“He calls you Coffee.”
“It’s a joke.”
“It’s a stupid joke.” He sounds irritated and a little protective.
I totally understand the irritation, but the protectiveness throws me a bit. Why does he even care? There’s no one, his voice echoes in my head.
“Let’s find our seats.”
Round tables with silk runners and intricate centerpieces fill the space, pressing up against the flower beds full of ferns. Flickering candles, strands of fairy lights, and carefully muted string music make me grateful for Em’s choice of dresses. Anything less ostentatious would have stood out in the sea of ball gowns, sequins, diamonds, and one lady in a tiara.
Mara’s taking pictures of everything, probably for her portfolio. Arman is helping people find their seats. Katie and Javi are answering questions about the silent auction items. Waiters in white jackets flit between the groups, offering drinks and appetizers.
“I think we’re at table nine,” I say, pointing toward a table that’s tucked slightly off to the side, half-hidden by the ferns that grow along the glass wall.
Gabe takes a few steps in the right direction, then freezes in the narrow gap between two slipcovered chairs. His posture straightens, shoulders rolling back, then he spins to face me.
“Why is he at our table?”
And without looking, I know.
GEOFF IS HERE. HE WASN’T ASSIGNED TO OUR TABLE. I MADE SURE he and Scott were seated as far away from us as possible, but over Gabe’s shoulder, I see Scott stand and move toward us.
“Did you know he was going to be here?” Betrayal darts across Gabe’s features.
“No. Yes. I can explain. Emma and Scott wanted—”
“Gabe.” Scott’s voice is too happy, too loud. “Glad you made it.”
Gabe ignores Scott completely, eyes focused on me. “You told me you’d never push me into something I’m not comfortable with.” Betrayal makes his face goes cold. “I guess you’re not pushing, right? You’re just nudging me in the direction everyone wants me to go.”
“No, Gabe. I didn’t know, I mean … I thought—”
“I thought you actually cared about what I wanted. Not your aunt. Not Velocity. Silly me.”
Scott puts a hand on Gabe’s shoulder, but he shrugs him off.
“You,” he says, and turns to face his agent, “are supposed to work on my behalf.”
“I am.” Scott looks at me for support, and I hold my hands out to my sides.
Gabe shakes his head once, disbelief shifting to anger. “I made it perfectly clear that I will never play for Geoffrey Jones.” His voice is soft, but not soft enough. People nearby are watching, faces alight with interest.
“He’s willing to apologize. Give him a chance—”
“You’re fired.” Gabe says the words calmly, but there’s no questioning that he’s serious.
Scott is stunned, mouth open, but makes no response.
Gabe turns and holds my eyes for a second. “I trusted you.”
“Gabe—”
He brushes past, and when I step backward, my heel snags in the edge of a tablecloth. The centerpiece tilts, but I catch the vase before it topples to the floor. In the second it takes me to recover, Gabe disappears.
Katie is standing next to the raffle box near the room’s entrance, talking to an older woman.
“Excuse me, I’m sorry”—I interrupt—“did you see where Gabe went?”
“Beautiful boy with dark hair?” The woman nods to her left. “Went toward the Show House.”
People crowd the two aisles around the central display of flowering plants. I wedge my way between couples, and ask his teammates, members of the Velocity staff, even the waiters if they’ve seen him. No one seems to know where Gabe went. Dinner starts, my feet are throbbing in my stupid shoes, but he’s not at our table or any of the others.
The lobby is empty except for a couple of security guards, and outside the reporters have all left to find a better story.
Gabe’s gone.
I call his phone. It goes straight to voice mail. I send a text, asking for him to call me. I get no response. I call again. Nothing.
Dropping to the edge of the low fountain, I put my head in my hands. What just happened? Did Gabe really fire Scott? In front of everyone?
William is going to be pissed. Emma’s going to kill me.
But even worse was the hurt on Gabe’s face. Hurt I could have prevented. The knife of my mistakes slips between my ribs.
