by P. Dangelico
“Nuh huh, keep me out of this.”
“Because it makes you look like Mr. Rogers. Okay. There, I said it. Now take it off.”
I button my worn Levi’s, grab my Yankees hat, and make my way there. Inside Dora’s room, I find Blake with her lips curled around her teeth, a burst of laughter imminent, while Zoe stares into Dora’s closet like she’s staring into the bowels of hell.
“Khakis. It’s all khakis. Button-downs and khakis,” she mutters.
“I don’t like to think about w-what I’m wearing.” Dora shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot, her cheeks flushing pink.
“Clearly.” Zoe looks down at the bottom of the closet. “Are those actual pennies in your penny loafers?”
Dora chews on her lips but the corners of her mouth are already lifting. “Umm, maybe.”
Zoe throws up her hands. “This wardrobe has officially put me in a sad coma.”
Half an hour and three wardrobe changes later, my crutches earn us seats in the first row of the bleachers around the outdoor pool.
The stadium is packed with screaming fans, a highly disproportionate percentage of them female. I’d have to be blindfolded not to notice––and wearing noise-canceling headphones to safeguard my ears from all the trash talk around me.
“I’d do him,” one snickers.
“I’d do all of them at once,” the other serves back.
Next to me, Dora makes a face and squirms. The tight designer magenta top and white shorts she’s wearing are not hers. Quite frankly, watching Zoe harass Dora into borrowing her clothes––in which she looks amazing––was worth the price of having to sit under the blazing sun for an hour.
As soon as we get settled, I go through my routine: adjust my Yankees ball cap low over my eyes, fish the SPF out of my messenger bag that’s tucked against my Leica D-Lux, and slather it over my arms and thighs.
Zoe squeezes her skinny ass in between me and Dora and announces, “One game and you’ll be a fan for life.”
“I’ll keep an open mind,” I reply dryly, but the truth is I’m already having a blast and the game hasn’t even begun yet. I’ve never had a group of girls to hang out with and damn if it isn’t underrated. I haven’t had this much fun in forever.
“I love that you think I’m exaggerating right now,” Zoe continues, bouncing in her seat. Her giddy delight is starting to rub off on me. “Wait till you see all the tan, wet muscles. All the touching and ass grabbing that goes on.”
“What are the r-rules?”
“Similar to basketball.”
When neither Dora nor I respond, Zoe rolls her eyes. “Okay, here are the basics: six on six plus the two goalies. You can move the ball by dribbling it, which in water polo means swimming with it in front, or they can one-hand pass it forward, sideways, and backward. You get thirty seconds to score. You can’t foul by taking someone under, or the ball, but shit happens underwater all the time.”
“I’m getting the impression you’ve attended a few of these?”
Zoe blushes. Actually blushes, something I never thought to witness. “Only the goalie can touch the bottom. The rest have to tread water for four quarters, which are each eight minutes long. And most of the time they last even longer.”
Both teams file out of the aquatics building and with the way the crowd goes wild you would think we’re at a One Direction reunion concert.
Among the rabid fan base are Zoe and Blake who raise their arms and shout at the top of their lungs, “Go Sharks!” Then they smash together to take a couple of selfies. When they try to wrangle me and Dora into taking one with them, I steal the iPhone out of Zoe’s hand and snap away. I’m an introvert. There’s a reason I live behind the camera and not in front of it.
In the meantime, the teams go to their respective benches and start divesting themselves of their clothing. Some of the guys are wearing rip-away track pants and each time a pair comes off the girls around us scream. If I had any doubt whether this was by design, watching the guys smile broadly answers that question.
“Was I right? Am I right?” Zoe squawks over the ruckus, a perfect grin prying her bee-stung lips apart. Her mad enthusiasm has me grinning from ear to ear.
My eyes move to the home bench of their own volition, taking cursory stock of each and every player until they reach the last one. Reagan’s head comes up and our eyes lock. For a moment I’m trapped in that gaze, unable to move a muscle as some heavy-duty vibes fly between us. Well, this is inconvenient.
