by Sarina Bowen
I take the phone. “Hello?”
“Silas Kelly. Long time no speak.”
My pulse jumps at the sound of Brett Ferris’s voice. “How did you get this number?” is the first thing that comes out of my mouth.
“Really? That’s your question? If I were you, I would want to know why, not how. But that was always your failing. You always focus on the wrong things. And when you figure out what’s really important, it’s always too late.”
I’m standing in my own home, stunned and pissed off at once. “What are you playing at? Make this quick. I have a plane to catch.”
“See, that’s where you’re wrong. You’re not going to go to L.A.”
The smug sound of his voice fills me with rage. “Of course I am.” And how does he know my travel plans? Delilah must be right about her security team spying on her.
“You won’t want to go after you hear what I have to say.”
“Bullshit. Nothing you could say would make one difference to me.” I take a deep breath and remind my body how to feel calm. Oxygen into the lungs. Looseness in the limbs. We got this. I’m not the same freaked-out kid that I used to be.
“No? I’m not so sure about that.” He pauses, and I know manufactured drama when I hear it. “Delilah is at a crossroads right now,” he says. “She’s about to write her third album and launch her second.”
“Sure, but I’m not stopping her,” I argue.
“Yeah, you are,” he argues. “You’re a distraction. And I won’t allow it.”
“You won’t allow it?” My voice sounds almost level. “She’s not a child. You don’t get to arrange her play dates.”
“You’re the child.” His voice is hard. “You have no idea what’s at stake for her. She can be a one-album wonder, or she can be great. But you and that pit bull of a manager need to back the fuck off.”
“Or what?” I don’t know what this temper tantrum is meant to accomplish.
“Simple. It’s like this. I will not release her album so long as you are in her life.”
“What? That album doesn’t have the first thing to do with me.”
“Like hell it doesn’t. You’re the guy whispering in her ear that she doesn’t owe me anything.”
“She doesn’t,” I snap, and then instantly regret it. I care too much. And now he knows it.
“Bullshit,” he fires back. “I put too much time into this to let you walk away with it. You’re just a piece-of-crap jock from a family of criminals, and I will let the world know.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, feeling suddenly calmer. “You played that hand before. And when I was in high school, I fell for it. But you don’t get to play me twice. Tell whoever you want.”
“Check your email.”
“For what? I can’t do that when I’m on the phone with you.”
“Check it later, then. I just sent you a parole-release notification.”
“A what?” But even as I ask the question, I realize what he means. “Wait, he’s out?”
Brett’s chuckle makes me want to lean over and throw up. Because he’s done it again. He’s two steps ahead of me. When I open that email I know what it will say. Everett Joseph White is released on parole, subject to the following conditions…
“When?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“Almost two months ago.”
Two months. And I had no idea. I don’t even bother to play it cool anymore. “Where did you learn this?”
“It’s public record.”
A few more gears click into place for me. My father’s parole was just a lucky find for Brett Ferris. But it means that he went digging for something on me, and this just happened to pop up.
Unless it’s not true.
Fuck, it probably is.
“So?” I say, unclenching the fist that I’ve made with my free hand. “Thanks for that fun little news nugget. But I still have a plane to catch.” I have to talk to my mom, for one. Now more than ever.
“No. You don’t go near Delilah. If you do, I won’t release her album. And furthermore, I’ll send someone to find your daddy and tell him your mother’s brand-new name and where she lives.”
My mouth goes dry.
“Just walk out of Delilah’s life,” Brett says. “No explanation. No blame. She’s the biggest new voice to break out in a decade. She doesn’t need you, anyway.”
That is probably true. But it doesn’t mean she doesn’t want me. I find my voice. “You know, high school has been over for seven years. You and I are not in competition anymore.”
“Yeah, sure,” he says. “I already won.”
There’s a click as he disconnects the call.
I think I stand there for several minutes, adrift in the middle of my bedroom, wondering what the hell just happened. I’ve never understood Brett. Even when I thought we were playing the same game, he always went further than I expected a sane person would go. So I can’t rule out that threat of him disclosing the whereabouts of my mother.
I need to talk to her. That’s definitely a priority. But I can’t call her yet until I process this. I can’t be a panicked voice on the line, at least until I figure out whether it’s the right time to panic. Who can look at this parole notification and tell me if it’s real?
Carl Bayer. That’s who. So after I spend one more minute on deep breathing, I call him.
He answers on the second ring. “Hey there, kid! I thought I might hear from you.”
“Why?” My voice sounds strained.
“Because I sent your girl some security company names.”
“Oh.” Your girl. I feel a pain in my chest just thinking about her. “Thank you. But that’s not what I’m calling about. I just had the weirdest run-in with her ex. I think I have a problem.”
A beat of silence passes by. “How do you feel about a burger at Peter Luger’s?”
“What?” I’m not even sure if he’s talking to me right now.
“They have the best burger in Brooklyn. It’s a half a pound of prime beef on a bun. And they only serve it at lunch. Go downstairs, get into a cab, and meet me over there in fifteen.”
He hangs up.
