Juked

by M. E. Carter

  “Did you end up bringing that hot blonde back to the room with you last night?” he asks quietly, rubbing his temples.

  I smile. “Yup.”

  “I take it her tongue can do more than just tie a cherry stem in a double knot?”

  “Yup,” I say again, not willing to give any more details than that. I may have no problem with random sex, but I do have a problem giving other people personal details of our time together. To me, that’s disrespecting my partner, and I refuse to do that.

  “Nice,” Christian says and fist-bumps me. He knows that’s all the information he’s going to get.

  I know what some of my teammates were up to late at night. I’ve seen the blowjob races and walked in on the sex trains. But cleat chasers aren’t my thing. I want sex to be pleasurable for both of us and something I can really take my time with, not something to be rushed through so I win a bet. I am a gentleman that way. Plus, as the captain of this team, it’s my job to be a role model to my fellow teammates and I want us to be known as a team that’s respectful.

  As our coaches board the bus and start with roll call, I lean my head against the back of my chair and close my eyes. I may be a gentleman the morning after, but there was nothing gentlemanly about what I did last night. I need the rest.

  Within minutes, we’re on the road, headed to the airport for a seven a.m. flight.

  “Hey, Zavaro!”

  My head whips forward as I startle from the beginnings of a nap. “Sir?” I answer, not clear which coach is talking to me. Man, I’m more tired than I realized.

  Coach Dawson, one of the offensive coaches, walks down the aisle and plops down on the seat across from me. “You becoming a family man, Zavaro?” he asks, slapping a newspaper in my hand.

  My whole body runs ice cold. No pro athlete wants to hear those words come out of their coach’s mouth.

  I snatch the paper out of his hands and unfold it. Next to me, Christian looks over my shoulder.

  The headline reads Daniel Zavaro Plays Mr. Mom at Walmart. Is The Long-Time Bachelor Trading in His Cleats for Baby Booties?

  Underneath it is a picture of me sitting on the bench by the pharmacy, holding a baby.

  I huff out a laugh as my body temperature returns to normal. “Nah, Coach,” I say as I peruse the rest of the sports headlines. “That’s just some girl I met the other night when I went shopping. She was having trouble with her baby, so I helped her out.”

  “What do you mean, she was having trouble with her baby?” he asks. “And where was the dad?” As a recently divorced father of two, Coach Dawson is always a little sensitive when it comes to kids and their fathers. He was pretty heartbroken when his wife left him and took the children with her.

  “Don’t know,” I answer honestly. “She had just gotten custody of her nephew or something, and no one even told her what kind of formula to get him. The kid was screaming, he was so hungry. So I helped her out. No big deal.”

  He nods in approval, probably glad he isn’t going to have to deal with the PR mess of a random illegitimate child. “How’d you know what to do anyway?”

  Christian chuckles. “Man, have you met his family? Do you know how many of them there are?”

  Coach cracks a smile and shakes his head. “I’ve met your parents at a couple games, but that’s it.”

  “That’s because I only get two comp tickets per game,” I said with a smile. “Those cheap bastards, also known as my siblings, won’t shell out the money to come to a game. They have way too many kids to pay for them all to come. And inevitably someone’s feelings would get hurt if they didn’t get tickets for everybody, and someone would end up throwing down at Thanksgiving next year.”

  Christian throws back his head and laughs. “It’s true, Coach. His family is full of crazy Mexicans. God, I love them.”

  With as many siblings as I have, and their spouses and kids, it can definitely get crazy. And not always the good kind of crazy. But as much as I love my independence, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  “I never would have pegged you for a family man,” Coach said, snatching his paper when Christian tries to look through it.

  I scoff. “Just the one my mama gave me.” I lean my head back again, making myself more comfortable. “I am perfectly happy with my life the way it is. Don’t need a long-term relationship. Don’t want one.”

  “Says the man who’s coming down from last night’s hot blonde.” Christian snickers, then yells “Ow!” after I punch him in the shoulder.

  “As long as I don’t see your name in the papers and have to get PR involved,” Coach says as he stands, “whatever you and the hot blonde are up to is none of my business.” He swats me on the shoulder with the newspaper and walks toward the front of the bus.

  I close my eyes, perfectly content to enjoy another day in the life other guys only dream about.