A knowing grin cuts his face in two and I’m jolted out of my trance, my gaze flitting sideways, finding something else to stare at. I’m a coward. I fully admit it. Those go-green eyes have the power to pluck every thought from my head and seeing as some of those thoughts involve him I’d rather keep them to myself.
One by one, the guys jump in the water. Reagan is last. I catch sight of the body Zoe was raving about and holy hell I really need to give the girl some credit. He’s a diamond, cut to exacting precision. Broad shoulders, a powerful chest smattered with hair that tapers down to a set of cobbled abs, narrow hips, and muscular thighs. My entire body bursts into flames and it has nothing to do with the blazing SoCal sun.
The players begin swimming warm-up laps, raw power cutting through the water with grace. The screams reach an eardrum-shattering level.
The camera comes out. I hold it up, snap away indiscriminately. Some of my favorite shots have been happy accidents and between the colors and all the kinetic energy this moment is rich with possibilities. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this but you’re right,” I begrudgingly admit.
“Of course, I’m right.” Zoe grins, full of herself.
“Look at Red––” Blake snickers and hooks a thumb at Dora whose eyes are pinned wide open. “She’s in a trance. Can’t even answer. Red––”
Leaning over, Zoe snaps her fingers in Dora’s face. Dora swats her hand away and laughter breaks out. “Red, are you breathing? Do you need CPR?”
“Beat on her chest, Zo,” Blake yells.
“Those swim trunks are s-small,” Dora mumbles.
“And tight,” Blake adds, her sculpted eyebrows waggling.
“No Jiffy P-Pop,” Dora adds.
“Like the popcorn?” I query, confusion stamped on my face as I picture the tin pans my dad used to use to make popcorn on movie night when I was a kid.
Dora flushes red to the roots of her long auburn hair. “You know…” She chews on her lips, eating away all the gloss. “When you have too m-much hair down there and the suit…”
A dry burst of laughter rips out of me. The ability to visualize in high definition can be a curse sometimes. “Ohhhhh.”
“Some of them shave their entire bodies,” Zoe remarks with an expression of maniacal reverence. The image this elicits instantly floods my face with heat.
Reagan’s silky-smooth junk.
Eyeballing me, Zoe snickers. “You’re picturing it, aren’t you? I know you are. Don’t bother denying it, you filthy animal. I can see it on your face.”
Which makes me laugh, overriding any embarrassment.
“I guess I-I’m filthy too, then.”
“Ramos––” Zoe holds up a palm and Dora high-fives her. “Welcome to the club.”
Reagan
As soon as the buzzer sounds, I jump out of the pool and head to the bench to towel off with the sonic boom of the cheering crowd trailing after me. I am bone-tired. The goal I scored plus Warner’s and Dall’s led us to beat Cal by two. Part of the reason may or may not have been that I played with a little more motivation than usual.
Alice Bailey.
I never expected to see her at one of my games. Not today, not ever. She doesn’t strike me as the type to enjoy athletic competitions of any sort. And yet what did I find as I absently scanned the crowd? The girl who’s been keeping me up at nights sitting in the first row of the bleachers with a Yankees ball cap pulled low over her eyes, and those long bare legs stretched out before her. Nice try wi
th the hat, but I’d recognized that face anywhere.
I’m having a hard time closing my eyes at night without her flashing dark eyes and heart-shaped ass invading my personal headspace. Which is a major fucking inconvenience since there’s no way I can scratch that itch. If I don’t find a distraction soon, my dick will go on strike.
I’m in the midst of throwing on a t-shirt and shorts when a commotion at the opposite end of the pool gets my attention. The crowd is slow in leaving the stadium, the usual Speedo chasers hanging around waiting for the guys to leave the aquatics building. A group of people part and a guy stumbles through. My lungs arrest. I can’t draw a single breath because it’s not just any guy––it’s my brother.
