Tipping the Balance (49 page)

“Yes, it’s us,” Nick said. “I didn’t know how to contact to you since you pulled your vanishing act over the winter break, especially since you’re back to not answering e-mail.”

Morgan stood there with his arms crossed over his chest, glaring rebelliously from one man to the other, and Brad could already tell how this conversation was going to go. Apparently he wasn’t Morgan’s favorite person right then.

“So rather than try to keep pinning you down, we decided to drive out here after practice,” Nick said.

“We?” Morgan grated, and Brad felt the air chill further.

“Yes,
we
,” Nick said firmly, steering Morgan to one of the chairs in front of his desk. “Sit!” he ordered.

To Brad’s surprise, Morgan sat. He’d always kind of figured that Morgan called the shots, but maybe he hadn’t given Nick enough credit.

Brad moved around them to his desk. “Well, here I am. What do you want to talk about? I’m at work, and I’m kind of busy.”

Morgan snorted, but Nick ignored his boyfriend. “We need to talk about Drew.”

“How’s he doing?” Brad asked, afraid of the answer yet desperate for news.

“Now he wants to know?” Morgan snapped.

“What’s your damage, Morgan? You’ve been an asshole since you walked in here,” Brad fired back.

“You just up and abandoned him!”

“He dumped me!” Brad cried.

“That’s not what he told us,” Morgan said.

“He might as well have. He wanted something I just couldn’t give him,” Brad said.

“Yeah, like being true to yourself,” Morgan said.

Nick put a hand on Morgan’s arm. “Morgan.”

Morgan had opened his mouth to unload on Brad again, but at Nick’s touch, he snapped it shut.

No, Brad definitely hadn’t given his former coach enough credit. The sight of the proud, sometimes imperious Morgan Estrada brought to heel with a single gesture brought a smirk to Brad’s face.

Morgan glared at him. “Why’re you smiling?

“You. Dude, you are so married,” Brad said.

“And we’d really thought you two were headed in that direction,” Nick said softly. “Do you want to tell me what happened from your perspective? My boyfriend’s pugnacious attitude aside, we really do care about what happens to both of you.”

Brad sighed. The thought of rehashing all that hurt… but then again, maybe he owed it to them. Maybe he hadn’t burned his bridges as thoroughly as he’d thought. “I guess Drew told you about the fight?” When they both nodded, he continued, detailing his last encounter with Drew, every detail painfully clear in his memory. He shrugged uncomfortably. “So he told me I had to be out or I couldn’t be with him.”

“It sounded to me like he was just trying to jar you the rest of the way out of the closet,” Morgan said.

“It didn’t sound that way to me,” Brad snapped. “My family’s always been pretty macho, and I was around a lot of homophobia from an early age. As messed up as life with my dad is, it’s all I know. I can’t just wave a magic wand and be out, loud, and proud.”

“No calls, no e-mails, and you haven’t even been to see him,” Morgan said. “That’s what I don’t get.”

Brad could only stare. “He told me not to,” he said, pointing to Nick.

“He… Nick what?” Morgan turned to Nick.

“I what?” Nick said.

“Don’t you remember?” Brad said bitterly. “When you finally called me back the day after Thanksgiving, you told me you didn’t think it’d be a good idea for me to go see him. So I didn’t.”

“Nicholas Bedford,” Morgan said ominously.

Nick sat back in his chair, wracking his brains. He wiped a hand across his face, the strain showing. “I remember, but Brad, I just meant right then while he was still in such critical condition. I never meant stay away completely.”

“How the fuck was I supposed to know that?” Brad yelled. Then, more softly, “How should I have known what you meant?”

He put his head on his desk, sick to his stomach. That whole time his maybe-ex boyfriend had been in the hospital and Brad hadn’t even dropped by. Right then, he hated Nick more than he’d hated anyone before.

“Brad… I’m sorry,” Nick said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Brad knocked it away. “Don’t. Just fucking don’t. You’re not my favorite people right now.”

“I think we should go,” Morgan said quietly. “But Brad, Drew’s in the rehab facility, and they’ve finally taken the breathing tube out. He can talk, and he’s always had Internet access. Here’s the number—”

“Get out!” Brad said, still hiding his face.

Brad ignored them as they left. He knew he’d forgive them, forgive Nick, but not just yet. Sure, he and Drew had had a nasty fight, but Brad knew that in ignorance, he’d abandoned Drew when he’d needed him most. Ignorance seemed to be how he did everything. One more thing that made him feel stupid.

He wanted to throw up, sick at the situation, sick with dread, sick at the thought of Drew alone and hating him. He’d run away, but something told him he’d feel just as shitty wherever he ended up. He’d still be Brad Sundstrom, Fuck-Up and Loser. Randall probably already had cards printed up somewhere.

He picked up the piece of paper with the rehab facility’s number on it.

He punched the numbers into his cell phone, but overcome by nerves, he ended the call after the first ring. What made them so sure Drew even still wanted to talk to him? How did they know Drew wouldn’t just swear at him for being so stupid and then hang up on him? He wasn’t sure he could handle the sting of Drew’s rejection again.

