Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
The Broken Arrow
When I left LA a couple of months ago, I was angry.
People were angry at me as well.
My teammates, my coaches. The PR team, the managers. Everyone.
They thought I’d lost my mind, coming to practice drunk and picking a fight with an important member of the staff, one who’s been working for the team longer than I have. Especially when that member was a good friend of mine. The only friend.
Especially when I’ve never had a temper problem before.
I think for a second there when they found out that I did it because I’d just broken up with my girlfriend of eight years, they were sympathetic.
But when I refused to apologize after hitting him, their sympathy went away.
Overnight, I became a loose cannon. Who needed to calm down before he could be an asset to the team. Or at least, that’s what Coach told me.
I don’t remember much other than the usual jitters in my thighs and the crawling of my skin. The shame of failing.
The shame of making a mistake, breaking a rule.
Anyway, he also told me to attend this party that I’m at to look more like a team player, which has never been a problem before because I always played with the team. A good player – the best player – understands that you can’t win a game alone. You can be the MVP but it’s always a team effort.
Besides, I didn’t think I’d be welcome here.
It’s okay though.
If Coach wants me to show my face and prove to them that I’m a team player – even though they should already fucking know it – I’ll do that.
Even if it means enduring their angry, suspicious looks. Accusatory looks.
They all think the same thing: we lost because of me.
I can see it in their eyes. I can feel it in the tightness of my skin, in the heat under my collar.
But it’s the price I have to pay for breaking the rules and hitting that dickhead.
The party is a little thing one of my teammates has put together after the grueling promotional week we’ve had.
Since we’re out for the season now, PR team thought touring high schools and colleges to talk about the Galaxy’s youth program and encouraging players to join next summer is a wise way to spend our unexpected free time.
I’m not much for touring or parties; I’d rather be home, either working out, resting my body or watching game tapes.
So it’s not a surprise to anyone – in fact, I think they’re all very relieved – when I choose to leave the room and stand out on the balcony, alone. Although tonight, instead of watching the waves – it’s a beachfront property in Malibu – I’m watching my teammates.
I’m watching how well they mingle with each other. How much they enjoy each other. How they’re laughing and thumping each other on the back.
This isn’t the first time that I’ve seen all this but still.
It’s so fucking strange to me.
I’ve always believed that nothing should take away from my focus.
Not friends, not parties. Nothing should stand between me and the game.
I don’t think that I’ve ever thumped anyone on their back. Well, unless they’ve scored a goal on the field, but still.
As I look at them now, I wonder.
Maybe there’s another way. Maybe I should try to… enjoy things more, for the lack of a better word.
But then all my thoughts vanish except for one.
Sarah.
She’s just entered the room and I viciously take a gulp of beer from the forgotten bottle in my hand.
For a second there I thought it was her.
The girl with thirteen freckles and witchy eyes. That’s what she calls them; she told me one night.
“See how they turn up.” She pointed to the corners, sitting on my motorcycle, her legs dangling. “My eyes are witchy. Like my name. Salem. It’s a witchy name, isn’t it?”
She blinked up at me with such a wide, innocent look that I bit out, “Says who?”
“I don’t know. People.”
“Fuck people.”
She smiled then. “So do you think you like it?”
“If I say yes, you won’t make me write a poem about it, will you?”
“Shut up. Do you think you do?”
“I think I’ve never met a Salem before you.”
“Yeah?” She grinned. “So I’m your first Salem?”
"Yes.”
“Good. Because you’re my first Arrow too.”
She blew me a kiss then and I had to retaliate. I had to eat up her lips, painted with I Jinx U and her smile.
It’s not her though.
It’s not the girl with witchy eyes, it’s her sister.
The girl who betrayed me. The girl who catches my eye a second later and begins to walk toward me.
I clench my fingers around the bottle as I see her approach.
Back when I first started dating her, she was pretty. Hot too.
But over the years, she’s turned into a beauty. In a tight but tasteful black dress, she is easily the most beautiful woman in the room.
Someone I could have by my side while I focused on soccer. Someone who’d travel with me if she wanted to but have her own career, someone who knew how to handle the attention that being with an athlete brings.
Sarah was a perfect partner.
Well, until she wasn’t.
Until she chose to fuck my friend behind my back.
“Hi,” she says as soon as she slides the glass door open and steps outside.
I take a pull of the beer. “Wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
It’s the truth.
