Fowl Play (Tuft Swallow)

41. Brian

CHAPTER 41

Gander Grounded for Today’s Tussle in Big Tech Territory

The second big rivals match of the regular season is here, sports fans! But is there trouble brewing for the Reigning Champions of the Hawkthorne County Cornhole League?

Kodi Gander, clinic administrator and Captain for the Mighty Swallows, has been benched for the remainder of the season. While her boyfriend may have been helping her keep it hush-hush, the entire flock of pesky pigeons that’s taken up residence around our town square this summer witnessed the young captain limping to work everyday this week: the unfortunate result of an unlucky encounter with the popper at Birdie in the Hole last weekend. Our eyewitness source (who has requested to remain anonymous) had this to say:

“That g****mn golf course is a menace to our little town! I’ve never thought it was safe, wasn’t I just saying that the other day, Francis? And don’t get me started on the waste of our precious water and resources in keeping that eighteenth hole running! I saw our dear Kodi trip right into that g**forsaken bubble and get flung clear off her ankles and land right on her injured knee, bless her heart. Wasn’t it just awful, Francis? He saw it, too, he was right there beside me watching it happen. She even started crying. Poor thing. Never deserved what happened to her in that state championship…”

Rumor has it the incident was followed by an overnight stay for the two lovebirds at Gosling’s office/residence on Elm Street. Perhaps a different kind of “sport” is taking priority over cornhole in this budding romance…

Will the Swallows prevail over their rivals without their star tosser? Or will we all be forced to tuck our heads in shame?

Today’s match will be hosted by Spitz Hollow at the new Spitz-Shein Sports Complex on County Route 46. If anyone is in need of a ride, the Dirty Hookers are arranging a carpool.

Kodi’s face is so red, I’m surprised she isn’t going supernova as she clutches the Pecker in her trembling hands. I try to calm her down, but her eyes are glazed over in horror, and I don’t think she’s actually seeing the interior of the diner where we’re getting our protein-heavy pre-game breakfast in.

A small whine starts to escape her throat. I tap her on the shoulder.

“Hey. Baby girl. Talk to me.” She holds up the paper dumbly, and I shove it flat onto the table between us. “That doesn’t matter, okay? It’s a gossip column.”

“They know.”

“They know what, Kodi?”

“Everything.” She finally moves of her own accord, sinking her face into her hands and letting out a despairing breath.

I lean forward, reaching for her and trying to figure out what’s going on. “What do you mean, babe? What’s everything?”

“I am letting it take priority.”

“Letting what take priority?”

“This!” She flaps her hands in between us, and her voice rises in pitch. I wince, and she mirrors my posture until our heads are almost touching over the table. “This thing between us. Spending the night at your house. Golf with dad. Dinner with mom. I’ve been panicking about it and I have been letting it overshadow the team.”

“Baby girl, you haven’t even been able to practice this week. Your knee–”

“That’s what I mean! I’ve never let a little sprain distract me from practice! I’ve always kept my head in the game, even from the sidelines. I mean, sure, the team might be happy that I’ve been going easy on them, but the town expects–”

“Order up for the Captain!” Eve, the waitress, chirps. She sets down our plates, and snaps her gum in her cheek. “You two are just the cutest. Mind if I Snap a pic? Of the pregame?”

“Can you give us a little privacy, actually, please?” I stick my hand up in front of the phone camera that she’s waving in front of us. “And I could use a little more coffee when you get a sec.”

She narrows her eyes at me, but gets her phone out of my face before twitching away. “Fine.”

“Captain…” Kodi mutters under her breath. I squeeze her hands.

“Hey. Hey.” I try to get her attention, but she’s spiraling. And I don’t know where it’s coming from. Sure, the article was a little on-the-nose, but if she was okay with the team and with us she wouldn’t be freaking out like this.

Would she?

“Kodi, I need you with me. Zeke’s gonna be there today.”

“Zeke?” Her eyes finally flash up to meet mine, and I see the gears begin to turn again behind the amber. “Right. Spitz Hollow.”

“Yes. And I’m going to be on the bench with you. The whole game.” I give her hand another squeeze. “I need to know you’re there with me, too.”

I haven’t seen Zeke since that weirdly charged moment in Most Buy three weeks ago. To be honest, I hadn’t really been thinking about him at all since things with Kodi started heating up. But she’s not wrong about this being a stressful week: between preparations for golf and dinner with her parents tomorrow and game day today, and of course, her injury, there have been a lot of stressors weighing on both of us.

Being reminded that today’s match is versus Spitz Hollow and Zeke, brings up those still painful feelings I buried under the novelty of whatever Kodi and I have. How much he hurt me. How much he blindsided me. How could I have thought what we had was serious, when he was so quick to toss it aside? Was I too sentimental, too clingy? Am I still?

I look at the woman across the table from me, still visibly uncomfortable, her eyes still bouncing back and forth across the page of the paper. Finally, I grab it off the table and crumple it up, shoving it into the vinyl seat beside me.

I need her to be present. I need her coherent. I need her with me.

I need her.

