Ayla

The asshole died.

He died before I had a chance to meet him.

“Sorry for your loss,” my half-brother’s landlord says in a thick Brooklyn accent. His lips are drawn into a sagging frown as he hands me a set of keys, and his hooded dark eyes are glassy. I can tell he was a fan of my brother, and by fan, I mean an actual, loyal-to-the-end Bryce Renner enthusiast. He’s wearing a replica New York Spartans hockey sweater with RENNER across the back in bold lettering, and he hasn’t removed it since the funeral this morning. “His lease was paid through the end of the year, so take your time. Let me know if you need anything. I’m in 12A at the end of the hall.”

“Thank you.” I take the keys, squeezing them tight in my palm.

The landlord stops in the doorway, taking in my brother’s place like it’s the last time he’ll get to see it like this, exactly the way Bryce left it.

“He was a good kid, your brother,” the man says.

“That’s what I hear.” I lie, offering a bittersweet smile and watching as he smooths a palm along the interior frame of the door.

“Don’t believe anything anybody tells you about him.” He exhales, then clenches his fist like he’s angry with God before disappearing down the hall. I close and lock the door behind him.

Dirty dishes fill the sink and random stacks of mail litter the counter tops. A half a dozen pairs of sneakers are thrown in a pile next to a shoe organizer by the entryway, and a heap of sweat-scented hockey sweaters rest in a laundry basket beside the closet door in the hall.

I’m positive that beneath the grime and clutter, this is a nice place. The building is a centuries-old limestone with a big black awning that extends all the way to the sidewalk, there’s a doorman and twenty-four-hour security, and I’m a ten-minute walk from Central Park.

Shuffling across the concrete floors, I take in the city view as night descends and the lights begin to flicker and shine. This must be what they call a million-dollar view.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, pulling me out of my exhausted, jet-lagged little daze, and I smile when I see it’s my mom calling.

“Hey,” I answer.

“How was it?” Her voice is sweet and low and laced with worry. I’m not sure why everyone is so worried about me. It’s horribly tragic that he died, but I didn’t know him. Honestly, the most heartbreaking part about this whole thing is that I’ll never know him, and it’s not for a lack of trying. He wanted nothing to do with his father’s illegitimate love child, and he made it abundantly clear each time I tried to reach out to him over the years.

“It was a beautiful service,” I say, tracing my finger across the crystal clear floor-to-ceiling window before me. Everything is so crisp and clean, like I could just reach my hand through and touch the building across the street. The windows seem to be the only remotely untouched thing about this place, and I wonder if he ever took the time to stand here and take in all this beauty. “There were a ton of people there. Hundreds, maybe a thousand? Back of the church was standing room only.”

“Who gave the eulogy?” she asks.

“His coach.”

“It’s so sad that he had no one in those final hours, you know?” she asks, voice fading. “No one by his side at the hospital. Breaks my heart that he died alone.”

“He could’ve had me.”

“I know, sweetheart.” She sighs through the phone, not in the mood to rehash the conversation we’ve had a million times before, but it’s okay, because neither am I. “How are you holding up? I know you have a lot on your plate now with cleaning out his place and handling his estate and everything.”

“I’m fine, Mom. I’ve got it.”

“Well, at least he’s with his family now. They’re all together again, may they finally rest in peace,” Mom says, and I can mentally picture her making the sign of the cross. It’s funny to me that she would speak so casually about the couple whose marriage she all but destroyed some twenty-plus years ago.

I leave the window and take a seat in one of his leather chairs. The leather is supple and smooth, void of cracks and creases, and I wonder if he ever thought about hanging up his skates and resting on his laurels for a bit.

There’s a soft, brisk knock at the door, and I think I’m imagining it until it happens again a few seconds later.

“Someone’s at the door, Mom. I’ll call you later, okay?” I whisper, ending the call before she has a chance to protest.

Brushing my dark bangs into place and straightening my shirt, I rise on my toes and peer through the peephole, my hand steady on the deadbolt and my breath suspended. There’s a man on the other side, dressed in a black suit with a Spartan-green tie, most likely one of Bryce’s teammates.

Clearing my throat, I unlock the door and pull it open. “Hi.”

The guy towers over me, and with watery, red-rimmed eyes he stares so deeply at me I feel like he’s examining the contents of my soul. There’s anguish written all over his face, and he looks like he hasn’t slept in days.

“You’re Bryce’s sister?” he asks.

I nod.

“I’m sorry,” he says, running a goliath palm through his short coffee-brown hair. An overabundance of aftershave clouds the air between us. “I don’t know your name.”

Probably because Bryce didn’t want anyone to know I existed ...

“Ayla,” I say. “Ayla Caldwell.”

