"I came up here with the intention of just hearing you out. Hoping to give you the benefit of the doubt. Thinking you could explain to me why. Why you cheated on me? Why you went from being best friends with Harley to hating him so passionately that you treated him horribly? But all I’m gettingare fucking excuses and rage that should have been directed at your father. You don’t just fuck someone else accidentally, Austin. That shit is not an accident," I yelled as my finger poked at his chest with every point I made.
"Harley is a good man. No thanks to you or Max. And you led me right back to him, so thank you," I said, picking up my handbag up from the seat, and headed toward the door.
"Cassandra, please just wait. Please, you can’t tell him."
"Alison deserves way better than you. We both do. I really hope for the sake of the baby growing inside her,yourbaby, that you’re a better father than your dad was. She knows you were lying to her, by the way. Go home and try to salvage what’s left of your family."
"Once I said that, I slammed the door behind me, and I haven’t heard from him since. Although, to be fair, I blocked his number the second the door slammed shut," I say, chugging back my third margarita.
"Fucking hell, that’s a lot to unpack. You are going to tell Harley, though, right? You have to." Jenna’s voice cracks.
"Of course, I am. I just need to figure out how," I reply, pinching the bridge of my nose.
This shit is about to get messy.
"We’re going to need more of this," my best friend says, trotting off to the kitchen to refill the empty margarita jug. "It sounds like there’s more to the story than what he’s admitted to," Jenna shouts over the sound of the blender, but I can hear her clearly.
"He’s not. He’s just mad that he got caught." I knew she would think that, because I thought it too. I knew it last night, but I cut him off before the conversation went that way. I didn’t want to hear that he would be capable of that, but he was, wasn’t he?
"Think about it, C. He said he was furious about seeing Harley’s face plastered all over the news, that he was being setup to be the next Max Anderson. That would have been a blow for him to hear his estranged brother was more like their father than he was." She pours us a fresh glass.
"Then he said hesawHarley after they were crowned champions, and his rage took over." She takes a big gulp of the fresh batch, then re-fills her glass. Even though we’re on our fourth cocktail, our conversation is making more and more sense as time goes on.
"It sounds to me like he was about to admit that they got into a fight, but you cut him off and forced him to admit that he fucked Alison instead." She’s right. I didn’t want to hear him admit it, but I refuse to defend him.
Not anymore.
"If my memory serves me right, I remember you telling me that Austin came back from a bachelor party a few years ago with busted knuckles." Damn this girl and her memory.
"You’re right. He did. He said he and his friend Monty got into a fight. I brushed it off because he said Monty was a jerk and deserved it. Austin was in one piece, with only a few surface injuries, so I ignored it, hoping it was nothing." I shrug, feeling defeated, slouching into the back of the couch, head starting to spin.
"Do you remember the exact date?" she asks, walking back to the couch with our drinks, placing them down onto the coffee table in front of us. Pulling her laptop out from under her coffee table, she opens it up, waiting for my answer.
Shaking my head, I ask, "Why?"
"Because I want to see what Harley was up to around that time."
"February 2017, I think."
Over her shoulder I see her type into the search bar 'Harley Wingrove, Brawl in Charlotte',but the results are a dead end. 'Harley Wingrove fight',brings up countless videos of Harleygetting into fights on the football field. 'Harley Wingrove February 2017',are the last words typed into the search bar, and both of our eyes scan the results page.
After a moment of searching, I give up and sink back into the couch. "Wait, I think I’ve found something." She stalks to her kitchen, taking the laptop with her. Hurrying to my feet, I follow closely behind her, trying my hardest to focus on the blurry screen while she reads the article out loud.
"Superstar quarterback Harley Wingrove has been given career ending news today as an injury to his shoulder has been deemed irreparable. It’s unclear how he obtained the injury, as his management and team have remained tight-lipped, declining to speak on the matter, but the team doctors have confirmed with the press that his promising career is well and truly over at the ripe age of twenty-three."
After reading the article, she doesn’t take her eyes off the screen. She continues scrolling, typing and searching for more information about his injury, while I stand completely still, hearing her confirm what I didn’t want to hear.
"There’s more," she says, taking a seat next to me on the couch. "A video of Harley doing a press conference confirming his retirement."
She clears her throat before she presses play.
"I wonder why these articles didn’t come up right away? They were on, like, page twelve of the search." Her brows pinch together. She rests her hand on my thigh before pressing play on the video.
"Unfortunately, I recently obtained a severe injury to my right shoulder, amongst other places. We sought first, second, and even third opinions, but it was eventually confirmed that the damage couldn’t be fixed. I’ll never be able to play professionalfootball again." He sighs, clenching his jaw, and my eyes slowly make my way to his emerald ones that stare right into the camera, and it feels like he’s staring directly at me.
Talking directly to me.
He looks sad.
