Hendrix: A Pittsburgh Titans Novel

Trudging into the locker room, I know I should be happy we got the win tonight, but there’s no joy. This general feeling of pissiness isn’t going away, and I know I have to do something soon. My teammates are getting tired of it.

Maybe I just need to fuck someone and that will get me past Stevie. Maybe the woman from Mario’s who offered the threesome will be there tonight.

I see Stone, Bain, and Coen huddled and talking in front of their cubbies. They break apart when I approach.

I move to mine three down, sitting on the bench to unlace my skates.

“Anyway,” Coen says, continuing whatever conversation he had going on, loudly enough that I can hear it, “the Porsche dealership called and offered me a good deal on a new one. I politely informed them crashing one was good enough.”

Stone and Bain laugh, and I grit my teeth, yanking off one skate. Clearly, someone’s getting some laughs from the article that laid out the story of Coen wrecking my car.

“We’re thinking of doing New Year’s Eve at Jerry’s Bar,” Coen says, and I turn to look their way. He’s ignoring me, but it’s Stone he’s talking to. “You and Harlow want to join?”

“Yeah… that sounds fun,” Stone says.

“What in the actual fuck?” I snarl, pulling off my other skate and rising from the bench. “You think it’s cool to talk about that article like it’s no big deal?” I ask Coen.

Then I spin on Stone. “And you’re going to hang out at her bar?”

“Well, she’s Harlow’s friend,” Stone says.

“She’s a fucking traitor to this team,” I grit out.

“She’s not,” Stone says.

And he says it with such conviction, for a moment, I have to wonder if I’m in an alternate reality.

“She is,” I say in a low rumble.

“She’s not,” he replies. “And I know this for a fact, but unfortunately, I’m forbidden from telling you how I know.”

My brow furrows, and I squint at him. “What in the hell are you talking about?”

Stone mimes zipping his lips shut and tossing the key.

For the life of me, I can’t figure out why they’re all fucking with me, especially since they know I’m suffering. Are they trying to get their asses kicked?

“Whatever,” I mutter, giving him my back. I don’t want to know, anyway.

“I’m not prevented,” Coen says, and I slowly face him. “I know what Stone knows because he told me, and he wasn’t prohibited from telling me, just from telling you. I could pass on to you the knowledge. It’s like gossip, and I’m all about spreading it.”

My head hurts, and I rub at my temple. “I don’t understand a damn thing that’s happening.”

“Just say the magic words.” Coen’s eyes twinkle with mischief, and underneath, a burning need to release the secret he holds. “Ask for it, and I’ll give it to you, but you got to say please.”

“Please tell me what the fuck you’re talking about,” I grouse, taking two steps toward him.

Stone backs away, and Bain turns to his cubby to undress, but they’re both listening.

“Stevie didn’t talk to that reporter,” Coen says simply.

I sigh with frustration. “She did. She admitted it.”

“She met with him, but she didn’t give him anything. Her mom did.”

For a moment, that knowledge makes a difference. It means Stevie told me the truth… that it wasn’t her.

But I come crashing back down just as quickly. “It doesn’t matter.” I pivot to my cubby. “Stevie still met with him. She considered doing it. It’s a betrayal all the same.”

“She had no choice,” Coen says.

I whip back around, hands balled into fists. “She absolutely had a choice.”

“Okay, fine… she had a choice not to do it, but it wasn’t a good choice. She thought her mom was in danger, so she was just checking out possibilities. She was scared and grasping.”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “She never said a word about that to me.”

“Did you give her a chance to?” Coen retorts, but he knows I haven’t. He knows I cut her out and closed up the wound.

I stand there, indecisive. These three knuckleheads clearly orchestrated all this to draw me in. Stone must’ve found out something from Harlow, who I’m assuming heard it straight from Stevie. He was forbidden—I’m assuming by Stevie—from telling me anything.

So he told Coen and now Coen stands with the key to the heart of the story. Whatever happened, it changed how they feel about Stevie, but they didn’t love her.

Not the way I did.

“Fine,” Coen says, throwing up his hands. “If you don’t want to know…”

He angles away, moving to his cubby. That’s for the best.

I start to turn, but he says, “Fuck it… you’re hearing it anyway.”

He walks up to me, toe to toe. “Here’s the quick version. Stevie’s mom told her that she was in trouble for stealing from some guys who were laundering money. Ten thousand dollars.”

“What?” I choke out. “Are you serious?”

Coen ignores the question. “Her mom put a lot of pressure on Stevie to get the money for her, and Stevie didn’t have it. She took out a loan on her credit card and put her car up for sale.”

The room almost spins on me as I try to comprehend this. Stevie never said a word about any of this, but then again, she’d never have asked me for help. I guarantee she didn’t ask her dad either. Not for her mom’s benefit.