More nervous than when he’d placed that first call to Drew last summer, he hit the key to call Drew’s mobile line, still the first number on auto-dial, his home the second. It went right to a canned service message, and he disconnected.

He hit the number to autodial Drew’s house.
“We’re sorry. The number you have dialed is unavailable or has been disconnected. Please check your local listing or try your call again later. If you feel you have reached this recording in error….”

Brad killed the call. The message was clear enough. Drew had changed his phone numbers to cut him off.

That was enough rejection for Brad for one day. He crumpled up the piece of paper on which Morgan had jotted down contact info for Drew at the rehab place.

There was no one in the sales office of Suburban Symphony to see Brad’s eyes, bright with unshed tears, as he flipped the sign on the door to “Closed” and sat in the back room, trying to get his act together.

Drew
knew he should count his blessings. But lying there in bed to recover from the morning’s therapy, it was easier to rehash his curses. The city had placed the Bayard reno on indefinite hold. Emily had come to him in the ICU that first week and dropped the bomb. The mayor’s office had publicized that out of concern for the health and well-being of the owner of a small, independent business and that under the circumstances, the project would wait until he’d recovered. While he was appreciative, he was also aware of the role that politics and PR played.

That was all very well and good, and while one day he might be grateful for even the appearance of consideration, in the short term it made for the very real possibility of financial ruin. No completed job meant not meeting payroll or paying off the short-term loans he’d taken out to bridge the gap while he waited for the city to pay up. It meant bankruptcy for Renochuck, and since he’d loaned the company so much money, it meant bankruptcy for him too. There in rehab hell, he knew it meant losing his dream of moving from real estate into reconstruction, losing his house, and losing his boyfriend. That hurt most of all.

And Brad. He missed Brad. A lot. Even though their last time together had been a wicked fight, he missed his boyfriend. He missed his goofy smiles and the shy ones. He missed the thoughtful little gestures. He missed his big, larger-than-life presence. He missed getting pounded.

Sometimes, in those quiet, dangerous moments when he thought about their last fight, Drew wondered if maybe he hadn’t been too harsh, if perhaps he should’ve just been happy with what he and Brad had, because right then, they apparently had nothing. Less than nothing.

But then he got angry at Brad. Not once had the big jackass come to see him. So far as he knew, Brad hadn’t even tried. No calls. No e-mails. Nothing. Yes, they’d had a fight, but Brad had abandoned him in his moment of need. That sounded so melodramatic to his inner ear, but it was the truth.

That Brad had run like a frightened bunny at the first sign of real trouble told Drew all he needed to know. It also made him sad. He thought he’d loved Brad, but he hadn’t known for sure until Brad was gone.

Drew knew he’d been right to stick to his guns, to insist that Brad stand up be counted as gay. But being right hurt like hell.

Brad
looked up from the television, depressed by sappy Valentine’s Day-themed shows on the tube and annoyed by the interruption to his evening routine, but someone was knocking on his cell door. He muted the television. “What?”

“It’s me,” said Philip. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah,” Brad said curtly.

Philip tried the door, but it was locked.

“Just a minute,” Brad grumbled. He heaved himself out of his recliner. He stumbled to the door, fumbling with the lock as he leaned against it. Then he lurched back to his chair. Philip could open the door himself.

He grunted as he dropped the last foot back down. It was late, and since he’d been drinking his meals lately, he was drunk. Not blackout drunk, but beyond buzzed. He knew it wasn’t a good thing, but he didn’t care. What else did he have to do? Twenty-two, and his life was over. That called for another one.

Philip looked at him for a moment. “Are you drunk?”

“Yep.”

“Been doing that a lot lately, haven’t you?” Philip said, sitting down on Brad’s bed.

“Fuck off. I can drink if I want to,” Brad snapped.

Philip held his hands up. “Easy, Brad. I’m just concerned, that’s all.”

“I’m fine,” Brad muttered belligerently. “I mean, why wouldn’t I be here in our shiny, pretty prison?”

Philip acknowledged the point. “It’s just… you seemed so happy last year, before the holidays. Now your calories come from a can, and honestly, you look like hell.”

“I feel that way, Philip.”

Brad stared at the television, brooding. He’d been doing a lot of that since he found out about the accident. He lost Drew because he was too chickenshit. Then Drew was almost killed, and it was his fault because he wasn’t there to protect him. And why wasn’t he there? Because he was a pussy and couldn’t be seen in public with a boyfriend, a boyfriend whom he’d realized too late just how much he cared for him. Was on the way to loving.

But then Nick basically told him to stay away. He was surprised at how much that hurt. He was surprised how much Nick and Morgan meant to him, and not just because they were the only gay guys he knew. Morgan had called him a few times, but he knew it was just to ream him out, so he let the calls go to voice mail and then deleted them.

“Do you want to tell me why?” Philip asked gently.

Brad sighed. He didn’t, but what did he have to lose? He’d already screwed his life up. “Because I loved someone, and I threw it away.”