The Risk (Briar U)
: Chapter 26

“Thank you so much for doing this.”

Brenna’s voice is barely audible, and she’s sitting directly beside me. The rain is nothing more than drizzle now, the brunt of the storm having finally blown past us, but beyond the windshield, several streetlights still aren’t functioning. I’m behind the wheel of the Mercedes, because Brooks had too much to drink. He’s in the backseat, though, after insisting on tagging along.

“I mean it,” she stresses. “You guys didn’t have to come. You could’ve just let me borrow the car.”

I glance over darkly. “Really, and let you drive in a storm—”

“It’s not storming anymore,” she protests.

“—in a storm,” I repeat, “to track down your ex-boyfriend?”

At least that’s what I understood of her objective, when, in a panic, she begged to borrow Brooks’s car. Apparently she dated this Eric dude in high school and now he’s in trouble.

“What kind of trouble is he in, anyway?” I demand.

“I’m not sure.”

I give her a sharp look.

She seems to be grinding her molars. To dust, from the looks of it. “Drugs,” she finally mutters.

“What kind of drugs?” I’m not purposely trying to interrogate her, but I do need to know exactly what we’re walking into.

Rather than respond, she gazes down at her phone to examine the map. Two fingers pinch the screen to zoom in. “Okay, so he said he can see a street sign—Forest something,” she says absently. “He thinks it’s Forest Lane.”

“That narrows it down,” I say sarcastically. “There are probably dozens of Forest Lanes or Streets or Avenues around here.”

She scans the map. “Four,” she corrects. “One is about ten minutes away, the others are upstate. I think it’s probably this one near Nashua. That’s closest to Westlynn.”

I blow out a breath. “So we’re driving to New Hampshire?”

“Is that okay?”

I don’t answer. But I do click on the turn signal and get in the right lane to be ready for the I-93 ramp. “Who is this guy, Brenna?” I grumble. “He sounds sketchy.”

“Super sketchy,” Weston agrees from the backseat.

“I told you, we dated in high school.”

“And this requires you to drop everything and rescue his ass?”

Bitter? Who’s bitter?

“Eric and I went through a lot together. And yes, his life has gone off the rails, but—”

“Off the rails how?” Before she can even answer, I pull over abruptly, flicking on the emergency signal. I draw a loud honk from the motorist who was behind us, but everyone else goes around.

“What are you doing?” she demands.

“I’m not driving another inch until you give us more details. And not only because this feels like a wild goose chase. We need to know what we’re walking into. We’re playing the most important game of the season this weekend, and if you’re taking us to some crack den—”

“He’s not in a crack den.” She rubs her face with both hands, clearly upset. “All right. Let me call him again.”

Seconds later, Sketchy Eric is back on the line.

“Hey, it’s me,” Brenna says gently. “We’re in the car.” She pauses. “Just a couple friends, don’t worry about it. We’re in the car and we’re on our way to come get you, but you need to be more specific about where you are. You said Forest Lane—what else is around you?” She listens for a few beats. “The houses, what do they look like? Okay. Row houses. How did you get there? Do you remember?” A pause. “All right. You were with your friend. Got it, he drove. And he left you there. What did you do there?” Another pause, this one thick with tension. “Okay, you smoked.”

I meet Brooks’s uneasy eyes in the rearview mirror. I hope to God we’re talking about marijuana. Cigarettes would be ideal, but I doubt a pack of Marlboros is responsible for this insanity.

“My map shows a few streets with the word Forest in them. Are you near the coast at all? Did you go toward Marblehead? No? Are you sure?” Brenna suddenly brightens. “Oh, okay, I know where that is. No, I remember Ricky. I can’t recall a Forest Lane, but I definitely remember the neighborhood. Okay. I’ll call you when we’re getting close. Bye.”

She hangs up and says, “Nashua. He’s near our old ’hood, just like I thought.”

We’re facing a forty-minute drive, then. Longer if we encounter more pitch-black intersections on the way.

“I’m gonna crash,” Brooks says. “Wake me when we get there.”