“It wasn’t enough money, and one day, Mandi showed up at Stevie’s house bloodied and bruised. She said it was a warning that worse would happen if she didn’t get the money.”

“Jesus.” I feel like I’m in a bad dream.

“It scared Stevie bad, and she agreed to meet with the reporter who supposedly was going to pay ten thousand dollars for a story. Apparently, her mom had tried to get her to meet with this guy awhile back, but she refused. Now she was terrified they’d kill her mom and didn’t see any other way out. She went there to listen to what he had to say, and she admittedly didn’t know what she was going to do. But ultimately, she wasn’t willing to betray you, even to save her own mother, so she left.”

“So, Stevie had told her mom everything, and her mom told the reporter?” I ask, dumbfounded.

“No. Stevie wouldn’t share that stuff with her mom,” Coen drawls in a tone that says I’m an idiot. “But she put it in some diary, and her mom stole it. Stevie didn’t realize it was even gone until after you showed her the article.”

“Fuck,” I mutter, taking two steps back and sitting down hard on the bench. What a web Stevie was caught in, and knowing all of this now… I just… I can’t be mad.

In fact, I feel quite sick.

She was scared and desperate, but ultimately, she chose me over her mother.

“Fuck,” I curse louder.

Stevie only wanted five minutes of my time, and this is the story she was going to tell me. It would have made all the difference in the world.

Instead, I gave her up without a second thought.

Just like her mother did all those years ago.

Coen’s hand comes down on my shoulder. “One more thing you need to know. Her mom made it all up, or at least, that’s what it looks like. Stevie went to confront her and was told by a neighbor she went to St. Lucia, presumably with the money she was paid for that journal.”

My head snaps back to look at him. “Are you serious?”

“That’s what Harlow said,” says Stone, finally able to join in the discussion now that someone else spilled the secret. “Sorry… Stevie made Harlow promise not to say anything to you, and well… my loyalty is with Harlow, dude.”

“Forgiven,” I say, especially since he managed to get the information to me, anyway, in a slick workaround. “I’m going to strangle Stevie’s mom.”

“Apparently, John has first dibs,” Stone says.

“And the diary?” I ask, because I know how important that damn thing is to her. It’s what made her Christmas gift to me so special, because of how much she cherishes the words inside.

Coen shrugs. “No clue where it is, but she doesn’t have it.”

My blood boils, and the anger I had for Stevie is now directed at her mother, but there’s still plenty for myself. I didn’t give her the benefit of the doubt, and I should have.

Now I’ve got my work cut out for me because I know Stevie well enough to know she’s not going to let me back in. I’ve hurt her on the same level that her mother once did.

Abandonment is abandonment.

The only saving grace is that she once gave her mom a second shot, so I’m hoping she’ll give me the same.

It starts as soon as I get a shower.

♦

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. I wipe my hands on my jeans as I open the front door to Jerry’s. It’s close to midnight, the witching hour for bikers. The place isn’t packed, but every stool at the bar is taken, every table filled, and every pool table has an active game going.

I have no clue if Stevie’s here. She wasn’t at her house, or at least she didn’t answer and the lights were all out. She could be avoiding me, though.

Probably avoiding me.

I walk in and scan for her left and right. One bartender pours a draft beer, but no Stevie.

A hand closes on my shoulder, and I turn. A beefy biker I’ve met before holds his other hand out. “Great game tonight, Hendrix.”

I shake it and smile—in relief as I have no clue if Stevie told anyone how we ended—and pump the handshake. “Thanks, man. Is Stevie working?”

He lifts up slightly out of his stool and looks around. “Yeah… she’s here somewhere. Your first beer’s on me.”

“Thanks,” I say, although I have no clue if I’ll be staying long enough to drink it.

By the time I make it to the far end of the bar, I’ve found her, coming out of the storage room with a bar towel over her shoulder.

She freezes when she sees me, her expression going slack.

“Hey,” I say as I move toward her, my voice gentle because I know she’s wounded. “I was hoping we could talk.”

I give her a smile… one that’s apologetic, and with hope, she might find charming the way she once did.

“Get the fuck out of my bar,” she says in a voice so ice-cold a shiver runs up my spine. “Get out and don’t come back.”

“Stevie,” I implore, but she brushes by me and heads behind the bar, closing the flip top so I can’t follow. I grab onto the edge and call after her. “Come on, Stevie… talk to me.”

I’m ignored as she moves farther away. I follow her along the outside, brushing past customers on their stools.

“Stevie.” I have to raise my voice to be heard above the jukebox. “Asking the same thing you asked of me… five minutes.”

She doesn’t even look at me, instead grabbing an empty from the bar top and putting it in a rack to be washed. She grabs a clean mug, moves to the tap, and pours. I follow her there, nudging in between two guys to get closer to her. “I know what happened, Stevie.”