  I’m so fucking tired, and yet my mind won’t shut off.

  Once again, I’m wide awake in the middle of the night. I thought making bottles before bed would help me get a little more sleep, since I wouldn’t have to actually think when it was time for Chance to eat overnight.

  But it doesn’t really matter because my mind won’t stop spinning. All I can think about is Sarah and the last conversation we had.

  The movement of the turnstile inside the microwave is almost hypnotic as the bottle goes round and round. It lulls me into a false sense of calm. And just like that, the memories start to invade my mind again.

  “You’re doing what?” I screech into the phone. I’m going to be late for work if I’m not careful, but once again Sarah has to be talked off a metaphorical ledge.

  “Quincy, I know you’re mad,” she said. “But things have changed—”

  “You are less than two years away from a degree,” I chide. “Two years! Why the hell are you going to throw away two-and-a-half years of college to go to vocational school?”

  I dump the contents of my make up bag onto the counter. It sucks putting makeup on one-handed, but I don’t have a choice with this ridiculous conversation happening.

  “It’s not vocational school,” she says quietly. “It’s a program to get my administrative assistant certificate. I’ll be learning all the latest computer programs, plus filing systems and shorthand which most people don’t even know anymore, so I’ll have that extra skill for my resume.”

  “Right. So vocational school.” I roll my eyes. It’s not like I should be surprised. Sarah has always been flighty. But being a television reporter has always been her dream. And after this long and this much effort, I really thought her degree was a sure thing.

  “Call it whatever you want but when I’m done, they’ll help place me in a job. A good job.”

  “Dad would be so pissed at you,” I mumble, mouth stretched wide open as I swipe on mascara. Mascara, eyebrows, and lip gloss. That’s all I have time for today. “The money he left us was so we could get an education and you’re telling me you want to waste all of it.”

  “You went to cosmetology school. What’s the difference?”

  I brush my eyebrows liberally with a pencil. Being blonde sucks sometimes. “I had to do something quick, Sarah, you know that. I had to have a fast career so I could pay our bills.”

  The ding of the microwave pulls me out of my memory but doesn’t take away the crushing guilt I still feel as I remember that conversation.

  I’d hung up on her as I raced out the door that day. I’d hung up and never called her back. I thought she would call me when she finally came to her senses, yet I never came to mine.

  I shake the bottle to spread the heat out before testing it on my arm. I glance down at the baby book sitting on the counter.

  The damn book cost me twenty-five dollars. Twenty-five dollars I don’t have, but it was worth it. I’ve been slowly reading through it, making sure I don’t miss anything important I should know about raising a baby. The topic on this page catches my attention. It’s called “How to Safely Heat up
a Bottle.” In big bold letters, it says NEVER HEAT UP A BOTTLE IN THE MICROWAVE. The radiation causes a breakdown of the properties in the formula, making it less nutritious. Also, there is research that indicates a possible breakdown of the plastic in the bottle, causing the baby to ingest those chemicals.

  FUCK!

  Now I have to dump the bottle out. It’s only four ounces, but formula is expensive. So are diapers and clothes and everything else a baby needs to be taken care of. Day care alone is going to cost me almost two hundred dollars a week. The facility is fifteen minutes out of my way to work, which tacks on an extra thirty minutes to my commute every day, each way. But that was the cheapest rate I could find.

  I find my glass measuring cup that fits two cups of water and fill it up halfway before popping it into the microwave and turning it on. The memory of that final phone call assaults me again.

  She sighs into the phone. I’m hoping that sigh means I’m getting through to her. “Do you know how much the average television reporter gets paid at their first job?”

  “Never asked.”

  “Twenty thousand dollars a year,” she says. “That’s less than ten dollars an hour. And it’s salaried so they can call me in at all hours and work me as many hours a week as they want.”

  “So what? You’re young and single. You can live on Ramen,” I say rudely as I dab on lip gloss and blot my lips.

  “The average job only lasts eighteen months. That means I’ll be moving every year-and-a-half to another location.”

  “You love to travel.”

  “It’s complicated, Quincy. I need to have a job that pays me enough to live on—”

  “Sarah,” I cut her off as I sit on my bed to put on my brown boots. “There is more to life than money. I have killed myself for the last six years so you could have it better than I did. You’re being stupid and irresponsible and selfish, and I won’t approve of this. This is stupid.”

