The Bust

by Jamie Bennett

  Shit. The dealer had a son? I shook my head no at him, and his eyes got big as if he was afraid. I put the car in drive and took off toward the field. That was another person hurt right there, a kid stuck in this mess. I hadn’t known about him when I’d been at their house partying that night, but would it have mattered to me then? I thought about Miss Margulies at Helping Hands and considered that she might know what to do to help that little guy, because somehow it mattered a lot to me now. I called her and left a message after Jessie at the front desk told me that she was out at the pet rehab clinic, working on Hank’s knee injury.

  “Good luck at your game today,” Jessie also told me, and I thanked her. She was a nice kid, and I remembered some of the Junior Woodsmen players who I’d hung out with the night before. Maybe there was someone on the team she might be interested in. What was I, a matchmaker now? I mentally shrugged. Maybe it would make them both happy.

  I kept playing with my phone in my hand as I drove, turning it back and forth in my palm. I could have gone into that house just now and scored. The dealer was home and it would have been easy, but I hadn’t. I could have drunk a beer the night before as we watched game tape and the Junior Woodsmen had asked me all about life in the big time, but I hadn’t. I could have tasted the whiskey off the table at Roy’s, licked it off my finger instead of wiping it away.

  It had all been hard and I’d been tempted, but Kylie was right: I’d made a choice not to. I played with my phone and thought about the other choices I’d made. Then, when I got to a stop sign, I dialed a number I had tracked down recently. The Woodsmen team security guard who was Rami’s neighbor had let me have it.

  No one answered, but as instructed, I left a message at the beep.

  “Ben, it’s your brother. It’s Kayden. I’m calling you at your office because you blocked me on your cell—you already know you did that, and you don’t want to hear from me, but on the off-chance that you haven’t already deleted this message, I wanted to tell you some things.” There was so much that I wanted to tell him. Sounds started to pour out of my mouth almost faster than I could form them into words. I talked about Emma and how she’d been sick, and meeting Jamison and teaching him how to play baseball, and playing with Rami and how we worked together instead of being in competition. I talked about being a quarterback again and trying to lead the Junior Woodmen.

  “Did you know that I was back in football?” I asked Ben’s voicemail. “I’m assuming you heard. It’s a real step down so maybe you’re embarrassed…Dad would have been. He would have told me I was a loser. A bust. I busted out of the pros, right? I guess it’s good he wasn’t here to see it. I wouldn’t have wanted to hear it from him.” I sighed. “But this, with the Junior Woodsmen, this is the first time I ever really understood what I’m doing on the field. I do feel like I’m starting to lead the team, not just throwing passes or handing off the ball. That’s what you used to do, right? All your teams would have followed you into a volcano if you’d asked them to. Rami has that quality, too, and I’m trying. I’m really trying, Ben.”

  I stopped for a red light and looked at Woodsmen Stadium in the distance. What an opportunity I’d had back then, but I hadn’t really realized it. I’d been busy being an ass and being afraid, so afraid of fucking up that it had paralyzed me. I’d strutted around pretending that I was God’s gift and sniffed and shot up half the drug production out of South America to get over it, but nothing had worked to make me feel better.

  The answering system cut me off at that point for length, but I had more to say so I called back, happy to hear my brother’s recorded voice introduce himself again and then ask me to leave a message. I started talking faster, this time about Coach Márquez and what I’d learned from him, about Miss Margulies, even, how I’d thought she was crazy to want some guy on probation helping a kid. “She took a huge chance, letting someone like me be with Jamison. But I think it’s working, Ben. I think I’m doing ok with him.”

  Then I mentioned Kylie’s name, and it was like opening a faucet. Once I started to talk about her, I couldn’t stop myself.

