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Before going outside to catch my cab to the LIRR, I found him in the game room. He was holding a pool stick in one hand and his phone in the other.
“This weekend?” he asked the person on the other end. “Yeah. I got you. Uh-huh.”
I hefted my backpack over my shoulder and waited. He hadn’t yet faced me.
“Right. Well, I’ll let you know. Look at my schedule and whatnot.” Another pause. “Yeah, talk to you later.”
Gavin hung up and turned to me.
“There’s nothing on your schedule for this weekend except a call with Joe.”
“‘Bout what?”
“Vice wants to do an interview with you. Send one of their journalists to the house to hang with you for a couple of days.”
Gavin’s mouth pulled to the side in a skeptical sneer. “Those little hipster dipshits? Fuck all that. Pass.”
“Don’t be that way. They’re like . . . alternative media for millennials, and primarily interested in a day in the life of Gavin Brawley, rather than trying to dig for dirt about why you’re such an asshole.” I cocked my head. “Although if you’re an asshole to the reporter, I’m sure that would end up in the story.” When Gavin just pinned me with the same flat stare, I smirked. “Just think about it. They took interest after the hashtag ‘DatBrawleySmile’ started trending.”
Gavin was again blank.
“I took my own videos of you playing yesterday, and uploaded them to Instagram. Within an hour, people were obsessing over the grin on your face during the scrimmage. Apparently, it was the first time your fans had seen you look remotely happy.”
“Oh.” He still didn’t seem too impressed. “And that shit started trending?”
“Yeah. Apparently, smiling makes Brawley the Alpha Asshole a sexy bad boy instead of just a jackass.”
“Interesting.”
“Yeah, you seem really interested.” I snorted. He was predictably apathetic about the media’s, and his fans’, perception of him. “Anyway, I guess one of the editors at Vice was intrigued enough to reach out to Joe. They want to talk tomorrow morning. I think you should consider it. If it makes you more comfortable, you could make sure he comes over while I’m here.”
Gavin brightened. “Yeah. Let’s do that. But only for a day.”
“Cool. Tell them when you call. Don’t let Joe try to talk you out of it.”
“Joe can’t talk me out of shit.”
His defensiveness had gone from being exasperating to endearing over the past eight weeks.
“Who was asking about your schedule, anyway?”
“Max. He wants to come over.”
My chest clenched. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” Gavin studied me. “It’s probably a good idea. Might help out with our little situation.”
I nodded, backing out the door. “Yeah, that’s true.”
Gavin eyed me for a moment longer before turning to the window. “Cya on Monday, Noah.”
“‘“Bye.”
I fled the room and didn’t stop speed-walking until I was down the spiral staircase and in front of the mansion. My heart was beating fast, and my chest was still constricting. I wasn’t normally a jealous person, but the feeling expanding in my chest couldn’t be anything else. The idea of Max being in his bed for an entire weekend made me want to destroy shit.
Logically, it made no sense. I’d told him to keep his hands and eyes off me. What the fuck was I thinking? That him coming on to me really had been something other than a moment of hard-up postgame exhilaration? That he actually liked me enough to be celibate and wait until we were no longer employer/employee before getting laid?
It was stupid. So why the hell was I so upset?
The cab ride to the LIRR was miserable, and the entire commute home was worse. I was grim and moody, and the people around me seemed to pick up on it and felt the need to stare. I wanted to be left the hell alone to stew in my impotently jealous rage for the next two days before returning to the sight of Max, the fitness model, prancing around with a post-orgasmic glow.
Fuck my life.
I returned to the apartment to find my father and Jasmine sitting on the couch with the newspaper spread out between them. There was a two-page spread of Gavin running across our homemade field while wearing that adorable smile. The headline read:
Locked Down But Still Scoring, Brawley Plays DB with a Pick 6 While Under House Arrest.
“Wow.”
My father nodded. “You’re doing amazing things for this boy’s press.”
I set my backpack down. “All I did was arrange the scrimmage, and I didn’t do it just for publicity.”
“Uh, yeah, and I was there too.” Jasmine rolled her eyes at my father. “Who do you think set up the field? Not your son.”
His booming laugh filled the room. “Good point.”
Them hanging out was awesome, but I wasn’t in the mood. “I’m gonna go lay down. I have a headache.”
Jasmine popped up from the couch. “I’m coming with you. We need to talk.”