Once again I stand there, contemplating all my life choices. I’m supposed to be heading to the airport right now. But I can’t, because of Brett’s highly specific threats. I can’t stand to let that fucker win a round. Delilah is expecting me tonight, and now it looks like I’m not going to show.
That’s exactly what Brett wants. I shouldn’t give it to him. But the alternative is pretty terrible for two women I love.
I go downstairs and stick my arm in the air. A yellow cab turns the corner and stops in front of me. “Peter Luger,” I tell him as I slip into the back.
The largest burger I’ve ever seen in my life slowly disappears as I tell Carl the story.
He makes grumbling noises interspersed with chewing noises while I talk. “I don’t know how the guy got your number,” he grouses. “Team security and I are going to have to have a talk.”
“That’s the least of my problems,” I tell him. “He threatened me, and I’m so angry I can’t see straight.”
“Yeah, I know,” the older man says. “Take a breath and let me think this through.”
There aren’t enough deep breaths in the world to calm me down right now. Now that I’ve had a while to get over my shock, the solution seems no clearer. Meanwhile, I’m missing my flight. I haven’t said a word to Delilah, but I’m itching to apologize. It would kill me to stand her up.
“Okay, we have to tackle this stepwise,” Carl says. “First, I’m going to verify whether your father was actually released from prison. If he was, then we’re going to think about his access to your mother.”
“She legally changed both our names,” I point out. Kelly is a name she chose out of the clear blue sky when I was three years old, and we moved from Florida to California. “Does that help?”
“It helps some, depending on how smart your father is, and whether your mother t
ook advantage of special provisions that help the victims of crimes.”
“We weren’t officially the victims of any of his crimes. So that probably wasn’t an option.” Although my mother was so afraid of my father that we left in the night, driving cross country to avoid him. She never reported his abuse. He went to prison for different crimes.
“The fact that she moved is more useful than the name change,” Carl says. “Parolees don’t have resources to travel. They’re required to stay in town and find a job, or risk going back to jail. A dumb man will ignore his parole officer. And a desperate man can hitchhike to California. But he’d have to be highly motivated to settle that old score.”
That’s what I can’t predict. “I don’t know my father at all. I don’t know if he terrorized my mother out of a deep-seated obsession, or merely because she was convenient.”
Carl nods, patting his mouth with the linen napkin. “So we’ll get a Florida PI to check in on your father’s situation.”
“Subtly,” I add. “He can’t know who’s interested.”
“What do you take me for?” The older man snorts. “I’ve been gathering intel since before you were born.”
“Sorry,” I say quickly.
He only laughs. “Don’t be. It’s okay to be worried about your mom. You and Brett Ferris aren’t cut from the same cloth. That’s why he’s got you so riled up. It says a lot about you that you don’t understand his methods.”
“Which are?”
“When shit gets real, fear and intimidation are his go-to weapons. I need you to walk me back even further, here. When does the history between you two start? High school?”
“Exactly. Tennis team rivalry.”
Carl Bayer nearly loses control over a sip of his beer and has to clamp a hand over his mouth while he laughs. “Tennis team?” he sputters eventually. “Rough sport.”
“I know.” I crack a smile, because it does sound ridiculous. “But we hated each other. He was slick and obnoxious, and he drove me crazy. I was scrappy and desperate and gave him hell. It was ugly.”
“How ugly?”
“We both cheated. I’m not proud of it. He was really slimy with the line calls. In tennis you police yourself. So I sunk to his level. And I think it surprised him that I would do that.”
“Hmm.” Carl strokes his chin. “I think this guy has an entitlement complex. He probably assumed he earned those wins, even when he cheated. A guy who thinks the world owes him a victory always excuses his own behavior.”
“That does sound like him.” But I thought I deserved to win, too. Nobody worked harder than I did. I wanted the town’s tennis scholarship so fucking bad. “It didn’t matter, anyway. He outsmarted me. He asked me to meet him in a deserted location after a big tournament I’d just won. He said he had something to tell me.”
“And you went?”
“Of course I did.” I sigh. The teenaged Silas was too cocky to anticipate disaster. “I get there, and it takes him about two minutes to unhinge me. He tells me, ‘I really think the scholarship committee should know that you’re the son of a murderer. I’m gonna make sure they hear about it.’”
I put my fork down and sigh. I remember with perfect clarity how hot my anger ran at that moment. “I punched him.”
“And that’s what did you in, right?” Carl asks. Because the cues I missed in high school are already brutally obvious to him.
“Yes. There was a security camera. For the price of a broken nose, he eliminated me as a rival.”
Carl shakes his head. “You weren’t the first teenager to let your emotions get the better of you.”
“I don’t want to do it again. Help me see what the hell he’s doing right now. I can pay whatever it costs…”
Carl holds up a hand. “Let’s worry about that later. I’ll find a smart guy in Florida to check on your father. I’ll bill you for his hours. But I’m gonna take a look at Brett, too. We need to know why he’s desperate enough to threaten you. There’s a story there, and we don’t know what it is.”
“He’s obsessed with Delilah.”
