Page 6 of Blindsided

“Lincoln.” Bodhi’s patient voice and Australian accent made me smile. She was the only person I’d ever confided my true family background to before I’d started living my life as businessman Francis Barrington. Even at that, I’d only done so because I’d run to Australia after I’d left Easton the day I graduated and she was the first person who’d bothered to ask why I was drowning myself in alcohol. Bodhi, the bartender turned therapist turned best friend.

Back then, Easton had just been called up to the NHL and I knew there was no way forward for us. The Barrington name would infiltrate everything he tried to do with his life. There would be questions, so many fucking questions, and eventually they would have driven a wedge between us. The Barrington family was toxic. I didn’t want to be the reason Easton’s career never took off.

Besides, what would my parents have thought if I’d shown up at home with a hockey player from Minnesota? Easton had always been open about not coming from money. His family owned a working ranch. The man knew what hard work and dedication were; I knew about private jets and investment accounts. I’d grown up knowing I could have been a socialite who never worked a day, but that had never been what I’d wanted for my life.

Being gay hadn’t been the issue with my family—they didn’t care about the gender of those I slept with. The only thing my grandfather and mother cared about was the family my love interests belonged to. The Lafferty family was so far from the Barrington pedigree, they might as well have been aliens.

At twenty-two, I hadn’t been ready to stand up to my family. I hadn’t been ready for the scrutiny my relationship with Easton would have brought to me or us. Nor had I been brave enough to tell Easton what was going on in my head or in my world. Instead of talking to him, I’d fled as soon as I’d gotten the chance, landing halfway across the world and spilling my guts to a bartender I hadn’t known.

Australia had been about as far from New England as I could get, but I’d flown there under the guise of helping my grandfather secure a deal he’d been working on. I’d always excelled in negotiation, and my grandfather hadn’t been too invested in the property anyway. He’d viewed it as a low-risk way to get me involved in the family business. As it turned out, I’d been more than good at my job and spent nearly five years in Australia working for Barrington Holdings.

And the person who had been there to pick up the broken pieces of my heart as well as having a front row seat to the insanity I had grown up in was my best friend Bodhi. She still insisted that having met my grandfather once in passing was one time too many.

Bodhi whistled loudly, causing me to wince and pull the phone from my ear but also drawing attention to the fact that I’d zoned out.

“Fuck. Bodhi, that was totally uncalled for.”

“It’s one in the morning here, Link. You called, woke me from a dead fucking sleep, started talking about him, and proceeded to go totally silent. Are you okay?”

I could hear the true concern in her voice as she spoke and it caused me to sigh. “No, I’m not okay. I landed in Nashville at nine this morning, rented a car, got stuck in traffic like you wouldn’t believe, ended up detouring around the city, finally got to my new office, walked in to talk with the—should be—head coach, and found Easton Lafferty sitting in my office!”

“Wait, the Easton Lafferty?” She was suddenly wide awake as she put the pieces together. “As in, your college boyfriend who you ran out on, Easton Lafferty?”

“I don’t need your snark, Bodhi!”

She scoffed. “Oh, you really do. You need every fucking bit of it. Because you ran to fucking Sydney eight goddamned years ago because you were too bloody chickenshit to tell him who your family was. You decided to fly twenty-something hours to the other side of the earth and unload your story on a complete stranger instead of the man you loved. Then, to top it off, you never once called him. I thought you drank so much you erased all memories of him.”

“Thanks, Bodhi. Thanks a fucking lot! A re-fucking-hashing of every fucking fuckup I’ve ever fucking made isn’t what I fucking need right now. I need some real fucking advice!”

Bodhi laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you curse so much, especially in one sentence. This must be serious.”

“Bodhi!” I nearly yelled her name in my frustration and banged my head against the headrest.

“Sorry, sorry. Wait, I think I’ve missed something. Why are you in Nashville?”

Things had changed so fast, I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Bodhi about my new position. Not a week earlier, I’d been sitting in my parents’ home while they altered the course of my life. Today I was in Nashville starting a brand new career I knew nothing about. There hadn’t been much time to call Bodhi and tell her about Aston’s latest antics—though she probably knew if she'd read any celebrity news—or the clusterfuck that had become my life. It had barely been enough time for me to get my migraine meds refilled while I’d tried to learn as much as I could about hockey, the AHL, and what it meant to be an owner of a hockey team.

With a mighty sigh, I caught Bodhi up on the last couple of days. It took twenty minutes and in the end I felt totally drained.

“Damn. That’s nuts. So, why was Easton there instead of that Tom guy?”

I shook my head. “Fuck if I know. I slept three hours last night. I ended up late for the meeting with the head coach—who Aston and the general manager chose, mind you. It never crossed my mind to ask why Easton was there instead of Tom. My brain said run, so that’s what I did!”

My best friend groaned. “Well, you know what this means.”

“Yup. Time to get in the car and keep driving until I run out of gas. Then start walking. At some point I’ll be eaten by a bear or end up with hypothermia or heat stroke and die. Problem solved.”

“Shit, I knew you were dramatic, but that’s a whole new level. You are not going to get hypothermia in the summer in Tennessee, and I’m not letting you get in the car and drive long enough to break down and be eaten by a bear or get heat stroke. You’re getting your ass out of the car and heading back into the building. You’re going to figure out why Easton is there, and you’re going to have a conversation that is a decade overdue.”

“I only left eight years ago.”

“And you were dating years before you left!” Bodhi wasn’t going to let me out of this one. The truth was I needed her no-nonsense advice. There was a reason I’d called her instead of my assistant, who had transferred all of Aston’s appointments to my calendar and was in contact with everyone in the know when it came to the Parliament organization.

“I hate you.”

“I love you too. Now, get your ass in there. Clear this mess up and I’ll call you when I wake up in the real morning.” She blew a loud kiss in my ear and the line went dead before I could respond.

“Bitch,” I said into the phone before pocketing it.

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