“Cool it,” shouts a ref.
Finn is at my arm, pulling me back. “Easy, Dex.”
But then Norris is coming at me, blood pouring down his nose and in his teeth. “That’s why your girl took the money, cuz you’re a fucking pussy!”
I’m two steps into coming at him again, when his words hit me and I go ice cold.
Took the money?
Guys are getting into smaller fights again. Rolondo is now up in Norris’s face, calling him a punk-ass bitch—refs are plucking them apart.
Someone is walking me backward, pushing me toward the sidelines as shouts continue. But I’m numb, my ears ringing and all available blood rushing to the pit of my stomach.
Took the money?
The ref ejects me and Norris from the game, and the stadium erupts into a chorus of boos.
On the sidelines, my offensive coach is shouting at me that I fucked up while slapping my shoulder to say it’s okay I nearly tore Norris’s head off. My head coach is bellowing in my ear about being a dumbass. But I’m barely listening.
I find an assistant coordinator. “You got a phone?”
He glances around as if trying to find an escape.
“Give me your fucking phone,” I snap. Blood trickles in my eye, and a medic is trying to press a cloth to the cut on my forehead. I wave him off, grab the phone that’s offered to me with a shaking hand.
One glance around confirms that everyone’s been keeping something from me. I find out soon enough when the headlines pop up.
Fiona Mackenzie claims her million dollars
There’s a picture of Fi and me, fuzzy and taken from a distance. We’re laughing, my arm slung around her slim shoulders as we stroll through Jackson Square.
And under that, the confirmation that Fi called Bloom this morning, demanding her prize.
Chapter Forty-Four
Dex
I don’t go home. I can’t.
Rolondo takes me to his apartment. I head straight to his guest room and into the shower. I hadn’t bothered washing up at the stadium, just sat on a flimsy chair in front of my spot until the guys came back in and Rolondo hustled me out of there.
Now I stand beneath cold water, letting it pummel me. Images flash through my mind: Fi’s smile. Fi crying. Norris’s ugly grin, blood running down his nose. Fi arching beneath me as I take her. Fi and me laughing in a grainy picture. Fi telling me she wants to go to London.
She asked for the money.
Black rage, thick, hot, and choking, surges up my throat. My shout shatters the air as my fist smashes into the tiles. Pain explodes in my hand, but it takes me a moment to stop.
Slumping against the stall, I stare down at my split knuckles, the blood thin and pale as it mixes with the water beating down on it. Tentatively, I make a fist. The skin stings, but nothing else.
Stupid. Fucking stupid to risk a busted hand. I ought to be horrified. I’m not. My mind’s on that picture of Fi, a once-beautiful private moment reduced to something ugly and cheap. Does she hate me for giving that chick the opportunity to steal my phone? Was that why?
It makes no sense. Nothing does. I think of Fi and everything she told me last night. She wouldn’t do this. There has to be more.
Chest tight, I run my uninjured hand over my wet face, and my fingers tangle in my beard. Again comes the rage, sticky and thick, as if it’s coated my insides like hot tar. Pushing away from the wall, I wrench off the shower.
When I emerge, Rolondo has stepped out, probably thinking I need to be alone. He’s right.
The pain in my busted knuckles keeps me focused. For so long, pain was the one real thing in my life. Taste the pain, ignore the rest.
By the time I find what I’m looking for under his bathroom sink, the room is a mess. I don’t give a ripe fuck. My chest heaves as I stand and look in the mirror. For so long, I didn’t know who the fuck I was. Only with Fi did I feel right, at ease within my flesh. The world has tainted that too.
To hell with it.
Grimly, I lift the razor and press it to my skin.
Fi
With an excess of nervous energy zinging through me, I decide to bake some biscuits. Ivy was right; I do know how to bake. I just tend to do it for emergency purposes only. Right now, baking is the only thing I can think of to calm my shaking hands and reaffirm that Ethan’s home is my home too.
It’s been a weird day between demanding my money from Bloom and setting up an interview with the press to explain why I did it. Ivy helped me with that, choosing a sympathetic sports reporter—a woman so I would feel more comfortable.
We held the interview through Skype. Ivy had joined from her home in San Francisco, acting as Dex’s agent and my moral support.
I was so nervous I feared I might throw up just seconds before we went on air. But then a strange sort of cool calm came over me as I told the reporter of my plans for the money. I didn’t speak about the pictures or how it felt to be exposed, and Ivy shut down those questions every time they were asked. The truth is, none of that mattered.
What matters is that Bloom’s dirty money will be put to good use. One million dollars to help stop childhood hunger and homelessness.
I went as far as throwing down a gauntlet to Bloom, daring them to double their money and do good for once. I don’t expect them to, but it was satisfying to make them squirm.
Ivy thought it was a most excellent fuck you to Bloom and all the haters. I’m just happy it’s over. I want to get back to my life, to focus on my furniture making, and most importantly, on Ethan.
There hadn’t been time to tell him what I was doing and why. He was at his game, and I was too anxious to wait, afraid I’d chicken out.
But it’s done now. I feel lighter, free. All that remains is to explain it to Ethan and tell him I’m staying right here where I belong.