Page 84 of Honey Pot

I asked him a few questions about his career and the team, sticking close to home and trying not to stray when he talked about moments that were definitely involving Cael. I couldn’t help it though, it was infuriating how easily distracted I could become at even the idea of him.

I wasn’t that girl anymore, I promised myself I wasn’t before coming down here, and yet… When I closed my eyes I could see Cael coming down the step behind his house, in that dumb blue shirt, a smile bright on his face and we were sixteen again. Happy again.

“Dean, do you believe the team can survive without Arlo King?” I asked him.

“I believe in the team, I believe that Arlo did everything he could to make us much more than that. We’re a family, and if anything is going to help us get through this adjustment period it’s that,” he answered smoothly.

“Do you think the reason for King’s departure from Harbor is because of the post-season accident.”

His eyes narrowed and a tiny chuckle left his lips.

“No,” he answered with conviction. “If anything, that accident is the only thing holding Arlo back. We play NCAA ball, there’s the expectation that eventually our time with a team will come to an end. He graduated, we knew he’d look for a new team.”

“Even though he’s been offered a position with the Hornets?” I assumed so. I couldn’t be sure but I needed more from Dean than just a surface interview. He was the next closest to the situation after Silas, who only reprimanded me for digging.

“That’s speculation,” Dean smiled tightly, “and if Arlo was offered something better,” he said, leaning forward and rolling his huge shoulders out. “ThenI’m glad, he deserves it.Weall know it and believe it. He was the best pitcher we’ve seen come through Harbor in fifteen years.”

“You’d damn the King legacy?” I laughed.

“Line up the brothers, I’ll tell them to their faces. Arlo is the best player to come out of that family.”

“Bold.” I nodded with a fond smile. “I like it.”

He watched me carefully as I scribbled some things down and prepared myself to ask the next question. “And Cael Cody, can he recover without the backing of King?”

“Do you want the truth or do you want what Cael would want me to say?” Dean said smoothly and my heart flinched and how serious his tone was.

I had to make a decision now. If I wanted to know the truth then I would have to risk not having anything to use from Dean other than drabble like most of the other players gave me or risk my relationship with Cael, what little we had repaired, for my career.

It just all depended on how attached my stupid, foolish heart had grown.

I leaned forward and pressed pause on the recording.

“I want the truth.”

“The truth is Cael has no idea what he wants ever. He’s a mess, he’s unpredictable but he’s loud about all of it. More honest than any person I’ve ever met,” Dean said, without hesitation. “He’s had a hard time here from the beginning. I met him when we were nineteen years old and he’s always had a hard time in Rhode Island, but he’s always been authentic to himself, he’s never bent himself over for anyone. He’s always just been Cael, messy or not. He loves everyone with every bit of his heart and I—” he stopped himself. “I always appreciated that about him.”

“Until you didn’t?” I asked.

“Until he stopped appreciating that about himself,” Dean corrected me. “After Mrs. Cody died…” Those sharp teal eyes glassed over. “He felt more trapped than ever and his drinking got worse until that wasn’t enough for him and then he turned to drugs. He didn’t want to feel anymore, he wanted to be numb because suddenly feeling was the enemy. Mrs. Cody dying changed him.”

It changed us all.

“The only thing that’s kept him sane is his ‘lavender girl.’” Dean stared at me. “You are a ghost story in the Nest, but you have always been his anchor to reality and you don’t even understand him.” Dean shrugged, I could tell he was getting frustrated with me.

“I didn’t know it was like that, I just thought it was a joke you all had…” My voice was barely a whisper.

“That accident was a catalyst for Cael,” Dean said, his hands gripping the cup so tight it buckled slightly in his grasp. “It scared him bad and he’s been clean since but—”

“I’m not here to stand in the way of his recovery,” I said quietly, my heart racing so fast it felt like it was trying to escape from my chest. I knew the facts about what had happened to Cael that night, but it was hard to hear that it wasn’t a one time thing. That he had been on a path of destruction since leaving Texas.

“It’s not you being here that scares us all.” Dean stood, breaking me from my thoughts, clearly done talking to me. “It’s you leaving.”

I watched him leave the living room and fell back against the couch.

The tears started before I could even stop them, streaming down my face.

All this time I had thought he was thriving here.

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