Chapter 3
Every time I started a run, I couldn’t wait for it to end.
But I still ran every damn morning.
The sun had just risen as I came to the end of my five-mile run. The crisp chill in the air was melting with the buttery sunlight. Tiny rocks and dry grass crunched under my feet as I followed the country road to the manor.
My heart was pounding, but my thoughts were quiet.
My podcast still had another five minutes left, so I jogged down our long driveway and headed to the back of the manor. According to the Bored Bros, my Lindsay University Crimson Knights had a good chance of winning the upcoming Thanksgiving game.
“I don’t know, Bobby,” Bret Bogeman groaned into the mic. “We can’t count out Plains State’s new running back. Lindsay’s defense might not be able to stop him.”
“He’s fast,” quipped Bobby Ballinger, “but he’s no Tyson Copeland. No one at PSU has gotten close to breaking his record—”
I pulled out my earbuds and tossed them into my hoodie pocket. Bobby had never played a down of football in his life, don’t know why he thought he was such a fucking expert.
I made a turn around the manor’s southern wing and finished off my run at the back patio. I picked up a new tennis ball out of the wire basket at the end of the patio sectional and rolled it in my palm as I passed the firepit and outdoor bar.
As soon as I reached the covered pool, I found my favorite pile of white fluff lying on the glazed tile deck between two lounge chairs.
“It’s November, boy,” I said to my big silly dog. “You’re not going for a swim until May.”
Titus lifted his head and let out a low whine.
Poor boy, I missed the pool too. The patio was much too quiet when the waterfall wasn’t turned on.
I tossed the tennis ball up in the air and caught it. “Come on, nothing makes you forget the silence like a run!”
I turned and launched the tennis ball. The ball soared about eighty yards before rolling down the grassy hill to the pasture where the cows were having their morning graze.
Though I expected to see Titus’s giant body fly down the hill after that ball, I turned back to find him still between those deck chairs, looking up at me like I was some dumb asshole.
I sighed. Get a working breed, the managers at headquarters had said, they’ll keep you busy. None of the breeders I spoke with ever mentioned that a Great Pyrenees was the biggest baby money could buy.
My phone buzzed. Odd, I wasn’t expecting any messages.
I took out my phone to see that my finance guy was calling.
“I swear to God,” I answered, “if you’re about to tell me about another charity gala invitation…”
“How about five,” Chuck answered with a groan. “But I do hear Mistletoe Masquerade in the city is actually pretty good—”
“You go, then.” I sneered. “Wear some goofy mask and pretend to be me. See just how fun it is when all those opportunistic women corner you and ‘inconspicuously’ whine about how single they are.”
“You make it sound like a bad thing…”
“Chuck, I will gnaw my arm off before I’m caught dead at another gala,” I snapped. “Just give them money.”
“Which galas? And how much? You’ve already maxed out your tax-deductible charitable contributions for this year, so there’s no financial reason to—”
“All of them,” I said. “Find the highest pledge tiers and add an extra zero to the checks. Send a message that my absence is much better for charity than the sight of me in a tux.”
Chuck sighed. “You’re a real Kris Kringle, Beau.”
“And if I don’t hear a peep from another gala until next year,” I said with a tight smile, “you’ll get another zero added to your Christmas bonus too. Ho ho ho.”
And I hung up.
I whistled for Titus to follow me as I headed back inside.
He padded across the patio after me as I pushed open the French doors into the manor.
My footsteps and the little clicks of Titus’s paws echoed in the foyer.
Just as I nearly turned into the media room, my phone buzzed again—a text this time.
Furrowing my brows, I pulled out my phone to read the message.
“About to fly over international waters. Aunt Liz is already two martinis deep. Won’t activate phone service until we land on the island. Only call me if the Crimson Knights win.”
Damnit, Mom.
I held back a sigh. I knew I shouldn’t have filled the fridge with all the old family favorites for Thanksgiving, but I got my hopes up anyway.