We drive in silence for a good ten minutes before I finally can’t take it anymore. “You’re really not going to tell me about this guy?” I growl at Brenna. “You’re gonna let me walk blindly into whatever fucked-up situation your ex is in?”

“I can’t tell you what the situation is, Jake.” She sounds tired. “I haven’t seen him in a long time. He called recently and asked for money, but I told him no.”

“And yet now we’re going to rescue him.”

“Yes, we are,” she shoots back. “You didn’t hear his voice, okay? He sounded so messed up. What would you do if someone you used to care about called you up in a panic and said he doesn’t know where he is, that he’s cold and he’s wet and lying in some gutter? Would you leave them there? Because I can’t do that.”

“Why? Because you dated in high school? Who is this guy? Eric—Eric who?” My frustration only keeps growing. “Who is he to you?”

“His name’s Eric Royce.”

I wrinkle my forehead, vague recognition floating through my mind. The name is familiar to me. Why do I know that name?

“He was a number one draft pick out of high school,” Brenna continues. “Drafted by Chicago.”

That’s it. “Oh shit,” I say. “What ever happened to that guy?”

She pointedly holds up her phone. “He’s high on meth in some gutter, Jake. That’s what happened to him.”

“Meth?” Brooks straightens up, his nap forgotten. “We’re going to meet a meth head?”

“I don’t know,” she says unhappily. “Last I heard, meth was his drug of choice, but for all I know he could be high on oxy, or drunk off his ass. I honestly don’t know.” She rakes both hands through her hair. “You can drop me off and I’ll deal with it alone. You guys don’t have to be there. Stop two blocks away or something, I’ll walk the rest of the way and then grab an Uber home.”

I stare at her in disbelief. “I am not abandoning you in a fucking meth neighborhood, Brenna.”

“It’s not a meth neighborhood. It’s one town over from where I grew up, and I grew up in a safe, normal town, okay? And yes, every town has the occasional druggie, and in this case that druggie is Ricky Harmon, but I’m just assuming we’re dealing with crystal meth. I don’t actually know for sure, and you freaking out on me isn’t going to miraculously produce any answers.”

A tense silence hangs between us. In the rearview mirror, I see Brooks’s expression soften. He reaches out and squeezes her shoulder. “It’s all good, Jensen. We got your back, ’kay?”

She bites her lip and gives him a grateful look.

I change lanes to pass a truck that’s traveling half the speed limit even though it’s not raining anymore. “So you went out with Eric Royce,” I say roughly.

Her head jerks in a nod.

I remember playing against Royce a few times in high school. He was damn good. “He never went to the NHL,” I muse.

“No.” Sadness hangs in her voice. “His life turned to shit after graduation.”

“Why, though?”

“The short version? He had some emotional issues, and he liked to party. And when he partied, he partied hard.” She hesitates. “Plus, I broke up with him not long after the draft. He didn’t take it well at all.”

“Jeez,” Brooks pipes up. “You dumped the guy and sent him spiraling into a pit of drugs and despair? Savage.”

She bites her lip again.

“Brooks,” I chide. To her, I try to offer reassurance. “I’m sure his spiral wasn’t your fault.”

“No, it was. Or at least partially my fault. The breakup destroyed him. He was already prone to drinking and drugs, but after we broke up, he took it to the next level. Drinking every night, skipping school to go smoke joints with Ricky Harmon and a few guys who graduated the year before and were doing nothing with their lives. And then one weekend he fucked off to this EDM festival and got so high he forgot to show up for a crucial game. The missed practices were bad enough, but when he didn’t suit up for that game, his coach kicked him off the team.”

Speaking of coaches. “Did your dad know you were seeing Eric?”

“Yeah. It was a whole big mess.” She drops her head in her hands and lets out a weary groan. “Eric and I started dating when I was fifteen. Dad was okay with it at first, mostly because he had no choice but to be okay with it. He knew he couldn’t stop me from seeing Eric. I was too stubborn.”

“Was?” I crack.

She ignores the jab. “Anyway, after he missed that game, it was the beginning of the end for him. Chicago found out he was kicked off the team. And Eric hadn’t signed a contract yet. They were still in the negotiation phase.”