He stumbles around in a state of anxious confusion while I’m frozen, rooted to the cement beneath me in shock. My hands shake from an adrenaline rush, the only sign that I can still move my limbs. I can’t tear my eyes away from him. His t-shirt, torn and stained. His jeans, worn-out and filthy, look ready to fall off his hips. He’s shoeless and dirty and thinner than I’ve ever seen him.
I haven’t seen Brian in three months and not for lack of trying. I’ve been chasing him all over the damn city. I’ve got people I’ve developed relationships with, some I pay to call me if they spot him. And according to them they hadn’t seen him either lately. Which was making me think the worst had happened. It’s always there, the fear, lurking in the back of my mind.
“Rea…” Dallas murmurs from somewhere behind me. Every set of eyes left in the stadium is staring at him. At my brother the junkie.
“I know,” I tell him. He’s got my back if I need him but this is my burden to carry. Snapping out of a daze, I make my way over to him, taking with me all the attention in the stadium. Of the spectators. The Speedo chasers still here hoping for a chance to talk to me. The coaching staff. It’s about as comfortable as getting a tooth drilled without Novocain.
Brian staggers past them, and on cue the glares and sneers start. His blue eyes are wild as he searches for me amongst the crowd. Hushed whispers and giggles build into open ridicule.
“Who’s that?”
“Gross.”
“Oh, God. He smells.”
“Total junkie.”
“Crack kills.”
“Lay off the bath salts, dude.”
It no longer upsets me the way it used to when I was in high school. I’ve learned to tune them out––the haters. I’ve learned to stop throwing punches.
These people don’t know him. They don’t know that my older brother used to be my best friend. That he was an honor role student, a world-class swimmer, and an exceptional water polo player. Brian’s the reason I got into polo in the first place. I wanted to be just like him. Until he met Jessie and everything went to shit. These people have no idea how he got to be a junkie and yet they judge him.
“Brian.”
At the sound of my voice he glances my way and relief spreads over his face, which is looking worse for wear these days. His eyes are sunken in and skin leathery from living on the streets. Beard heavy and hair matted. Twenty-four going on a hundred and five.
“Rea––Rea, I need money, man. I need it bad,” he says talking fast. He fidgets with his hands, alternating between running them through his matted brown hair and stuffing them in his front pockets. He shifts on his feet. Pupils blown out.
I’m not surprised that he’s high. I’m only surprised at how gut-wrenchingly painful it still is to see him like this. After all these years you would think I would’ve grown accustomed to it.
“Okay, Bri. Come with me and we’ll talk.”
“I need the money,” he insists, his eyes nervously shifting around. Never landing on anything or anyone for too long.
I go to grab him and my hand swallows up his bicep, my fingers completely curling around his arm. It’s another stab of pain. A gut check. This time it’s coupled with the knowledge that time is running out. That I may not be able to save him from what is starting to look like the inevitable.
I lead him away from the pool, toward the back of the aquatics building where my Jeep is parked. The collective attention of the crowd follows us until we’re out of sight, the feeling palpable.
Brian comes reluctantly, mumbling that he needs money, while I keep reassuring him that I have some in the car. I need to get him back to my house and fed. Maybe with a little luck cleaned up…if he’ll let me.
“Come home with me and you can have something to eat. Maybe take a shower. I’ll give you my clothes…”
He shakes his head and scratches his neck. He’s twitching, in need of a fix. “I got people waiting. Maybe next time.”
I can’t keep the fear out of my eyes. I know it’s there as blatantly as I know he doesn’t see it. “Brian, c’mon, man. Do it for me. I’m worried about you.”
He shakes his head fast, gaze cast on the asphalt. He always hated disappointing me when we were kids. Not everything’s changed. “You look like shit. I’m saying this because I’m scared you’re going to end up like Jessie.” My throat feels thick, swollen with the feeling of helplessness that comes up every time I talk to him.
At the mention of his dead girlfriend his eyes lift and come to life.
“I live in a constant fucking state of fear that I’m going to get a phone call. Don’t do that to me, bro.”
His face cracks into an awkward smile and I almost find him in there, the brother he was before all this got started.