I feel that my brother would want me to make it crystal clear that we did not share the same last name even if we did share the same father.

“Didn’t even know he had a sister until Coach mentioned it to me today. Bryce never really talked about his family,” he says, eyes searching mine. “Anyway, just came by because a bunch of us are going to grab some drinks. Not, like, going out or anything, just having a drink for old times’ sake ... celebrating Bryce’s life, that sort of thing.”

“Yeah. I get you.” I bite my lower lip, staring down and trying to decide my fate for the night. A half hour ago, I wanted to lock myself in the guest room, take a hot shower, and call it an early night.

“It’d be on us,” he says, as if money were the main objection here. “You know, ‘cause you’re his family and all, and we take care of our own.”

“I’m going to be honest ...” I offer an apologetic smile and watch his face fall just enough to make me feel like the world’s biggest asshole. Maybe when he looks at me, he sees Bryce, and maybe he feels like I’m the final link to a man he’ll never see again in this lifetime. He didn’t have to come all the way here, to his dead friend-slash-teammate’s apartment, asking his estranged sister to come out for complimentary drinks. He did it out of the kindness of his mourning heart. I can’t say “no.” It’d be uncouth.

I suppose I can make one final toast to the life of the man who hated me so much he almost turned me into the police for cyberstalking when all I’d done was send him a Facebook message out of the blue.

“I’m extremely exhausted, and it’s been a long couple of days,” I say, suddenly more aware of the way the waistband of my pantyhose is digging into my stomach. I want to change out of this depressing dress and these skintight nylons, but I also want to do the right thing. “But I’ll come out with you guys for one drink.”

He smiles through glassy green eyes, and I imagine he’s thinking he’s doing his old pal a solid by including me when it’s likely quite the contrary. But I won’t say anything. I won’t tarnish Bryce’s legacy because despite the fact that he resented the hell out of me and my existence, in a messed up way, I still loved him.

He was a stranger, and I loved him anyway because he was family, and because you’re supposed to love family unconditionally, even when they’re assholes.

Especially when they’re assholes.

My mother always said that the people who’re the hardest to love are the ones who need it most. Bryce most definitely fell into that category. That category was invented for people like him.

“I’ve got an Uber downstairs ...” the guy points down the hall toward the elevator. “You can ride with me if you want. I’m Shane, by the way. I’m the team captain.”

I’m not sure if we’re supposed to be shaking hands or making this into an awkward, formal exchange of some sort, so I motion for him to come in and ask him to give me a minute to freshen up.

When I emerge a moment later, Shane is standing by the fireplace, looking at all of Bryce’s framed photographs. For a guy who didn’t ever talk about family, his place is plastered with photos of himself with his dad, and a few with his mother, who passed away tragically when he was in high school.

“Ready?” I ask.

Shane nods, moving a wooden picture frame back into place and sticking his hands in his pockets. I lock the door as we leave and slide my bag over my shoulder. He checks his phone and fires off a text when we step into the elevator.

“Where are we going?” I press the button for the ground floor.

“This little bar by the arena,” he says. “It’s called Shotsky’s. Little place we all used to go after practice on Fridays.”

“Okay.”

Shane doesn’t have an affinity for small talk and I don’t have the energy, so we ride down in silence and trek side by side across the lobby to the waiting Uber parked beyond the black awning. He gets the door, and I slide across.

It’s the middle of July and it’s humid, and I’m wishing I pulled my hair off my neck because it’s going to double in size by the time we get to this bar, and I’d like to make a halfway decent first impression on the last living connections I’m ever going to have with my brother.

He gives the driver the address, and we merge into traffic.

“We were all kind of shocked when Coach said Bryce had a sister,” Shane says, slipping his phone into his suit jacket. He angles his body to me as best he can, but the backseat of this Honda is pretty close quarters, and his knees are brushed up against the back of the passenger seat. “Where are you from?”

“We weren’t close,” I state, hands folded in my lap. “I live in Los Angeles.”

“Oh.” He lifts a brow. “Actress?”

I shake my head. Everyone always assumes that. “Writer.”

“What do you write?”

“Little bit of everything. News articles. Blogs. Books. I take whatever work I can get,” I say.

“Interesting.” He drags his fingers across his lips and chuckles softly. “I don’t think Bryce ever read a book in his life.”

I don’t say anything because I wouldn’t know if the guy read or didn’t read. I don’t even know what kind of movies he liked or what his voice sounded like. I watched him grow up in photographs, mostly via social media until his accounts were locked down with every available privacy feature, and then I had to check ESPN and hope they were covering the latest Spartans game.

They rarely did.

Our car stops outside a small bar with glass-front windows and a black front door. The sign on the awning says SHOTSKY’S and the letters are crafted from mini hockey sticks except for the ‘O’, which is a puck.