This weekend especially, we need to present a united front. Especially now since we’ve basically admitted that we’re in a real relationship, if only to each other.

But just because it’s real, doesn’t mean she’s in this as much as I am…

“Are you with me?”

That question is loaded with so much more than just those four words would imply.

She nods. “I’m with you.” She picks up her fork and starts shoveling omelet into her mouth. “Let’s eat and get moving. Food’s getting cold.”

When we arrive at the Spitz-Shein Sports Complex in Spitz Hollow, I’m a little taken aback at the grandiose nature of it. The building towers six stories high in the middle of an office park, just across the street from Spitz-Shein Inc., a glassy, modern-looking behemoth that seems pretty out of place for the rest of the small suburban New England county.

The complex is completely enclosed. A wide, shiny revolving door makes maneuvering our team’s cornhole boards inside a little difficult, but luckily the rest of the team helps us carry the items from the parking lot to the lobby of the complex, which overlooks a giant, open, recycled rubber floor beyond.

“Woah,” Kodi breathes. “This is…uh…”

“Indulgent,” D’Shawn mumbles.

“Huge,” Callie and Lily chorus together.

“Unnecessary?” Nick raises an eyebrow at me, and I shrug.

“Certainly for anything I’m interested in when I go to the gym.” I give Nick what I hope is a reassuring smile. Tuft Swallow is too small to have any big facilities or gyms like this aside from the high school or the community college, and it would be easy for a small business owner like Nick with his cozy MMA gym on Birch Street to feel a little intimidated at a glitzy workout center like this.

“Oh my God. They have one of those walls with rock thingies for climbing!” Geneva squeals, darting past us and pointing to one side of the massive complex, which does indeed have a permanent climbing structure rising up the entire six story wall like a cliff face. “What are those called?”

“A climbing wall?” One of the other team members follows her over. “That’s kind of awesome.”

“Alright, guys, focus. Let’s find wherever the match is supposed to be and–”

“Oh look! Miss Muffin’s Tufties are here to be crushed at last.”

That accent. I’d know it anywhere. As soon as the voice drifts lazily about the echoey corridor of the lobby, I look up and see Zeke strutting towards us, with three other Spitz Hollow cronies backing him up. “We were beginning to think you got lost.”

“We’re half an hour early,” Lily snarls. “So stop with the high-and-mighty act.”

“Sorry, sorry, I tend to lose track of time while I’m lifting.” He flexes and tilts his chin at me, and I don’t miss the sweat glistening off his toned arms.

He’s just trying to bait you, Brian. Keep it together.

“Good to see you, B.” He winks at me.

Fuck. I wish I could stop the little twist that happens in my stomach when he does that. Winks have always been a weakness of mine. Especially when a confident, well-built man sends one my way, singling me out in a crowd? God. It’s always been one of the hottest things in the world a man could do to win me over.

Kodi looks over her shoulder at me, and her brow furrows. I meet her eyes and give her a grin, but even I can feel that it doesn’t come across as easy or carefree as I want it to.

It’s not that I want to get back together with him. This man hurt me. Stung me. Cast me aside like I was nothing. I’m not the least bit interested in being with him anymore.

But even with all of that, there’s still a part of me that wonders what about me wasn’t good enough for him. Despite how much I’ve taken a liking to Kodi, how being with her makes me feel…

“I’m with you.”

Kodi’s words from this morning ring through my head, and it’s like something warm spreads through my chest, forming a kind of internal armor against Zeke’s snarky tone. That’s right, I remind myself. You have someone who actually cares about you now. I straighten my back and lift my chin, meeting his carefree, flirtatious gaze with a more serious one of my own.

He doesn’t get to play with my heart. It doesn’t belong to him anymore.

Then Zeke finally looks at Kodi, sees her crutches, and scrunches his face in the fakest look of concern I’ve ever seen. “Gander! What happened to your leg? Do you not know any good chiropractors? You know, I used to sleep with one whom I could recomme–”

“So are you just going to stand there, or are you gonna show us where we can set up our boards?”

I’m amazed that my voice sounds so confident, sure, as it booms across the lobby to their little clique of muscly fuckboys. Even Zeke’s brows raise in surprise when I don’t flinch at his insinuated dig. The one that almost gave away to the whole team that he is the “mystery ex-boyfriend” that the Pecker wrote about all those weeks ago.

“We’ve already got it all set up. Unlike some of the piffling teams in this league, we can afford enough equipment for everybody when we host.”

“Woulda been nice if you’d have told us that before we carried everything in,” Lily mutters.

The rest of the team mumbles in agreement.

“Here, babe. Why don’t you and a few others take the boards back to the car, and I’ll go check out the field.” Kodi tosses me the keys, and blows me a kiss. I snatch them out of the air, and then pat my cheek with them, as if I caught her kiss, too.

And then I wink. Only I don’t do it to get back at the asshole standing in front of us.

I aim it at my girl. And the red that blossoms on her cheeks in response sends a whole new sensation into my stomach.

“With you,” she mouths at me.

“You too,” I mouth back. And without even a parting glance at my ex, I lead the guys back to the car to put away the boards.

Kodi can handle this.