I glanced at the family portrait hanging in the foyer, where little six-year-old me sat in my mom’s lap.
My hair was plastered against my head with gel and I wore a baby blue outfit with puffy sleeves and a girly collar.
Growing up, I had hated that Mom chose to immortalize that goofy look with an oil painting.
Now, I was just happy to have a portrait of Mom’s smile where her eyes wrinkled in the corners—a smile that was now extinct.
The cigarette burn over my dad’s face was a less pleasant sight, but I kept the painting up anyway.
“I’m going to cook you the best Thanksgiving dinner of your life,” I said to Titus as I pulled up my bank app. “Half of the turkey in the fridge has your name on it, boy.”
With a few swipes, I sent my mom a thousand dollars and texted her, “Drinks are on me!” As soon as I hit send, I shoved my phone into the pocket of my sweatpants and headed to the bar in the media room.
I slammed my steel tumbler on the marble bartop and mixed a post-run cocktail of coconut water and lime juice. The cold prick of the first sip through the metal straw hit my tongue as I crashed onto the leather sectional and turned on the TV for some noise to fill the silence.
A five-person sports panel started playing and I groaned. Monday morning football broadcasts were for sports gamblers. I had already learned the hard way that I wasn’t lucky enough to gamble and it was already too late to save my fantasy football season, anyway.
I pulled out my phone and checked my fantasy stats—I was dead last. Chuck adding me to his fantasy league let me indulge in the illusion of having friends, but getting my ass kicked week after week wasn’t doing much to lift my spirits.
I couldn’t even beat Aunt Liz’s team, the “Pretty Ponies,” and I was damn sure she picked her players at random!
A sigh left my lips as my eyes settled on the TV. I had three days until the next football game, so what else did I have to do other than watch the panel?
I tossed the remote aside and took another sip of my drink. Titus settled on the floor near my feet.
“I’m telling you, Lindsay has no chance!” Lamont Odell emphasized to the other panelists. “Their win against Rocky Mountain College was solid, but their defense is too spotty for Plains State.”
Come on, Lamont. You haven’t been in the game for two decades. What do you know?
“And we all know the most explosive running backs come from Plains State,” said Perry Switzer.
The screen flipped to an old clip of a familiar player in an orange jersey sprinting toward the endzone.
“AND HE’S GONE!” the announcer cried. “He’s gone! Like lightning from the heavens, it’s TYSOOOOON COPELAND!”
I cursed under my breath. My metal cup clinked on the granite-top end table as I slammed it down.
“Before carrying the Stallions on his back in the national championship game,” Perry said, “Plains State University recruited Copeland from small-town Elren—where he made every single touchdown in the state title game his senior year.”
My hands scrambled across the leather cushions as I searched for the remote.
Don’t need to fucking remind me about the state title game, Perry. I was there.
The front page of the Sunday paper after the fateful game flashed through my mind. Some jackass had taken a picture of me as I was slumped over in defeat, the harsh lights from Fontaine Stadium highlighting my sweat-soaked hair. The headline read: “FONTAINE III DROPS THE BALL, OILERS LOSE STATE!”
A fucking lie. I never dropped the ball…I threw interceptions, the final one costing us the game. The same reporter that said I had a golden arm when we won the semi-finals had turned on me—said it was clear my head wasn’t in the game.
Of course, the reporter could only speculate. Despite how much he had pressed me for an interview afterward, I never let anyone in Elren know where my head actually was that night.
“It really does come down to recruiting, huh, Perry?” Lamont agreed.
Yeah, and the recruiters were at the game for me, but someone else got lucky instead.
I found the remote between two cushions. Just as I turned back to the screen to change the damn channel, more footage from the Plains State national championship win flashed across the screen.
Ashley Kouba, now Ashley Copeland, was in the stands bug-eyed and screaming after Tyson scored the final touchdown. She shook the girl next to her like a bobblehead, nearly strangling her in the frenzy of her excitement.