She still lives in our apartment and so I chose to stay at a hotel for the duration of the week, which reminds me that I’ll have to look for a different place before I move back.
Apart from that she has been scarce from all the events, which has been welcome but pretty strange. Given the fact that her team came up with this whole bullshit idea.
She tucks her hair behind her ear. “Bobby is my friend too. Plus it’s business. Everyone from the team and management is here.”
“Except your new boyfriend.”
I was wondering if I’d finally see Ben.
Like Sarah, I haven’t seen him all week and I’m guessing it’s because everyone is trying to keep us apart.
Good thinking.
“I told him not to come,” she replies. “I knew you wouldn’t like that.”
“Still taking care of me, huh?”
This time when I clench my fingers around the bottle, I almost feel the glass give under the force of my grip.
She sighs, a frown adorning her face. “I told you, A. I still care about you. That doesn’t go away just because of what happened between us. We were together for eight years.”
“Yeah, or maybe you’re afraid that I’ll break his jaw again.”
Sarah steps closer to me and I’m hit by her familiar scent of lilies. “You wouldn’t. I know you wouldn’t. You care about the game. You care about your place on the team. You’ve worked so hard for it. You wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that. I know you.”
Well, she does know me.
Because she is right.
I can’t afford to lose my place on the team. I’ve worked very, very hard for it.
I’ve worked my entire life for it.
I’ve worked my entire life to be The Blond Arrow, my father’s son.
And as angry as I am at the sight of my ex-girlfriend, I’m not going to wreck my life’s work for her.
I refuse to break another rule.
Especially for my ex-girlfriend.
“You know, the therapist you found me?” I say, massaging the neck of the bottle. “I’m not sure she’s as helpful as you think she is.”
“What do you mean?”
“It means that I’m very close to stopping giving a shit and breaking something. So if you don’t want to get caught in the middle of it, you should leave.”
I take another bitter swallow of the beer – beer doesn’t do anything for me; I need a smoke. Maybe I should call it a night and leave. We have one last school on the tour to visit tomorrow so I need my strength to endure that anyway.
And it’s not as if I’m having any fun.
But a second later Sarah touches me, and I freeze at the feel of her small hand.
Her small, dainty hand that I always thought paired up really well with my large body.
She thought so too. Said it made us look like a perfect couple – her, fragile and feminine; me, dominating and masculine.
I bet she’s never hit someone with that hand though.
Nah, Sarah would never do something violent like that.
She’s not like her.
“I just wanted to say hello, A,” Sarah whispers, breaking my thoughts about her sister. “And see how you’re doing. Don’t be mad.”
I look at her a beat, at her beautiful face before replying with mock politeness, “I’m doing fine, thank you.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me how I’m doing?”
“I would but I don’t care either way.”
She smiles sadly and strokes my chest. “Well, I just… miss you.”
My body tightens. “Is that right?”
“Yes. Don’t you? I mean, despite what happened, don’t you miss me a little, A?”
Her eyes drop to my lips and it doesn’t come as a surprise.
I know she wants me.
She’s wanted me back ever since I found out about her. And I have to admit that there’s a certain satisfaction in denying her.
In making her squirm.
That’s her classic move by the way, when she wants me to kiss her. Whispered words and sneaky glances to the lips. A subtle game of femininity that I’ve always found very hot.
What can I say? I like sex.
It’s always been a natural relaxant. Something to take the edge off. Besides smoking, I mean.
And sex between us has always been pretty fucking hot. She’s small in all the ways I like and I’m big in all the ways that makes things tight and interesting.
“You want to be kissed,” I conclude in a low whisper that I know gets her going.
She glances at my lips again, her hand on my body growing urgent, grasping. “I don’t know. I just… I want you.”
Which means, yes, she wants to be kissed.
This is her way of appearing as feminine as possible.
Again, I’m not going to deny that it gets me hot; I like to dominate, and she doesn’t mind.
She takes it all.
And for a second there it almost does get me going.
Until I realize that’s all she ever does.
She takes it but she doesn’t give it back.
She doesn’t writhe under me, trying to fuck me back. She doesn’t fist my hair and pull at it. She doesn’t scratch me with her nails, goad me by breaking my rules.
She doesn’t wear tiny little skirts or leave me sexy fucking notes.
She doesn’t fan my aggression and provoke me into fucking her harder.
Into reining her in.