Page 9 of Wild Card (Rose Hill #4)

CHAPTER EIGHT

BASH

Four months later…

“Are you okay?” is the first thing I say when I pick up the phone.

Last night, I watched the TV with a boulder in my stomach as Tripp was helped off the ice. He hadn’t rejoined the game, and I caved to instinct, sending him a message asking if he was okay.

It took him a day to respond, but he called. And that’s something.

“Yeah. I cleared the protocol. They said I’m fine. A little banged up, but I’ll be back on the ice tomorrow.”

I listen to my son casually recount the fallout of a dirty cross-check he was on the receiving end of and grapple with an unfamiliar feeling. It’s protective and enraged all at once. My stomach sinks and my ire rises.

Even though Tripp is an adult, I’d like to march down to the league headquarters and demand an explanation for how they can keep letting their top talent get rag-dolled like this.

“And is that goon going to be suspended?”

He chuckles now. The sound is a blend of amusement and disbelief over my demand for justice—like somehow he expected less from me.

“Probably. I can’t imagine him not getting a game or two.”

“I’d give him ten,” I grumble, irrationally hating the other player.

Tripp laughs again now. “Missed your calling working in player safety, Bash.”

I grumble at that, still not impressed. “I’ll be checking the news” is all I respond with as I head up the mountain toward Clyde’s property. “I’m going to lose reception right away here, but stay in touch, okay?”

A beat of silence passes between us. There’s still something surreal about talking with him at all. He already has parents to keep in the loop, and I can’t help but feel like it must be inconvenient to add another one to his busy schedule.

Still, he responds, “You bet.” And it’s only slightly awkward.

Progress. Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself every time we have a remotely normal conversation.

The line goes dead right where I figured it would, and I drive up the winding gravel road worrying about Tripp and about Clyde. The thought of him living up here alone with his current health scares me.

I never know what I’ll find when I pull up to the small log home. Today is no exception.

“Clyde, what the fuck are you doing?”

I watch as the older man hobbles around my black pickup truck, bending over stiffly to inspect god knows what.

“Hold yer horses! Kids these days are so impatient.” He shuffles across the snow, a smattering of wiry, white facial hair covering his stubborn jaw as he pants from the simple walk to my truck.

It’s taking all my self-control to not get out and help him. But the thing about Clyde is that he doesn’t want any help. Convincing him to give dialysis a go was the challenge of my life.

The passenger door opens, and he heaves his short body into the seat with a grunt.

He’s got a wiry but strong build, topped with deeply lined, leathery skin from years spent in the sun (and not believing in sunscreen).

It’s actually weird that his kidneys are the issue and not some type of skin cancer.

But his doctors assured me that, aside from the kidneys, he’s as healthy as a horse.

I’m worried about him, though. I can’t help it. I’ve grown attached to the ornery old git.

“What are you waiting for? Me to die while you stare at me?” He crosses his arms and shoots me a petulant glare from beneath his trucker hat.

I just sigh. Anyone who thinks I’m hard to handle should try helping Clyde. “I’m waiting for you to put your seat belt on.”

“Pfft. I don’t need a seat belt. I grew up in cars that didn’t even have ’em. And look at me.” He holds his arms out wide. “I turned out fine.”

My brows drop. “I think our definitions of fine might be different.”

Clyde’s lips twitch. “You’re so crabby. Still stewing over the wall-punching incident?”

Now that is something I don’t want to talk about. So I don’t answer. I just glare at him. He doesn’t reach for the seat belt, and I’m out of patience. “Fuck it,” I mutter, shifting my truck into reverse and throwing a hand over the back of his seat to maneuver down the long driveway.

If he refuses to wear a seat belt, then it’s not my hill to die on.

“Oh, so we’re still pretending that didn’t happen?”

My molars clamp down on each other. “I’m not pretending shit, Clyde. I’m just internally berating myself for even telling you about it.”

Of course, the loud noise and the hole in the wall hadn’t gone unnoticed. People came running—Cecilia included. So, of course, Tripp found out too.

Obviously, I couldn’t admit why I’d had a completely out-of-character outburst.

Sorry, I’ve been obsessing over your girlfriend for months, blew my shot because, in the fog of pulling an all-nighter, I missed one fucking number, and now I’ll never have her.

