Chapter 24

“I really need your help with something,” Patrick confessed. I looked across the coffee table from the chair I was in at him and Burish sitting on the couch across from me in my apartment.

“We really need your help with something,” Adam corrected. I narrowed my eyes suspiciously at them.

“Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like this?” I asked, only to have Adam laugh and Patrick roll his eyes at my question.

“She knows us too well,” Adam told Patrick.

“Just hear us out before you judge,” Patrick said. I crossed my arms over my chest and nodded at him to continue.

It had been a little over a month since the confession to Patrick about my past. Thankfully things had worked out with us. He hadn’t judged me and I’d felt myself lightening up about everything. Even my coworkers and Paige, who didn’t know what had happened, were commenting on how different I seemed. They chalked it up to my relationship with Patrick, and while it was that, it was so much more. A weight I’d been carrying for a decade was gone. Well.....almost gone.

I’d found that things in my life almost seemed to magically be better with Patrick in my life. Changes had been going on that I almost hadn’t noticed had happened until they were long past. I could still remember the look Patrick gave me a few weeks ago when I grabbed a bottle of wine and refilled my glass to have a second.

“What?” I’d asked him when I saw him looking at me. He shrugged, but eyed me warily.

“Nothing,” he’d replied.

It wasn’t until I’d taken a sip that I realized what had happened. It had been the first time I’d had a second glass of anything alcoholic since rehab. Even more, it was the first time I’d had any alcohol at all without thinking about my past and the drugs. It was like I’d been freed from something. Suddenly going out to a bar with Patrick and some of his teammates wasn’t scary anymore. I still didn’t get drunk, but the whole idea of alcohol was no longer terrifying.

I’d even found myself happily agreeing on getting together with the other girls. Before I avoided most social contact with people in fear of what they might discover or pick up on. Now it was so nice just to get together with a group of women and talk. I hadn’t known what I was missing. On one occasion I’d even joined them on the dance floor. Patrick had nearly choked on his beer when he saw me out there.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked me after making his way over to me on the dance floor.

“Dancing,” I told him with a smile. He looked like he couldn’t figure out what to say. “Do I look that bad doing it?” He shook his head.

“No, not at all. You look…..wonderful.” I’d grinned at him, and he returned it before moving away to leave me to dance.

It wasn’t until one afternoon when I finished up a painting and looked it over that I saw the true transformation. For what might have been the first time in my life I looked at a painting I’d done and smiled. It was a large house surrounded by fields and a white picket fence. There were two dogs running through a field that looked suspiciously like Lox and Dudley. The sky was a bright blue, sunshine spilling down all over the scene. Oh Lord, Gabrielle, what has happened to you?

Now I was sitting in my living room listening to Patrick and Adam’s proposal in shock. They couldn’t be serious. People actually did things like this? Like I’d promised, I heard them out until they were done talking despite wanting to interrupt and tell them not a fat chance in hell they were getting my help.

“So what do you think?” Patrick asked when they were done.

“I think you both need to find a shrink,” I told them. Adam turned to Patrick.

“I told you she wouldn’t go for it,” he said.

“You were right.”

“Come on. Do it for the poor cripple,” Patrick begged.

I glanced down at his knee, and could see the outline of the brace under his pants. He’d gotten hurt in a game on Valentine’s Day, of all days. To me the holiday meant nothing, but Patrick had really wanted to do something special for me. Instead we’d spent a portion of the night at the hospital while he had his knee checked. I can remember how scared I was when I saw him go down, and how I’d never felt so worried about someone before in my life.

“You’ve played the handicap card way too many times this past month. It loses its effectiveness.”

“We’re doing this for your honor,” Adam tried. I narrowed my eyes at him. What the hell was he talking about?

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s getting back at Tazer for those texts he and Kaner sent you a few months ago. We’ve already gotten Kaner, but it’s Tazer’s turn,” he explained. My jaw dropped.

“You’re doing this to him for me?!” They both laughed and nodded.

“That’s why we need your help. It’ll be even better,” Patrick said. And somehow I found myself agreeing.










Patrick settled into a seat at the bar and Gabby sat down next to him. Normally after a game he was feeling pretty bummed out about not playing, but tonight nothing was going to be able to kill his mood. The rest of his teammates and their girls who had come out filled in around them. After some strategic maneuvering, he and Burs had managed to get Tazer next to Gabrielle.

He and Burs managed to talk the whole table into only drinking hard liquor instead of beer, mostly offering to buy shots. It was all part of the plan. Things wouldn’t work if Tazer was drinking beer. He also managed to track down the cocktail waitress and tell her what they needed, slipping her an extra $200 on top of the tip at the end of the night to ensure it got done.

Every once in a while he heard Gabrielle proudly order another rum and coke for her and Tazer. She was going drink for drink with him. Actually, the joke could have ended there. Tazer was acting like an idiot. Tazer couldn't back down from a challenge though, and he didn't want to be outdrunk by a girl.