I trusted you, he said. And I betrayed that trust. I should have warned Gabe that we might run into Geoff, but it’s such a huge event that I hoped we could avoid him. But I didn’t think … I. Didn’t. Think.
How did I screw everything up so badly?
I try Gabe one more time, then call a cab back to my aunt’s apartment, not bothering to tell anyone that I’ve headed home. It’s not like they’d want me around anyway.
I strip off my dress, throwing it across the top of the dresser, and climb into bed still wearing my makeup. Everything hurts worse than it did when I fell off the bike. My head is throbbing. My neck muscles are too tight. But I’d take another gash on my leg over the one across my heart.
Watford hops on the bed and licks my face once before curling up in the curve of my knees. I reach down and smooth his silky ears, and he pushes his head against my hand for more.
He knows exactly what he wants. Food, a soft place to lie, someone to scratch behind his ears. He’s loyal and loving and would defend me to his dying breath.
And I hate myself a million times more.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
EMMA DOESN’T YELL, AND THAT’S WORSE.
She sits on the lavender couch with her elbows on her knees, phone on the coffee table. I sit on the fur rug, hair askew, eyes gritty, and mascara smeared. Watford lies on the floor between us.
“I don’t know how to fix this,” she says, finally, rubbing her forehead. “Gabe fired Scott. Scott’s threatened to fire me. If he does, Velocity will lose a huge account and I’ll lose more than just this account. I’ll lose my job.”
She’s not exaggerating. Someone filmed the whole scene and sent it to TMZ. The audio isn’t great, but the body language is clear. It looks awful. Reporters keep pinging Emma for clarification, but she hasn’t answered back yet.
“You were supposed to be on top of this.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Mads.” She covers her face for a moment, then rubs her eyes. “I pulled every string to get you this internship. I talked all the other executives into believing that you were smart enough and mature enough to handle this job.”
Oh.
Mara was right to hate my guts. I didn’t get this internship on my own merits. It was because I knew the right people. That realization punches the air out of my lungs. I never deserved to be here. “I tried really hard.”
“I know. But this … is irreparable.” She pinches the bridge of her nose like she’s getting the headache I already have. “You need to pack.”
“What?” The word leaves my mouth with no volume.
“Scott wants you gone. I need to make a drastic effort to keep his business—to keep my job—and firing my niece will send a pretty clear message that I’m not going to let anyone mess anything else up for him.”
Firing? She’s firing me.
Tears fill my eyes, and I don’t try to blink them back. “That’s not fair. I’ve worked so hard. I’ve done every single thing you’ve asked—”
“I know, Maddie.”
“Gabe wasn’t—” My voice is high, frantic as I try to make Em change her mind. “I’m not responsible—”
“You’re the face Scott is associating with Velocity right now.” She moves to sit beside me, curling her arm around my shoulders, but I shrug away from her touch. She lets out a long, frustrated breath. “You have to understand. There are so few women in sports business. If I screw up with someone like Sco
tt, I screw it up for all of us.”
“Then stand up for me.”
“I’ve already done that, and maybe …” She doesn’t finish the sentence.
“Maybe, what?” My words are edged with hurt.
“Maybe next year you really will be mature enough to handle a job like this.”
She doesn’t say my mom was right, but that’s exactly what I hear.
I RIDE THE AFTERNOON TRAIN HOME. I DON’T SAY GOODBYE TO ANYone. Not to Katie. Not to any of the other interns. Especially not to Gabe.
I’ve lost the faith of two people who mattered to me—one who believed I had potential, and the other whose trust I betrayed.
I choose the quiet car, put my head against the window, and cry. My phone rings once. It’s Katie. I wouldn’t have answered it even if I’d been in one of the other cars.
Katie sends me a text:
Did you see this?
