I had to sit out the rest of the game, which we won because of my pre-halftime scores. I was the star forward from that point on, and the only time I played dirty was when it was called for. People would be surprised how frequently playing dirty is called for when you’re the prettiest, fastest player on a competitive first-place team, especially when that team is named the Butterflies.
Dad stopped coming to my games once he had a new wife, a new family, and new-and-improved soccer players to half-raise and discard. I don’t know why I gave a shit whether or not he came, but I did. Maybe because the soccer field was the only place I ever felt like he got me, so it was like I didn’t exist for him anymore. When I started high school I quit cold turkey, which was fine with Mom. She never understood Sporty Girl-Power Brooke anyway.
She submitted my picture to a modeling agency and I got a print ad, and then I got a commercial, to be shot in LA. Mom had always staunchly refused to be a soccer mom; stage mom was more her speed. The rest, as they say, is history.
***
REID
“Déjà vu, eh?” I hand Emma the pull-handle to her carry-on, and she holds it, and her laptop bag, firmly between us. Her tense smile tells me she expects me to respect the not-so-subtle barrier she’s erected. Unless I’m willing to breach a wall of luggage, there won’t be a repeat of the kiss on her cheek that showed up all over the Internet a week ago, giving the impression of more than it was. Much more.
“I guess I’ll see you in a couple of days?” she says, holding out her hand.
I’ve kissed this girl. Made out with this girl. Still remember her breathless, “Yes,” from that afternoon when I told her I wanted her in my bed, before everything fell apart. Somehow, though, none of those memories feel connected to her—this girl standing in front of me, extending a hand for me to shake like we’re respectable business colleagues and I’ve never had my tongue in her mouth or my hands up her shirt.
I’ve gotten way too good at my own ability to disengage.
I take her hand, but instead of merely shaking it, I lean forward and pull it up to my lips, kissing her just behind the middle knuckle. “I guess you’ll be meeting me in San Fran after all, huh?”
She inclines her head and smirks, pulling her hand from mine and readjusting the laptop strap. “I guess. But I get the feeling that meeting Monday and Tuesday mornings at 5:00 a.m. for more morning show interviews isn’t what you had in mind.”
Correct. “Come on, Emma. We have to go somewhere cool Monday night.” I turn to walk back around to the driver’s side, because we’re getting some attention from other departing passengers who’ve begun to figure out who we are. She’s flying home to Sacramento while I’m driving back to LA alone. “San Francisco is a culinary heaven. And I’ll have you back to your room in time for your Skype appointment.” I wink at her and she rolls her eyes.
“Oh-kay,” she says, as though she’s exasperated and I’ve worn her down.
I feel as though she just moved a game piece that puts her that much closer to check mate, and I can’t help thinking what a bastard I’ve turned into.
All’s fair in love and war. A fine sentiment—if this was either.
***
“John. Please tell me you have something stimulating on tap for tonight.”
I-5 is two hours of spotty cell service with occasional ocean views, until it veers away from the Pacific and loses all aesthetic appeal, becoming frequently punctuated with snarls of traffic in heavily populated areas. I’m already bored out of my mind and I still have at least another hour to go, probably two, because of traffic anywhere near LA this time of day.
“That depends what you mean by stimulating, man. On a scale of one to p**n , where do you wanna be?”
There’s a car full of girls next to me, all of them trying to see through the nearly opaque window tint. Right before the light turns, I roll the windows down and glance over, watch their mouths all turn into “O” as the signal switches to green and I’m gone. “One to p**n . Hmm. I’d say a solid eight or nine would do.”
John yawns into my ear. “Eight isn’t out of the question. This girl who was on my econ project team is having a dinner party tonight—”
“Dinner party? What the hell man—we’re not thirty-five.”
“Yeah that’s what I thought, until she dragged me to one last week that her sorority sister was hosting. Basically everyone sits around being all pseudo-intellectual and getting stoned. All I had to do to seem like the smartest guy there was shut the f**k up.”
“So pretty much your natural state when stoned.”
“Yeah.”
Less than two weeks until the premiere—at which point one of two things will happen. Most likely: Brooke will succeed with Operation Graham, and Emma, in her emotionally defenseless state, will fall into my arms with one good pull. Less likely: Brooke will fail, Graham and Emma will run off into the sunset holding hands and making everyone within a ten-mile radius vomit, and I’ll be free to go back to the openly hedonistic life that other nineteen-year-old guys would kill to have. It’s win-win, if I can just get to it.
***
When we arrive, John’s girl answers the door, pressing herself into him. “You’re late. I thought you weren’t coming,” she chides. She’s one of those squeaky-voiced girls, which fits her tiny size. Standing behind him, I can’t actually see her. I only know she’s on the other side of him because I can hear her.