Due to what was going on, he and Burs were heavily relying on Gabrielle’s newfound ability to carry a conversation with anyone. So far she was doing fantastic. She’d spent most of the night talking to Jon even over himself. A few times he found himself marveling at the person she’d become in the last month.

When they’d first met, he would have been lucky if she’d said two words to his teammates. Gabrielle had just been reserved by nature, not that he’d minded. Ever since she’d told him everything, and he hated saying this even though he couldn’t think of another phrase, she’d blossomed. The Gabrielle today was not the same Gabrielle he’d first met. She was better.

He felt like he’d taken a lot of her pain away from her by listening and being there for her. He’d done something only Olivia, who he’d love to thank in person someday, had done. He hadn’t judged and had only wanted to help and appreciate. He’d felt for a while that he was quickly falling for Gabrielle, and to learn what she’d gone through in her life and to see how she’d turned out, he was only more proud and falling even more for her. Watching her interact now with his teammates only strengthened that feeling.

“Jesus Christ, I’m shit-canned,” Tazer slurred at one point in the night. It was the moment he and Burs were waiting for.

“Don’t worry, Tazer, we’ll get you home,” Burs told him, standing up from his position across from him. Patrick laughed as he watched Jon’s head bobbing and his eyes struggling to stay open.

“Yeah…..home,” he mumbled. Gabby looked over at him and rolled her eyes, shaking her head. He got up, followed by her, and then Burs and he helped Tazer out of his seat.

“Guess he had too much to drink,” he heard Gabrielle saying to the rest of the group. God, she was playing her part perfectly.

Burs wrapped his arm around Jon’s shoulders and assisted him out of the club. Even though he hated to admit it, Patrick didn’t mind having his arm around Gabrielle’s shoulders. She’d never said a word about wanting to help him walk with his knee, but she knew he was in pain. He kind of liked that she discreetly pretended she just wanted to be snuggled up to him when she was really just trying to help him walk.

They called out their goodbyes to the group, laughing at the jokes tossed in Tazer’s direction about how he couldn’t hold liquor. It was hard not to just lose it right then and there. They finally got him into the car. Gabrielle got into the driver’s seat since he couldn’t drive with his knee, Burs had had a few beers, and Tazer was obviously incapable of driving.

Gabby’s “rum and coke’s” had actually just been coke’s the whole night. All of Jon’s besides the first one had been triples. They’d made sure to give him one normal mixed drink so he wouldn’t be suspicious. Burs sat in the back doing his best to keep Jon awake while Patrick gave Gabrielle the directions. They reached Tazer’s place, and by then he was passed out in the back.

Tazer sort of woke up once they reached home, and Patrick and Burs left him with Gabrielle to entertain him. It was probably more likely the other way around. By the time they were done with their plan, Gabrielle was nearly in stitches with the ridiculous things Jon was saying to her.

“Apparently he’s desperate for a girl to take out on moonlit walks and send flowers to,” Gabrielle announced when they finally walked into the living room they’d dumped them off in while they worked. Burs snorted out his laughter.

“Oh God am I going to have to give it to him about that,” he responded.

Patrick, Burs, and Gabrielle took a short nap with an alarm set to wake them up. Just at sunrise they dragged Tazer outside where everything was set up. Then they set up the camera and waited. Once the sun was up, with it being a weekday, one which school wasn’t in session, people were getting out and about to head to work.

Everyone in the neighborhood stopped to stare at the spectacle in Tazer’s front yard. The three of them laughed as they filmed the expressions on everyone’s faces as they looked out at every piece of furniture from Tazer’s bedroom set up on the front lawn in exactly the same place and distance from each other as it had been inside, with Tazer sleeping in the bed in just his boxers, and no blankets.

A few shook their heads in disgust. A few took pictures of the Hawk’s captain in just his boxers on his front lawn. Still more just honked their horns and laughed as they drove by. It didn’t take long for the commotion to wake Tazer up. They filmed him stirring, rubbing his eyes, and stepping down from his bed, only to pause in confusion when he felt grass instead of carpet. He woke up with a start, looked around at his surroundings before running to the front door only to find it locked.

“That’s what you get for fucking with Gabrielle, you little prick!” Patrick called through the door.

“Fuck you, Sharpie, let me in!” he yelled, trying to cover himself up. Patrick eventually opened the door to let him in, exposing him, Burs, and Gabby doubled over in laughter.

“That was a real nice show you gave the neighbors,” Burs commented as Tazer glared at the three of them.

“You too?” he asked Gabrielle in surprise.

“What can I say? I side with this guy,” she replied jerking a thumb towards Patrick.

“I fucking hate you all,” Tazer growled out. Patrick was really going to enjoy showing this video to the boys in the locker room tomorrow.