  “I love to hear her voice,” I told the silence on the other end of the phone. “I love it when she’s quiet, too, like when she’s reading, she’ll nod at the page as if she agrees, or frown and shake her head when she gets mad at one of the characters. I love it when she compares everyone she knows to animals or the people from those romance novels. I’ve been reading them myself, so don’t laugh. I just love to watch her,” I confessed. “Not creepy, like I’m scaring her. I love to see her talking to Emma or Jamison or anyone, how she listens to what they say and how she makes people feel better. She wants everyone to get along and she gets along with people, too. Even her skeezy boss, Roy—they’re friends. She tried to fix things between him and the son he abandoned because she thinks that families should stick together. That son was hot after her ass and I wanted to kill him. I didn’t,” I added quickly. “It’s because she lost her mom, I think. They were really close and she misses her. She had a hard time understanding why our family didn’t get along.”

  An automated voice suggested that if I was satisfied with my message, I should press one, and goodbye. I hit the one and called back again. “Kylie wants to leave and I don’t know why,” I told my brother. “Did I do something? I don’t think so, not this time. What is she looking for, then? Or is she running away? I don’t know, but I don’t want her to go. I don’t know how to get her to stay, either. What am I going to do without her, Ben? I didn’t realize how fast I started to need her. I miss her while she’s at work and that’s just another town. What about if she’s in another state?”

  I hit my palm on the steering wheel. “Wherever she is, I’m going to have to go there, too. There will be some other team, or I can leave football and do something else, right? That’s what you’d do for Gaby. That’s what you’d do for anyone you love.” I heard the words leave my mouth and realized how much I meant them. “I do, man. I love her. I don’t know what I’m going to do about that, because I don’t want to hurt her. Before, I hurt the person I loved the most. You, Ben. I love you, and I did the worst things to you. I’m so sorry for everything I’ve done.” My voice cracked. “I hope some day you’ll believe that I mean it, that I’m not the same guy. I’m trying every day, Ben, every day. I want to be the man that you think I should be. I love you, and I’m sorry.”

  My car skidded on a patch of ice that I hadn’t seen through the tears that ran down my face. I hung up and straightened the wheel and got myself the rest of the way to the Junior Woodsmen field where a team of guys was waiting for me and I had a responsibility to them. I had to make them look good so that maybe they’d move up to the big time, and I had to make the coaches look good so that they’d hold on to their jobs. Jamison would be there with his mom, and I had a responsibility to him, because he depended on me to show up for him and to do my best to set an example. I didn’t mind that. I wanted to stand taller and let them all lean on me. I thought that I could handle it—I hoped I could. And at the end of the season, if I had to take off after Kylie, I wasn’t going to leave any of them in the lurch. Somehow I’d have to work this out for everyone.

  “Hey!” Rami yelled immediately when I walked into the locker room. “Matthews, get over here.” He motioned me to the back, near the showers with the hot water problems. “What is happening with your brother?” he asked when we were alone.

  “What?” I stared at him. “Ben? Is he all right?” I grabbed Rami’s flak jacket. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Easy there, tiger.” He yanked away from my grip. “Your brother’s fine, as far as I could tell when he called me.”

  “You? He called you? Why?”

  “He called Márquez and Coach patched him through to me. He wanted to discuss what you were doing out on the Woodsmen practice field and what had happened to the kid who got hurt. I told him that Jamison was fine and you’d taken care of him, then he asked me who Jamison was to you. He di
dn’t seem to know anything that you’re doing.” Rami raised his eyebrows at me. “So, what’s happening with your brother?”

  “What else did you tell him?” I asked instead of responding.

  He shrugged, frowning. “I told him everything I know! What I’d want to hear about if my brother wasn’t talking to me and I was worried about him. I said you’d had a rough start at our team but things were changing, that you’re a great QB for us. I said you were living with your girlfriend and you’re crazy for her, as far as I can tell. You talk about her all the time to me.”

  I did?

  “I told him that the coaches trust you and I do, too,” Rami went on. “He didn’t ask, so I volunteered that you’re clean. He said, ‘I’m glad,’ like he’d been holding his breath while he waited to hear that. Why wouldn’t you tell him that you’re doing good?”