Naturally.

Shane gets the door for me, and I follow him through the narrow space, past the fans wearing RENNER sweaters and the teammates with their matching Spartan-green ties and somber black suits. Everyone has a drink. Everyone’s smiling, celebrating Bryce’s life.

Two empty bar stools wait for us at a counter height table, and his teammates watch me, taking me in.

“God, you look just like him,” one of them says. “I’m sorry. I just ... wow. But you’re, like, a prettier version. You’re a girl version. You’re-”

He shuts up when his buddy elbows him, and another teammate offers to buy a round.

“He’s seeing things. You look nothing like Bryce. Want a beer?” he asks. I nod. I don’t usually because it’s bitter and bland to me, but I’ll make an exception tonight, all things considered. He cups his hands around his mouth and shouts across the room to the bartender, who gives him a thumb’s up and begins filling pitchers at the tap.

His teammates all look the same: brawny, broad shoulders, rounded biceps that strain against their suit jackets, chiseled jaw lines, and oversized hands. They’re all about mid-twenties, give or take, and their left ring fingers are bare. Just a bunch of non-committal, ice-grinding, handsomely-paid athletes living the dream. I bet women throw themselves at these guys, and I bet they love every minute of it.

The Spartans are going through their phones, laughing and showing pictures of my brother. Someone’s phone gets passed to me, and I recognize several of the pictures from the slideshow that played at his funeral this morning. From what I gather, Bryce didn’t smile for pictures. Maybe he was self-conscious about his smile because half of it had been knocked out over the years and rebuilt by the team dentist, or maybe he was just a miserable sap. Could be a combination of both.

He also liked to dress up, from what I’m seeing. When he wasn’t playing hockey, he was dressed like he was someone important going somewhere special. One of the guys tell me he was quite the lady killer, but before he can elaborate, another guy gives him a death look that silences his commentary.

“It’s too bad you two weren’t close,” Shane says.

“Yeah,” I take a drink of the fresh beer someone has placed before me. “It is.”

“He was a hard son of a bitch to get along with. Tough as hell on the ice. Fast as hell too,” he waxes poetic, wearing a dopey smile. “Didn’t score a ton, but the kid could grind. Nobody worked harder than he did.”

The rest of the guys around the table lift their glasses and toast to Bryce’s grinding skills, and half of them chug their beers to completion.

Leaning closer to Shane, I ask, “Would it be okay if I could talk with you guys sometime about him? I’d love to hear stories. I have no idea what he was like.”

“Hell yeah,” Shane says, slipping his arm around my shoulder like I’m one of the guys. I’m thinking he’s well past buzzed already. “Who you should really talk to is Rhett.”

“Who’s Rhett?” I glance around, counting eighteen green ties.

“Rhett was his best friend,” he says, staring into his beer. “They were like brothers, really. Inseparable. Rhett knew him better than all of us combined.”

As far as I know there are twenty men on the team, so taking my brother’s absence into consideration, someone else is missing, and judging by the way they’re talking about Rhett like he isn’t here ... it’s pretty easy to narrow it down.

“Thought we weren’t going to mention him today?” The guy sitting across from us with a bushy red beard covering most of his face slices his hand into the air and glares at Shane.

“What? Why not?” My gaze travels between the two of them. Their silent exchange makes me need to know what’s going on here. “What happened with Rhett?”

The redheaded player excuses himself. Shane pinches the bridge of his nose and rests his elbows on the table, and then he blows a stern breath past his lips.

“So you know the girl who was killed in the accident with Bryce?” Shane asks. Turning to me, his face is washed in seriousness and his eyes narrow on mine.

“Yeah.” My brows meet, and I nod. Everyone knew Damiana Westwood, Victoria’s Secret Angel and video vixen extraordinaire. Holding contracts with Dior and Smart Water and Neutrogena and the proud owner of the face plastered on at least one fashion magazine in any given month, she was one of the most highly sought after names in the business until her tragic demise.

“That was Rhett’s fiancée,” he speaks slowly, and his gaze moves to the half-empty beer stein resting before him. Gripping his hand around the finger-smudged glass, he tosses back what remains before pressing his lips into a hard line.

“I ... I had no idea.” I knew they were in the accident together, and I’d read at least half a dozen articles about what transpired that day, but none of them mentioned that Damiana was engaged or so much as involved with another man.

“Not a lot of people knew,” he says. “Rhett is extremely private. He didn’t want people to know about the engagement because he didn’t want to commercialize their relationship. He didn’t want to turn it into a PR stunt because he loved the hell out of that woman. The gossip sites love a good supermodel-athlete combo, you know?”

