“Yeah, sure. You need to have it because if you can’t play, I’m going to have to go into this bloodbath. What are you going to say to the guys?”
Me? “I figured Márquez would yell for a while and save a few special comments for me. I didn’t plan to talk myself. Aren’t you going to take that job? You haven’t stopped yakking for the whole game. I thought you’d be hoarse by now.”
Rami grabbed my shoulder pad and spun me around. “Do you care? Do you care at all about winning? Or football, even?” He got right in my face, and if we were going to fight, I had a few inches and more than a few pounds on him.
“Yeah, I care,” I told him, and I realized that I did. “I never wanted to be another bust.”
“Then fucking act like it! You go talk to them. You be the fucking leader!” He shoved me back and ran ahead, and I followed a lot more slowly, slow enough that Coach Márquez yelled at me for that, too. He had a lot to say to the team and none of it was good, and then he turned my way again. He didn’t yell this time; he only asked if I was capable of more. He looked at me like…fuck, he looked at me like this was what he’d been expecting all along. Well, based on what he knew of me, what I’d shown him so far, why wouldn’t he feel that way?
“You’ll see something better in the second half,” I told him. “I am capable of more.”
He obviously didn’t believe that but shrugged and left me to go talk to a defensive coach. There were about five minutes left of halftime and Rami was lecturing the offense when I walked up next to him.
“Uh, Trevor.” The tight end stared up at me, so surprised it was almost funny.
“Yeah? How do you know my name?” he asked suspiciously.
“I just do. Good job today.” He hadn’t actually fallen over himself, like the wide receiver had.
“Really?” He got even more shocked.
“Uh, yeah. Your footwork is great. You remind me some of César Hidalgo.” This was what my brother Ben did: he said something good so you didn’t feel too much like a piece of crap before he went on to tell you what you needed to fix.
“Seriously?” the tight end said. “You played with him for the Woodsmen, right?”
“Yeah, I did,” I agreed. Then I told Trevor what needed to get done so he stopped using his footwork to run himself directly into the defensive cornerback. He seemed to listen to me and I had more to say to some other guys, too.
Rami slapped my shoulder pad as we went back onto the field. “What made you decide I was right? I didn’t think you heard anything I told you.”
“Have you been saying something?” I asked, and he slapped my pad again. “I’m here to play, ok?” And yeah, he’d been right, I supposed. Maybe he wasn’t going to light the field on fire with his skills, but he did know what he was talking about with how to lead this team.
“If you’re taking over, I don’t have to worry about going in. Or getting hoarse,” he added, but then he immediately turned to give one of the linebackers a tip about adjusting his blocking for how I moved differently in the pocket.
Rami talked even more in the second half, but I did, too. We lost, 10-41, but when we did score our single touchdown, the five or six people watching in the bleachers really cheered. One voice was louder than all the others. She yelled, “It’s a home run!”
And that felt better than a hundred thousand fans screaming my name.
Chapter 12
Kylie
“Stop looking me like that!”
I tried to make my expression less worried as I stared at Roy. He was carrying a few fifths of cheap gin up from the storage room in the basement, and I didn’t like him to have so much of a load. No, he really shouldn’t…
“I can take those,” I said casually, but then I ripped the dusty bottles out of his hands and hugged them to my chest. We’d been closed for only a few nights after I’d driven him to the hospital—he’d called and directed me to hang a “shut down due to lice outbreak among staff” above the “closed” sign in the window, lying about itchy bugs rather than admitting that he’d been sick. Like lice would have caused a shut-down when plagues of rats and spiders hadn’t, even when he’d gotten a suspicious swelling in his neck that reminded me exactly of the actual plague itself!
It was too soon for him to have reopened, because even after all this time later, he still hadn’t fully recuperesced from whatever had made us take the terrible trip to the ER. I still wasn’t sure what had happened that night, because he still hadn’t told me what was wrong with him. He wouldn’t even discuss it, just growled that I should mind my own beeswax and then stuff it in my mouth to stop the questions.
