Chapter 30 #2
“It’s an August word. Fucko.” Smiling, I set the remote down. “He uses it so much, I don’t think he’s even aware of it half the time.”
“Trent just loves the good old-fashioned fuck.” She waggles her brows. “And how.”
With that, she bursts out crying.
“Oh, hey! No . . .” Rushing over, I hug her to my shoulder and rub her back as she sobs. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m so sorry.”
My heart squeezes with every sob that wracks her body. But it isn’t for long. Monica must either be used to letting go and getting it out fast or is holding it in with sheer force of will. She gathers herself with dignity and looks about, pressing the back of her hand against her running nose.
Quickly, I get her a box of tissues from the hall bath and then sit back as she blows her nose and dries her eyes.
“I’m a mess.” It comes out as an accusation.
I half smile. “But you always clean up real nice.”
Her eyes water again as she chuckles. “Fuck you, don’t make me cry again.”
We share a grin of perfect understanding, then hers fades. “I’m going to wash up and fix my face.” She grabs her purse and heads out.
Once she’s gone, I turn back to the game. Frustration rides high on the men. It shows in their expressions and body language. August’s, however, never exposes what he’s thinking. He never gives the outside world much. Already he’s able to internalize like a seasoned pro.
“Where’s that cocktail?” Refreshed, Monica strolls in, tossing her purse on the far chair.
I hand it to her and take a sip of my own as we silently watch the screen. “They might still win.”
“Yeah,” she says. “But it won’t be on account of Trent. That’s your man’s doing. He’s reining them in.”
Despite the somber mood, pride swells within my chest. He absolutely is. I know August is pulling them together and holding on to this game by sheer will and determination. It’s incredibly hard to do. No one will be questioning his commitment or “wild” behavior now.
He doesn’t need me to be his fiancée anymore. I doubt he ever really did. He just needed the chance to settle in.
“Trent was at the top of his game before he met me.” Monica sips her cocktail and watches the game dispassionately. “Best of the best, is what they called him. A fucking football god.”
“He still is. One game does not make a career.”
Her gaze slides to mine with quiet worry. “He’s been off for four games. Four. That’s a pattern.” The limoncello spritz sloshes in her glass as she uses it to point toward the TV. “The people who run this business are all about patterns.”
“Is something on his mind?”
Monica shrugs. “Won’t tell me. Says he’s fine. But I know he isn’t.”
“Well, we both know it’s not you.”
“I don’t help either.” Gold hoop earrings flash as she shakes her head. “Everywhere we go we’re watched, commented upon.”
The “Monica effect” as the press calls it, is a phenomenon I never fully grasped until I was drawn into it.
At every game we attend, whenever there’s a big play or even discussion of August or Jelly, a multitude of telephoto lenses unerringly swing toward our box.
Mainly, they want shots of Monica reacting, Monica smiling, dancing up and down in celebration, whatever they can get.
As I’m invariably next to her, and the apparent fiancée of golden boy Luck, I get a fair amount of attention too.
Why anyone would care or need to see our reactions every other damn play is beyond me. I figure they’ll get bored. Eventually.
Monica used to be more pragmatic about it. I sell seats, she’d told me one game when the cameras, yet again, pointed our way. They figure, show me, and others will follow.
It’s fine. Whatever. I hate it. But I love Monica.
And August . . . well, every day with him is a gift as far as I’m concerned.
Now, however, I’m seeing that buildup of attention crushing my friend’s heart.
We can tell ourselves the pain is worth the gain but actually living through it takes its toll.
As the game plays on, Monica worries her lip with her teeth. “I’m taking a role in England. Starts up in two months, but maybe I should head over early, get settled in, and let all this . . .” She waves a hand at the screen. “Settle down.”
“You want to leave now? Won’t that make it look like these assholes are right?”
“Maybe I need a little distance. Maybe I want easy.”
“Okay.”
“Relationships are hard enough as it is. Add fucking fame to it and suddenly the world has front row seats.” She scowls at the TV. “Penny, my friend. Think long and hard about this life. Because it’s never going to be easy and it’s never going to be normal.”
I’m not nor ever will be famous like Monica.
But August is. Hell, his smiling face pops up during a commercial break as he uses all that Luck charm to sell a sports drink.
It’s followed by another one of him throwing a sub like a football.
Jelly catches it and takes a huge bite. Together, they tell us it’s better to eat fresh.
I’ll always share him with football, with the public.
