Hothead by Stella Rhys

29

EVIE

I wokeup first the next morning and upon opening my eyes, felt myself immediately hit with an emotional hangover from the drama of last night.

The tabloid. My fight with Drew in the kitchen.

The mind-blowing sex that followed.

Biting my lip, I lifted my cheek off Drew’s bare chest and looked up at him, soaking in the view. God, this man. He was still asleep, and he looked so peaceful and handsome I couldn’t bear to wake him up, so slipping out of bed, I hopped into the shower, taking my time to rinse off the stress of last night.

I must’ve taken awhile because by the time I got out of the bathroom, I noticed the bottom drawer on the dresser was open. Drew was up and sitting shirtless at the edge of his bed, the width of his muscled shoulders on display as he leaned forward on his knees.

There was a letter in his hand, and judging from his rigid body language, it wasn’t one he was particularly fond of.

“Hey,” I frowned when he looked up at me. “What’s that?”

He didn’t answer immediately, instead waiting for me to go over to him. Once I was close enough, he pulled me onto his lap, immediately kissing me deeply, as if needing to draw strength or patience or something from my lips.

“Are you okay?” I asked softly when I pulled away.

He ignored the question to answer the one I’d asked before.

“A stranger sent this to me four years ago,” he murmured, picking up the letter again. “Right before everything that went down with Tim.”

“Oh.” Hugging the towel to my chest, I blinked down at it in his hands. “Why are you looking at it?” I asked gently.

“It’s been four years since I touched it. But it’s what I showed Iain. To explain why I did what I did to Tim.”

Oh. Shit.

My eyes widened as I stared at the thing. Suddenly, it went from a normal letter to a map into the mind of Drew Maddox, which was precisely why I expected Drew to just read me bits and pieces.

But to my surprise, he handed the whole thing over.

“If there’s anything I’m not good at it’s talking about this subject,” he said, his voice softer than I’d ever heard it. “So just read that first.”

I looked at him – at the pain storming behind his green eyes as he held out the piece of paper. But I noticed that his broad shoulders relaxed as soon as I took it from him – as if I’d just taken an actual burden off his hands.

“Okay,” I murmured as his arms circled around my waist, holding me still on his lap. My heart was already beating fast before I started reading.

But once I did, my heartbeat only quickened.

Hello Mr. Maddox,

I am writing to you as both a longtime fan (North Florida native here!) and a mother of a child undergoing cancer treatment. I watched your ESPN interview four years ago, in which you opened up about Pattie Lillard, her extraordinary impact on your childhood, and finally, her cancer diagnosis. I am aware of the significant financial help you have contributed to Ms. Lillard’s treatments over the years, and even donated to her GoFundMe when you first publicized her story.

I have long felt connected to both your story and Ms. Lillard’s, so it was deeply saddening for me to hear about the return of her cancer. I have followed both your stories for years, so safe to say it was of great surprise for me to spot Ms. Lillard at the same hospital in which my daughter has been receiving treatment.

I want to inform you that every Tuesday for the past month, I have watched her enter the building and appear nowhere near the infusion center. Admittedly, I have on two occasions watched her arrive at the hospital and spend approximately two hours in the cafeteria before exiting the building and being picked up to go home. I am holding out hope that there are explanations to these incidents, but I am writing to simply urge you to keep a closer eye on Ms. Lillard’s story.

Wishing all the best for you.

Sincerely,

Jill Marino

My stomach twisted furiously by the last word of the letter, and for some reason, I held out hope that I’d read this wrong – that this didn’t mean what I thought.

But when I brought my wide eyes up to Drew, he confirmed my suspicions.

“She didn’t have cancer,” he said. “The first time or the second time.”

My heart dropped into my stomach.

“What… what was she sick with then?”

“Nothing. She wanted money,” Drew said, his Adam’s apple moving as he swallowed hard.

I shook my head, already having trouble processing.

“But…” I remembered the images they showed during that interview in which Drew talked about how much he loved her. “There were pictures of her in the hospital bed. She didn’t have her hair anymore. She looked so sick.”

“That was Tim’s doing. He did a fucking stellar job keeping up the act,” Drew muttered, shaking his head in disgust.

The look of revulsion continued to twist his features as he told me everything – about how he’d gotten the letter and immediately called Tim to make sure it was a lie. But Tim wavered, found an excuse to hang up fast and ignored Drew’s texts and calls for the next day.

