22. Brent
Brent
People use the expression ‘seeing red’ for a reason, but I’m not sure why that is. Right now, I’m seeing black spots on the edges of my vision, as though my brain is in danger of short circuiting.
Without waiting for an explanation, I grab Chet by the neck of his shirt and shove him farther away from her.
“What the fuck were you doing?” His soaked shirt, her half-empty drink, and him clutching his balls are three red flags too many.
“Relax, Faulkner,” he says. “It’s not like you’re the only guy to park his Ferrari in her garage.”
“Ferrari?” Posey laughs. “In your case it was more like a Mini Cooper. Is it in yet? Are you sure?”
“Fuck off,” Chet says with a sneer.
I shove him again, and Posey grabs my arm and drags me away from him.
One more word out of him, and we’d have come to blows.
My chest is hot, and as soon as we’re out in the cool November air, I suck in deep breaths trying to get whatever this feeling is under control.
With Val, I got jealous, but she did it on purpose, and I understood how to play her games.
I might not have liked them, but I understood them.
The green-eyed monster is familiar to me, but this sensation creeping across my chest and surging through my limbs isn’t that.
It’s a form of anger I’ve never felt before.
“God, Brent,” she says, and her breath forms a cloud in the air. “What is your problem? I was handling it.”
“My problem? When some asshole makes my girlfriend so uncomfortable she resorts to a sack shot, I’m allowed to care.”
She tilts her head at me. Fake girlfriend or not, if I didn’t step in to put Chet in his place, one of the other superstar athletes in there should have. The escalation from drink in his face to a kick in the nuts didn’t have to happen.
“Why are you staring at me like I’m dense? Are you still sleeping with him? Were you two having a lovers’ tiff?” I cross my arms over my bulky winter jacket.
“Are you accusing me of something?” Posey draws herself up to her full height.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Does that feel like an accusation?”
“Definitely feels like a loaded question.”
Two, actually. But they both amount to the same thing. “Are you still sleeping with him?”
She mirrors my crossed-arm pose but she’s not wearing a jacket. I wonder how much she’s had to drink that her coat of alcohol seems to be protecting her from the late November chill. She works her jaw as though she’s considering her answer. “What if I was?”
“I deserve to know,” I say. Other students stream into the house from the path a little way from where we’re arguing on the grass.
“Do I need to remind you that I’m doing you a favor?”
“You just did.” I shove my hands into my pockets. “Are you sleeping with anyone other than me?”
“We never said this was exclusive.”
“When I didn’t pick up last night, did you call someone else?”
“We’re not having this conversation.” Posey wags a finger at me.
“We’re in a fake relationship. An exchange of goods and services.
I service your dick. You service my pussy, and I get lattes too.
That’s it.” She makes a swirling motion with her hand.
“Whatever this is—jealousy or possessiveness—can be stored away for someone else. I don’t want it. ”
“That’s not what this is,” I say when she tries to walk past me.
“Explain it then.” Her glare is defiant.
“I don’t know. But it’s not that,” I say. The other emotions I recognize in myself, but the blind rage I experienced when I realized Chet had made Posey uncomfortable enough she resorted to violence is new. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? It’s just that...” I care.
“You should really get a handle on those feelings,” Posey calls over her shoulder as she heads toward the door. “Or your next girlfriend will be able to manipulate you just like Val did.”
A ball lodges itself at the base of my throat at her words. When she goes back into the house, I stand outside debating my options. Go home or go back inside. If Posey wants me to pretend like I don’t give a shit about her, I can do that.
Fuck it.
Striding back into the house, I deposit my coat on a chair close to the door, and I head to the kitchen for a beer. When I glance around for some sort of tip jar like the swim team has, Deacon claps me on the back.
“Keep your money. We get one party a year funded by Malcolm Durrant. You’re at it.”
“Must be nice,” I say, and I take a swig.
“Maybe we should be doing shots. Surprised you didn’t come back in here after Chet again.” Deacon grabs shot glasses from the counter and holds them up to the light.
“Posey can do whatever the fuck she wants,” I mutter.
“You’re right. Posey will do whatever the fuck she wants.” He takes down the tequila from a cabinet above the oversized fridge.
I shake my head and gulp back my beer before setting my empty on the island. The rest of the party is buzzing around us. The house keeps getting fuller, and I’m surprised no one streaming into the house stopped to gawk at my domestic with Posey outside.
“For what it’s worth, I was making my way through the crowd to intervene when you showed up.”
I wave him off. “I don’t even know what the fuck I’m doing. What am I doing, Deacon? What am I doing?”
He slides a shot of tequila across the granite countertop. “Falling in love with Posey Jensen?”
I stare into the clear liquid. Falling in love with Posey Jensen.
Seems impossible. It’s been a week. Who falls in love in a week?
Whatever I felt when I saw the result of Chet pressuring her, it wasn’t normal.
Val and I were together for over a year, and I never felt anything close to the desperate rage that seized me at the realization he might have hurt her.
