Chapter 16
TJ
Istep out of the locker room showers and saunter over to my cubby.
What started out as me forgetting my towel one time has turned into a tradition.
This far into the season—and since I’ve been doing this for two years now—I’m not about to change things.
In the words of Michael Scott, football players may not be superstitious, but we are a little stitious.
“Dude, put a towel on,” Poe grumbles, holding up a hand to cover his face.
I smirk. That’s exactly how Poe always responds.
It makes me feel like we’re firing on all cylinders ahead of our game in Buffalo this weekend.
We haven’t been as dominant this season as we were during our Super Bowl run last season, but we’re playing scrappy, and I like our chances.
We’re gelling like usual in the locker room, and if I have to walk around naked to keep things status quo, it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
“Everything is better when I let myself air dry,” I quip.
“Better for who?” Poe mutters, and I chuckle.
I start putting myself back together in my post-practice gear. River Foxes sweatshirt. Gray sweatpants. I pull on my socks, humming a song I can’t get out of my head. I realize it’s “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo” when a throat clears behind me. I look over my shoulder to see Anton holding up his cell phone.
“Why is Rose telling me to ask you about Lucy Dupree?” he asks, his eyebrows arched.
I lose my balance and tip forward into the locker.
“Graceful,” Del deadpans from next to Anton when I right myself and turn toward them.
“Care to explain?” Anton presses.
“How did she—” I press my lips together. “Curse Rose and her superspy abilities.”
Anton snorts. “Don’t curse my woman, Teej. But she does have some pretty amazing abilities.” He wiggles his eyebrows.
“Nope. Don’t want to hear anything about that.” Poe plugs his ears, and Anton grins.
“What gives?” Anton waves his phone in front of me.
I sigh, plopping down into my locker as the three of them circle up. I should have known I wouldn’t be able to keep my interactions with Lucy Dupree a secret from them for long. Honestly, it’s impressive I made it from Sunday to Thursday without someone sniffing us out.
Not that there’s anything to sniff. But these guys are the brothers I never had. We know things about each other. We share. Healthy male relationships and all that. Besides, I think it makes us better on the field since we’re so invested in each other’s well-being.
“Lucy Dupree is Cinderella,” I tell them.
Three jaws drop in unison.
Anton recovers first. “Lucy Dupree? The Lucy Dupree?”
“The one and only.”
Del lets out a low whistle. “How’d you track her down?”
“I didn’t. She found me.” I spend the next few minutes telling them about Sunday. “So we’re friends now, I guess.”
Poe frowns. “Is she as stuck-up and entitled as she was on that stage? What was that for again?”
“The People’s Picks,” Del supplies. “She really snapped.”
Anton scrolls through his phone. “I’ve got the video right here.” He spins it around, and the replay is rolling before I can say I’d rather not watch it.
I won’t admit to the guys I’ve watched it every night this week.
I told Lucy we didn’t have to talk about it, but that doesn’t mean I’m not curious.
The woman I’ve gotten to know seems so different from the woman standing on the stage in the video, off to the side of her stepmom and stepsisters as they’re accepting the award for Best Social Media Family.
I hold my breath because I know what comes next.
Another social media sibling duo charges the stage and grabs the trophy from Kait, one of the Dupree sisters.
They get into a tug-of-war. They’re screaming at each other.
The crowd is losing its mind. Lucy’s stepmom bursts into tears, and then I zone in on Lucy.
Her hands go to fists at her sides, and she strides toward the microphone.
She rips it off its stand and says, “Enough. Stop it, all of you! Right now! Would you look at yourselves? You are being childish and stupid. Don’t any of you get it?
None of this matters. None of you matter.
This is vapid and irrelevant, and you all should just get over yourselves and shut up.
Nobody cares who won this award. Or nobody should care.
Social media is not real life. It’s entertainment.
We’re all being paid way too much money to do absolutely nothing but be a distraction for the masses who are too stupid to do anything better with their time. Please, just stop all of this.”
The entire room goes silent. No one moves. The fight on the stage stalls out as everyone turns to stare at Lucy, their expressions incredulous.
Lucy’s bare shoulders heave with exertion.
Her evening gown clings to her petite figure, navy blue sequined fabric glittering in the stage light.
The camera zooms in on her, and she blinks a couple of times, like she’s coming back to herself.