I nod in understanding. A lot of guys don’t realize that just because a team drafts you it doesn’t mean you’re immediately on that team. It simply means that franchise has exclusive rights to you for a year, during which you’re negotiating your contract.

“They didn’t want to sign him anymore,” she says sadly. “Word got around that he was a party boy, and then nobody else wanted to sign him, either. So he started partying even harder and running with a new crowd, and now here we are.”

Here we are. Ten thirty at night, driving to another state, searching for Brenna’s ex-boyfriend who may or may not have smoked meth tonight.

Awesome.

From the corner of my eye I notice Brenna wringing her hands together. I hate seeing this badass girl so shaken. And although I’m still not comfortable with this situation, I reach across the center console and grip her hand.

She glances over gratefully. “Thank you for helping me.”

“No problem,” I murmur, then pray that I’m telling the truth and there isn’t going to be a problem.

Thanks to the bad weather and late hour, the roads are blessedly empty, and we make it to the Nashua area faster than anticipated. As I get off the highway, Brenna calls Eric again.

“Hey, it’s me. GPS says we’re two minutes from Forest Lane. We’re going to turn onto it, but you need to give me a landmark or something we can use to replace you.”

“This is Forest Lane,” I tell her, making the turn. Luckily the entire area has power, so the streetlamps are in working order.

“I’m seeing row houses,” she says into the phone. “Are you sitting on a curb? Sidewalk?” She curses. “In the bushes? Jesus Christ, Eric.”

I suddenly feel incredibly sorry for her. The disgust she’s trying to keep out of her tone is twisting her beautiful features, and I can’t imagine how shitty that would be, feeling so repelled by someone you were once intimate with.

“A garden with what?” she asks. “A huge spinny thing? A metal spinny thing…Eric, I don’t know what—”

“There,” Weston says, his face glued to the window. “On the right. I think he’s talking about the mini-windmill in that garden over there.”

I pull up at the curb. Brenna swings the door open before I’ve even come to a complete stop. “Wait,” I say sharply, but she’s already gone.

Shit.

I jump out of the car. Brenna is making a beeline for a tall hedge that separates two front yards. I catch up to her just as she drops to her knees.

Peering over her shoulder, I spot a hunched-over figure hugging his knees. The T-shirt he’s wearing is soaked through and plastered to his chest. Chin-length hair, dark strands either wet or greasy, frame a gaunt face. When the guy gazes up at us, his pupils are so dilated it looks like he doesn’t have any irises. Just two black circles glowing in his eyes.

He starts talking the moment he recognizes Brenna. “You’re here, oh thank God, you’re here,” he babbles. “I knew you would come, I knew you would, because we were together and you were there for me and I was good to you, right? I was good to you?”

“Yeah.” She’s utterly emotionless. “You were great. Come on, Eric, up you go.” She tries to help him to his feet, but he doesn’t budge.

I step forward.

Eric’s eyes widen in fear. “Who’s this?” he demands. “Did you call the cops on me, Bren? I thought—”

“I didn’t call the cops,” she assures him. “This is my friend, okay? He drove because I don’t have a car, and he’s agreed to take you home. Now let us help you up.”

I think he’s about to comply, but then his gaze focuses on someone behind me. Brooks’s timing couldn’t be worse.

“Who’s that!” Eric shouts in a panic. His eyes, with those enormous pupils, dart wildly between me and Brooks. “They’re here to take me away, aren’t they? I’m not going to that fucking rehab, Brenna! I don’t need it!”

“The only place we’re taking you is home,” she says calmly, but the sheer frustration clouding her face reveals that calm is the last thing she’s feeling.

“Promise!”

“I promise.” She leans in to move a hunk of wet hair off his forehead. Her fingers are shaking as she does it. I no longer feel any jealousy toward this guy. Only pity. “We’re going to take you home, okay? But you need to let my friends help you up, because I can’t do it by myself.”

Without a word, I extend a hand toward Brenna’s ex.

After a moment of hesitation, he accepts it.

I haul him to his feet. Once he’s vertical, I discover he’s around my height, six-two, or maybe a bit taller. I suspect he used to be a lot bulkier. Now he’s skinny. Not twig-skinny, but certainly not built like the hockey player he once was.