“What’s normal anyway?” I say half to myself. “And why are we all trying to be it?”
Monica eyes me for a long moment. Perhaps she understands I need convincing as well. The shadows clear from her eyes as she nudges my shoulder. “Beats me.”
The woman is a good actress but not that good.
“Look,” I say carefully. “I’ve heard everything you said. You have to follow your heart here. But, before you do anything, I think you should talk to Trent about this. Don’t leave him without telling him how you feel.”
She ducks her head and studies the carpet. When she looks back, her expression is resolute. “You give good advice, Pen. Are you going to take it for yourself?”
This shocks me enough to set me back on my heels. For all Monica knows, August and I are a newly engaged couple. Why would I need to confess feelings?
She makes a soft noise of annoyance. “I wouldn’t be a very good actress if I couldn’t see it in others.
Or read body language. I don’t know what’s going on between you and August. You’re obviously crazy about each other.
You’ve been engaged for months, and yet when I ask about the wedding you act like you’ve been caught stealing.
Half the time I expect you to bolt from the room.
Not the actions of a woman who wants to get married. ”
What can I say? I’m stuck in a web of my own making. If I want out, I’ll have to confess all. Not just to our friends but to August too. He hasn’t said he loves me, but he’s obviously deeply into me. Do words of love really matter? If they don’t, then why is it so hard to say them?
“It’s complicated,” I say to Monica.
She snorts without rancor, but instead sounds sad. “Isn’t it just?”
August
Losing is not as fun as winning. Obviously.
But there are different ways to lose. There’s total annihilation in which everything falls apart and the other team kicks your ass up and down the field.
Demoralizing as fuck. There’s loss of confidence, like a slowly deflating balloon and you go from being far ahead to just .
. . not. There’s the “what the fuck, that was a shit call and now we’ve lost by mere points and what the fuck, where’s the justice?
” Or perhaps the good old, “we just didn’t bring our game to the field and got our lazy asses served to us. ”
So many ways with the same outcome: defeat.
Over the years, I contemplated which type of loss is worse—aside from annihilation, of course, because that’s always going to be the king of all loss. Regardless, I’ve never been able to swallow defeat easily.
Today’s loss should be a mild sort of pain. We did well, it was by inches, and my personal performance was on point. But in a strange way, it cuts deeper. Because we should have won.
The game was ours. Until Jelly began to fall apart. Not in a subtle way but an all-out fucking mess. It hurt to see, and it was frustrating as hell as a teammate.
The truth of this shows in the dark, irritable looks the guys send him as we shower and get dressed in veritable silence. Grumbles abound.
One of the TVs set high on the wall of the dressing area plays back our not-so-greatest hits while a talking head implies that Jelly’s performance might be due to his personal relationship.
Jelly’s neck tightens but he doesn’t look up from buttoning up his shirt.
The man appears so broken, I flinch.
“Turn that off, will you?” I say to one of the staff aids near the TV controls.
Rhodes huffs under his breath. “Truth hurts, huh?”
I raise a mild brow. “Everyone in this room could fill a reel of fuckups. Or did I imagine last year’s playoff game you starred in?”
Rhodes’s head jerks up, his nostrils flaring. We stare each other down.
“I can get on this bench and do a chicken dance right now,” I threaten.
His lips press together, then he snorts. “Man . . . You’re right.” He grabs a bottle of his cologne and begins spritzing. “Then again, that was off the field.”
“Bro, let it go,” Carter says, shutting his locker. “That shit helps no one.”
Rhodes shrugs, still sullen.
“And chill with the perfume. It’s like a scent bomb up in here. Gives me a fucking headache.”
A chorus of “amens” ring out.
Irate, Rhodes glares around. “It’s cologne, not perfume. And ya’ll salty because you have no class.”
“The difference between cologne and perfume,” I tell him, “is simply the amount of fragrance oil included in the mix. Cologne has about two to four percent, whereas perfume can go anywhere from ten to forty-five percent in concentration.” I glance at the bottle he’s set on his locker shelf.
“That, my friend, is perfume. But call it cologne if it makes you feel more manly.”
They all stare at me.
I shrug. “Twin sisters and a mom. All of them love perfume. And I pay attention, fuckos.”
Carter gives me a bland look. “They gave you shit for calling it cologne too, didn’t they?”
“Fuck yes, they did.” I grin at the memory. “Then hid my body spray after the first use, on account of it being a ‘biohazard.’”
