Page 230 of Scoring the Player
“Good boy,” I tell Sim, scratching behind his ears after he takes care of business, and I clean it up. “What do you think of Blue?” I ask as he stops to smell the base of a tree. “I love him, so you’ll see him more. You good with that?” He sniffs the air, then howls.
I grin. “Okay, I guess that’s a yes.”
He sniffs the air again and yanks at his leash.
“Hold on. No pulling.”
He slows down for a bit before yanking again. “Hey, hey. Relax.”
When we turn the corner of our block, I check that there are no other dogs around and unhook his leash. He takes off toward home. I watch as he bounds up the steps, and then I freeze.
Seven-foot-four, buzz cut, brown duck jacket, black hoodie, and jeans. I’d recognize my brother anywhere.
“Where the hell have you been?” I fume. He doesn’t flinch from where he’s bent down, hugging Simba. He probably tracked me from the corner.
“I can explain,” he says.
I’m up the steps and in his face in less than two seconds. “Do you have any idea what we’ve been through?” I bellow.“We called every fucking hospital across the country! We hired a private investigator! How could you disappear again without calling? Where the hell were you?”
The door rips open. “What’s going on?” Blue asks, glaring at my brother.
Denzel flicks a glance my way. “You got him?” His lip quirks up as he nods to Blue. “Hi, I’m Denzel, Salem’s brother.”
Blue’s face doesn’t relax despite his mouth forming anohhh. “Arnaz, his boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend.” Denzel nods. “My parents and I were worried that he’d die with a crush on you.”
“Enough,” I cut in. “Explain.”
“Can we go inside?” Denzel asks. “You woke up half the neighborhood.”
I nod for him to move. He lifts his backpack and heads into the house.
After storing his shoes neatly in the shoe bench, he follows me into the living room.
“This is my sister, Anaïs,” Blue says. “Anaïs, this is Salem’s brother, Denzel.”
She sucks in a breath. “Oh my god.”
“I didn’t mean to interrupt. I can come back,” Denzel says.
“Or we can leave?” Blue offers.
“No,” I say to him before addressing my brother. “We can do this here or upstairs.” I reach for my phone. “I need to call Mom and Dad—they need to know.”
“I called them when I landed. Look, you have every right to be angry with me, but just hear me out.”
“This better be a hell of a story.” I cross my arms.
“It’s the truth.”
“I’m waiting.”
“Uh—after my friend attempted suicide, sitting with him there in the hospital…I don’t know. It did something to me. Thevisions started coming back, like after Iraq. Before I left for the desert, I visited him one more time. He was barely awake, but his nurse sat with me, asked me my story. She mentioned something called the Hearts for Heroes Project and gave me the pamphlet. I stuffed it in my bag and didn’t find it again until things got bad.”
“Bad how?” I ask.
“I started hallucinating, thinking I was seeing some of my squad mates who had fallen. It was…dark. Darker than it had been for a while,” he admits.