Remembering those kind words made me slam down the dirty bottles harder than necessary. “You shouldn’t be carrying that liquor!” I barked in the same tone he usually used with me. “You’re sick, even if you won’t admit to it.”
His face lost its pale/green tone when anger turned his cheeks red. “I can carry whatever I damn well please!” He pushed past me. “You’ve got your thong in a twist because your Junior Woodsman, junior boyfriend is away this weekend to go be a loser in another town.”
Yes, Kayden had an away game. No, he was not my boyfriend. “And he’s not a loser!” I told Roy. “They’re totally going to win tomorrow and he’s probably going to get watched by a bunch of scouts.” I had learned all about the scouts when Kayden and I had sat down to go over rules and vocabulary after his first game. I was now freely using football terms like “first down” and “extra point” and knowing what they meant. Generally.
Anyway, our football talk had turned into a conversation about how certain players got to enjoy locker room showers with real hot water, and fans didn’t have to sit on icy metal bleachers to watch them on the field. Scouts from the United Football Confederation were the key to this, apparently. They came to the development league games to watch guys who were good enough to move up to play “real football,” as Kayden called it. He meant, to be on teams in the league where he used to play, the big, fancy one where the guys got contracts guaranteeing loads of money and the drinks at the concession stand weren’t frozen solid.
Roy mumbled something else about a loser and I turned on him. “You’re not one to criticize Kayden,” I announced. “How many professional football games have you played in?”
He waved his hand at me in a one-finger salute and went back down the stairs to the basement muttering about pesky females, which I took as a compliment.
“Why are you carrying bottles of gin, anyway?” I called after him. “We never serve that. I didn’t even know we had it.” Cat piss beer and whiskey that burned a new path through your throat were the drinks of choice at the tavern, and maybe, every now and then, someone asked for something fancier, like a shot of Old Crow to chase the cat piss. I’d never actually seen Roy mix anything with gin.
He came huffing back up the stairs, trying not to let me see how hard he was breathing, and I grabbed the bottles from his arms again. Vodka this time, which would have been very helpful when I was trying to clean all the windows. This brand was twice as strong as the stuff they sold in spray bottles as glass cleaner. “Seriously, what’s going on?” I asked him as I stored the old booze behind the bar.
“Bachelorette party’s coming in tonight,” he told me, and made a terrible, terrible face. This time, I didn’t think that it was from physical pain.
“A bachelorette? Are you messing with me?” I asked curiously. In the time I’d worked at the tavern, we’d certainly had visitors other than our regulars. Some summer tourists had entered, maybe ordered a beer, but usually had just run out as fast as their flip flops could take them when they’d seen the other patrons and the quality of what was on tap. Locals came in sometimes, probably out of a need to spice up their lives with some filth, rather than for the quality of the alcohol. But a bachelorette party? Seriously? “A bachelorette party?” I repeated out loud. “Seriously?”
“Some broad called and asked what the surcharge would be
to hold tables for a party of thirty chicks. Woodsmen Dames.”
“Wow, thirty women? But Roy, if they come here, you can’t call them dames. Or broads, or chicks, or anything like that.”
He whistled. “Exactly how far is your head stuck up your ass? I mean the cheerleaders, the Woodsmen Dames! Oh, excuse me, they have a new power-to-the-females name, the Woodsmen Wonderwomen. They’re the ones shaking their T and A for the amusement of fans like me.” He mimicked the shape of a woman’s body with his index fingers and then did a little air squeeze to demonstrate where the breasts were.
I showed him the only body part he deserved from me: my own middle finger. “Don’t be a pig or I’ll throw up on the floor you just poured the water on. Do you mean the professional dancers for the Woodsmen football team?” I asked.
“Well, folks, we have a winner.” He rolled his eyes terribly. “Yeah, the girls that dance in the little bitty shorts on the sidelines on TV. Those Wonderwomen. I told this broad that the surcharge for a party that large was five hundred bucks and minimum thirty a head for drinks, and she didn’t bat an eyelash. So they’re coming.”