I take a sip of beer, thinking of all the trashy magazines I used to buy with Giselle and Tom on the cover, Derek and Adriana, Derek and Kate, Derek and Jessica ...

“Anyway, none of us know how long Bryce and Damiana were hanging out on the side,” he says. He’s kind to call it ‘hanging out.’ “But far as we know, nobody knew anything about it until the accident. Not even Rhett.”

My chest tightens. I can’t imagine what it would be like finding out your fiancée is sleeping with your best friend ... and finding all of that out the day she is killed in an automobile accident with him at the wheel.

“You fucking told her.” Red smacks the back of Shane’s head, then shakes his head, turning to me. “Sorry about him. Shane doesn’t know how to keep his damn mouth shut.”

“It’s fine,” I say.

“What a way to go out, eh?” Red refills his beer with the last of the pitcher’s contents and takes his seat, his head shaking in sympathy. “So now you know.”

“It’s okay, really,” I assure him.

“So that’s why Rhett isn’t here,” Red says, as if I need further clarification.

“Can’t say that I blame him. It was a dick thing to do to your best friend.”

Red nearly chokes on his beer and several pairs of eyes land on me, and I realize I shouldn’t have said what I said on a day such as this, but I can’t help myself. Honesty is my middle name. I’ve never apologized for it, and I certainly won’t start now.

“You guys want another round?” Shane asks. The boys grunt and mutter their answers all at once, and Shane leaves to flag down the bartender.

Someone passes me a phone with a picture of Bryce on the screen, his beefy arms around two of his teammates as one of them holds a giant trophy. He’s the only one without an enormous smile engulfing his face.

“Bryce lost his two front teeth that game,” someone points out to me. “Took a biscuit straight to the kisser. Knocked out some Chiclets. But we won, baby!”

I chuckle and pass the phone around, watching everyone’s face light up as they remember that day in their own ways. Finishing my drink, I check the time. It hasn’t even been a half hour and I’m struggling to stay awake. I took the red-eye from LA to New York yesterday, then spent all day going over final funeral preparations, the ones I wasn’t able to sign off on from afar, and then I met with his coach, privately, to discuss a few details for the service.

At some point soon, I’m supposed to meet with Bryce’s attorney to go over his estate. At some point after that, I’m going to have to go through all of his belongings and decide what to do with them.

I haven’t booked a flight home yet because something tells me this is going to take a while. At least I can work from anywhere in the world, and I don’t have an article due until the end of next week. There may be a million things on my plate right now, but as long as I take them in stride, I can get through this.

Maybe in a messed up way, it’s good that we never knew each other. It’d be hard to be here, doing all of this, if I had some kind of deep-rooted emotional attachment to him. As a matter of fact, I don’t know if I could go through his things so casually and let them go so easily if they meant anything to me. Call me sentimental.

Growing up, it was always Mom and me. I never had siblings or grandparents, cousins, aunts or uncles. She told me about my father—Bryce’s father—and how he was her boss when she worked at the savings and loan back in Kennebunkport and how they’d had an affair that resulted in me. My father then proceeded to carry on as if I didn’t exist, and when his wife was diagnosed with an invasive, aggressive brain tumor, he relocated the family to Seattle so she could have access to a world-renowned team of neurosurgeons and oncologists who specialized in her condition.

Shane returns with two fresh pitchers and immediately tops off my drink.

Guess I’ll be staying for round two.

“How long are you going to be in town?” Shane asks.

I shrug, lifting my stein to my lips. “As long as it takes.”

“If you need anything while you’re here, just give me a call.” He motions for my phone, which I dig out of my bag and hand over, and I watch as he programs his number in. I can’t imagine I’ll be in a hanging-out-with-strangers kind of mood, but it’s good to have him on standby in case I need something.

My college roommate from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop moved here a year ago, so I owe her a call. I have a feeling we’re going to be making up for lost time, but I don’t mind. We used to be inseparable, and I’ve missed her like crazy ever since we graduated and went our own ways. I mentally add calling Bostyn to my to-do list and tuck my phone away.

“You want to do a shot with us?” Red asks.

“What is it?”

“Deer blood,” he says, watching my expression morph. “Just kidding. We’re doing Jäger bombs. They were Bryce’s favorite.”

That’s funny. Those were my favorite too back in the day—when I used to take life a little less seriously.

“Yeah, count me in.” I rise from my seat and follow the guys to the bar where everyone’s lining up to take their shot.

“Hey, is that Rhett?” I hear one of the guys say. I follow his gaze across the bar, watching as a sandy-haired, six-foot-three, broad-shouldered Adonis slams a shot, slaps some cash on the bar top, then storms outside before anyone can stop him.

“Yeah,” a second guy says. “It was.”

The first guy rubs his brow, watching Rhett leave. “Shit.”