“That was Tim’s doing. He did a fucking stellar job keeping up the act,” Drew muttered, shaking his head in disgust.

The look of revulsion continued to twist his features as he told me everything – about how he’d gotten the letter and immediately called Tim to make sure it was a lie. But Tim wavered, found an excuse to hang up fast and ignored Drew’s texts and calls for the next day.

Five hours before the first pitch of the game he was due to start that night Drew booked a flight from L.A to Florida. On the plane, he tried to remind himself about how Tim had looked out for him as a kid – how he kept him out of fights in school or on the field, and how he tutored Drew on all tests and homework so he wouldn’t flunk himself off the team.

He thought about that and then the years of lies Tim fed him as an adult – about how sick his mom was feeling, and how hard she’d vomited all night. He thought about the detailed stories of the pain that came with chemo, and how Pattie was no longer able to eat.

“He made me feel all those years of gut-wrenching pain for something that wasn’t even real,” Drew said, his brittle voice barely above a whisper. “Fucking hell. I spent so many nights just sitting up in bed and hating the world for how cruel it was to good people. Especially when the cancer came back. I’d been so high off her beating it, and when they told me it was back, I felt fucking broken. I lost my mind a little because I felt like I had personally failed her – that I didn’t do enough and I could’ve paid for even better doctors.” His eyes were lost in memory as I held his jaw in my hands. “For Christ’s sake, he kept me on this crazy hell of an emotional roller coaster for four years. Just so he could cash checks from me whenever he wanted.”

“God, Drew,” I whispered, my forehead touching his as I shook my head in stunned shock. “I’m so, so sorry. That is evil what they did to you. I can’t even fathom how they could stomach that kind of lie for so many years. I can’t even begin to understand how they could betray your trust like that.”

“His justification was that they didn’t realize till too late,” Drew said. “They didn’t realize how much they were owed for what they did for me growing up. He said at the time, they did it out of love and the kindness of their hearts. But years later, when they saw what everyone else was getting from me, they realized they deserved some kind of cut. And probably a big one considering they did so much more for me than any of the other assholes from home that I was writing checks to.”

“That’s horrible. That’s not an excuse for what they put you through,” I said furiously. “What they lied about is despicable. The world needs to know the truth about them, Drew. Why did you never tell?”

“The same reason you still help your mom out,” Drew murmured, looking me in the eye. “Because I couldn’t help but care about her still. I thought about all the good memories when the love was real because there was no money in the picture yet. And as much as I hated her, I couldn’t sic the media on her either.”

“Especially now that she’s gone,” I said softly, to which Drew nodded. “How… did she pass?” I asked warily.

“I heard a heart attack, but I don’t even know for sure, which fucking kills me.” Drew closed his eyes, breathing in deep as I gently rubbed the back of his neck. “After I found out the truth about her cancer, I ignored every time she reached out. I tossed all the letters she wrote me without ever opening them. And now that she’s gone, I somehow feel like shit about that. About the fact that I’ll never know what she wrote in those letters.” The breath he exhaled as he opened his eyes was shaky, and a sharp pain twisted in my chest when I noticed his eyes were glassy, wet with tears he still refused to let spill.

“Drew. It’s okay to feel regret about that. You’re allowed to.”

“You sure about that?” he laughed bitterly. “She stole a quarter of a million dollars from me and put me through a living hell, but I still miss her sometimes. It doesn’t make any fucking sense.”

“Of course it does,” I said gently. “She played a huge role in your life. She was genuinely good to you at some point. She did love you. But as much as it hurts to say, good people don’t always stay that way. Sometimes something happens and they turn. But we’re human, Drew, and some days we’ll miss the good times we had with those people. That’s just how it is.”

Drew nodded, quiet as he looked into my eyes, as if he knew I was thinking of Kaylie. I was remembering when I was nine or ten, and how she taught me to stand up for myself against the bullies at school. I thought of Mike, and how I only ever dared to dream of a better life because of him. Both of them were instrumental in carving out a lot of the good qualities I still had today.

But the people they were when they helped me do that were gone.

“I always thought as a kid that life would get easier as I got older,” Drew said with almost a laugh.

“No. It gets harder,” I said quietly. “We meet more people, we love more people. Sometimes they leave and disappoint you. Or they pass and we miss them forever.”

“So why care about anyone?”

His question surprised me – not in the words he said, but the tone he spoke in. It wasn’t cynical – it was honest. Genuinely curious. It made me search hard and fast within myself for a good answer, because I knew Drew needed to hear one.

“We care because love is stronger than hate, and it’s worth the risk,” I finally said. “Even if it doesn’t pan out, it turns you a little closer in the right direction. Every time.”

“You believe that?” Drew asked. Like his last question, it was an honest one. I bit my lip as I thought about it.

“I do,” I said, feeling a little smile drift slowly onto my lips as Drew simply held me and gazed at me. He was quiet for a bit before finally nodding and returning my faint smile.

“Well, if you believe it, then I guess I can give it a try.”

30

DREW

Against Iain’s wishes, Evie decided to fly in for the L.A leg of my west coast road trip.

“She does realize how much L.A hates you, right?” Iain asked, having called me the second I told him of our plans. “She’s not going to have fun in the stands by herself. The fans are going to heckle her just for being your girlfriend. You have to realize that.”

“I do, but she’ll be sitting with the rest of the WAGs, including Diaz’s wife so she’ll be in good hands,” I said as my car crossed the bridge into Brooklyn to get to the stadium. “Trust me, I’d rather her avoid LA too but she wanted to go. She said she’s never been to California before and this is her shot,” I lied.

That wasn’t the reason. It was more so the fact that Evie now knew why L.A hated me so goddamned much.

Tags: Stella Rhys Irresistible Romance
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