“I’m…I’m begging you to try rehab one last time.”
“Nah. Nah, man,” he says, shaking his head really fast and shifting from foot to foot. I look down and notice a deep laceration on his left foot.
“Just one last time. One more chance and I’ll never ask again.”
“You got the money? I need the money, little brother.”
He won’t even make eye contact. He’s already shut me out. More of the same. This is how it always goes with him. Depressing as shit.
Reaching into the back seat of the Jeep, I pull out a pair of brand-new, limited edition Nikes and hand them over. “Put these on first…and you need to have that cut looked at. It’s going to get infected.”
Brian quickly drops to the hard ground and jams his dirty, bleeding feet into the shiny, new kicks. Once he’s done tying them, he stands and holds out his dry cracked palm. I pull out two fifty-dollar bills and hold them up.
“Do not sell those kicks. Call me if you need anything.”
He nods. His blue eyes flicker to me and away, to the horizon. I place the bills in his palm and he crumbles them up, stuffs them in the front pocket of his jeans.
“Reynolds––everything alright?” Coach Becker’s voice breaks into our quiet moment.
“Yes, sir.”
I glance behind me for a split second and that’s all it takes for Brian to make a run for it. He’s wired, hopped up on meth, and after playing a tough game, I’m exhausted. I take off after him, booking down the grassy hill, but he easily leaves me in the dust. I watch him disappear down the rolling lawn that abuts the highway.
“Brian!” I yell. I don’t know why. All the screaming in the world hasn’t gotten through to him yet. I should know better by now.
Chapter 10
Alice
“Which one of you two wants to be designated driver?” Zoe asks me and Dora as we pour out of her car.
Dora and I exchange a look that says you do it and not because either of us was planning to get wasted tonight but because neither of us want to be responsible for driving a car that costs close to four years of our college tuition.
I glance at Blake and she raises her wrist and jangles her gold medical bracelet. “I don’t drive.”
“I’ll do it,” Dora pipes up and I breathe a sigh of relief.
Music can be heard over the busy traffic racing up and down Pacific Coast Highway. A heavy bass pours out of the house and fills the air around us, making my blood hum. Cars are parallel parked up and down the street, sign
aling the party is well underway.
Zoe insisted we come to this party. Insisted is putting it lightly; she practically dragged Dora and me by the hair and threw us into the car.
The only reason I’m here is because of what I witnessed at the end of the water polo game. One minute I’m laughing with the girls, having a great time, and the next I’m fighting tears. Because the look on his face, of utter devastation when he saw his brother standing at the side of the pool surrounded by people mocking him…that look split my chest wide open and ripped my heart out.
I’m worried. I know I shouldn’t be––he’s not mine to worry over. We barely know each other––and yet I can’t seem to stop.
Walking down the narrow street, we pass house after house crammed together side by side and hidden behind security walls. Each one bigger than the next.
We finally reach our destination and it’s not a house. It’s a freaking mansion––on the beach. Light pours out of every floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the road. People smoking loiter on the front steps. A group I recognize mill about the small patch of front lawn.
“Stop gawking. It’s only a house,” Zoe commands. Easy for her to say. She’s been around this all her life.
Blake pats my arm and smiles softly. “You’ll get used to it.”
“Doubt it,” I tell her as we file into the jam-packed foyer after Zoe.
“W-what’s that smell?” Dora demands to know, her face twisting in a disgusted grimace.
Zoe’s feet halt in their tracks. She glances over her shoulder with an expression of utter shock. “You can’t be serious?” Her face changes from dubious to confused. “Can you?”
“It s-stinks. I think someone got sprayed by a s-skunk. What’s there to joke about?”
“Were you raised in a time capsule from the eighteen hundreds? It’s pot, Ramos. You’ve never smelled pot before?”
Dora’s eyes practically bug out of her head and she swiftly pivots on her borrowed heels and turns to leave. Not fast enough, however. Catching her by the shoulders, Zoe stops her before she can make it down the front steps.