Page 28

Harrison

“ H ey,” I say, catching the bartender’s attention and pointing to my glass, making the gesture to let him know I’d like another whiskey. He nods, turns to grab someone else a drink first.

I stare at the line of bottles across from me and think about the meeting right after I punched that PR fucker in the face.

Temporary suspension—two days off and an apology, which I have yet to issue and will be dragging my feet on.

As much as Ki doesn’t want to admit it, he didn’t fire me right then and there because he knows the only way the team stands a chance in getting to the Stanley Cup is if I stay on. Even in this hobbled, emotionally-stunted form.

Last night, we swept the Maple Leafs into the fucking trash, owning the ice like it belonged to us for the duration of the game. Deacon, Samir, and I figured out how to realign the lines, giving them back their confidence. We got the rotation on lock.

Samir revealed to me after the game that Lovie had made a suggestion for the new organization, and I’d nodded, trying not to let it show how much that fact sat heavy, right in the middle of my chest.

As for the players, they’ve stopped looking at me with pity, and started looking at me with respect again.

Somehow, the news that I’d clocked Jared Davis in the face did a lot more for team morale than any of the other scandals this year. Turns out, a lot of the players have wanted to do the same, so at least with them, it was seen as a positive.

“Here you go,” the bartender says, sliding a new whiskey in my direction, scanning me for a second. I want to remind him that this is only my second, confirm to him that I’ll walk back to my apartment after it. I have no interest in getting sloppy drunk in this bar.

I only came in here because it was the only place on the fucking street that wasn’t decked out in hearts and pink, glittery red and Cupid’s arrows.

Somehow, I’d managed to forget about the prospect of Valentine’s day until I found a little box of Conversation Hearts on my desk with a note from management, thanking me for being such a sweet member of the team.

Then, of course, I was flooded with images of what this night might look like if I still had her in my arms. Maybe a nice dinner out.

I could take her to a place in Baltimore that wouldn’t make sense for any other Friday night, we could eat expensive shit—caviar and steak—enjoy red wine and laugh together.

Or maybe I would have just cooked for her at home. Maybe I could have planted her on my bed and had my way with her for hours.

Maybe, maybe.

Now it’s been almost seven weeks since Lovie left, and I’m starting to worry that she might never come back. Each time I pull my phone from my pocket, I think about texting. Calling.

But I don’t.

Not because I’m afraid of the legal repercussions, or what she might do to me for violating the contract. But because she told me not to. And I’m not going to cross that line. I’m not going to chase after a woman who’s made it clear she wants nothing to do with me.

Instead, I’m going to sit here in this bar and think about how she’s probably—hopefully—thinking about me right now. About what this night could be like if we were together.

I’ll sit here and hope that Lovie, the smartest woman I’ve ever met, eventually comes to her senses and realizes all this shit isn’t important enough to keep us apart. That age and employment and all the differences in the world shouldn’t matter when it comes to the way we love one another.

“If I sit here, are you going to punch me in the face?”

At first, I think it’s actually Jared fucking Davis, having the gall to find me in the wild and sit next to me in a bar. When I turn, it’s with the full intention of knocking him on his ass, but a moment before I see him, the voice registers, and I realize who it is.

“Brad.”

His name comes out of my mouth before I can stop it, and he must take it as permission to take the seat, because he slides into it, carefully not meeting my eye.

“Hey, man.”

“Can this night get any fucking worse?”

“Well, I’m here with you,” he jokes, glancing at me and lifting his glass. “So, I’d say no.”

That reminds me that it’s Valentine’s Day, and there’s no reason he should be here with me, instead of with his wife.

My wife. My ex-wife.

“She’s pissed at me,” Brad says, then to the bartender, “Whiskey on the rocks, please. Whatever you have that’s top-shelf.”

The bartender leaves to get his drink, glancing at my drink, which is exactly the same thing, ordered in the same way.

“I fucked up,” Brad goes on, even though I’ve done nothing to indicate to him that I want to talk about this. “And I know that. I know this one is on me. But sometimes, in the moment, I just—I say stupid shit.”

As someone who has done my fair share of hurting Eliza, I understand. As a man sitting next to his traitorous best friend, there’s a certain sense of satisfaction in him not being able to get it right, either.

Although, maybe he’s already done much better than I did, with a teenage daughter and a marriage that’s lasted nearly as long as mine did.

“Came looking for the least love-obsessed place on the block,” Brad goes on, thanking the bartender when he slides the drink over to him. “And of course, I find you in here.”

I say nothing, staring down at the shining wood below my drink. We were always so much alike. It’s what made us fast friends, and it’s what helped us to bridge the gap between us, despite being from slightly different generations in the game.

He would have played a lot longer than me if that injury hadn’t taken him out. For the first time, I wonder if his injury might have had something to do with going after Eliza. Losing something we shared, going after something that was just mine.

The idea pisses me off. But I’m too exhausted to do anything about it.

Brad, somehow, continues on.

“If I’m being honest, I really thought you were going to hit me, man. I was kind of hoping for it, actually.”

Without thinking, or meaning to, I stretch out my hand and show him the bruise on my knuckles from when I hit Jared Davis. Turns out, his bones weren’t quite as bird-like as I thought, as the force of the hit fractured a tiny bone in my knuckle.

