One Night With a Hero

  Brady, Alyssa, and Marco rode in silence the four blocks to the Scott house. He parked his Rover at the curb and glared at the rancher like it was his mortal enemy.

  He schooled his expression before turning to Alyssa. “Ready?”

  Her gaze surveyed the front of the house. “Yeah. Let’s get this done.”

  Empty cardboard boxes in hand, Nick met them on the lawn, if that’s what you could call the overgrown jungle that was the front of the place. Brady flipped around the keys on his ring until he singled out a beat-up silver key he usually just ignored. He hadn’t used it in nearly a decade. Maybe it wouldn’t even work anymore.

  No such luck.

  Brady pushed open the door, hesitated for the length of a breath, and stepped inside.

  Hot, stale, smoky air choked the inside of the house, which was as run-down on the interior as it was on the exterior. The walls were yellowed and the paint peeling, the couch cushions were annihilated from overuse, and the floors probably hadn’t seen a vacuum cleaner since Brady moved out. “Jesus,” he said under his breath.

  Alyssa slapped her hand over her mouth and nose. “How did he live in this?”

  “I’ll open some windows,” Marco said, squeezing her shoulder. It wasn’t as easy a task as he thought since he had to fight against a decade’s worth of disuse. Some took convincing to open, while others wouldn’t budge.

  “I want to look in my room,” Aly said. She and Marco disappeared through the living room arch and down the hall.

  Brady was rooted in place, his stomach sour, his chest tight. The absolute squalor of the conditions before him coursed twin reactions through his veins: guilt that their father had lived like this for so many years, and dark satisfaction at the justice of it all.

  “Joseph was a very sick man,” Nick said.

  The comment pulled Brady out of his thoughts. He nodded. “I’ll go check on Alyssa.”

  Down the hall, the air was older, stiller, thicker. He passed his parents’ closed bedroom door and stopped. He held the knob for a long moment and finally pushed.

  The bed was made. Thick layers of dust covered every surface, but otherwise the room was…pristine. Just as he remembered it. From before. “Hey, Al?”

  “Yeah?” she called. She came up next to him. “Oh, my God.”

  She and Brady walked into the room, and Nick and Marco gathered at the door.

  “It’s like he never came in here,” she said. The truth of her observation hung as heavy in the air as the dust they’d disturbed. Alyssa crossed to the long dresser. “All her stuff is still here,” she said, her voice no more than a whisper.

  Brady was at her side in an instant. The silver brush and hand mirror set she prized but never used. The rectangular tray filled with perfume bottles of every size, shape, and color. Her lacquered jewelry box with the tiny dancing ballerina hidden away inside. Alyssa lifted the lid.

  The blue velvet was bright and unblemished, the top having protected the inside from the passage of time.

  “Nick, can we get a few boxes in here?” Brady asked. When he turned around, three empties were lined up on the bed. “You take anything you want, Aly. Even if you’re not sure, you take it.”

  She nodded and lifted the jewelry box into her hands, leaving behind a ghostly impression where it had sat all these years. Seeing Alyssa’s heavy-hearted joy at the preservation of some of their mom’s things forced Brady to acknowledge a grudging feeling of appreciation toward their father. It was the least—literally—he could’ve done for Aly, after everything.

  Alyssa scoured the room and the closets and packed what she wanted into boxes. “What’s up there?” she asked.

  Brady followed her gaze to the closet’s ceiling, where molding outlined a pull-down door to the attic. He tugged the hanging string, forcing the stairs to fold out with an angry screech. “I’ll go up.”

  He flipped the switch on the wall by the stairs’ opening, but the light didn’t work. In fact, now that he thought about it, there was no electrical hum anywhere in the house. He opened the flashlight app on his phone and shone it around the space. “Come on up and bring some boxes, just in case.”

  Alyssa and Marco climbed the creaky stairs and used the lights on their phones to look around.

  Boxes of books and clothes they sat aside right away. Boxes of photographs or albums they handed down to Nick, who hung out at the ready on the stairs for just that purpose.