To her credit, she keeps her eyes on the beer, but I see her spine stiffen.

“I’ll stay here until you talk to me. Follow you up and down the bar all night if I have to. You’ll have to get your bat out to make me leave.”

She closes her eyes for a moment, and when she opens them, they’re arctic. She sets the beer down, barely glances at me but addresses the men to either side. “Gary… Chris… I don’t want this customer in my bar. Will you escort him out?”

In a nanosecond, both my arms are in vise grips, and I’m being dragged toward the door. “What the fuck?” I snarl, and because they aren’t expecting it, I manage to rip free.

I bolt for the bar again where Stevie stands, watching impassively. “I get it,” I blurt out. She doesn’t say a word, and the men are back, grabbing my arms again. “Now I know how you felt when I wouldn’t let you talk. It fucking sucks, and all I can say is I’m sorry I hurt you.”

Once again, I’m dragged backward, and my attempts to get free are impossible now. No one attempts to intercede, and more than one of the customers looks like they hope I’ll fight so I’ll get my ass kicked. It kind of makes me proud of them for sticking up for her, even if that means I get tossed out.

I’m pushed through the door not so nicely, and I stumble but manage to right myself. I huff out a breath of frustration and look back to the door, consider making another attempt, and realize I can’t afford to get injured off the ice.

“That went well,” I mutter to myself as I turn for the street. I’ll have to come up with a plan B, which probably involves stalking her at her house.

The door opens, a burst of music from the jukebox—“Spoonman” by Soundgarden—and I’m stunned to see John walking out. I was so focused on Stevie I didn’t even see her dad in there.

I brace myself because I’m sure if there’s one person who will try to kick my ass, it’s him. No doubt in my mind John knows the full story as Stevie would have held nothing back from him.

“You sure fucked things up,” he says.

“Trying to make it right,” I point out. “Will you help me?”

“Nah. Just wanted to come out here and gloat over how you fucked things up.”

I don’t buy that for a second. The man likes me. Or he used to like me, and he wants his daughter happy.

But he won’t affirmatively help, so an idea strikes. “I’m ready for you to do my memorial tattoo.”

“That appointment was yesterday, and I canceled it.”

I’d assumed as much. I obviously didn’t bother to show up. Pulling my wallet out of my back pocket, I wave it at him. “I’m ready now. I’ve got a credit card in here with no limit. You name the price, and I’ll pay it.”

Christ, it’s going to cost me a fortune to buy time with her dad, but I know if anyone can break through to her, it’s him. To get him to do that, I need a lot of time to convince him to help me.

“Any amount?” he asks.

I swallow hard. “Any amount.”

“Ten grand,” he says without hesitation.

I wince. “Ten grand?”

“Yeah… I’m going to buy Stevie’s diary back from that douchebag reporter. That’s the amount he paid to get it from Mandi.”

Well, damn… there’s nothing in this lifetime that John Kisner will ever do that will make me like him more.

“Ten thousand,” I agree on the price, sweeping my arm to his tattoo shop next door. “But I’ll get the diary back for her. I’ll track that son of a bitch down tomorrow morning.”

John grunts and turns toward his shop, digging into his pocket for keys.

Once inside and at his workstation, he points to the chair. “Do you know what you want for the design?”

“No design,” I say, having already thought about it. “Just the names, along my ribs, in cursive.”

He hands me a pad of paper and a pen. “Write them down neatly so I can read them.”

I do as he asks, and he gets everything ready. You think it would be hard to remember the names of forty-two people, but it’s not at all. Every single one was a friend to me, an integral part of an organization that is an extended family.

“Done,” I say as I return the notepad.

He glances down, his brow furrowing. “Why’s Stevie’s name on this list? I thought you said it was for the people who died on the plane.”

“It’s a list to honor the people I’ve lost and grieved for,” I reply.

He merely grunts again, and I don’t know if that was a good answer. “Take your shirt off.”

I do and settle back onto the chair. He reclines it, preps my skin, and readies his tattoo gun. As he snaps on gloves, he says, “I’m sorry about your sister.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m not writing Stevie’s name with this list of other people, though.”

Elation surges through me. That means he wants me to get her back. “So you’ll help?”

“Sorry, man. Nothing to help. Stevie makes her own decisions.”

“You could at least put in a good word on my behalf,” I mutter.

“Maybe,” he says, and I’ll have to be happy with that. “But for what it’s worth… I think you both made mistakes and they’re both forgivable. You’re going to have a hell of a time getting Stevie to see that.”

“Yeah.” The dejection sits heavy. “I know. She’s lumping me in with her mom. We both abandoned her.”

“You’ve narrowed it down to the real problem,” he says as he turns on the gun. “Now settle in… I’m going to make this hurt more than normal for what you did to her.”

“I’d expect no less,” I reply and grit my teeth. This is going to suck, but it’s my penance.