Brooks is startled as he examines Eric. He flicks a look in my direction, and I see the same pity I’m feeling reflected back at me. My teammate shrugs out of his windbreaker and steps closer to drape it over Eric’s shoulders.

“Here, man, you need to warm up,” Brooks murmurs, and the three of us guide the shivering guy toward the car.

“Westlynn is a ten-minute drive from here,” Brenna tells me when we reach the Mercedes.

This time Brooks gets in the passenger side, and Brenna sits in the backseat with Eric, who spends the entire car ride incessantly thanking us for coming to pick him up. From what I can glean, he went to visit his friend three days ago.

Three days ago.

The revelation makes me think of all those shows and documentaries about drug users. Crystal meth, in particular, is a nasty drug to be addicted to, because apparently the high doesn’t last long at all. Which leads users to take more and more, going on binges in order to maintain the high. And that’s what Eric Royce had been doing, bingeing for seventy-two hours straight. But now he’s crashing. He left his friend’s house to walk home, became completely disoriented, and wound up in a stranger’s bushes.

This was a number one draft pick.

I can’t even wrap my head around that. One minute someone is on top of the world. The next, they’re hitting rock bottom. It’s terrifying how fast and how far people can fall.

“I knew you’d come,” Eric is mumbling. “And now you’re here, and maybe you can give me fifty bucks and—”

My eyebrows shoot up.

“Well, that took a turn,” Brooks mutters to me.

“No.” Her sharp tone invites no argument. “I’m not giving you money. I drove almost an hour to—no, not just me. I dragged my friends out in the rain to come replace you, to help you, and now you’re hitting me up for money? So you can buy more drugs, which are the reason you’re in this situation to begin with? What is wrong with you?”

He starts to whine. “After everything we’ve been through—”

“Exactly!” she thunders, and both Brooks and I flinch at her vehemence. “After everything we’ve been through, I don’t owe you a thing. I don’t owe you a goddamn thing, Eric.”

“But I still love you,” he whispers.

“Hoo boy,” Weston says under his breath.

I swallow a sigh. I’ve never met a more pathetic person, and I force myself to remember that this man clearly has addiction issues. But from the sounds of it, he’s the one refusing to go to rehab. Refusing to save himself.

Either way, I’m more than a little relieved when we arrive at his house. “Let me talk to his mom before we take him in,” Brenna says. “I need to warn Louisa.”

She hops out and hurries toward the two-story home. It has a white wraparound porch, big bay windows, and a welcoming red door. It’s hard to picture a meth addict living there.

I wait for Brenna to reach the porch, then twist around in my seat to address Eric. “Listen, I don’t know what your history with Brenna is,” I say in a low voice. “But this is the last time you’re going to be calling her.”

Confusion fills his eyes. “But I have to call her. She’s my friend and—”

“She’s not your friend, pal.” My jaw goes so tight I can barely get a word out. “You just risked her life, made her drive in a storm to rescue you from some bender, and then thanked her by asking for drug money. You are not her friend.”

I think a sliver of guilt manages to penetrate the high, because his lips start trembling. “She’s my friend,” he says again, but it doesn’t hold as much conviction as before.

Brenna returns to the car, accompanied by a dark-haired woman in a flannel robe and rain boots. She looks like she was dragged out of bed.

The woman throws open the back door. “Eric, honey, come here. Get in the house.”

He manages to slide out of the backseat on his own. Once he staggers to his feet, his mother latches on to his arm. “Come on, honey, let’s go inside.” She glances toward the driver’s seat. “Thank you so much for bringing him home.”

As she guides him away, a dismayed Brenna peers at Brooks’s open window. “Your coat,” she reminds him.

“Let him keep it. I’ll buy another.” A response that reveals just how badly he wants to disentangle himself from this entire situation.

I don’t blame him.

When Brenna is buckled up in the backseat, I twist around and prompt, “Hastings?”

She slowly shakes her head, and I’m startled when I glimpse unshed tears clinging to her long eyelashes. “Can I spend the night at your place?”