“Hi, everyone.” Brad’s voice shakes. “My name is Brad Ashby, and I swam with Tanner back at Michigan. Well, the positive drug test Curtis Zeker has uncovered, um . . . was used with my urine.”
Flashes go off, and Brad hangs his head. The reporters begin spouting off questions.
Ken leans forward. “Please hold all questions until the end.”
Some reporters stop, and then someone grabs my hand. I look over, and see my mom. Her eyes flick to the room and back to Brad on the stage. She releases a breath and squeezes my hand.
“Like I was saying, Tanner’s a great friend, the best actually. I could stand up here and go through our past together since we were seven. But all you really need to know is, Tanner got into a car accident near the end of our senior year. His injury took him out that season. I began a regiment of an enhancement drug to give me an edge with the hopes that the Olympic Training Center would pick me up as they’d already asked Tanner.”
The room gasps as though it’s some hidden secret of why they’re all here.
“Tanner took the fall since he couldn’t swim the rest of the season. He took his drug test and switched the urine with mine that tested as positive for enhancement drugs.”
The reporters all shout questions to Brad, but he holds his hands up.
“Please give me a second to finish. Tanner McCain is a lot of things. He’s a great friend, a fierce competitor, one of the best swimmers in the country, but he’s not a cheater. I take full responsibility.”
Tanner pats Brad on the shoulder, and they share a look.
“Why should we believe you?” a reporter calls out.
Ken tries to intervene, but Brad answers, “Do your research. You’ll see his times have only increased in the two years he’s been training in Colorado. All his drug screenings are negative. Do the math, and I’m pretty sure you’ll conclude the right answer.”
A few more questions are asked, and Ken answers instead of Brad or Tanner. Ten minutes later, they walk off the stage, and I rush over to Brad, giving him a huge hug.
“You did the right thing,” I whisper.
He nods. “Thanks to you and Dylan for the wake-up call.”
“That’s why I’m here.” I push back from his arms. “Now, you just need to do one thing, and you’ll be on the right track.”
I tighten my lips, and he nods.
“Let me just get through this right now.” He walks away to our mom.
She gives him a stern look but then takes him into her arms.
Lana is bawling into Tanner’s arms as I wait patiently for him. He tears himself away from her, handing her off to his dad. Turning my way, he smiles and walks over.
“There will always be people—” I begin to say.
He places his finger in front of my lips. “Stop. We’re going to look at the positives. We know the truth, and that’s it.”
He hugs me into his arms, and I close my eyes as I rest my cheek on his chest.
“Can I ask you a question?” I look up at him.
He nods. “What?”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the positive drug test? I mean, I don’t care, but—”
“I didn’t want you to worry. That little piece of information that there was a positive test out there would have been grown in the back of your head each day into something bigger than it was.”
I nod and take a deep breath. The secret is out, and there’s nothing anyone can dig up about Tanner McCain.
“You’re right. How do you know me so well?” I ask him, smiling.
“Because I’ve been in love with you for as long as I remember.” He bends down, and his lips press against mine.
Butterflies flutter in my stomach, and with a snap of his fingers, he places me back up on that cloud in the sky.
epilogue
THE PLASTIC BAGS DIG INTO my fingers as I fumble with my key in the lock. The snow banks are piled up on either side of the door, and my toes are freezing. I thought coming from the Midwest that I’d be used to the snow and cold, but I’ve never in my life seen this much snow at one time. The sun reflects against the window, and feeling the heat along my skin makes the slippery driving I just did from the grocery store disappear.
Once I’m in the building, my head falls in defeat in front of the stairs.
Two flights, I think to myself, adjusting the bags in my hands before stepping one foot in front of the other.
If those weren’t bad enough, Tanner has to be the last apartment on this floor. The glass jars clink together while the bread repeatedly tries to escape out of the bag while I walk down the long hallway.
“Should have waited for Tanner,” I mumble to myself, increasing my speed.
I insert the key into his—I mean, our apartment. God, what a foreign statement that is, even after all this time. My phone blares in the hallway, and I shuffle in as fast as I can, the door slamming behind me. I drop the bags on the table and then put the tips of my gloves into my mouth to shed them from my hands. Digging into a pocket of my parka, I retrieve my phone, seeing Brad’s name flashing across the screen.
“What’s up?” I ask, placing him on speakerphone to begin taking off my layers for warmth.
“She’s dodging me,” he says.
No, Hello. How are you guys? Tanner training hard? Do you ever see him?
Nope, good old selfish Brad is still alive and currently chasing down Taylor.
“Oh. Well, what did you expect?” I hang my coat on the coat rack I suggested we buy at the store even though Tanner was more than willing to have his coats hanging on the back of the kitchen chair all the time.
“I expected her to see my gorgeous face and my ripped body and run into my arms.”
I laugh. “Seriously?” I open up the plastic bags and begin unloading the groceries.
I cross my fingers and hope that the food will last for more than two days. But with an Olympic-training swimmer, food disappears faster than I can buy it.
“Why wouldn’t I think that? What are you doing?”
“I’m unloading the groceries. I just got back from the store.” I roll my eyes, waiting for his insult.
“Man, you have become domesticated. Your belly getting in the way? Are you wearing shoes?”
“Ha-ha,” I sneer at his typical jokes about me not having a job yet and being the stay-at-home girlfriend.
“I’m impressed. I never thought you’d take to the role so well.”
“Role? This isn’t a movie. Get on with Taylor. How did she react?” I open our pantry, already bare from us shopping three days ago.
“She ignored me. Walked to her car as though she didn’t hear me. Then, she got in, started it up, and drove away.”
I begin stocking our shelves, laughing to myself. Then, I hear a woman say something in the background. My arm stops mid reach. “Brad? Who’s that?”
I’ll fly back to Michigan and beat his ass myself if he’s with another woman after Taylor turned him down.
“Relax. I can hear the tension in your voice. You’d think since you don’t do much all day, you’d have less stress.” He chuckles.
Then, I hear a muffling sound.
“It’s my sister. Just razzing her.”
“I’m about to hang up now.”
“If you must know, I’m at the hospital. Ouch!” he screams. “It is still attached to my body,” he says to the woman, I assume the nurse.
“Brad?” I yell into the phone.
“She ran over my foot when she left me in the parking lot.”
I purse my lips together to stop the laughter begging to release.
“Go ahead, and laugh.”
“Are . . . are you okay?” I try to conceal any sound of amusement to his injury.
“I’m fine. Thank God it was my left foot. Ouch!” he screams.
I feel bad for the nurse.
“I gotta go. I’ll call you tonight.”
Dead air sounds a second later.
Shaking my head, I continue the chore of putting the food away, trying to remember if I had bought everything for tonight’s dinner.