Five hours before the first pitch of the game he was due to start that night Drew booked a flight from L.A to Florida. On the plane, he tried to remind himself about how Tim had looked out for him as a kid – how he kept him out of fights in school or on the field, and how he tutored Drew on all tests and homework so he wouldn’t flunk himself off the team.

He thought about that and then the years of lies Tim fed him as an adult – about how sick his mom was feeling, and how hard she’d vomited all night. He thought about the detailed stories of the pain that came with chemo, and how Pattie was no longer able to eat.

“He made me feel all those years of gut-wrenching pain for something that wasn’t even real,” Drew said, his brittle voice barely above a whisper. “Fucking hell. I spent so many nights just sitting up in bed and hating the world for how cruel it was to good people. Especially when the cancer came back. I’d been so high off her beating it, and when they told me it was back, I felt fucking broken. I lost my mind a little because I felt like I had personally failed her – that I didn’t do enough and I could’ve paid for even better doctors.” His eyes were lost in memory as I held his jaw in my hands. “For Christ’s sake, he kept me on this crazy hell of an emotional roller coaster for four years. Just so he could cash checks from me whenever he wanted.”

“God, Drew,” I whispered, my forehead touching his as I shook my head in stunned shock. “I’m so, so sorry. That is evil what they did to you. I can’t even fathom how they could stomach that kind of lie for so many years. I can’t even begin to understand how they could betray your trust like that.”

“His justification was that they didn’t realize till too late,” Drew said. “They didn’t realize how much they were owed for what they did for me growing up. He said at the time, they did it out of love and the kindness of their hearts. But years later, when they saw what everyone else was getting from me, they realized they deserved some kind of cut. And probably a big one considering they did so much more for me than any of the other assholes from home that I was writing checks to.”

“That’s horrible. That’s not an excuse for what they put you through,” I said furiously. “What they lied about is despicable. The world needs to know the truth about them, Drew. Why did you never tell?”

“The same reason you still help your mom out,” Drew murmured, looking me in the eye. “Because I couldn’t help but care about her still. I thought about all the good memories when the love was real because there was no money in the picture yet. And as much as I hated her, I couldn’t sic the media on her either.”

“Especially now that she’s gone,” I said softly, to which Drew nodded. “How… did she pass?” I asked warily.

“I heard a heart attack, but I don’t even know for sure, which fucking kills me.” Drew closed his eyes, breathing in deep as I gently rubbed the back of his neck. “After I found out the truth about her cancer, I ignored every time she reached out. I tossed all the letters she wrote me without ever opening them. And now that she’s gone, I somehow feel like shit about that. About the fact that I’ll never know what she wrote in those letters.” The breath he exhaled as he opened his eyes was shaky, and a sharp pain twisted in my chest when I noticed his eyes were glassy, wet with tears he still refused to let spill.

“Drew. It’s okay to feel regret about that. You’re allowed to.”

“You sure about that?” he laughed bitterly. “She stole a quarter of a million dollars from me and put me through a living hell, but I still miss her sometimes. It doesn’t make any fucking sense.”

“Of course it does,” I said gently. “She played a huge role in your life. She was genuinely good to you at some point. She did love you. But as much as it hurts to say, good people don’t always stay that way. Sometimes something happens and they turn. But we’re human, Drew, and some days we’ll miss the good times we had with those people. That’s just how it is.”

Drew nodded, quiet as he looked into my eyes, as if he knew I was thinking of Kaylie. I was remembering when I was nine or ten, and how she taught me to stand up for myself against the bullies at school. I thought of Mike, and how I only ever dared to dream of a better life because of him. Both of them were instrumental in carving out a lot of the good qualities I still had today.

But the people they were when they helped me do that were gone.

“I always thought as a kid that life would get easier as I got older,” Drew said with almost a laugh.

“No. It gets harder,” I said quietly. “We meet more people, we love more people. Sometimes they leave and disappoint you. Or they pass and we miss them forever.”

“So why care about anyone?”

His question surprised me – not in the words he said, but the tone he spoke in. It wasn’t cynical – it was honest. Genuinely curious. It made me search hard and fast within myself for a good answer, because I knew Drew needed to hear one.

“We care because love is stronger than hate, and it’s worth the risk,” I finally said. “Even if it doesn’t pan out, it turns you a little closer in the right direction. Every time.”

“You believe that?” Drew asked. Like his last question, it was an honest one. I bit my lip as I thought about it.

“I do,” I said, feeling a little smile drift slowly onto my lips as Drew simply held me and gazed at me. He was quiet for a bit before finally nodding and returning my faint smile.

“Well, if you believe it, then I guess I can give it a try.”