“Possibly. But it might be a business issue, too. He needs her more than she needs him, and we want to know why. Threatening you is risky, right? Not to mention illegal. Your phone logged the call. No chance you recorded it?”
I shake my head. Will I ever stop getting played by this guy?
Carl takes out his trusty notebook, flips to a fresh page, and starts making notes. “I’ll see what I can dig up about his business and run a credit check.”
“That family is loaded,” I point out.
“There’s a lot of ways to be loaded. Brett might have leveraged himself. Or maybe he leveraged his pride instead of his cash. He lost his girlfriend, but also his star talent, right? Although if he’s short on cash, it would explain a lot.”
“If he’s short on cash he could just release Delilah’s album,” I point out. “Problem solved.”
“Maybe.” Carl keeps scribbling. “When a man acts crazy, there’s often a very sane reason. Desperation makes people ugly. Let’s find out what he’s so desperate for.”
“Delilah. He lost her. Now he wants her back.”
Carl stops writing and looks up at me. “Let’s hope it’s not that simple. She’s safer if this is just about money.”
Shit. “I can’t just stand her up, Carl. I have to go to California.”
He puts down the pen. “Give me twenty-four hours to do some research. If your girl loves you, she’ll listen when you explain it all later. And give Brett a minute to think that he’s won. It’ll calm him down.”
“So right now I should just…”
“Do nothing. Say nothing. Her security team is spying, right? They might be reading her texts. I know this will hurt worse than a bee sting on your ballsack. But I need twenty-four or forty-eight hours of your silence to figure out how big a threat this guy is.”
I hate everything about this. “When she starts texting me, what the hell am I going to say?”
“You’re going to tell her that Coach changed his mind. It’s not even much of a stretch. Now eat that.” He points at my burger. “And let me get to work.”
Delilah
I’m sitting at the bar at Roadie Joe’s. The place looks exactly the same, except for the most important detail. Silas isn’t here. He stood me up tonight. My only date is Mr. Muscles.
I take another swig of beer, and I still can’t believe that Silas stood me up.
His text didn’t even roll in until I’d sat down at a table outside, wearing a low-cut dress and a flower in my hair. A goddamn flower, like somebody’s prom date.
I feel so stupid right now.
Sorry, something’s come up. Coach needs me here. My apologies.
That was it.
I’d read it three times, looking for a real explanation. Then—even though only assholes make phone calls from the middle of a crowded restaurant—I’d tried his number.
No pickup.
Trying not to panic, I’d ordered food just to give the hovering waitress something to do. And while I ate, I’d sent Silas a barrage of texts.
It isn’t like you to cancel with a text.
What is going on?
Is this really about hockey?
If something is wrong. I need to know.
And, finally, Is it something I said?
When I’d read back through my texts, I’d wanted to throw up. If they were song lyrics, I’d be panned for writing the most overused clichés on the planet.
My heartache is so very unoriginal. But that doesn’t make it hurt any less.
And while I ate food I could barely taste and sat there quietly freaking out, people kept stopping on the sidewalk to point at me and whisper to their friends.
I can’t even have my heart broken in private.
Eventually I’d paid the bill. There was still no word from Silas. But instead of letting Mr. Muscles steer me into the car, I’d paused on the threshold to the inside bar. T
he same dim room looked back at me, mostly empty. Just like the olden days.
I knew I should have gone back to my empty hotel room. But I couldn’t face it. There’s even a freaking candle on the bedside table, because I’d discovered my inner romantic just hours before Silas decided I’m not worth the trouble.
So I took a barstool instead, ordering a third beer that I’d opened myself. And wondered what the hell was really happening tonight.
It’s so tempting to leap to the worst conclusion. He changed his mind. I’m too much trouble. I didn’t respond enthusiastically about the idea of living in Brooklyn.
But it’s too soon to beat myself up like this. The last time I thought Silas stood me up on purpose, I was wrong. And I don’t want to be that girl anymore—the frightened one who always assumes the worst. For once I can just take a fucking breath and give the man more than two hours to explain himself.
“Can I get you anything else?”
I look up into the somewhat familiar eyes of the guy behind the bar. His name tag says Danny. “Have you heard from Ralph?” I blurt out. They were friends. I’m sure of it.
Danny’s eyes widen. “He doesn’t work here anymore.”
“I get that,” I say quietly. “But we were supposed to meet here tonight.”
“Oh,” he says slowly. “I didn’t know that. He hasn’t been in here since last summer.”
“Right. Okay.” I feel like an idiot now.
“Funny thing, though? It was me who was supposed to tell you that the surfing lesson was canceled. Three years ago? I’m the one he sent to tell you. But I was too late.”
“Oh.” It comes out sounding as wounded as one syllable can. “But I waited.”
“Yeah, we got slammed and my dad was yellin’ away in the kitchen.” He hooks a thumb toward the open window to the kitchen. “I didn’t get to you in time. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I say quickly. Although there’s no telling what would have happened if I got that message. Or if I’d given my favorite bartender my phone number in the first place.
Maybe everything. Or maybe nothing. We might have flamed out a long time ago.