“Win aside,” said Ryan McElroy, “that was the moment that went viral.”
Lamont chuckled. “I even used that clip in the group chat last week.”
The show played the clip over and over and I couldn’t help but smile.
The girl with her glasses falling off the end of her nose as Ashley gave her neck trauma was no random PSU student—it was Olivia Adams. The Crimson Knights had barely scraped by with a bowl win that year, but that clip had been the saving grace of an otherwise garbage season.
Olivia had been such a smug little shit in high school that I had wanted to shake her like that myself.
She had annoyed everyone when her hand would be the first to shoot up after the teacher asked a question or when she started every sentence with “Did you know…?,” but her true colors came out senior year.
After we took our semester finals before Christmas break, she had passed me in class rank after chasing it like a dog for the past three and a half years.
She could have just taken the valedictorian title and just fucked off like a normal person, but Olivia was not a normal person.
As soon as she was announced as valedictorian, she finally took off the good-girl mask and became a complete sadist.
I had kept up appearances after the…family event happened senior year, so no one could have known why my grades had suddenly slipped after years of being on top, but Olivia had sensed my pain and relished in it.
I couldn’t even receive my silver salutatorian medal in peace without her cutting me a smug glance and whispering, “You’re nothing, Beau Fontaine. ”
I wanted so badly to call her a bitch in front of the entire class, but I kept my mouth shut. The family had kept everything too quiet for me to blow up at some girl from the bad side of town.
If I hadn’t lost my cool over losing the state championship game, I sure as hell wasn’t going to lose control over Olivia Adams.
Though just because I kept quiet didn’t mean I forgave her cruelty.
A few months ago, I had been doom-scrolling through my socials when I found a video of Olivia doing a silly little twirl in a blue dress.
The insufferably uptight valedictorian was all tits and hips in that dress, so I formed a plan for my revenge as I watched the video on repeat.
I was going to get under that little blue skirt at the class reunion and humble her once and for all. Either I was going to leave her so sexually frustrated that she combusted or fuck her so thoroughly that she would beg on her hands and knees for more. And since I had chosen the latter plan…
I took out my phone and checked the direct messages of all my socials—dry as a bone.
I furrowed my brows. Nearly two months had passed and nothing? Sure, my profile picture was a photo of Titus and all I ever posted were landscapes of the ranch and a few pics of fun drinks that I had made, but Olivia could have found me if she tried.
Damn. My plan may not have gone the way I wanted, but Olivia’s black lacy thong in my dresser drawer was a fine trophy regardless.
Titus lifted his head and gave me a look.
“Absolutely not,” I replied. “I don’t care how good it would feel to humble her, that is not worth chasing.”
Though I couldn’t help but wonder how her luscious thighs would look dotted with bruises from my fingerprints…and I did miss the way her lip gloss stung the tip of my tongue.
No. I hadn’t lost control over Olivia Adams when I was young and I sure as hell wasn’t going to now.
I tossed my phone onto a nearby cushion, leaving Olivia in that dusty attic—a fitting place to store old memories and forget about them.
The cold of the steel tumbler bit my fingertips as I picked up my drink. That was all a man needed—a good drink, a good dog, and some good football. Thanksgiving week couldn’t get any better.
My phone buzzed against the leather cushion and I paused mid-sip.
After I had already heard from Chuck and my mom, I couldn’t think of who else would be texting me.
Everyone at Fontaine Energy headquarters was off for Thanksgiving break.
Aunt Liz was probably passed out drunk next to Mom on their flight.
Dad didn’t even have a cell phone anymore…
The ice clinked in my tumbler as I gently set it down. I held my breath as I picked up my phone and read the notification—a text from an unknown number with a local area code.
With a flick of my thumb across the screen, I opened the message to read:
“Hey…it’s Olivia Adams. I’m pregnant.”