The docs told me it should heal on its own, but it looks like hell, still purple and blue over my hand. It’s enough of an explanation for why I might not want to drive the thing into his face, too.

“Shit, get in a fight with a brick wall?”

“Same IQ level,” I mutter, and when Brad laughs, I resent the way it makes me feel. I hate the way that somewhere, inside me, I long for old times with him.

He’s always been a talker, and I’ve always been quieter, which means going into groups with him was always easier. He’d handle the brunt of the conversation, and I could relax, laugh when he made a joke only he and I would really understand.

Sitting here, I have to admit to myself that it’s been lonely without him.

Or maybe it’s just been lonely because I was never brave enough to replace him, to let someone else in the way I did with him. To find a new best friend to take his place.

“So, I saw all that shit with you and that girl.”

“She’s a woman,” I grunt. “Full grown woman, dickhead.”

The laugh that barks out of him is real, “Okay—not how I meant it, but yeah, I heard, man. I was just gonna say…Eliza told me about it, a bit. And after I saw that stuff…I just really, really hoped that the two of you were going to pull through all this shit.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“I mean, yeah,” he says, picking up his glass and staring into it for a second. “I know a thing or two about how everyone always has something to say about your relationships. Liza and I went through that for a while—and honestly, most of it was justified.”

When I glance over at him, I can see all the ways the years have changed him, deepening the lines on his face, putting more gray in his hair. Eventually, he might go completely salt-and-pepper, like me.

“You’ll forgive me if I’m lacking in empathy for you,” I mutter, taking another sip of my whiskey. It burns on the way down, and I catch Brad glancing at me, too, like he’s noticing all the same ways I’ve aged without him.

“Yeah,” he says, finally, clearing his throat. “I can only hope that one day, you’ll forgive me, too. And I hope you realize that it doesn’t matter what people say about you. It only matters how you feel, and what you want, especially if you know their claims hold no weight.”

“Did their claims hold no weight against you?” I counter, cutting my eyes to him.

He swallows, laughs a little, “I mean, sure, there was the stress of people reiterating what I’d done.

It was true that I did shitty things. But the claims that didn’t hold true?

That I was a shitty person. I just made a mistake.

But it also led me to the brightest light of my life.

It gave me a second chance after everything went up in flames for me professionally. ”

“Well, I’m glad,” I mutter, and Brad looks at me.

“Are you, really? I mean, is there any part of you that feels happy for me? Or could ever forgive me?”

“We’re never going to be best friends again,” I say, matter-of-factly, and I realize I mean it.

Maybe it’s okay for relationships to change fundamentally.

Maybe I understand what happened, in a way, but I could never trust him again.

I would never subject myself to that kind of worry over whether or not my best friend would actually have my back.

“That’s fair,” he says, though it’s obvious that’s not what he was hoping to hear. “Honestly, I’m kind of stoked right now that you’re even talking to me.”

“It’s the whiskey.”

“I thought the whiskey would just convince you to finally level me.”

“It’s not off the table.”

“Even with the fucked hand?”

“Even with the fucked hand.”

“I know it doesn’t mean much, man, but I’m sorry for the ways I hurt you. I’d never undo it—especially not now that we have Rachel—but I am sorry. It was a shitty thing to do, and I was a shitty friend to you for it.”

“Yeah,” I clear my throat, let out a breath. “You were. And it’s not okay, but it doesn’t really…bother me. Not for a few years, at least. So maybe that’s the closest we can get to forgiveness.”

“That’s okay with me,” Brad says, and his shoulders decompress, falling a bit. I wonder if he’s been carrying that tension with him from the first time he put his hands on Eliza.

For a long time, after the divorce, I wondered about the first time they crossed the line. The first time it happened. If I was at practice, or driving to work, or at an away game.

If it was a hand on her back or a kiss or a lot more than that. I used to fantasize about catching them, beating the shit out of him for daring to put his hands on her.

But now, none of that anger is there. I’m just curious about his relief—if me just saying that we’re close to forgiveness is enough to help him release that weight he’s been carrying. It was his to carry, sure, but maybe it’s been long enough.

“So, what are you doing here?” Brad asks, turning to me, raising one eyebrow in the way that he used to when he thought I was doing something stupid.

“Wallowing. Thought that was obvious.”

“Sure—but why aren’t you going after her?”

“Doesn’t want me to.”

“She said that?”

“Wrote it in a contract.” Technically, that might be against our NDA, but maybe the two whiskeys were stronger than I thought. Or maybe I just need someone to talk to about this whole thing.

“Well, shit,” Brad says. He picks up his drink again, shaking his head as he takes a drink.

I stare at my empty glass, then reach into my pocket for some bills, throwing them down on the bar and standing.

“Goodbye, Brad. Go home to Eliza, alright? Don’t make this all for nothing.”

He nods, presses his lips together, and pushes away the rest of his glass. “You’re right. And, for what it’s worth, I never thought you were the kind of man to let a little red tape stop you.”

I’m already walking away when the words hit me.

When I push through the door, out of the bar’s warmth and into the frigid Baltimore night, I think about all the times he and I hyped one another up before a game.

The pep talks, how we’d set each other straight, get our heads in the right place to come home with the championship.

Now, I wonder how in the hell it is that Brad Greene still knows exactly the right thing to say to me, even after a decade of me hating him.