I had to cover and said my frustration over all the years I missed got the best of me. It wasn’t a total lie. It was a frustrating position to be in… but it wasn’t why I lost it and punched a wall.

Tripp looked shocked. His mom turned and walked away—which was just so fucking fitting. And Eddie tried to placate me.

I gave Tripp his gift and saw myself out with my tail between my legs and my dignity left in the powder room.

I headed straight to the airport to come home, thinking my luck couldn’t get any worse. But I’d been wrong. Because there in the terminal, I ran into my ex-wife for the first time in three years.

She looked happy, healthy, remarried, and very pregnant.

Pregnant . Something she told me she never wanted to be. Something she clearly just didn’t want to be with me .

Our greeting was brief and awkward, and once the shock of it passed, the run-in only pushed me deeper into the hole of despair that I’d already been calling home.

Since then, I’ve done my best not to analyze how I feel about it.

And I certainly haven’t told anyone about it.

Not even Clyde got that piece of information.

Instead, I may have fallen back on venting to Clyde about other things. About Tripp and Cecilia and the mess that comes with this whole new chapter in my life. And in my most distraught moment, I may have even divulged my misery over the Gwen bombshell.

Things may have been tenuous between Tripp and me after I put a hole in his mom’s wall, but with persistence, we’ve managed to forge something of a connection. Even if we only talk about work.

Work is safe. Personal lives are dicey. Gwen is personal. And I sure as shit don’t want to talk to him about her. I don’t even want to think about her.

With him.

Clyde’s raspy voice interrupts my spiral. “You should call her.”

Her .

I don’t even need to ask who he’s talking about. I scoff and roll my eyes as I pull the truck around to head down the back road.

Of course, Clyde has to live way the hell and gone—up the back side of the mountain. Something about fewer cameras tracking him. As if anyone wants to track Clyde and his daily puttering around his land.

“Absolutely not. That would be beyond inappropriate.”

“According to who?”

“Everyone, Clyde. Everyone. Especially my son—her boyfriend —who I’m trying to be friendly with. I’m trying not to totally fuck everything up with him, so it might be best to steer clear of that ticking time bomb.”

He sniffles, wiggling back against his seat. “Seems to me that little prick could use some fucking with.”

I let out a heavy sigh, but I don’t respond.

The worst part is, I agree. Although I barely know Tripp, it’s clear he has his mother’s family’s fingerprints all over him.

He’s not all bad, but the silver-spoon, image-obsessed genes are there.

I could tell by the way he introduced me to people and the way they patted him on the back with that knowing look in their eyes.

Like he was downright heroic for welcoming me back into his life.

Truthfully, I didn’t care. They can all say what they want about me. But teasing Gwen about her eating habits felt like a backhanded way of criticizing her body.

And that set me off.

Because her fucking body . I’ve dreamed of it. Of her. I know I shouldn’t—especially now—but my subconscious is having a grand old time torturing me over what could have been. What I could have had.

Clyde yammers on about the jet trails in the air, spraying the mountain with chemicals, poisoning the water and the animals. He suspects this is the reason his kidneys are in such rough shape. Chem trails .

I let him talk. I could explain the science of what he’s seeing, but he would just inform me I’m brainwashed and all too happy to believe every lie the government feeds me.

He comes by his moniker “Crazy Clyde” pretty honestly. If anyone were going to wear a tinfoil hat, it would be him. I find a comfort in it, though. The world around me can get turned upside down, and Clyde just…stays the same.

And who knows? Maybe he’s right. Maybe I’m the idiot in this equation. Lately, it definitely feels like I am. The butt of every joke. The perpetual runner-up.

I pull up to the hospital’s front entrance, and Clyde ambles out of the truck.

Our routine is that he heads inside to get started and I find parking before wandering back in there to keep him company.

It’s a rhythm that wouldn’t work in the summer months while I’m constantly away and fighting fires. But it does now.

Something about him doing it all alone, with no one in his corner, doesn’t sit right with me. So I continue to show up for him. I promised I would, and if there’s one thing I am, it’s loyal.

Before he can slam the door, he pauses and turns back. Watery, blue eyes narrow in on me, more perceptive than he has any right to be.