Old Fashioned - Becker Brothers

They needed to be out living it up.

I smiled as the last of them filtered out, remembering a time when high school football felt like everything to me. I couldn’t dream of a day past graduation, of a season more important than the one I played my senior year.

Those boys would remember this night for the rest of their lives.

When I was finally ready to leave, it was nearly three in the morning, and I was the only one left on school property. At least, that’s what I thought as I locked up the locker room behind me and made my way across the field to the staff parking lot.

But parked next to my Bronco was a Stratford Police squad car.

The lights weren’t on, but it was idling quietly, and when I was just a few feet away, the engine cut off and Randy stepped out of the driver side.

He looked manic — his hair out of place, eyes red, a bottle of something concealed in a paper bag wrapped in one fist. He took another swig of it as I approached, and a shit-eating grin spread on his face.

“Congratulations, Coach,” he slurred as I threw my athletic bag in the back of my truck. I leaned against it when I was empty-handed, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Thank you,” I managed, doing my best to keep a level of calmness in my voice. “Something I can help you with tonight, Randy?”

“Oh, fuck off with your niceties, Becker,” he spat, shaking his head. He pointed one of the fingers wrapped around the paper-bagged bottle straight at me, closing one eye as if he was aiming a gun. “You’re fucking my wife, aren’t you?”

It was an instant reaction, every nerve standing on end as my chest fluttered with the fight or flight adrenaline kicking into gear. The hair stood up on the back of my neck, but I remained where I was leaning against my truck, simply blinking when what I really wanted to do was ram my fist into his jaw.

“I didn’t realize you were married.”

He growled at that, running at me but stopping with a few feet between us, his finger now pointing in my face. “Don’t try to be fucking smart with me. I’ll arrest you right now and take your ass all the way down, you understand me?”

“What exactly would you arrest me for, Randy?”

“Anything I goddamn please,” he spat with a smile. “Don’t you see? I make the rules here, and if I say you were driving drunk, or resisting arrest, or carrying a gun that you tried to pull on me?” His smirk climbed. “Then you were. No one questions me. I’m the Chief of Police, you worthless motherfucker.”

The urge to connect my fist with his face strengthened, but I crossed my arms over my chest tighter, willing myself to calm down. Hitting him would only give him fuel for all the fire he just threatened me with, and as fucked up as it was, I knew he wasn’t bullshitting.

He could get away with any of the things he’d just listed.

It was my word against his, and as one of the few men of color in this town, I knew the odds weren’t in my favor.

Suddenly — and all at once — everything Sydney had said to me at Noah’s wedding clicked.

She wasn’t a coward for being afraid of Randy and the power he possessed.

She was smart. She was aware.

And she was a mother doing what she could to protect Paige from the man standing in front of me.

My heart sank at the realization, and I reminded myself to stay calm, to not agitate him, to play by his rules until I was out of this situation.

So, I waited, knowing he had something he wanted to say — and I just hoped once he’d said it, he’d leave me alone.

“Now,” Randy said, straightening. “Are you, or are you not fucking Sydney?”

My jaw clenched, because the way he spoke about her was as if fucking her was all she was good for. He had no idea what he’d lost when she left him, and he never deserved her in the first place.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but yes, Sydney and I were dating,” I confessed — mostly to see the look of incredulousness on his face. But I didn’t have a smug smile to meet him with, because my heart was already breaking before the next words made their way out. “But, we’re not anymore.”

Randy narrowed his eyes, as if he didn’t believe me. When he found no sign of a lie, he must have been satisfied, because he smiled again, taking a long swig from the bottle wrapped in that bag before he took a few steps back. “That’s what I thought.”

I cocked a brow.