10. Cassie
CASSIE
They have these really nifty inventions in LA called taxis.
I even have a contact in my phone that’s an exclusive car service, not to mention the number of assistants who would drop everything to pick me up and drop me off wherever I want on the West Coast. I have all these options, but for some reason the only ride I want to take is the one Robbie King is offering.
As I follow him out of the stadium to the parking lot, we don’t say anything.
There’s a tiny part of me that doesn’t want to remind him that I’m following him, just in case he changes his mind.
Thankfully, the walk isn’t far and it’s not long before he’s pressing the button on his keys.
I head towards the passenger side, but before I can open the door, Robbie’s one step ahead and pulling it open for me.
His scent overwhelms me, still fresh from his post-game shower.
“Thanks,” I say quietly. I don’t look at him again as he closes the door behind me, and I pretend to be looking for something in my bag to avoid watching him as he jogs around the front of the bumper and slides in next to me.
The radio springs to life as soon as he starts the engine, a sports podcast filtering through the speakers.
“Uh, where are we going?” He asks as he turns his head to check his mirrors, pulling out of the garage. I tell him my address.
“Plug it in the satnav.” He gestures to the center console, and I type it in.
I settle back in my seat and watch the city fly by. We’re still a few hours from sunset, but I’m already itching to race it, maybe take my board out if we make it back in time.
“So uh,” Robbie starts. “What did Pip mean back there about firing your stylist?”
I snort. “It’s an inside joke we like to say to each other. Sometimes my fans get a bit intense.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Most of the time they’re harmless, but once I had a DM from this girl saying “Hey hun, I just want you to know that that shade of yellow looks really bad on you so you should really fire your stylist because they hate you. Love and light xoxo.”
“Wait, really?” Robbie asks. “This was just a random person?”
“Yeah.” I lean my head against the headrest. “And the worst part was, it was my dress! I didn’t even use a stylist.”
“Ouch,” he laughs.
“Right? I sent it to Pip. We thought it was absolutely hilarious,” I laugh. “And I happen to think I look great in yellow.”
“You look great in every color.” Robbie says, shifting in his seat.
I bite my lip to stop the smile. “Well, tell that to this girl.”
“Do you get that a lot with fans?”
“Oh yeah, I don’t even post on my socials anymore.
It’s not worth it. I don’t mind when they’re listening to my music or liking my work, but sometimes they overstep and it’s just weird for everyone.They think because I offer them up a little piece of myself with every album that they’re automatically entitled to the rest of it.
It’s scary. So it’s nice to make light of it when I can.
” I love my fans and I’m so privileged to even have them, but there was a time when I couldn’t leave the house on my own or look at my phone without anxiety.
I’m past that now, and I like to think I have a slightly better handle on things.
This particular fan is lucky she hit me at a time where I found it funny rather than totally devastating.
“I get that,” Robbie says, his hands sliding on the wheel. “Probably not to the same extent, but if I play badly, the internet will let me know for sure.”
“Okay.” I turn in my seat. “Would you rather get a hundred messages telling you your playing was trash, or twenty people telling you to your face that you should never wear shorts again because they make your legs look weird?”
He laughs. “Are you saying my legs look weird in shorts?”
I can’t help but glance at his legs where they’re spread in his seat, the hem of his shorts riding up to expose most of his thigh, the muscles flexing as he moves.
I flick my hair out of my eye. “This is a hypothetical scenario, of course.”
“Of course. And in this hypothetical scenario”—he glances at me with a raised eyebrow —“do I have a stylist?”
“All you, Bert.”
“Well, I already get messages about my playing, but no one has really said anything about my fashion choices.” He considers it. “To my face anyway. So let’s go with the first one. Right, let me think of one for you.”
I bite my cheek as excitement flutters in my belly at his willingness to play along.
“Would you rather…” he muses. “Never sing a song again or never play an instrument?”
“Ugh,” I groan dramatically as I collapse further in my seat. His hypothetical question hits harder than he probably thought it would.
“What?” he laughs, turning his attention away from the road to look at me. “Did I stump you?”
“Considering I don’t know if I’ll ever do either of those two things again, it’s almost not worth answering.”
He looks at me seriously, the blue of his eyes piercing. “What does that mean?”
I turn away from him to stare out of the window and readjust in my seat, uncomfortable for the first time since I climbed in his car. “It’s just…” I trail off. “I haven’t written any new music in months,” I confess in a rush.
“Okay,” he says slowly. “And is that not normal for you?”
“Kind of,” I shrug. “It’s not like I spend every day of my life writing, but I usually have these phases where I have so much rolling under my skin that needs to be let out somehow.
But recently it’s been…” I lift my hair in my hands and use the weight of my head against the headrest to keep it in place. “Harder, I guess.”
“And this is stressing you out?”
I nod, unable to force the words out. I don’t mention that the consistent networking and attending the Rebels games is also goddamn exhausting.
It’s not even just the one day a week, it’s the meetings with sponsors, the networking with donors and then my mother’s demands that I spend an equal amount of time with her, but of course that can only happen on the East Coast, so then I’m spending an inordinate amount of time in airports and on airplanes, thinking too much about hats and sunglasses and keeping my head down so I don’t get harassed by well-meaning fans who want to judge me by my baggy sweatshirt, which might not be the most flattering on my skin tone.
