Page 10 of On the Edge of Scandal

It’s past curfew, all the girls are in their beds . . . Well, they’re at least where they’re supposed to be. Nguyen’s with her husband and kids at their hotel, and Wright is with Green at their hotel. Everyone else is in the village, tucked up in their beds or getting ready to go to sleep.

That makes it mentally, if not physically, easy to pull on some pajama bottoms and an old T-shirt and fall into bed. Today was a frigging ridiculous day, and I hope the water of the team around the USS Bronwyn won’t be too choppy tomorrow. We’ll likely all feel waves from the bomb Brody dropped for days. Hell, this is the SIGs, so the impact could last for years, which makes me want to strangle the guy all over again. If my grandfather were still alive, he’d call Brody a ham-boned idiot, which is a lot nicer than any of the names I have for him.

The look on Bronwyn’s face . . . My chest hurts thinking about it. I knew Brody was a selfish fuck, but I had no idea—

My phone starts playing “Gloria,” and I sit up immediately. That’s the ring tone I have for my players. The girls don’t call me often—especially not at night. They tend to call my assistant, Gail, who passes relevant things on to me, and I encourage the distance that creates even though I like to think they trust me, but this time . . . Bronwyn?

It’s like I’m a guitar and someone just tightened my strings in a single wrench. Why is Bronwyn calling me? Only one way to find out, though. I swing my feet over the edge of the bed and grimace as I push off the mattress, because moving quickly is a beast on good days, and a fricking horror show on long days like this. But it seems inappropriate somehow to talk to her while I’m in bed, even if she wouldn’t know.

“Hello?” There’s no answer for a few seconds, just loud, pulsing music. Maybe she butt-dialed me? But if she butt-dialed me, she’s still in a place she shouldn’t be—it’s past curfew, and she shouldn’t be clubbing. Where is she? Will she hear me if I yell? Probably not. And now I’m thinking about Bronwyn’s butt, which is not okay.

I’m about to hang up and call Gail, maybe Stewart or Nguyen, see if they know anything about this, but all of a sudden, there’s Bronwyn’s voice. At least I think it’s Bronwyn.

“Coach?” It sounds like her, but her voice is a slurry croak, making my title come out more like “Coash.” Aw, shit.

“Bronwyn. Where are you? Are you okay?”

“Icing? Outside the village?”

Right, the club at the end of the block I’ve walked past a million times. I know where that is, and I know where I’m headed. I debate for a second whether to throw on different pants, but honestly, pajamas aren’t going to stick out much amongst the thousands of people milling around in track suits. Athletes and their hangers-on aren’t known for their fashion sense. So I shove my feet into my sneakers and lace them tight, my hip killing me a little for the reckless movements.

“Okay, I know where that is. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Can you tell me if you’re okay?”

There’s a gut-wrenching sob in response. “I messed up so, so bad.”

I’ve heard of second-hand embarrassment, but this is like second hand regret. It twists up my insides. I’ve seen Bronwyn upset before, but never like this. Maybe because she feels like she screwed up? People, myself included, can be awfully hard on her, but it’s only because she’s so damn good. Good player, good teammate, good leader, good girl. But no one is as hard on Bronwyn as she is on herself. While that can sometimes be useful for self-directed motivation, it can also be downright paralyzing because no one is perfect. Not even Bronwyn, and I’m not going to let her beat herself up over something that’s probably not even a big deal.

“Oh, baby. You couldn’t have done anything so bad it can’t be fixed. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Just hang tight, okay? Do you want to stay on the phone with me until I get there?”

“No. I need a—I have to—”

Then the line goes silent. Shit. And did I just call her baby? Double shit.

Bronwyn

Why did I call Coach Levenson? I should’ve called anyone other than him. Lisa, Jennie, Tara, Gail, literally anyone would have been a better choice. Coach could kick me off the team or bench me for this, and I wouldn’t even be able to argue—especially after my stunt during the Norway game. How stupid can a girl be?

It turns out very, very stupid.

And drunk. Yep, definitely drunk.

I cling to the toilet, waiting for my stomach to heave again, because there’s no way it’s not going to. All that booze I just downed is not about to sit in my stomach and make its way through my liver properly. No, it wants out, now, and I’d like it out, too. Unfortunately, it also apparently wants me to suffer. Punish me for being such a trite and predictable idiot.

Because what else is a girl supposed to do after she turns down her boyfriend’s proposal in front of the whole goddamn world? The obvious answer is to get plastered, even if she has the biggest game of her life in a few days.

Coach hadn’t sounded mad when I called him, though. If anything, he sounded worried, and he called me . . . Did he really call me baby? I think he did, but that might just be the shots talking. It would be weird if he had, but not gross. It didn’t feel gross anyway.

His reassurance means something. If he called me baby, it means he doesn’t hate me, doesn’t think I’ve screwed up irrvo—irrevocall—really bad. Just the way he said it made me feel safe. Like if everything else has gone to shit, Coach still believes in me and there’s nothing I could ever do to change that.

Which is not a way that Brody has ever made me feel. I’ve had to earn his love, and even when I’ve been the best, he’s made me feel like it wasn’t quite good enough, or if I screwed up even a little, that would be the end of it. If I’d wanted to quit hockey, we’d be over. If I hadn’t made the SIG team, we’d be over. Which, given how things worked out, is ironic. Or is it? English class has never been my specialty. Give me ice, some skates, a stick and a puck, or give me a keyboard and some code to clean up. Words, though? Makes my stomach hurt worse, but not in a way that’s going to actually get me to hurl.

People are knocking on the stall door, and I tell them to go away. When they don’t, I yell that unless they want me to puke on them instead of in the toilet they’d best just wait for the next stall to be available. That shuts them up.

After a few more miserable minutes of not, in fact, vomiting, a ripple of affront goes through the ladies’ room.

“Dude, this is not the men’s room. How drunk are you?”

“You can’t be in here! Get out, perv.”

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