dropped onto a lounge chair not far away. With an average high of eighty degrees in October, the weather was fairly mild in Silver Springs. But the temperature was dropping as night came on, and he was wet. Trying to conserve his body heat, he rubbed his head vigorously to dry his hair. He didn’t want to catch a cold, but he also didn’t want to go in. He, too, was enjoying sitting outdoors and watching the sunset. “You’re not getting tired of the game, are you?” he asked.
“I could never get tired of the game,” Bruiser replied. “But all the stuff that goes with it? Yeah. And I don’t have to do half the shit you do. Don’t know how you keep your sanity.”
After wrapping the towel around his shoulders, Hudson popped the top off the beer Bruiser had brought out for him. “Other than New Horizons, work’s all I’ve got. I prefer to stay busy.”
Bruiser rested his elbows on his spread knees. “Any word from that private detective you hired a few weeks ago?”
Hudson wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about this, wasn’t sure why he’d ever confided in Bruiser about it. He was so conflicted about the whole thing, he hadn’t told anyone else, and it’d taken him years to make the decision. He’d been hoping Bruiser would talk him out of it, he supposed, show him how useless it was. But his friend hadn’t even tried. He’d been as hopeful as Hudson was sometimes tempted to be—and quietly supportive, like always.
“Not yet,” Hudson said. “I might call him off, to be honest. Drop the whole thing.”
“Why? You searched and searched the internet for the ideal guy. He has all those great reviews on his website, right? What can it hurt to let him do his job? See what he finds?”
“Chances are he won’t find anything. The police never could.”
“Then you’ll have to live with the past, but at least you tried.”
“What if it goes the other way? What if he solves it, comes up with an answer?”
Leaning back, Bruiser crossed his ankles. “You don’t have to act on the information unless you choose to.”
Hudson took a long pull on his beer. “Will I be able to stop myself? Sometimes it’s safer not to know.”
“The reality can’t be any worse than what you’re imagining.”
“Who says? It could be like Pandora’s box—better not to open it.” That was what had kept him from searching before. “Even if I track down whoever abandoned me, what will I say? ‘Thanks for nothing’? And because of my fame—and money—how will I know they’re being sincere if they say they’d like to be part of my life? I’m at the peak of my career. Almost everyone wants a piece of me.” But not always for the right reasons. That was why he missed the woman he’d met at Envy. He’d tried dating since but had been disappointed by his options. The brief flashes of attraction he’d experienced had been with women who hadn’t come off as half as honest.
Bruiser’s dark eyes blazed. “You have plenty to offer without the money and without the fame,” he said as if he was angry Hudson would suggest otherwise.
“Maybe so. But we’re talking about someone who left me to die under a hedge. What do you expect that type of person will want? Help paying the bills? A new car? Or connecting on a meaningful level?”
“Listen, I’m the last guy who’d ever want to see you get hurt.”
Hudson grimaced. “I’m not saying I could get hurt, exactly.”
“Oh, cut the macho bullshit,” Bruiser said, waving him off. “It’s me you’re talking to. What you’re after could be devastating, and I know it. That’s what you’re afraid of. Well, it’s my job to protect you, and that doesn’t disappear once we’re off the field. You’re like a brother to me. But you need to know what this PI might be able to tell you. You’ve needed to know for a long time—maybe always—to answer all the questions in your mind and put your issues to rest.”
Hudson challenged him with a pointed glance. “My issues?”
Unrepentant, Bruiser grinned. “Yeah. You’ve got more than a few.”
“That makes me feel better. Thanks.”
At the unmistakable sarcasm, Bruiser lifted his beer. “You can always count on me to be honest.”
“Now might be a good time to tell you I could’ve kicked your ass at billiards in at least three of those games. A guy doesn’t own a table without being able to play.”
Cursing and laughing at the same time, Bruiser shook his head. “I knew it. Least I didn’t fall for your act.”
Hudson tipped his drink in his friend’s direction. “No, you didn’t.”
“Asshole.”
“Back to the private detective,” Hudson said. “Think of the media circus if he does find my mother and word leaks out. How will I cope with that, in addition to everything else? The media’s already all up in my business. They bring my background into every damn article. I saw one recently with my photo and the caption, ‘The star quarterback who might never have been, if not for the pizza delivery boy who heard him crying.’” He stared down at the bottle he held. “Hell, I’ve had people coming out of the woodwork for years, claiming to be my long-lost relatives. I believed a few of them, too, but they never checked out. If I keep on pushing for answers, I’ll be asking for more of the same.”
“So? You’re a celebrity, dude. You’re going to deal with that. You need to know what happened that day.”
Hudson used his left hand to comb some of the tangles out of his hair, which wasn’t easy because of the chlorine. “Why do I need to know? That’s what I keep asking myself. Why can’t I leave it alone?”
“Curiosity? Closure? Only natural you’d want answers. Even if you fire this guy, I predict you’ll hire him again—or someone else.”
Whoever had left Hudson on the day of his birth obviously didn’t want him. But somewhere, deep down, he was hoping there’d been a mistake. That he hadn’t been thrown away as casually as it seemed. That his mother, and maybe his father, had been searching for him his whole life and somehow missed the media coverage of his background. That he had grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and maybe even siblings out there somewhere who hadn’t been involved in the decision.
Question was, why had it happened? It must’ve been intentional. How could anyone leave a baby to die by mistake?
Because Hudson couldn’t answer that, he was tempted to call off the investigator. The only thing that made him hope there might be more to the story, something to pursue, was the area in which he’d been found. Bel Air wasn’t known for drugs or crime or abandoned babies. Part of the Platinum Triangle that included Beverly Hills and Holmby Hills, where the infamous Playboy mansion had recently sold for $100 million, it was a residential area that contained some of the most luxurious homes in Southern California. With large green privacy hedges surrounding most of the estates, only three roads leading in, and no sidewalks, there wasn’t a lot of traffic. Had some spoiled rich girl gotten pregnant, hidden the fact from her parents, delivered in the bathroom and left the baby in that hedge for the gardeners or someone else to find in the morning?
That