Rhodes starts laughing.
“I don’t care what it’s called,” Carter grumps. “Too much is too much. Reminds me of my freshman roommate. Bitch sprayed that shit all over himself like it’d grant wishes. Made me high half the time.”
“My roommate too,” says Jenkins, a defensive end. “Stink lasted forever. Control, brother. Control.”
“It’s a fucking epidemic,” Mario Christiane, a tackle, adds. “Bombing dorm rooms around the country.”
Williams runs a brush over his hair. “They say ‘cologne’ is the new vape.”
“Truth.”
“The cheap stuff is the worst. Sticks around like my mama’s memory.”
“I know y’all ain’t calling my perfume cheap.”
“We are,” shouts everyone.
Rhodes retaliates by spraying some more on himself—to much groaning. “Clowns. Women always ask me what I’m wearing because it smells so good.”
“They probably asking what you’re wearing so they know what to avoid,” Mario says.
Williams nods. “Too polite to up and say, ‘What is that dead flower funk?’”
Still razzing each other, the team begins to trickle out of the locker room.
I linger behind because Jelly hasn’t moved.
And, frankly, I’m not looking forward to the presser.
I have no problem saying my cliché lines when we lose.
But I don’t want to talk ill of Jelly, and I know they’ll try their best to get me to point the finger at him.
Why this makes for good copy, I don’t know.
I never find those interviews, whether it’s for a loss or a win, informative.
“You didn’t have to speak up for me,” he says, breaking the silence. He’s still staring off, head slightly down and away. “I can take it.”
“I know you can. But you’re my teammate. We have each other’s backs.”
“I didn’t have y’all’s backs today. Or the last few games.”
“Well, no.” I rub my stiff neck. “Got yourself into a bit of bad mojo is all.”
A heaving sigh breaks free, and he sits hard on the bench, resting his head in his hands. “I’m sorry.”
I take a seat next to him. “Not long ago, you told me all we can do is try our hardest.”
“That’s just it.” Despair colors his voice. “I don’t know if I can.”
Glancing at the dark TV, I wonder if there’s some truth in the speculation. Because this feels personal. “What’s going on, Jells?”
He swallows thickly with a clicking sound. “My high school coach is dying. He practically raised me. Got me out, held me up.”
“Hell.”
Jelly clenches his fists. “And there’s nothing I can do. Can’t even be with him. Gotta play, you know? Game goes on.”
Every one of us knows this. It’s what we’re taught, from the moment we picked up a ball as little tykes. Every single one of us has missed key moments in our loved ones’ lives because of the game. It sucks, but it’s also so engrained in us that we stuff regret and sorrow down deep.
When Jan crashed, I remember being grateful that my season was done. Because it meant I could be there with him. It’s all kinds of fucked-up.
“I’m sorry, Jells.”
Dully he acknowledges this with a chin dip. Tears gloss over his eyes and he blinks rapidly. “I need to suck it up, I know this. But it’s been . . . hard. He’s my family. I ain’t got no one else . . .” He blows out a sharp breath but slumps forward, bracing his arms on his knees.
“I don’t want to make light of that bond, but I want you to hear me when I say, you got me too.” I lean into him until our sides touch.
“Means a lot to me, Rook.”
“And you got Monica.”
Jelly closes his eyes and fists his hands tightly. “I’m thinking of taking a break with Monica.”
That brings me up short. “T, no. Why the hell would you do that?”
“She doesn’t need this heat. Hell, they’re already blaming her for my fuckups.”
“And you’ll just prove those assholes right if you do this. She loves you. Don’t break her heart and yours.”
He opens his eyes and looks at me from over his shoulder. “How would you feel if it was your girl they sat around blaming? If you saw her hiding tears? Still want to subject her to that?”
It would kill me. But the thought of letting Penelope go? No. No way. That would most definitely kill me.
You’d keep her even if this life made her miserable?
Gritting my teeth, I work through the surprising burst of rage the hypotheticals create inside me. This life I’ve chosen, it has highs that feel like the best drug on earth. And lows that can break you. It’s every player’s job to find a balance. Peace.
Penelope is my peace.
“I think . . .” I say slowly, “if you love this woman, really love her, you’ve got to talk this out with her and let her choose.”
We’re silent for a long moment. Then Jelly speaks, his voice sandy with emotion. “Maybe that’s the problem. What if she chooses to go?”
And there it is: The problem we both have. The one I don’t have an answer to. Because what if?