Her cheeks blush a fierce red, and she sucks in a breath before squeaking out an apology into the microphone.
She drops the mic to the ground, and the feedback echoes with an unpleasant thump and screech as she sprints off the stage as fast as her high heels will allow her.
Anton presses pause on the video, and the guys stare at me.
“Well,” Del says slowly. “Is she as screechy in real life?”
I frown. “She’s not screechy at all. She’s …” I search for the right word. “Unlike anyone I’ve known before. I mean, I don’t know her that well. We only met at the gala and then had that one dinner together, but yeah. She’s something … different.”
Lucy’s bashful, with an undercurrent of self-assurance.
Like she wants to believe in herself, but checks the impulse.
She’s got a quick wit and she’s a good listener.
I noticed it in the rafters and again at the dinner table.
I’m itching to ask her about the People’s Picks, if she meant what she said, and if she regrets any or all of it.
But I get the sense Lucy is as skittish as one of the chickens in my backyard.
She doesn’t know me well enough to trust me.
I’m afraid that if I press her now, she’ll run away.
I’m biding my time, trying not to think about her, and I’m failing miserably.
I blink out of my reverie to see a smile spread across Anton’s face.
I point at him. “I don’t like that look. Whatever you’re thinking, don’t say it. She and I are friends. Friends with a capital F.”
Anton holds up his hands. “It’s nice to have friends. We’re your friends, right, fellas?”
“’Course we are,” Del says, and Poe nods.
“But we don’t have you tongue-tied and involuntarily humming ‘Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo’ like Lucy Dupree does,” he says.
“I’m not tongue-tied,” I defend. “I’m doing nothing involuntarily. I’m my own man. I have a date when we get back from Buffalo.”
“With Lucy?” Del’s eyes brighten.
“No, with a woman I met a couple months back at that mixer in downtown Milwaukee.”
They don’t need to know that I cold-texted someone because I had gone down a Lucy Dupree rabbit hole, and I was in a dangerous spot of starting to care, starting to become too invested in this enigma of a woman.
I needed to do something about it. I scrolled through my contacts, and “Amber, hot girl from the MKE mixer” seemed to be what the doctor ordered.
Anton frowns. “Another jersey chaser?”
I throw up my hands. “How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t mind when a woman appreciates my profession.”
“So you’ve said.” Anton shakes his head with dismay, but then shrugs. “That’s good, then. All good. You probably don’t care that Rose told me she ran into Lucy shopping for chili ingredients. Sounds like she’ll be at your grandparents’ place tonight.”
The hair on the back of my neck stands at attention.
As much as I’m trying not to dwell on Lucy, I add every little thing I learn about her to my mental puzzle.
I have the pieces of her I experienced at the gala.
Fearless. Fun. Flirty. The not-so-insignificant piece of information that she’s never been kissed, which, I can’t lie, I’ve thought about on more than one occasion.
Then I’ve added in what she told me when she came to the Cinderella call, about how none of that other stuff was the real her.
How she’s solitary and introverted. I mull over what this new bit of information might mean.
Either Lucy has a soft spot for chili and square dancing, or she doesn’t want to let my grandparents down.
The thought of that makes my chest feel tight. Lucy cares.
Could she potentially be going because she wants to see me?
I shake my head ever so slightly. Doubtful. When I texted her the address earlier in the week, her only response was a thumbs-up emoji. She may as well have shut the door in my face. No quicker way to end a conversation than to drop one of those in the chat.
I started to think I came on too strong. I was my usual outgoing, flirty self. She seemed into that at the gala, but I’m a lot, and I’m not for everyone. So that thumbs-up felt like she was saying thanks and leave me alone at the same time.
So I did.
But now …
“What are you waiting for?” Anton motions me toward the door. “Get over there.”
I stick up my nose and start shoving my stuff into my bag. “I was going there already to see my grandparents, thank you very much.”
“Uh-huh, and you had exactly zero percent urgency.” Del strokes his beard. “Now, you can’t wait to get out of here.”
I force myself to move more slowly.
“Don’t forget about us when you become obsessed with Lucy Dupree,” Poe goads.
I roll my eyes. “Not going to happen.”
Not because I don’t think I could. Because I do. That’s exactly why I won’t. I’m not going to get myself entangled with a woman who becomes my true north, only to have the map of my life flipped on its head.
That’s happened already, and I’ll guard my heart from it happening again until the day I die.