I imagined a crew of talented, built women partying at Roy’s. It made no sense. “That doesn’t make sense. Why would a bachelorette party of professional cheerleaders ever want to come here? To slum it or something?”
“My bar isn’t a goddamn slum!” he roared, and the angry red drove away his paleness again. “Just because some of you in the younger generation don’t appreciate it…” And I’d mistakenly brought up his son again and how he didn’t like the bar, which led to a long rant that I closed my ears to. Instead, I continued to wipe glasses and wondered why Woodsmen dancers would step their pretty feet into Roy’s Tavern. I looked down at my own feet in the shoes Roy hated. I bet they didn’t even know that they had to wear closed toes in here or suffer the consequences.
I considered their shoes and clothes and everything else about them as I waited for the Woodsmen Wonderwomen to come into the bar. We held those tables until almost closing time, but they still hadn’t gotten there, so I was free to imagine purple headdresses and various feathered clothing items, like Kayden had worn when he played for the Rustlers and gone out to party. Maybe they’d even have on the tiny shorts Roy had talked about! I hoped their bare legs wouldn’t stick to the chairs.
“She read me off her Visa number like it was nothing, and I’m going to charge her every damn cent she owes me if they come in here or not,” Roy growled when he saw me looking at the empty section again. I had made some “RESERVED” signs, but since no table in this place had ever been reserved before, we’d been kicking people out all night. He looked over too, as one of our regulars crawled under one of the tables and hunkered down to sleep. “I should have filled those. Screw the Dames! Throw away your signs and tell Rusty to get his ass on home, he can’t sleep there on the floor.”
But just as he started to angrily type the Visa number into his crusty credit card terminal, the door opened and a crowd of women came in who managed to make their winter coats and gloves look sexy. Oh, lordy. They reminded me so much of the women who I’d seen with Kayden and his friends when he’d been the quarterback and I’d been working in the bar in Oklahoma: tall, and beautiful, and thin, and pretty perfect. Even Rusty awoke and came out from under their tables so he could stare. The whole tavern did, including Roy and me.
“Goddesses,” I murmured, then woke up. “I’ll get their drinks!” I told Roy before he could make a move over towards them, and he swore at me, but these women probably weren’t looking to be sexually harassed by a human bandicoot. The real ones at the animal rescue I’d worked at in Texas were very cute, but Roy? Not so much.
“I’m not sure you’re going to know how to make these drinks,” I told him doubtfully when I came back with their order. “I wrote them down for you, but…”
“I can make anything with alcohol in it,” he spat back, but I saw him take off into his closet of an office, probably to look up how to prepare the “kalimotxo” that one of the women had asked for (even I, with my experience in nicer places than the tavern, had asked her to spell it). I hung around their tables as much as I could, wishing I could have sat down with them to hang out for real. Not that I wanted to be a professional cheerleader like these ladies, but it looked so fun to be part of a big group like that! I realized that I wished I had more friends.
“I wish I had friends like that,” I admitted to Roy. “Emma’s my bestie always, and Kayden is great, but don’t they look like they’re having fun over there?”
Roy glanced over. “Sure, I wouldn’t mind being besties with them. Maybe we’d have a sleepover and take off our tops and—”
“Ok, that’s enough!” I watched as one of the women, the one wearing the glitter crown that announced, “Bride!” got up and went toward the bathroom. She slid a little on something on the floor, and one of her friends looked up from her kalimotxo.
“Gaby,” the woman called, “you ok?”
Gaby? I stood up straighter. How common was that name?
This Gaby waved over her shoulder and went toward the bathroom and I put my tray on the bar. “My break,” I explained to Roy and ignored whatever he grunted back at me. I trailed after the pretty woman in the Bride! crown. She was leaning on the sink when I entered the ladies’ room, looking about as pale as Roy.
“Oh no, what’s wrong?” I asked, so worried that the question came out like one big, smushed-up word. “Is it the baby?”
