Chapter 4 – Trevor #2
"You, asshat, are going to lay low. Lay off the hookups.
From now on, you are a Boy Scout. You're going to find a sweeter than pie girl, and make her your girlfriend.
And I mean the kind of girlfriend that's going to pretend to have been your girlfriend for the last couple of months.
It's one thing when you're in the league to fuck around.
It's another thing when your big brother has a reputation for being a bad boy. "
I fell back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. The light from the streetlamp outside cut a line across the plaster.
"But why me?"
"Because, the faster you distance yourself the better for your career."
Once again, I was a casualty to my brother.
I stood up and paced again, phone pressed to my ear.
Trevor had gone to the Bruins two years ago.
And he was as skilled as dad and as pretty as Uncle Ransom.
He had earned himself a reputation and quick.
Problem was, he'd also gotten himself in a lot of trouble.
Couple of paternity suits. One that stuck, one that didn't. One woman who swore she was his wife.
Granted, that wasn't his fault, it was just a stalker situation.
He was a mess. And he was in the papers more often than not.
I stopped pacing and leaned my forehead against the cool wall.
"Fucking Trevor."
"That's right. Fucking Trevor. So, before some general manager decides that you're not worth the trouble, you're going to show that you are different from your brother. Do you understand me?"
I sighed. "Fuck. Fucking Trevor."
"Dude, tell me you understand. If you, in fact, have a girlfriend, or can find one post-haste, dude, we need to do a PR push.
Some cute shit. Where you look adorable.
And she can't be obvious, either. No big tits or big hair, big, pouty lips that look like she's good at sucking someone off.
A normal girl. Pretty, beautiful, even, but we need one that doesn't look like a stripper. Can you make that happen?"
Oh sure, Aaron. Let me just pull a fake girlfriend out of my ass at a frat party.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and sat back down on the edge of the bed. What the fuck was I going to do? Playing monk for the foreseeable future? And puck bunnies were everywhere.
"Where the fuck am I supposed to find a girl from?"
"Aren't you on a college campus? Pick one. Someone nice and nerdy. Like one of those 'she'd be cute without glasses' kind of girls."
"You know that's not real, right?"
"Doesn't matter. Find one like that. Let me know by tomorrow. We can get some great B-roll of you."
"You're dead serious?"
"As a heart attack."
The line went dead. I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at the screen until it went dark. The call had lasted six minutes. Six minutes to blow up my entire semester.
Six minutes. One call. Classic.
You already know who you’d pick. You’ve always known.
And the only girl I could think of was one who hated me.
Fantastic. Really nailing the life choices, Coulter.
Meanwhile I was up here trying to figure out how to fake a whole relationship because my brother couldn't keep his dick out of the Deputy Commissioner's daughter.
I moved to my window, pressing my forehead against the cool glass.
Outside, the party was thinning out. Below, Waylon walked the perimeter like he always did — confiscating keys from drunk freshmen, making sure the girls who’d had too much had rides, calling an Uber for the kid from the track team who’d passed out by the pool table. He joked the whole time.
We called it “Way Patrol.” The guys thought it was funny.
Nobody asked why he did it. Nobody asked why he was always the last one at the party and the first one up in the morning, or why his room was the only one on the hall with the light still on at 3 a.m. Through the branches of the oak tree, I could just make out the sidewalk where people were leaving.
For a split second, I caught a glimpse of braids and that leather skirt disappearing into the night.
The streetlight caught the brown of her skin and then she was gone.
My chest did that thing again. The cracking thing. I really needed to stop letting it do that.
Lena. Always Lena.
The twelve-tap ritual I performed before every game had started because of her.
She'd been at my first high school match, and I'd tapped the post twelve times.
Once for each letter in her name. It had brought me luck, and I'd never stopped, even when she'd started dating Trevor, even when she'd started hating me.
Some superstitions run too deep to break.
I turned away from the window, Aaron's words ringing in my ears.
I sat back down on the bed and ran both hands through my hair.
My gaze landed on the dog-eared copy of Kindred on my shelf.
Lena's handwriting in the margins. I'd picked it up once, a few months ago, flipped to a random page and found her neat cursive crowding every margin.
Something about the careful loops of her letters had made my chest hurt so bad I'd shoved it back on the shelf and gone for a run.
Pathetic. Undone by a girl’s handwriting.
The thought should have been laughable. She'd sooner set me on fire than help me. But the more I considered it, a plan started to form. Lena was perfect. She knew the world of athlete families, she was beautiful without being showy, and she already hated me. No risk of messy feelings there.
And maybe, just maybe, this would give me the chance to explain what really happened with Trevor. To set things right.
Or maybe she chooses to cut your balls off.
Could go either way.