  “What did else Ben say to you?” I swallowed, not sure if I wanted to know.

  “Not too much, but like I told you, he was relieved that you’re all right. He didn’t say the words, but I could tell. He was interested in what I said about Jamison and Kylie, about how things are going here.” He frowned hard at me. “You have to start talking to him, Kayden. Whatever you fought about, whatever you’re pissed at, it doesn’t matter. He’s your brother.”

  “It’s not me,” I answered. “Ben cut me out of his life because I deserved it.”

  Rami didn’t ask me what I’d done. “It didn’t sound like he wants you out of his life. He just sounded worried. Maybe you should call him.”

  “I have. I just did,” I said. I leaned back against the tile wall of the shower. “I didn’t know if he’d care, though.”

  “He seems like a nice guy,” Rami said, and I nodded. He was. “I talked to him about the quarterback situation over at the Woodsmen team, too. We all know that it was Davis Blake’s last season, even if he didn’t make it official yet. I told your brother that he should come down here and watch you play. You’ve got what it takes, man. You really have it.”

  I held out my hand, and he shook it. “Thank you. That means a lot coming from someone who knows football as well as you do.”

  He grinned at me. “I also asked him if he’s looking to add to his coaching staff. Retirement’s right around the corner for me, too, and Alicia isn’t going to want to uproot the kids and move. When you talk to your brother, put in a good word for me. Lie, if you have to.” He laughed.

  “If he’ll talk to me, I’ll put in more than a good word, and I’m not going to have to lie.”

  Rami slapped my shoulder. “Get your ass dressed.”

  But I stood there after he walked away, yelling at the offensive line that he wanted a word. I reached in my pocket and called my brother again.

  Chapter 15

  Kylie

  A freezing wind swept over the field, stirring the wispy snow that had fallen the night before. “My gracious, it’s cold!”

  “Is it?” both Jamison and I answered his mom. He was too excited to be cold. He’d been talking nonstop in her car on our way over. It was his first “real” game, as he’d told us, and then explained why this was the only one that counted: because Kayden was going to be so awesome. He said it a lot.

  As far as his arm went, it was uncomfortable in the cast, but not hurting him anymore. And as far as baseball went, he’d also mentioned in the car that he thought he might ask to be the middle school team manager, until his mom said that she thought that that manager was the same as the coach in baseball. So he decided he’d ask if he could be the equipment guy instead, or maybe some kind of assistant. “So I can get a better feel for the sport and also wear my new cleats,” he’d explained, and both his mother and I thought that was a great idea.

  I wasn’t cold because I was wearing Kayden’s coat, which he’d left hanging on the door for me. He’d balanced my mittens on top of it and my hat (which he hated) so I wouldn’t forget them. Maybe I also wasn’t cold because I was full of swirling, crazy emotions that were keeping my heart beating hard and my breath panting in and out of my lungs. Like, why would someone who was mad at me remember to leave his coat to keep me warm? How much worse had I made things for him by kissing him and throwing myself on his body? What would have made me act like that, like I couldn’t even control my lust for his person? I was worse than Lucian in The Devil Duke and I, and that guy had been a total asshole. Until, of course, he turned things around and saved Celine from the fire in her castle. He’d also saved her horse, which I’d appreciated. I bet that Lucian and Celine hadn’t kissed like Kayden and I had, that the Devil Duke’s touch hadn’t felt as good as his hands on my skin—

  “Right?”

  I looked at Jamison, still lost in thought about how I’d acted the night before, and with my heart beating even harder as I remembered kissing Kayden. “Huh?”

  “I said, the Junior Woodsmen are totally going to win today, and look.” He pointed across the bleachers with his good arm at two men sitting together on the top row. They had their collars pulled up against the wind and hats pulled low so it was hard to see their faces. “I bet those are scouts!”

  “Why do you think so?”