She attached a picture of me and Gabe outside the banquet. He’s looking down at me, eyes intense, mouth soft. If I didn’t know how well he could fake it for cameras, I’d almost believe he cared about me.
I delete it without responding.
Chicago disappears and so do my dreams.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
MY MOM GREETS ME AT THE TRAIN STATION WITH A LONG hug. She makes me feel like I’ve been off to war instead of just in the city for a few weeks. “Oh, Sweetie. I’m so sorry this happened.” Tears make the mascara drip down the side of her face. “I can’t bear to see you hurt.”
My swollen eyes start draining again. It’s not really crying at this point: Tears are just running without my control.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Nope.” I bite down so hard on the word that my teeth ache.
She doesn’t respond to that, and for once I’m grateful she doesn’t try to rub it in or make it worse. Or even try to make it better.
My bedroom feels small and shabby when I get home. I try lying on my lumpy twin mattress, but my body won’t let me sleep. Instead, I clean.
I throw away every scrap of old paper. I dig through my drawers, pulling out tights I haven’t worn for years and the ballet slippers I grew out of in ninth grade. I make a stack of paperback romance novels to donate to the library. They’re all stupid anyway. Who needs some gorgeous, muscly guy to sweep you off your feet? I can say from personal experience it doesn’t end well.
My mom comes in and watches. I know she’s hoping I’ll break eventually and tell her everything. But I’ve moved from sad to angry. I’m angry at Emma for putting me in this position. I’m fuming at Scott for putting a paycheck over his client’s wishes. I’m pissed at Gabe for being … Gabe.
When I don’t say a word to her, she sends my dad to try. He leans a shoulder against my door frame and says, “Your mother thinks you’re going to talk to me. Are you?”
“Not planning on it.” I’m not angry at him, but anything I say to him will make it back to Mom.
He’s silent for a long time. “For what it’s worth, I think Emma was wrong. I understand what she did from a business perspective, but that doesn’t make it right.”
My eyes well up with tears again, almost managing to push me from angry back to sad. But I hold on to that little ball of anger. It’s hot and tight, and so much nicer than the dreariness that accompanies my sadness.
“Thanks,” I say as I toss all the paperbacks into a box. “Want to put these in the Goodwill pile for me?”
At some point in the middle of the night, finally tired, I lie down in a pile of old clothes on my bed. Everything went from amazing to awful in a heartbeat. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. This is what I’m famous for—falling down, causing disasters, forgetting, blowing up every important thing.
I really thought this summer would be the end of CalaMaddie McPherson, but it looks like I’ve just opened another chapter of the never-ending apocalypse that is my life.
The next morning while I’m tossing all my dance trophies into a garbage bag, Max comes in from his night shift at the lab where he works. He lies on my bed, throwing a Nerf football over his head, over and over and over until I can’t pretend he’s not there.
“Go away, please.”
“You’re sad.”
“I’m not. I’m—” Tired and mad and hurt and angry at myself. “I’m nothing.”
“You mean you feel nothing? Like you’re dead inside?” He stops throwing the ball to look at me.
“No.” I feel. I feel so much. “I am nothing.”
He sits up and drills me in the shoulder with the Nerf ball.
“What the heck? Why did you do that?” I chuck it back so hard that it rebounds off his chest and smashes into one of the dance trophies on the edge of my dresser.
“You are not nothing. You worked your butt off this summer. You learned how to edit video and use social media like a boss. You—”
“Screwed up everything? You forgot that part.”
He ignores me and pushes on. “You talked to reporters and agents. You set up events. You made a guy who I would generally consider to be a total tool seem like a decent human being.” He puts my trophy back on my dresser and pulls down the dance team photograph stuck in the corner of my mirror. “Tell me which one of them could have done everything you did.”
I look at the faces of the girls. Some of them I’ve known since I was three years old, and I tally up their skills. There are some who are smart, some who are organized, some who are outgoing and tenacious.
“I’m sure some of them could.” I toss the picture onto my dresser and proceed to tighten all the knobs on the front.
