Page 58 of Tormented Bastard
“A young one with his head up his ass?”
I nodded and drank my beer, sloshing some of it around my mouth. I rubbed at my chin with the back of my hand. “Exactly. Guys like me. I do that.” I sighed. “And then there’s Heather.”
I looked around surreptitiously, half waiting for some paps to jump out at me like they used to when the topic of Heather arose.
“I know I heard a few things about that, but I also know how these rags work. I didn’t get to play in major league soccer for long, but there was press and all that bullshit there too. Want to tell me what went down?”
I sighed and laid my forehead on the bar for a moment, enjoying the cool smooth surface against my skin, before lifting back up again and almost falling backwards off my stool.
“Long, long, long story short. Between the video of me fighting with Ty, my old teammate, Heather’s family suing me—even though it was thrown out of court—plus all the lies Ty and her family spouted to whoever would listen, the media had a field day participating in the downfall of me and my reputation. The story got twisted to make it sound like I caused the crash.”
Chance’s brow furrowed. “But I didn’t think you were the one driving.”
I shook my head, and the room tilted around me a bit. “I wasn’t. Heather was.”
“Then…why do they think you caused it?”
I sighed. “I made the mistake of trusting her family and told them the details when they asked for them. We’d been arguing just before it happened. She’d told me she was pregnant. And it wasn’t mine. It was Ty’s. And she wanted a divorce.”
Chance’s eyes widened. “Holy shit.”
I nodded so much I thought my head might roll off my shoulders. I pointed a finger at him. “Yep. See why your life is better than mine?”
The world spun around me, and as I started to go down, Chance came up underneath my shoulder and propped me up. “Come on, mate. I’ll take you home.”
I patted his shoulder—at least I think I did. “You’re a gurd friend, mate.” For some reason that word on my tongue caused me to start laughing. Chance half drug, half walked me to his car and poured me into the passenger seat. The last thing I remember was the image of Eden swimming in my mind before everything went black.
