The Road To Heaven (Allendale Four 3)

Bryant caught my eye and cleared his voice, interrupting our conversation. Anderson caught the hint and said, “I’ll come back with the guys later. Take a nap, you still look like shit.”

“You like it when I look bad—makes you the handsome one for once.”

We bumped fists and Sabine and Bryant watched him go out the door.

Bryant’s non-committal gaze shifted in my direction the instant we were alone. “So that was the infamous Allendale crew.”

“That’s them.”

“I knew from my research they were an impressive group, but in person they’re pretty intimidating. I can see why you guys had quite the reputation in high school and college.”

I shook my head. “We were just a group of friends—nothing more. You know how petty high schoolers are with cliques and popularity.”

“And then there’s Heaven.”

Sabine looked away, a deep scowl tugging at the corners of her mouth. It wasn’t a good look on her.

“What about her?”

“She sure ran out here as fast as possible,” Sabine remarked.

She had, and it’d surprised me, but it also stirred something in me that I’d long pushed aside. Sabine, no doubt, picked up on it. I ran my hand over my head. “She and the guys were watching the game when I got hurt. She panicked and came out here. She knows my family isn’t in the States. If anything, it was just out of habit.”

There was no part of me that thought Heaven came back here to reconcile. And the little post-visit meeting with Bryant and Sabine was to remind me there was no chance it could ever happen anyway.

“Hayden,” Bryant said, in a voice that made my head throb even more than before, “when I first brought you on as my client I did thorough research on your past. I had to. You know it wasn’t to invade your privacy. It’s to make sure that when we sign contracts and establish business relationships with sponsors and endorsements that nothing is going to come back and bite us. Your history was a little tricky. No drugs, no arrests, no sorority girls claiming you’d assaulted them in the back of the frat house. But one thing kept coming up. It was this little scandal concerning your friend, Heaven Reeves. And the more I dug, the more I found out that Heaven wasn’t just your girlfriend, but sort of this little pet kept by your group of friends. And then the more I dug past that, I found the gossip and the rumors and enough photographic evidence to cause me some worry.”

“Don’t,” I said, with as much force as I could muster, “call her a pet. That’s fucking demeaning.”

He had no idea what Heaven meant to us—to me.

“I apologize,” he said with perfect contrition. “But remember, I told you at the time you had to do two things for me to take you on as a client. One was stay away from Allendale, and two was getting a new girlfriend, so that if anyone found out about Heaven they’d realize you’ve moved on.”

“And I’ve done both of those, haven’t I?”

He nodded. “Until today, yes.”

“So what’s this about? Me going back to Allendale? You said it yourself, I’m a partner in the gym. It makes sense for me to be there.”

“It does, but if the press follows you out there they may start digging around, and normally I’d say going back to your hometown would be no big deal, but Allendale has so much movie business now that the paparazzi has a reason to be there. We’ve talked about this before. Part of the reason we came up with this plan is not just to protect you but protect her.”

And that was why I’d agreed to it. If Heaven thought high school mean girls and bullies were a problem, she had no idea what it was like to be associated with a celebrity. And that was what I was now. A celebrity. The media wanted a piece of me and they’d take a piece of her if they could. They’d pull up her medical records, her father’s past, her depression—all of it.

I wouldn’t allow it. Not a chance.

“I’ll keep a low profile. I’m there to recover, Bryant. Nothing else. Trust me, I don’t want the press digging around any more than you do.”

“And Heaven?” Sabine asked. “What are you going to do about her if she pushes it?”

“I doubt there’s much I’ll have to do. Did you not see her leave? She’s not comfortable with any of this. If I had to guess, she showed up here out of obligation—once the guys have me on a routine, I doubt I’ll see her. She has a job in Allendale. A life. Friends of her own. None of them hang out anymore.”

“Except they were together when you got hurt,” Sabine said. When I gave her a questioning look, she glared back. “I overheard them talking about it.”

I reached for Sabine’s hand, knowing she needed a little reassurance. “I promise you—both of you—that nothing is going on with me and Heaven.”

“And our relationship?” she asked. “How do we plan on keeping that up while you’re gone.”

“We’ll figure something out. A few well-placed excuses should work.”