  “Oh, look,” Alyssa said. She held up a set of baby clothes and matching shoes. “Look how small you were.”

  Brady ground his teeth together, the irony of her discovery a kick in the gut. “How do you know they were mine and not yours?”

  She smiled. “Because it says, ‘God loves little boys.’”

  He grunted and turned away as Alyssa handed the box to Nick.

  Brady worked through one stack of boxes, then another. On a shelf behind a third stack, he found a long rectangular box with a faded floral design outlining each corner of the cover. The lid stuck, but finally Brady nudged it free.

  Pealing away layers of folded tissue revealed fabric. Brady scanned his flashlight over the contents, and finally they made sense. Holy shit. This had to be their mom’s.

  “Aly, come here. I have something for you.”

  She stepped around the boxes and made her way to him. “What did you find?”

  Keeping his light on the box for her, he moved out of the way so she could get in closer.

  Her gasp hit him right in the solar plexus. She reached out but stopped just short of touching the beadwork that sparkled down the front.

  “What is it?” Marco asked.

  “It’s…I think it must be my mother’s wedding dress.”

  Brady met Marco’s gaze and nodded, then moved away from the corner so the two of them could have a moment. Soft whispers ended abruptly when Alyssa burst into tears. The sound crawled down Brady’s spine, awakening every protective instinct he’d ever had. But there was no need. Marco had Alyssa wrapped tightly within his embrace.

  Out of nowhere, loneliness and jealousy slammed into him. As he watched them love and comfort one another, Brady’s heart ached and his stomach sank. Would he ever have that?

  Probably not.

  And certainly not with the woman he wanted. Not after yesterday.

  He made for the stairs and descended, unable to meet Nick’s gaze. A few moments later, Alyssa and Marco joined them. Her eyes were glassy. Brady met her gaze and silently asked if she was okay. She gave him a single nod.

  Seeing her emotion, Brady suddenly realized how little he felt. Maybe the house didn’t hold the ghosts he’d feared. Maybe the sad state of the place removed all the power it had once held. He didn’t know the why of it, just that, standing there in the middle of the childhood home he’d dreaded returning to, he felt a whole lot of nothing.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next two days passed in a blur. The visit to the funeral home. The meeting with the Realtor. The friggin’ shopping trip to the mall to buy their dad a suit in which to be buried. The call from the coroner’s office informing them Joseph Scott had died of cancers of the lung and liver. No surprise there.

  It turned out both Alyssa and Nick were right—the single closed-casket viewing they’d decided to host was very poorly attended, but the nine people who did stop in to pay their respects were all there for them: Brady’s high school baseball coach, three of Marco and Alyssa’s former colleagues from Whiskey’s Music Roadhouse, Marco’s longtime friend Max who owned a gym in town, a couple of high school friends.

  Through it all, Brady felt like he was underwater—sounds seemed muffled, sensations felt dulled, movement took astounding effort. Everything was distant. In spare moments, he found himself thinking of Joss, wanting to see her, considering slipping next door and into her arms. And then he’d remember where he was. What he was doing. And that he’d fucked up anything he might’ve tried to build with Joss Daniels. The pain sucker-punched him anew e
very time.

  Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny. A beautiful September day. He came down to breakfast to find Marco and Alyssa huddled around some photo albums on the table. One whiff of stale air told him they were from his parents’ house.

  “Oh, my God, Brady. You have to see these,” Alyssa said, smiling up at him.

  Biting back his annoyance, he glanced down. Baby pictures. Lying down. Propped up. In a bathtub.

  He turned the page. More of the same. He flipped again, and frowned.

  Brady turned back to the beginning of the album. His mother had written his name and birth date on the first page. What was it that had caught his attention? He studied each of the pictures more carefully this time.

  Some of them were of the baby alone, but the rest were of Brady and his mom…which meant his dad had taken the pictures.

  He tried to imagine those moments. His dad, carrying a camera around, trigger-happy and proud enough to capture every single ordinary moment of Brady’s new life for posterity.

