Chapter 11 #2
Brady slides his iPad across the table, the screen lit up with the headlines from the incident at the gala last night.
‘One woman not enough for Murphy?’
‘Murphy’s reputation on thin ice after season-opener gala’
‘Declan Murphy: Scores a hat trick…in dates’
“Well, I guess Jenn deserves a prize,” I say, sliding it back to him. “She guessed it right. First time scoring a hattie, that has to be something.” I try to make light of it, but even I can’t laugh off this mess.
“You’re making everything worse, bro.” Before Brady can take the iPad back, my little sister takes it from him and starts scrolling through the headlines with her bright pink nails, her brows rising with each passing second.
“That wasn’t planned,” I say in my defense. “None of it was planned.”
“One woman doesn’t seem to be enough for the defenseman of the New York Rangers,” Maddie reads, before taking a sip of her ridiculous coffee order that has ice, spice, and cream in a giant plastic container.
“What should’ve been a season starting gala for all the top sponsors of the team, turned into a cat fight between Declan Murphy’s three girlfriends. ”
She wiggles her eyebrows at me. “What? One just doesn’t cover it?”
“I don’t have three girlfriends, Mads.” I run a hand over my face, wishing I didn’t have to keep saying this.
“I know you don’t,” she says, pinching the screen to zoom in on the photos. “But I’m hoping you’re considering making the platinum blonde in the gold dress your girlfriend. She looks like a viking princess.”
Avah.
“She has the personality of one,” I mumble. The thought of Avah’s eyes sparking with challenge has me shifting in my seat, covering a small smile.
“What’s that?” Maddie asks, narrowing her eyes while studying me.
“Nothing,” Brady says, taking the iPad from her.
“Don’t encourage him, Maddie. The guy needs to get his head on straight.
” He turns to me, his green eyes pinning me to my seat.
“Declan, you can’t keep getting yourself into these situations.
At some point you need to stop and evaluate.
I don’t know…just think. Measure the pros and the cons.
Don’t just jump in head first and then leave the mess to me to fix. ”
I take a sip of my coffee, glaring at him and his sugarcoated insult.
“Are you forgetting I pay for all the work you do?” I ask, nodding to the very expensive car parked outside, courtesy of my paycheck.
“It’s not enough if you ask me. And you’re not the only one who paid for that,” he says, his voice sharp. “I represent more than ten top athletes across the country.”
I sigh, wanting to take back the words already. My brother is excellent at what he does. At this point, he’d have every right to dump me as a client and it would only make him more successful.
“So what’s the plan now?” Maddie asks, dipping her finger in the mountain of cream in her cup before licking it off. “I mean you have to fix this before you’re kicked off the team permanently.”
My little sister is sitting across from me, her usual dark hair now brushing her shoulders and it looks like she dipped the ends in a can of blue paint. Los Angeles has certainly rubbed off on her, not to mention the Hollywood people she works with.
“Thanks for pointing out the obvious, Mads.” I shove a napkin across the table at her. “Do you need a spoon?” I ask, unable to keep my voice from dripping exasperation.
“Now where’s the fun in that?” she asks with a sweet smile. She’s twenty-one going on twelve and some days it drives me nuts.
“The way I see it, we have a few options,” Brady cuts in, in full business mode.
“And they are?” I ask, hoping that there’ll be one on his list that’s relatively painless.
“Well, getting a steady girlfriend for one,” Brady says without looking at me, swiping over the list he made on his iPad.
“I have a girlfriend.”
“Had a girlfriend,” Maddie reminds me. “And she doesn’t count.”
Melissa telling me it’s over last night was both a relief and a low-blow at the same time. I’ve never had a woman back out of our agreement. Ever.
And now I have the added bonus of my little sister holding it over my head for the rest of my life. Why I ever told them is beyond me.
“What I mean is that, every season I have one girlfriend, and it’s still not enough for the people.”
The waitress comes and sets down a giant piece of chocolate cake and ice-cream for Maddie. I have a large salad in front of me, while Brady is sticking to sandwiches and fries.