“One of them might have been able to, but you did.”
“I also messed it all up.” My voice sounds watery, and I turn away so that my brother doesn’t see my cry.
“No, you didn’t. Emma picked the easiest target. This was not your fault. You were in the right place at the right time.”
“Or I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
He sighs. “She might have said she pulled all the strings for you, but she wouldn’t have done it if she didn’t think you were capable.”
“But I got fired. I can’t put that on my applications to UNC.”
“Entrance essays aren’t only about your successes. They’re supposed to be about what you learned.” He opens up my computer and types something into the search bar. “If you want it so bad, don’t give up just because it seems out of reach.”
“It is out of reach.”
“You can do anything. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
I shake my head at him. “Come on, Super Genius. That’s the best quote you can come up with?”
“Let’s see what you can come up with.” He grabs me in a head-lock and starts tapping my forehead with his free hand. “Name ten candy bars.”
“I hate you.”
“That’s not a candy bar.”
By the time I come up with ten, I’m distracted, my forehead is bruised, and strangely enough, I feel better.
INSTEAD OF DRIVING CUBE TO AND FROM MATH CAMP, HE AND I RIDE bikes. Well, he rides his bike and I carry all his crap while trying to balance on Max’s old ten-speed. It’s big enough that my knees don’t hit the handlebars.
Since I don’t have a summer job or dance lessons to teach, I’ve spent the last week looking at classes I can take to earn my associate’s degree as fast as possible. Apparently, colleges like UNC love to see that students have knocked out all of their generals before they come to school. And then I work on my entrance essay: Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.
I start by writing a timeline, including the bike wreck, which Max insists I keep for comic effect. Putting down everything—how I taught myself to use the video editing software, how I lost the footage, but re-created it, how Gabe’s video went viral—it’s sort of cathartic. I have a list of real accompli
shments, I can clearly see how someone I care about used me to further her career, but I also don’t blame my aunt completely. Emma used what tools she had to accomplish a task. It just sucks that I was that tool.
My mom is not one hundred percent on board with my goal of early admission, but my dad finally told her to let it be. And she listened. I can only hope she’ll keep listening.
I secretly check the stats of Gabe’s games. They lost to Vancouver the day before yesterday, and he got a warning and then later a red. The footage was cringeworthy. The tackle was dirty, and he deserved the card. After the game he had a quick interview, but I couldn’t bear to watch it. To listen to his voice and wonder if he’s saying exactly whatever his new publicist told him to.
“LOOK WHAT I CAN DO, MADS!” CUBE’S LITTLE LEGS PUMP HARD, then he holds his feet far out to the sides, coasting around the corner to our house.
“Be care—”
“Whoa!”
I hear him yell, and I imagine he’s crashed over the curb and I’ll find him lying sprawled across our grass. Panic makes me pedal faster, shucking safety for speed. When I round the corner, I’m right on at least one account. His bike is on its side in our yard, front tire still spinning.
He’s not on it, though. He’s standing with his hands on his hips, staring up at Gabe.
I nearly fall off my bike, but I don’t because I’ve been practicing. I hop off in the driveway, parking next to the silver Ferrari. Gabe is answering Cube’s questions with a barely hidden smile on his face.
“Is that a real Ferrari?”
“I didn’t know there were fake ones.”
Cube walks toward the car, eyeing the insignia on the back. “My friend Raj’s brother has a Honda with a Mercedes-Benz hood ornament. He found it after a car wreck.”
“Did you want to see the inside? It’s got the Ferrari symbol on the steering wheel too.” Gabe clicks the lock.
“Do not climb in that car, Cube. You’re going to get it dirty.”
Gabe peers over Cube’s head and his eyes catch mine. Seeing him here, having him this close, is like a punch to the gut. It’s been easier to convince myself that I’d never see him again. That he’d just be that cute soccer star I knew that one summer I lived in Chicago.
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