Tomboy (The Hartigans #3)(67)

“Blackburn,” Coach hollered from the doorway. “My office. Now.”

Zach nodded to the coach and looked down at his phone. All of the text notifications were from Fallon. She needed to talk to him. It was important.

Not really. Not anymore.

He tossed his phone into his open duffel and started forward toward the door, going through the motions like he was a man still in control, even though his entire world had just fallen apart.

…

Heart hammering in her chest and panic clawing at her skin, Fallon pressed the buzzer outside Zach’s gate, sending up a prayer that he’d answer. She’d been texting throughout her shift with no response. She’d called repeatedly on her way over, and it went straight to voicemail. Sure, it wasn’t like he was out fighting fires or arresting mobsters, but he could have gotten hurt at practice. He could have fallen down his steps.

She jabbed her finger against the buzzer again and again, desperation making her movements jerky. Finally, the light went on.

“Thank God.” Letting out a relieved breath, she sent up a thank-you to the heavens. “I was afraid something had happened to you when you didn’t respond to my texts and calls. We really need to talk.”

“Did you bring the reporters with you so they could document everything?”

Ignoring the way his voice was coming through the speaker, giving it a harsh, icy tone, she looked up at the closed-circuit camera perched on the gate. “I’m so sorry, I know it’s not what you wanted but—”

“Not what I wanted?” he asked, a cruel edge to his words that she couldn’t blame on the speaker. “You could have remembered that before you opened your mouth.”

No. This was not how it was supposed to go. He had to listen. He had to understand. She’d done it for him. “Your parents were telling lies.”

“Yeah, it’s what they do.”

She gripped the strap of her backpack slung over one shoulder tighter, needing to feel it bite into her clammy palms and ground her in this moment. Warning sirens were screaming in her head, and the sick dread of having fucked up was making her eyes burn.

“No,” she said, her voice shaking. “They were going to tell people you punched your dad out, left him with medical bills. That you ignored your mom when she begged for financial help from her rich son. They were intimating that you hit me.”

“Your point?”

“I couldn’t let that stand,” she said, her voice breaking as realization set in. She hadn’t just fucked this up. She may have ruined it. “I had to fight for you.”

“Why? Am I just another charity case for you? Like your clinic?”

“That clinic changes people’s lives.”

“Good.” The single word blasted out of the speaker. “But my life was perfectly fine.”

A wave of angry heat slammed into her at that obvious lie. Okay, he could be mad. He could be wrong about how this whole thing should have been handled. He did not get to play it off, though, with some crap about his life as the most-hated man in Harbor City being the one he wanted. All that toxic bullshit needed to end. He was more than that if he’d give himself half the credit he deserved.

“Really?” She put her hands on her hips and glared up at the camera, oh so much more comfortable in this space where there was yelling instead of a panicked desperation to make things right. “You expect everyone to screw you over, and you don’t trust anyone.”

“I wonder why. It’s not like I didn’t get screwed over by anyone new lately.”

“Is that what you think I did?” Was he joking? She may have messed up royally, but she hadn’t screwed him over. She’d defended him. “Are your ego and your pride more important than fighting for yourself, because it sure as hell seems that’s what this is really about.” She wanted to smack her own head at the realization. “You didn’t want the truth out there because you are embarrassed, when you have absolutely no reason to be. This isn’t about what you let happen to you, it’s about what awful thing was done to you.”

Her chest was heaving and her cheeks burning by the time she got the last word out because they’d fallen over an edge. She could see that now. She’d tried to fight for a man who didn’t think there was anything worth fighting for, not even himself.

After a few beats of silence, Zach’s carefully neutral voice came through over the speaker. “Go home, Fallon.”

The light above the security system blinked off, and no matter how many times she pressed the call button, she knew he wouldn’t answer again.

Her chest ached from the power of the invisible hands squeezing her lungs tight and not letting go. Her head throbbed from the effort to hold back the tears threatening to fall. A whole ball of emotion had taken up residence in her throat, making it nearly impossible to swallow. Even her skin was too sensitive. It was all too much, and she couldn’t take any more, so she did the one thing she wanted least in the world. She walked away.





Chapter Twenty-Two


Blackburn Back to Being A Bust?

Settle in, hockey fans, we have a lot to unpack when it comes to Zach Blackburn and the faltering Ice Knights. After weeks of playoff-worthy games, it seems we have back the early season team unable to put the puck between the pipes. Then, there’s Blackburn. It seems not even Lady Luck could help after the defenseman’s parents came out with one of the ugliest stories I’ve seen in decades. The accusations of cruelty against Blackburn made by his parents did a one-eighty on his approval ratings.