“We were all kind of shocked when Coach said Bryce had a sister,” Shane says, slipping his phone into his suit jacket. He angles his body to me as best he can, but the backseat of this Honda is pretty close quarters, and his knees are brushed up against the back of the passenger seat. “Where are you from?”
“We weren’t close,” I state, hands folded in my lap. “I live in Los Angeles.”
“Oh.” He lifts a brow. “Actress?”
I shake my head. Everyone always assumes that. “Writer.”
“What do you write?”
“Little bit of everything. News articles. Blogs. Books. I take whatever work I can get,” I say.
“Interesting.” He drags his fingers across his lips and chuckles softly. “I don’t think Bryce ever read a book in his life.”
I don’t say anything because I wouldn’t know if the guy read or didn’t read. I don’t even know what kind of movies he liked or what his voice sounded like. I watched him grow up in photographs, mostly via social media until his accounts were locked down with every available privacy feature, and then I had to check ESPN and hope they were covering the latest Spartans game.
They rarely did.
Our car stops outside a small bar with glass-front windows and a black front door. The sign on the awning says SHOTSKY’S and the letters are crafted from mini hockey sticks except for the ‘O’, which is a puck.
Naturally.
Shane gets the door for me, and I follow him through the narrow space, past the fans wearing RENNER sweaters and the teammates with their matching Spartan-green ties and somber black suits. Everyone has a drink. Everyone’s smiling, celebrating Bryce’s life.
Two empty bar stools wait for us at a counter height table, and his teammates watch me, taking me in.
“God, you look just like him,” one of them says. “I’m sorry. I just ... wow. But you’re, like, a prettier version. You’re a girl version. You’re-”
He shuts up when his buddy elbows him, and another teammate offers to buy a round.
“He’s seeing things. You look nothing like Bryce. Want a beer?” he asks. I nod. I don’t usually because it’s bitter and bland to me, but I’ll make an exception tonight, all things considered. He cups his hands around his mouth and shouts across the room to the bartender, who gives him a thumb’s up and begins filling pitchers at the tap.
His teammates all look the same: brawny, broad shoulders, rounded biceps that strain against their suit jackets, chiseled jaw lines, and oversized hands. They’re all about mid-twenties, give or take, and their left ring fingers are bare. Just a bunch of non-committal, ice-grinding, handsomely-paid athletes living the dream. I bet women throw themselves at these guys, and I bet they love every minute of it.
The Spartans are going through their phones, laughing and showing pictures of my brother. Someone’s phone gets passed to me, and I recognize several of the pictures from the slideshow that played at his funeral this morning. From what I gather, Bryce didn’t smile for pictures. Maybe he was self-conscious about his smile because half of it had been knocked out over the years and rebuilt by the team dentist, or maybe he was just a miserable sap. Could be a combination of both.
He also liked to dress up, from what I’m seeing. When he wasn’t playing hockey, he was dressed like he was someone important going somewhere special. One of the guys tell me he was quite the lady killer, but before he can elaborate, another guy gives him a death look that silences his commentary.
“It’s too bad you two weren’t close,” Shane says.
“Yeah,” I take a drink of the fresh beer someone has placed before me. “It is.”
“He was a hard son of a bitch to get along with. Tough as hell on the ice. Fast as hell too,” he waxes poetic, wearing a dopey smile. “Didn’t score a ton, but the kid could grind. Nobody worked harder than he did.”
The rest of the guys around the table lift their glasses and toast to Bryce’s grinding skills, and half of them chug their beers to completion.
Leaning closer to Shane, I ask, “Would it be okay if I could talk with you guys sometime about him? I’d love to hear stories. I have no idea what he was like.”
“Hell yeah,” Shane says, slipping his arm around my shoulder like I’m one of the guys. I’m thinking he’s well past buzzed already. “Who you should really talk to is Rhett.”
“Who’s Rhett?” I glance around, counting eighteen green ties.
“Rhett was his best friend,” he says, staring into his beer. “They were like brothers, really. Inseparable. Rhett knew him better than all of us combined.”
As far as I know there are twenty men on the team, so taking my brother’s absence into consideration, someone else is missing, and judging by the way they’re talking about Rhett like he isn’t here ... it’s pretty easy to narrow it down.
“Thought we weren’t going to mention him today?” The guy sitting across from us with a bushy red beard covering most of his face slices his hand into the air and glares at Shane.
“What? Why not?” My gaze travels between the two of them. Their silent exchange makes me need to know what’s going on here. “What happened with Rhett?”
The redheaded player excuses himself. Shane pinches the bridge of his nose and rests his elbows on the table, and then he blows a stern breath past his lips.
“So you know the girl who was killed in the accident with Bryce?” Shane asks. Turning to me, his face is washed in seriousness and his eyes narrow on mine.
“Yeah.” My brows meet, and I nod. Everyone knew Damiana Westwood, Victoria’s Secret Angel and video vixen extraordinaire. Holding contracts with Dior and Smart Water and Neutrogena and the proud owner of the face plastered on at least one fashion magazine in any given month, she was one of the most highly sought after names in the business until her tragic demise.
“That was Rhett’s fiancée,” he speaks slowly, and his gaze moves to the half-empty beer stein resting before him. Gripping his hand around the finger-smudged glass, he tosses back what remains before pressing his lips into a hard line.
“I ... I had no idea.” I knew they were in the accident together, and I’d read at least half a dozen articles about what transpired that day, but none of them mentioned that Damiana was engaged or so much as involved with another man.
“Not a lot of people knew,” he says. “Rhett is extremely private. He didn’t want people to know about the engagement because he didn’t want to commercialize their relationship. He didn’t want to turn it into a PR stunt because he loved the hell out of that woman. The gossip sites love a good supermodel-athlete combo, you know?”
I take a sip of beer, thinking of all the trashy magazines I used to buy with Giselle and Tom on the cover, Derek and Adriana, Derek and Kate, Derek and Jessica ...
“Anyway, none of us know how long Bryce and Damiana were hanging out on the side,” he says. He’s kind to call it ‘hanging out.’ “But far as we know, nobody knew anything about it until the accident. Not even Rhett.”
My chest tightens. I can’t imagine what it would be like finding out your fiancée is sleeping with your best friend ... and finding all of that out the day she is killed in an automobile accident with him at the wheel.