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“Be careful,” Robbie says as I slam my locker closed and shoulder my bag. And I want to pretend he’s telling me to watch my muscles, or lift with my legs, but I know he means with her.
“I already told you she isn’t my girlfriend.” I tell my best friend and teammate. “There’s nothing to ‘be careful’ about. We’re working together for the good of the organization and that’s it. There’s nothing going on between us.”
The words taste funny in my mouth. A metallic tang like when I split my lip on a high stick or bit the inside of my cheek during a nasty trip. Robbie stares at me. Big arms crossed over an even bigger chest and dark brows pinched together until they almost touch. It’s the same look I’ve seen him give the younger players when he finds them in the hotel hallway at three am. The look that says, “No matter what words come out of your mouth, we both know they are complete lies.”
“We aren’t dating,” I say again because we aren’t. She barely tolerates me. I’m trying to change that perception because that’s what I do. I make friends and soothe nerves. I smile and say ‘yes’ and put things back together. I put my comfort and needs on the back burner just like I started doing at sixteen. It’s easier to be the person helping, to be the person taking action, than to risk being the person no one remembers. So that’s all that’s happening between me and Tristan. She needed help, and I was willing to provide it.
The small smiles I like to coax out of her? At one point in our past time working together, I clearly let her down. I did something that made her sure I was someone she couldn’t count on. Wanting to change her perception of me is human nature, not personal. Wanting to rile her up until she strikes out with her claws and steam pours out her ears? Well, maybe I don’t like seeing her encased in ice. I know Tristan is simmering under that cool shell. Helping her melt it down… well that’s just human nature too. Right?
“There’s nothing between us,” I’m protesting too much, right? I can’t stop repeating myself. Can’t stop denying, denying, denying. I don’t even know who I’m trying to convince at this point.
“You just want there to be.” Robbie claps a hand on my back and words clang through my brain.
I just want there to be.
I just want.
I think I read once that a fear of authority is a common trait of my generation. I don’t remember the reason why; I wasn’t all that invested in the article. It was in a magazine Hayley left lying around my bathroom. I’m only five years older than she is so I’m pretty sure we’re in the same generation, even though she—and the others—like to pretend I’m ancient.
It used to bother me when I was younger and didn’t understand what they weren’t saying. Now I do and sometimes it makes me even more sad to think that they tease me like an adult because I’m the one who always showed up. I’m the one who raised them. I stopped being their sister at twelve, when dad moved out and mom checked out. Although in reality it was probably even earlier than that. Maybe when Hayley was born.
I wouldn’t call what I have a fear. I’m not afraid of Chris or Bob or any of the supervisors at work. I just always think I’m in trouble when they call last-minute one-on-one meetings. I read the email or listen to the voicemail asking for a sit-down first thing in the morning, and for an embarrassing moment I forget the increase in ticket sales and Varg merch purchases. I forget the growth rate for the team and Varg’s personal social media accounts. I forget Shelly has been playing nicely and refusing to talk to the press even as details of Haine’s “incident” leak out. I forget all of that and start beefing up my resume. Just in case.
Then I shake myself off, pick a power outfit for the next morning, touch up my manicure, and set my alarm an hour earlier so I can work on some deep breathing before heading into the office. The hour earlier helps. I get about five minutes on my walking pad—not that I ever do much more than that—slick every single hair back into a twist that looks professional and no-nonsense, and make a full breakfast complete with an oat milk chai latte—all the caffeine, none of the coffee taste—that I then leave on my kitchen counter.
I smooth my hands down the front of my slacks, not to wipe the sweat off, just to ensure that I’m as put together as possible, then I raise my fist and knock on the heavy wooden door.
“Come in.” Mr. Seever’s voice doesn’t sound any specific type of way, but my heart still does a tiny roll in my chest, and I tamp it down.
Fuck that. I’m kicking ass on Operation Distract Quarry Creek. I’ve only thought about killing Victor Varg once… a day. Which is an improvement over before when I thought about it once an hour. He’s not as insufferable as I had assumed. Not restful, either, but tolerable. In small doses. When he keeps his mouth closed. Literally. His grin sets me off more than anything else. No one has that much to smile about. It’s a fake, or a forgery, one or the other. Either way, it’s not real.
The door swings open on its own, and for a moment I wonder if Mr. Seever has a butler or an assistant whose job it is to let people into his office. Then I hear the small whirring sound as I step onto the plush carpet and realize he has it on an electric mechanism of some sort so he can stay seated behind his massive wooden desk, the Quarry Creek downtown framed through the giant window at his back. It’s intimidating, and I try to tamp down the indignant anger that is ruffling my nerves.
“Ah, Ms. Grant! Come in, come in.”
I swear every sentence out of Mr. Seever’s mouth sounds like it ends in a question mark. This time he almost seems surprised to see me, like he didn’t send the email that mandated my attendance this morning. Come to think of it, his assistant probably did that.
“Mr. Seever.” I nod my head and smile as if I’m not wondering if I’m about to be out of a job.
“Have a seat, young lady,” he says, and I feel like I’m back in kindergarten. He gestures to the large armchair in front of his desk. It might be the comfiest piece of furniture I’ve ever rested my ass on, which makes sense given how much I know the team is worth and how much the big cattle rancher from Texas offered him for the team. “I thought it was time we have a small check in about Victor Varg.”
Just the name sends my nerves into a tailspin. Why does he want to talk about Varg? It makes sense he wants to touch base about the videos we’ve been making, but he didn’t say he wanted to talk about the accounts or the fan increase or even the increase in sales. He wants to talk about his star player. His captain. I take a steadying breath and remind myself that I have nothing to worry about. I am exceeding expectations and there can be no complaints except for maybe…
“Are you having an affair with him?”
Except, apparently, for that.
Without warning, I’m back in that shelter parking lot. Vic’s big body pressing me up against my car door. I’m holding out my arms as he passes over a squirming puppy. I’m in the locker room and he’s standing there shirtless, skin gleaming under the harsh lights. I’m leaning forward to wrap my lips around the straw he just took a drink from…
I can feel the heat spreading over my neck and climbing up toward my cheeks. I may have been “blessed”—as so many people like to tell me—with my pale skin, hair and eyes, but uncontrollable blushing is its own kind of hell when you’re the one person everyone expects to take charge of every situation. Blushing amaryllis red kind of destroys my competent bad ass image.
Blushing also leaves me looking like I’m guilty of the very thing my Bob just asked me about.
I’m not sleeping with Victor Varg.
“I wouldn’t ask such an uncomfortable question, my dear, but given the current situation, I felt a direct approach would be best.”
I’m not sure what situation he means and if I wasn’t already caught off-guard, this would make things so much worse. I can’t tell if he means the incident with Curtis Haine, although I’m not sure how a consensual relationship between myself and Vic would be anything like plowing one’s car into the side of a business with a brick of cocaine on the backseat and a sex worker in the passenger seat.