“I have two more Olympic runs before I can fall in love with anyone.” I hold out my glass for a refill. “You and Destiny can’t be serious with her being drafted to the WNBA.”
“Not serious? Man, what gave you that impression? This is our last year here, and then I’m following her wherever she goes. We’re going to be the power couple of the WNBA. I’m going to run her brand like a champ.”
“You sound like Val.” I hold out my shot glass for a third. Beer I can handle fine, but hard liquor goes to my head a bit faster. “Brand, brand, the fucking brand.”
Deacon chuckles. “Don’t hold back.” He pours himself some tequila and raises it toward his lips. “You could build an empire off your swimming accomplishments already. Two more appearances and you might be revered as a god.”
I roll the shot glass between my hands before sending it sailing toward him across the granite.
“To do that, I can’t get distracted.” I glance over my shoulder to where Posey has gravitated to a group of women and is laughing like we didn’t get in a fight outside.
“Can’t get swept up in unnecessary drama.
In six years, I can do whatever I want.”
“She’s not going to be around in six years. I can guarantee that. She might be a tough nut to crack, but someone is definitely going to think she’s worth the effort. No doubt about it.” Deacon drops our shot glasses into the cluttered sink.
A tight band twists around my chest, and I stretch my arms toward the ceiling in a bid to dislodge it. Must have pulled a muscle.
He perks up at something happening behind me, and he grins. “Destiny waits for no man.” Then he steps around the island, and I turn to see him loop his lanky arm over his girlfriend’s shoulders, and she squeezes him tight.
Posey is standing beside her. There’s a looseness to how she’s standing that tells me the alcohol is getting to her. When our gazes connect, her brown eyes are lit with a familiar desire, as though she could melt into me with very little effort.
Instead of going to her, I head to the chair near the front door that my coat is draped across. She didn’t answer my question about any other guys she might still be seeing, and she got irrationally angry with me for defending her.
Drama. It’s the last fucking thing I need.
Twice I’ve turned Val’s advances down with Posey nowhere in sight. This fake dating idea is a crutch I no longer need. Cut it off. Cut her out. Someone else can try to crack the tough outer shell she’s cultivated to keep men out. I don’t have time for that shit.
I open the front door, and I leave the party without looking back.
The next morning, I expect a text or phone message from Posey, but there’s nothing.
Sundays start with dryland training, and the whole time I’m there, all I can think about is Posey.
Though drunk me decided last night that ending this fake relationship was the right course of action—Val isn’t a legitimate temptation—sober me is struggling to hold the line.
Ever since I woke up, thoughts of Posey circle and swirl.
Either way, I have to see her after practice to deliver her latte.
Then I need to man up and tell her I am no longer in need of her services as a fake girlfriend.
No matter what Val dangles in front of me, I don’t want to be with her, and I’m even more sure of that after this week.
Other than her deep aversion to anything resembling real feelings or commitment, Posey has been incredibly easy to be around.
Despite what Posey believes and what I let myself buy into with Val, relationships might be better when there’s more than desire between two people.
Other than good sex, Val and I had very little in common.
And I’m not sure Posey and I have more in common, but we’re more compatible.
Coach Brown appears at my shoulder when I screw up another set of reps. “You feeling okay today, Faulkner? I’ve never seen you have so much trouble counting to twenty before.”
I do another two biceps curls because I have, in fact, lost count again. My brain isn’t functioning on a high level. “I was out last night,” I say. “Bit tired today.”
“You went out?” Coach’s eyebrows rise. “Ethan told me you went to Jessica’s for drinks after practice the other night too.”
For a guy who enjoys his rebel image, Ethan is also a fan of being in the coach’s back pocket with team gossip.
I wonder if Coach Brown knows Ethan is salivating over Jessica.
I glance over to where Ethan is leaned against a machine while Jessica does chest presses.
Now that I know about the attraction between them, it’s obvious.
Posey’s good-girl and bad-boy spin on their attraction also makes sense now.
I really have been living in my own bubble for far too long.
I grab a heavy weight for my triceps extensions.
“You know how I feel. All work and zero play makes for a burned-out Brent. We’ve got six more years for you to hit your goal.”
Although that’s true, I prefer to take the days one at a time. If I constantly dwelled on how long I’ll need to be doing a similar rigorous schedule, I might very well burn out. Instead, if I focus on each day’s practices, I don’t have to contemplate my life a year or two or six from now.
Nothing I want more than crushing Phelps’s records. While Posey and Coach Brown might have a point about giving myself more balance, I won’t allow anything or anyone to distract me from my bigger goal. Some fake relationship with a girl I met a week ago shouldn’t even be registering on my radar.
When I realize I’ve lost count again, I curse under my breath. I start from one, and this time I count every rep with precision.
A sassy, brown-haired, brown-eyed woman will not get the best of me. Deliver her drink, cancel our fake relationship, and be well rested with a renewed focus for evening practice. Maybe then this tightness across my chest won’t bother me so much.