  My father did this?

  In one photograph where Brady had been old enough to sit up, he held a baseball glove in his lap as he mouthed a baseball. A wooden bat sat on the floor next to him.

  The longer he stared at the image, the more his brain swam.

  “Man, I didn’t remember that at all,” Marco said.

  Brady dragged his gaze from the baby picture. “What?”

  Marco turned the photo album around and tapped his finger against the edge of a team picture. Brady leaned in. It was one of their early peewee baseball teams. He scanned the players and easily found himself and Marco, standing together in the back row. “What don’t you remember?”

  “Look again.”

  Brady stared.

  “Look at the coaches,” Marco finally said.

  For a moment, Brady’s heart stopped, and then tripped over itself to start again. His father stood at the far end of the row in a team jersey. He pulled the book out of Marco’s hand, studied the team picture, then flipped through the pages.

  No. No freaking way. This was not his father. His father had never cared about him, about either of them. He sure as shit wasn’t the kind of guy who coached his kid’s baseball team.

  Except… It was right there in faded Kodak color. But then why was the story these images told so totally foreign to him? It was like spying on strangers, or some shadow family where the people looked familiar but their happiness was an alternate universe.

  The strangest sense of vertigo gripped him until he had to grasp the edge of the table.

  How could I not remember?

  For the second time in as many weeks, the past showed up like Dickens’s ghosts to reveal something he’d believed to the marrow of his bones wasn’t exactly as it seemed.

  When his head stopped swimming, Brady excused himself from the table and went upstairs to shower and dress for the funeral.

  Twenty minutes later he stood in front of the bathroom mirror in his Class As. When he ensured everything was squared away, he grabbed his green beret and went downstairs. He found Nick and Lily in the living room, but the others were still upstairs. The men nodded at each other and Lily fussed over Brady’s uniform, then he took up a position at the front window, stewing, seething, a human volcano.

  Goddammit. Those pictures were burrowing deep and insidiously under his skin, making it hard to cling to his rage, making him feel like a fucking idiot for not remembering. How the hell could he not remember what life had been like before? And what did that mean now? No way was he forgiving his bastard of a father. Not after everything. He couldn’t.

  If he did, if he let go of the anger, he’d have nothing left.

  A few moments later, Marco and Alyssa came downstairs. Brady mentally secured all his shit and turned to find them hand-in-hand. He had to fight off the fleeting wish that Joss was with him right now, her hand in his, skin to skin. She would be compassionate and kind, like the day she’d taken care of him, but sarcastic, too, keeping him laughing when he needed the lift.

  The deep need for companionship—no, for her companionship—threatened to yank the floor right out from under his spit-shined dress shoes.

  Enough.

  They made a sad, two-car procession to the graveside service. Brady got out and met the others on the far side of the car. The minute he laid eyes on the casket centered over the yawning hole in the ground, every bit of sensation he hadn’t been able to feel the past two and a half days slammed back into him.

  Somehow, he made it to the row of fabric-covered chairs that lined the site. White-hot agony crawled up his spine and through his gut. He felt rubbed raw, like his skin no longer protected his nervous system. He didn’t hear a word anyone said.

  He couldn’t breathe.

  Alyssa tugged on his sleeve. He flinched and turned to find everyone getting up, Marco’s parents shaking the officiant’s hand.

  His sister stepped to the spray of red roses atop the casket and pulled a long stem free. She brought it to her lips, kissed it, and laid it atop the gleaming wood.

  The trembling made his teeth ache. His sight went hazy red. And he clenched his fists so hard he thought he might snap his knuckles.

  He glared hatred and contempt at the casket and hoped his father’s bones shriveled to dust under the force of it.

  Joseph Scott had stolen everything.

  He’d stolen Alyssa’s entire teenage years. Denied her their only remaining parent.

  His actions had obliterated the memories of the parts of Brady’s childhood that were good.

  He’d stolen the carefree senior year Brady should’ve had. Any chance at college.

  His sense of safety. His sense of belonging. His sense of self-worth.

