Chapter 5
Iris
The event sponsor gave me two outfit options, and I can't decide on either one.
Dark blue dress, short, V-neck. Or black pants and a white top with thin straps. The dress says, “I'm a professional who takes this seriously.” The pants say the same thing, but let me run if I have to.
I pick the pants.
My ponytail is tighter than usual today. Small earrings. Perfume. Mine, this time. I look in the mirror and think that if I tried a little harder, I could pass for a woman who has her life together.
Someone pounds on the door.
The bodyguard, I'm guessing. For the fifth time. My teammates must be wondering why my girlfriend is waiting in the hallway while I get dressed.
“Shit,” slips out when I open the door and see her.
She's wearing a dark suit. Black pants with a fitted jacket that sharpens her shoulders, gray shirt underneath that shows her collarbones.
She looks unfairly good. Too bad we met under these circumstances and not at a club.
I turn around to grab my bag and use the moment to breathe. A thought doesn't mean anything. People think things all the time and I think things more than most. You think someone's hot, done, brain moves on. End of story. We're good.
“Event starts at eight,” she reminds me as we walk down the hall. “Your second biggest sponsor and the local press. They'll probably ask about me.”
“Probably? Yeah.”
Paula opens the car door for me. The club sent a car to pick us up.
“I can open my own doors,” I say.
“I know.”
“So why are you doing it?”
“Because it's safer. While I open it, I'm checking for anything wrong inside and getting a look at the driver.”
I just roll my eyes while she circles the car and gets in on the other side.
“Remember everything?”
“Yes.”
“If someone gets too close, you smile, stick to me, and don't look around,” she insists.
“Nobody's going to attack me at a sponsor event. What if I need to go to the bathroom?”
“You tell me.”
“What if I really need to go to the bathroom?”
“You really tell me.”
“Yes, Mom,” I joke, though I'm starting to think this woman has zero sense of humor.
“If I whisper in your ear, it's not flirting. It's instructions,” she reminds me.
“Damn, and here I was getting my hopes up. Relax, I'm kidding again. I know how to act. I've been doing it my whole life.”
I shouldn't have said that. It's too close to the truth.
Paula doesn't answer. She just looks out the window.
***
The event is at a big hotel in Orlando. Very fancy. Marble floors. Chandeliers. A couple of waiters circling with trays of cocktails and hors d'oeuvres.
Alexandra Drummond makes a beeline for us the second we walk in, like she wants to make sure Paula's doing a good job pretending to be my girlfriend.
We work the room. I'm good at this. It comes natural. Everyone asks the same questions. How did we meet? How long have we been together? Everyone says we make a great couple.
A reporter asks for a photo of the two of us.
I put my arm around her waist.
I've done it a million times with a hundred different people. With Zoe, Jade, Tina, every player on the team. With fans. It's automatic. Mechanical. Social.
What is not automatic is what happens when I touch Paula Delgado's waist.
I rest my hand on her hip and feel muscle underneath, tense, firm. Her hand moves to the small of my back. Open. Fingers spread. Warm through the thin fabric of my top.
I smile for the camera, but I am shaking.
The reporter leaves. Paula pulls her hand away.
The warmth stays.
“See?” I ask, mostly because I need to break the silence. “Piece of cake.”
“Yeah. Piece of cake,” she repeats.
We spend the next two hours doing what we're supposed to do. We smile. We lean into each other when cameras are around. We talk to the sponsors and the press.
Every now and then, she moves close to give me an instruction. And when she does, her breath brushes my earlobe. And when that happens, my brain stops working.
It's starting to be a problem.
At ten thirty, we leave the event and get into the car waiting to take us back to the hotel.
“Hey, we're not half bad at this faking thing, huh?” I whisper in her ear, so the driver won't hear.
“It worked because you're convincing when you want to be.”
Silence. Streetlights. A red light.
“You didn't think it was believable?” I press. “Tonight. All of it.”
Another pause. Long. The car turns left.
“Too believable,” she says without looking away from the window.
I don't ask what she means. I don't crack a joke. I don't fill the silence.
I stay quiet.
***
At quarter past eleven, someone knocks on my door.
Zoe walks in with Wesley in her arms. Dinosaur pajamas, eyes half shut with sleep, face smooshed against his mom's shoulder.
“I know you've got your girlfriend and everything, but I need you to watch him for half an hour. Can you…? He's about to pass out.”
“Give him to me,” I order, stretching out my arms.
Wesley protests for a second, but the moment he realizes it's me, he buries his face in my neck and goes still. I smell his hair.
“Thanks,” Zoe says. “I'll come get him in half an hour.”
“Make it an hour or two. I don't have better plans.”
Zoe smiles. Glances at my so-called girlfriend, shrugs, and leaves.
“Story,” the kid demands the second I lay him on the bed and pull off his sneakers.
“Which one, boss?”
“Dwagon.”
“Again? Don't you ever get tired of that story? Fine. But today I'm telling you a new adventure. See, that dragon played a lot of seasons with us. Know what happened after the game?”
Wesley shakes his head, dead serious.
“He wanted to go to school. And the dragon showed up on his first day with a backpack that was huge and sat in a chair that was way too small. His tail stuck out the back.”
“Tail?”
“Yeah, a super long tail. Green. With spikes. And the thing was, every time the dragon got excited, fire came out of his nose. A rabbit told him he'd scored a really cool goal, and the dragon got so pumped that a big flame shot out and burned the chalkboard.”
“No!”
“The other animals got a little scared and left. The dragon was all alone in the classroom. A little sad.”
Wesley stares at me, eyes huge. His lower lip pushes out and starts to tremble.
“No, no, it's okay, because then a really old turtle showed up.
You know turtles live a long time, right?
She was the teacher. And she said: Dragon, you're not bad.
You've just got a lot of energy inside. You have to learn to let it out a little at a time, not all at once. And she taught him a trick.”
“Wha twick?”
“Whenever the dragon felt the fire rising, he closed his eyes, breathed three times, and the fire turned into a teeny tiny little flame. Like this.”
I close my eyes. I breathe in big three times and Wesley giggles.
“Does it work?”
“Of course.”
“Does da dwagon have fwiends?”
“He's got tons of friends. Because he learned that he didn't have to stop being a dragon. He just had to learn when to use a lot of energy and when to use just a little.”
Wesley smiles, and I can't help kissing the top of his head.
“Who's dat?” the kid asks, pointing at my bodyguard.
“She's my friend. Paula.”
“Fwiend?”
“Yeah.”
“Mama says giwlfwiend.”
We look at each other, neither of us knowing what to say, while the kid watches us with total calm. Two-year-olds have a gift for hearing things you don't want them to hear.
“Yeah, well, she's kind of my girlfriend, okay.”
“She's pwetty,” he mumbles, his eyes fluttering shut.
“Yeah, Wes. She is,” I say, barely a whisper, while I tuck him in.