And then when I finally feel like I have a second to sit at a piano or pick up my guitar, knowing this is my only time I have to actually do it, I just end up accidentally playing the melody to a song I already put on my last album. Exhausting.
“I just…” I trail off, gently running my finger over the leather armrest in between us, tracing the rough material of the seam with the pad of my finger.
He gently nudges my arm with his elbow as he rests it on his armrest. “You just what?”
“I feel like I’m letting people down,” I whisper.
“It’s not letting people down to take a break, Cassie,” Robbie tells me, the earnest look in his eye as he tries to catch mine so intense, I have to glance out the window. “Besides, it’s just temporary right? It’s not like you’re never going to write again.”
I groan playfully. “Tell that to my brain.”
“Come on, give yourself some credit.” He brushes my knee with the back of his hand, almost like he wants to rest his palm on it and squeeze. He returns his hand to the wheel as quickly as he approached me. “Maybe you’ve just got to give yourself an opportunity to get inspired again.”
I take in his side profile, one arm on the wheel and the other resting on the center console.
His arms are tanned and corded with muscle, and a light stubble dusts his strong jaw.
A strand of hair curls across his forehead, and I almost want to brush it away with my hands.
Like he senses me looking, he turns and catches me.
The shy smile he shoots me causes my belly to flutter, and I think there might still be some things to get inspired by.
In no time at all, we pull into my driveway, the car idling to a halt near my front door. I click my seatbelt, but I don’t make any move to leave.
“So, what do you do normally after a game?” I ask.
Robbie leans back in his seat, his hands coming to rest on his thighs, his watch glinting at me from the end of his veiny forearms. “It depends,” he sighs. “I used to spend time with my teammates, but now I mostly just go home, get on the bike.”
“The bike?”
He nods. “Yeah, I’ve got an exercise bike set up in the basement.”
It’s not like I can talk. I have a fully functioning gym in my basement, but unless I’m being forced to work out by a trainer or Pip when she wants to do pilates, I keep the door shut.
Performing on stage is a full workout anyway, and the last thing I’d want to do after I get home is work out more. “And how far do you go on the bike?”
“Twenty miles or so.”
I gape at him. “Sorry, so you play for ninety minutes, essentially doing a high intensity workout and pushing your body to the limit, and then you go home and do more exercise?”
He runs his hand through his hair. “Well yeah, I have to maintain a certain level of fitness.”
“Your level is already pretty good, I’d say.”
“I don’t always cycle. Sometimes I run.”
“That’s insane,” I say, reeling. “That’s basically a triathlon. Aren’t you coming back from an injury?”
Robbie glances out the windscreen. “What are you, my PT?”
“Do you have a PT?”
He nods stiffly.
“And what do they think about you doing all this extra exercise?”
He looks at me perplexed. “Sorry, are you saying I work out too much?”
I nod. “You literally just told me that you do a workout after your job, working out.”
“I’m an athlete, Cassie, it’s almost like it’s part of the job description.”
“Do you enjoy it?” There have definitely been times that I’ve come home after a long day and gone straight to my surfboard, but that’s because I love it. Because there’s literally nothing else I’d rather do. I’m only limited by the tide and the weather and even then I don’t really care.
“I enjoy football.”
“And the bike?”
Robbie shrugs exasperatedly. “I don’t know Cassie, do you enjoy brushing your teeth? Some things you just do.”
“So what do you do for fun?”
“Football.”
I bark an incredulous laugh. “Okay, are you messing with me now?”
“What?” His eyebrows scrunch. “I’m so lost.”
This man is so frustrating. One minute he’s snapping at me and telling me to leave him alone and the next he’s offering me a ride.
Then he’s telling me I have good style and can do with being inspired, but as soon as I try to get to know him, he shuts me down.
There’s no way that all he does is soccer.
Is he allergic to fun? The man literally just compared it to brushing his teeth.
“Okay.” I try a new tack, considering the last one got me nowhere.
“What do you do to escape? To get away from it.” I gesture with my hands as if I can encompass the endless pressure and training and schedules into a ball in the air.
Robbie squints at me like I just asked him why he puts his socks on before his shoes.
“Actually, forget it.” Frustration boils in my chest and I put my sunglasses over my eyes with a huff.
“I have many better things to enjoy in my life than watch a man be bored to death.”
With that, I hop out of the car and storm to my front door, not waiting to hear his car drive him back to his boring life.
I fumble with my keys, but I don’t hear the telltale sign of an engine roaring off.
I can sense his car lingering behind me and glance back to check.
He doesn’t have family over here, and as far as I can tell he doesn’t have many friends either.
He won his game today and he’s going to celebrate at home by himself.
The lock clicks under my hands, but just before I step over the threshold, I spin on my heels and march back towards the car.
I yank the car door open. Robbie turns in his seat, his arm resting over the wheel and his eyes on mine.
“Forget something?”
“Come on.” I gesture at him to climb out.
His eyebrows scrunch in confusion.
“Get out the car, Bert.”
His hand drops to the seatbelt and in a matter of seconds he’s rounding the car without even a single follow up question.
I don’t wait for him before turning and heading back into the house.