  Joss.

  Joss and my baby.

  Brady slammed his fists down on top of the casket, once, twice.

  Arms banded around his chest. Hauled him back. Voices shouted.

  “I’ve lost her. I’ve lost her and it’s your fault. Do you hear me? It’s your fucking fault!”

  “Brady. Brady, stop. Come on, son. Talk to me.”

  Soul-deep mourning erupted on the heels of the anger. He grieved for his mother, for Alyssa, for himself, for his father—yes, even for his father, who had been no more than a dead man walking for ten long years.

  And, oh God, the grief he felt over Joss and the baby…

  “She’ll never forgive me,” Brady rasped, grabbing his chest.

  A big hand curled around his cheek. “Son, who are you talking about?”

  The question pulled Brady out of his private vigil. His eyes came into focus on Nick’s face, the man’s expression tight with concern and sympathy. It was all too much. He felt too much. He hurt too much. Brady jerked out of Marco’s hold and paced between the flat grave markers, the world vibrating around him.

  “Brady, talk to us. Let us help.”

  He whirled and stalked up to his best friend. He pointed at Marco’s left arm, the scars mostly hidden by the dark gray suit he wore. “That…that should’ve been me. My whole life, you’ve been the truest friend I’ve ever had. And you didn’t deserve that. But I—”

  Marco’s good fist cracked into Brady’s jaw and jarred his head so hard his ears rang. Brady staggered and just managed to keep himself on his feet.

  “Marco!” Nick yelled.

  Brady backhanded the blood from the corner of his mouth. The fog, the haze, the rising tide of rage—they faded away. “Dude. What the hell was that for?”

  “Don’t you ever, ever say that again,” Marco said in a tight, seething voice. “Most of the time, I m-manage to accept that I didn’t de-de—” He clenched his eyes tight. It was the worst Brady had ever seen his injury-born apraxia trouble him, but Marco heaved a breath, opened his eyes again, and nailed Brady with a glare. “But you didn’t d-deserve it either. You haven’t deserved any of this shit.” He waved a hand at the casket, then tugged it roughly through his hair and turned away.

  H
e whipped back in his face a moment later. “Jesus Christ, Brady. You think I don’t know what you think of y-yourself? All these years, you don’t think I’ve noticed you’ve never had anything more than a one-night stand or a fuck buddy? You don’t think I realize that the way you keep a lid on the boiling cauldron in your head is by beating yourself the fuck up?” He glared at Brady a long minute. “That’s why I hit you, by the way. ’Cause I’m just fucked up enough to give you what you need. Feeling a little better?”

  Brady stared at him, but could see by the expression on Marco’s face he knew the answer. And damn if he wasn’t right. After that punch, Brady’s head was clearer than it had been in days. Even though it hurt like a mofo.

  “I will help you six ways from Sunday, but, man, seriously, you have to find a way to let go of the anger. I’m not saying you didn’t come by that shit honestly. You did. But it is eating you from the inside out. And I hate that. I hate that for you. I hate that for Aly.”

  Brady gestured toward the grave. “He was supposed to be my way to let go. I was supposed to… And then the fucker up and died. And now…” He shook his head, at a loss for words, at a loss for so many things.

  Nick stepped next to Marco. “He wouldn’t have given you what you needed, Brady. He never could. And you never needed him to.”

  Brady glanced between the Vieri men. “But…but then… Aw, hell.” His father had inadvertently given him the only things he could. Proof that, once, the man had been capable of love. Proof that Brady could choose which set of Joseph Scott’s footsteps he wanted to follow. It was all on him, wasn’t it?

  And so far he was choosing so poorly it was almost laughable. Or it would’ve been if he weren’t destroying himself and the people he loved, too.

  Loved?

  Did he love Joss?

  He blew out a long breath and looked at Nick. His shoulders sagged. “I met someone. We’ve been on and off the past month or so. She told me the day before we came here she’s pregnant.” The relief of the admission made it easier to breathe.

  Nick’s eyes went wide.