  He stared at me like I was missing more than a few marbles. “How many other people at this game have clipboards to write things down? They’ll see Kayden play and he’ll get signed with a United Football Confederation team again. He’s that good,” he assured me, and I agreed that he was. He was the best player ever, in both of our opinions. We stood and cheered as the team ran onto the field, Kayden right in the middle of them. I watched him talk to the coaches, talk to other players, do the warm-ups. I wanted to touch him again, to put my arms around him like I had the night before. This time, Emma wouldn’t interrupt us, and I could do more of the things I’d been thinking about. Things I’d read about, things that hadn’t sounded very appealing or even possible to me before last night. Now, I wanted to do everything, even everything that had happened in Startripping to Love and that had been filthy. Of course, the alien hero had been equipped with two penises and a vibrating…we could make do!

  I shook myself. No. No, that would only make things worse and confuse both him and me. I had to stop thinking about it! I had to stop remembering when he’d held my nipple gently between his fingers and rolled—

  “Right, Kylie?” Jamison was asking again, and this time I just nodded.

  “That’s absolutely right,” his mom agreed firmly. “What a generous man!”

  “He’s helping us a lot,” Jamison told me, and pointed to his arm. “Casts are very expensive.”

  “You mean that Kayden is helping with your medical bills?” I asked.

  “I told him that I’d pay him back, but he insisted that it was a gift,” Jamison’s mom explained. “He said he knew how hard I work and how we don’t have a lot of money for extras but he did from his football career.”

  No, he didn’t. He had already paid Emma’s vet bills without telling me and based on what I knew of medical expenses, Kayden wasn’t going to have enough in his bank account to buy food. I nodded a little, as if I agreed.

  “He’s selling the Bentley.”

  “What?” I had pretty much yelled it, and everyone in the stands turned to look at me, including the scouts above us in the bleachers. I stared back at them, confused for a moment, before returning my attention to Jamison.

  “Yeah, he’s selling it,” he repeated. “He said he doesn’t need a ride like that anymore and he’d look for something that gets better mileage. I’m going to miss that car,” he told me sadly. “It’s pretty awesome.”

  Kayden thought so too—he loved it. “I, no, wait a minute,” I said, but then the game was starting and Rami, Kayden’s friend, was walking out onto the field for the ceremony where the referee threw a small object into the snow and then a group of players looked at it. I’d forgotten to look up why they did that. I watched the game when it started and yelled my head off for Kayden, but I also watched up in the stands at the profes
sional scouts to see if they were noticing how well he was playing. The one scout…I’d had the strangest feeling of diva blue when I’d looked at him, but he was back tucked under his collar and hat so I couldn’t see his face anymore.

  I hoped he had a clear view of the field, because Kayden was amazing. He was throwing, and running, and doing all kinds of things that made the Junior Woodsmen score again and again. It was so exciting that the twenty or so other people on the bleachers with us were cheering hard, almost as much as I was.

  I leaned forward and still didn’t really feel the cold wind. At one point, Jamison had gone to sit with Rami’s kids, and his mom, who didn’t care for football and was freezing, had excused herself to warm up in her car. That left me alone and my closest neighbors were the scouts. I moved myself up row by row when the defense was on the field because I didn’t care to watch them half as much as when the other side was out there. Neither did the two guys at the top of the bleachers, apparently. When Kayden and his crew weren’t playing, they checked their phones or talked to each other and their eyes were hardly on the action at all. I scooted up a row, then another.

  “Good game,” I said, when I got near enough to talk to them, and the man closest to me turned so I got a full view of his face. Oh, lordy. I’d been right!

  “Great game,” he agreed.

  I took it as an opening and moved myself up the rest of the way to sit next to him. “Are you guys from the Woodsmen football team?” I asked, and held out my mitten.

  “Uh, yes. We are,” he answered. He took the mitten and shook it.

  “Are you here looking at someone in particular?”

  He glanced at the other guy, who was walking off to take a call. “Just keeping our eyes open,” he answered casually.

  “So, you’re not watching Kayden Matthews? Aren’t you trying to replace what’s-his-name who’s retiring?”