The Bride! turned to look at me and her mouth dropped open. “Glory! How did you know about the baby?”
“I’m your waitress,” I explained. “I’ve been watching you pour your drinks on the floor since I started serving your table.”
She blushed and I was glad to see the color, just like when Roy got pissed at me. “I’m sorry about that. None of the other girls know that I’m pregnant, and I figured it didn’t matter so much about the floor here.”
“It really doesn’t,” I assured her. “So, you’re ok? The baby’s ok?”
She nodded. “We’re fine. I just get queasy sometimes,” she told me. “I never know when it might happen. There’s some kind of smell in this bar that’s setting it off.”
There were so many smells, it would have been difficult to single out the particular one. “What made you want to come to Roy’s for your party?” I asked curiously. “There are the smells, and the layer of muck on the floor, and that,” and I pointed to whatever had gone on in the stall of the ladies’ room earlier in the evening. But that was a mistake, because after she saw, the Bride! leaned over the sink again, dead white. And she threw up.
I felt terrible. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Don’t worry at all about the sink because it’s seen a lot of that issue in the past.” She stepped away and I rinsed away the damage, because I’d done a lot of that before, too.
“It’s ok.” She took a breath and blew out slowly. “I’m ok now.” Another breath. “It was my best friend Hallie’s idea to come here as a last stop to end the party, because usually things are crazy at Roy’s…you probably know better than I do. I’ve never been here before.” I nodded. “I think she wanted to freak out the cheerleaders, really,” the Bride! explained. “She’s not on the team and she doesn’t always get along with them. But then Hallie couldn’t come out tonight because her son has a fever and her husband is away helping his mom, and she wouldn’t have suggested this at all, but she doesn’t know yet that I’m expecting. No one knows…but you. Please keep it to yourself for now,” she asked me.
“I won’t tell. I don’t know very many people to tell, really—except, are you talking about the Hallie with red hair who owns the bookstore? And you’re Gaby, of Ben and Gaby?”
The Bride! stared at me. What with the vomiting, her tiara had gotten crooked and the E! of the word was hidden under her hair. Now she was just a Brid. “Have we met before?” she asked, confused.
“No, but I’ve heard about you,” I told her. “I
’m roommates with Kayden Matthews. And he’s my friend, too.”
“Kayden?” I watched her take another big breath. “Ben’s little brother, Kayden? You’re his roommate and his friend.”
Yeah, that summed it up, except Kayden wasn’t so little. I nodded.
“We knew that he was back in town. Is he…” But she stopped.
“You don’t have to worry about him. He won’t do anything to you,” I told her quickly, but she shook her head.
“No, I didn’t think he would. I got his letter, from when he was in rehab. He said he wanted to make a lot of changes in his life. He wrote that he didn’t expect my forgiveness but he wanted me to know that he was very, very sorry. I believed him.”
“What he did to you was terrible,” I said. “I was so upset just hearing about it. He apologized to me about it, too.”
Gaby looked at me. “You’re not defending him,” she noted.
“Defending him? No, I wanted to make sure that you’re ok.”
And to my shock and despite the puking she’d just done, she broke out in a smile. “I’m really ok. Ben and I are getting married, and I love the little girl who’s going to be my stepdaughter, Tessa. The baby was a surprise, but it’s a wonderful surprise. I love my job and my friends. I had no idea that this would all happen for me.”
I felt two strong emotions that pulled me in opposite directions: I was so, so glad that she was all right, and I felt a horrible pit of, well, longing. “I’m so glad,” I told her, admitting to the first part. “That makes me really relieved.”
“You were worried about me? We never even met before now,” she pointed out.
“I felt like I was connected to you, because of Kayden. He thinks about you and his brother a lot. I know that Ben is on his mind because he talks about him all the time. Like, the other day he told me that Ben used to carry his equipment bag because it was too big for him and their father would get really angry if he went too slow. His brother always looked out for him, that was what he said.”
The Bust Page 21