guarded. Maybe we’re all scared you’ll put us on the bench or fight for a trade for digging into your business. But tonight is your lucky night, Coach, ’cause I’m drunk enough not to care what the fuck you do with me.”
I force my brows to stay in place when they twitch, begging to rise. “At least you aren’t playing tomorrow.”
“Tell me what keeps you from caring about us. Or hell, from letting us care about you, I guess.”
“You don’t want to spend your night here talking to me about this, Beck.”
“I do now. My plans hit the shitter an hour ago, and this actually sounds like a great fucking replacement. Very distracting.”
A throb grows in my temple, either from the loud music or his pestering. “I don’t get close to people who could disappear whenever they so choose. They either choose to leave, or thatdecision is made for them by some other force I have no desire to learn about.”
“Sounds lonely.”
“It was.”
“My dad used to tell me that our lives were planned out long before we were born. Every word we’d speak, choice we’d make, person we’d fall in love with. I always shrugged him off because it pissed me off to think that I had no real say over anything I did or would do.” He reaches up to tug at the hair that’s gotten so long it curls behind his ears and neck. There’s a tattoo just under his left ear that I’d never noticed. A coffee bean. “I still refuse to believe it. Leaving your life up to fate is pathetic.”
“You don’t believe in it?”
“Fate is nothing more than an ideal you can use as an excuse when things go wrong so you don’t have to bear the weight of the disappointment or regret. If you want to avoid building a family around yourself because you’re convinced they’ll just leave one day, like that’s already been decided by some magic power, then you’ll die alone and hate yourself for it.”
“You’re a somber drunk, Beck,” I mutter, needing time to get over the pain his words have caused in the deepest parts of me.
He drops his head against the plastic couch and barks a laugh. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
“That doesn’t make what you’ve said any less true.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