“Yes, Dec, that’s because everyone with a set of working eyes can see that she’s only the one who attends the games. There are countless videos and photos of you with other women. Everyone knows about your little arrangement every season because you’ve never been subtle about it.”
“Well,” I shrug, grabbing a french fry from his plate and jabbing it in Maddie’s ice cream. “It’s always worked.”
“Until now,” Brady says. “Being the guy who sleeps around is no longer going to bring you anything.”
“What about the guy who just plays hockey?” I ask, grabbing another fry. “Why can’t I just be that guy?”
“Ooh, pick me!” Maddie says, moving her cake out of my reach when I try to dip it into her ice-cream. “Because you got suspended. You’re not playing hockey anymore.”
I groan, tossing my head back. “This sucks.”
“We’re stuck with damage control,” Brady says. “You might not like it, but you have to take it seriously, Declan.”
“Can’t I just go play with a bunch of puppies at the pound and spoon Jell-O to the elderly and then I’m all set?” I ask, looking between my two siblings.
“I’m going to pretend you did not just say that,” Maddie says with a small frown between her green eyes.
“Then what do you want from me?” I ask, throwing my hands in the air.
“An actual effort,” Brady deadpans.
“So you’re saying what exactly?”
“I’m saying that you’ve got at least three options here,” Brady says. “You can disappear, lay low and buy some time. Which you have now that you’re suspended.”
“Thanks,” I mutter, grabbing my fork and poking at the lettuce on my plate.
He gives me a sarcastic smile. “My pleasure. Option two is confessing. We can set you up with a media tour, going on the record to tell everyone that you’ve been struggling with relationships, that this is a low point in your life and reassure them all that you’re on our way up from here.”
The idea of spilling my guts to every single person with a microphone has me shifting around in my seat.
“What’s the third option?” I ask, taking a bite of my bunny food.
“You show them you can commit. You show them that this is just a phase…not a permanent thing. You need to find a girl who is nice—”
“I swear if someone says the word ‘nice’ one more time.” I run my hand through my hair, tugging at the roots. “I’m really starting to hate that word.”
“I’ll use different words then,” Brady says, through gritted teeth. “Find a girl who is marriage material, one who screams commitment and stability. A woman who makes the sponsors relax and the reporters back off. Make it permanent and sell it to everyone around you.”
“What if I don’t want to get married?!” My voice carries over the coffee shop, more than a few people turning to look at us.
“I’m not telling you to get married,” Brady says.
“Although eventually that would be great—that should be the clear goal. But for right now, just put in effort. Go out to dinner. Do normal couple stuff. Stay out of the clubs, away from the booze, and focus on presenting a steady life to the public. That will allow the organization to have more confidence in you again.”
Looking down at my plate, I let his words settle over me. My pride is telling me to fight against this, to do what I’ve always done, because there’s nothing wrong with the way I’ve been living my life.
But I can’t ignore what’s been happening.
My choices have always worked for me, but somehow they’ve started to work against me. And if I’m not careful, I could lose my hockey career.
It’s the only thing that’s ever mattered.
I’m going to have to fight for it. Which means doing whatever it takes.
Even dating a woman who’s marriage material.
The only thing that bothers me about that plan is the fact that it will take forever to convince people I’m in it for the long haul. And I don’t exactly have time for people to see I’m sticking to one woman for longer than five months this time.
Which means, logically speaking it would be even better to marry a woman who’s marriage material.
Where am I going to find a woman like that?
Not only that, I’ll have to find one who’d be willing to do this with me as a charade, because there’s no way I’m going to actually put in the effort, the time and the energy into a relationship when I have absolutely no intention of seeing it through.
No matter how great it would be for my career, that’s just cruel.
I won’t put some innocent woman through that, if I can’t give her what she’d be expecting eventually.
True love.
No, this will have to be some sort of an arrangement. Like all the other times. Only this time, it would have to present differently.
Because now, I’m going to give the media and the organization exactly what they want…but on my terms. It’s the only way I’ll even consider it.