  “Things have changed, Quincy,” she says with a sniffle. It’s the same sound she used to make when she was trying to pull one over on dad. But I’m not dad. I’m me. I don’t fall for that shit.

  “I don’t care.” I stand up, race out of my room, and grab my travel mug full of coffee. “You need to think about this before you make any big decision. Remember, I’m the one in control of your inheritance, and I already told you, if you don’t graduate, you don’t get any of it until you’re thirty.”

  “But Quincy—”

  “No ‘buts’,” I say sharply. “Listen, I gotta go. I’m gonna be late. I love you. We’ll talk more about this later.”

  The microwave dings again and I pull the boiling water out. I drop a second bottle inside the water and wait for it to warm up.

  All this time, I thought Sarah was being flaky that day when what she was really doing was being a responsible mother. She’d been pregnant and knew she couldn’t have her dream job and a baby.

  And I had called her selfish and stupid and threatened her.

  There’s a Walmart receipt from the other day on the counter. I swear it’s taunting me making me panic at the costs I was never expecting. How am I going to pay for it all?

  I looked into the WIC program like Geni suggested. It provides food for children under five years old and living in a low-income household, but we didn’t qualify. I make about two hundred dollars a month too much. Same thing with government-assisted childcare. It all falls on me, and I have no idea how I’m going to do it. I already dropped the night classes I was taking at the junior college across town.

  I have to find a way to get more clients. And I really need to clean out Sarah’s apartment. Maybe she has some baby supplies that will help take some of the pressure off. If not, maybe I can sell some of her things.

  The thought makes me want to weep. I don’t want to sell my little sister’s things. That will make it more real that she’s gone. They’re also the last things I have left of her. But I know Sarah wouldn’t want Chance to go without.

  I’m shaking the new bottle to test the temperature when I hear a frantic cry coming from the opposite side of the apartment.

  Chance is awake and hungry again. Good thing I was prepared and have the bottle ready. Maybe, just maybe, he’ll eat quickly, and I can get some sleep tonight before the pressure and the lack of rest suck me completely under.

  Practice is a lot of fun lately. Why? The rookies. We’re watching them closer than before. Pushing them more, forcing them to show what they’re made of. It’s awesome.

  There’s a lot of trash talking by the veterans, and you can tell the newbies are scared as shit. They have no idea where they stand, so they should be. Will they be benched for the next several seasons? Will they be practice players only? Will they be the next starter or even the next star? No one knows.

  One of them stands out among the rest, though. Rowen Flanigan. The kid is probably six one, so he is already on the tall side for a soccer player. His bright red hair, seriously white skin, and bright green eyes draw attention. If his name wasn’t a dead giveaway about his Irish heritage, his looks would be.

  But that’s not the only reason he stands out. The kid is a machine. As a draftee straight out of college, not only is he keeping up with the veterans, it looks like he may run circles around our current starting right mid-fielder.

  “Zavaro!” Coach booms as he walks into the locker room.

  “Yo, Coach!” I yell back from the bench I’m sitting on while I tear off my shin guards and athletic socks.

  He catches my eye and gestures to his office. “I need to see you.”

  “You got it.” I throw my socks in the giant laundry basket and slip on my black flip-flops. I stink, and I desperately need a shower but I don’t want to leave Coach waiting. He loves this part of the season as much as I do and loves bantering back and forth about what we’re seeing on the field.

  I make a mental note to talk to him about Flanigan being groomed as our new starter. Coach won’t make a decision about that based on my opinion—hell, I’m only a player—but being the captain of the team, he’ll at least take it into consideration. He relies on me to take stock of how the players interact, how they get along, who gels well and who doesn’t. And frankly, our current starting right mid, Mack Shivel, is getting on my fucking nerves. He’s way too cocky, and it’s starting to show on the field.

  After a quick knock, I walk into his office and close the door.

  “Have a seat.” He’s watching video of today’s practice. I sit down but lean forward in the chair so I can see what he’s looking at. “See that right there?” he asks, pointing at the screen. “That’s the third time that kid Ratheson used his head and he nailed it every time.”

  “I noticed that,” I say. “I was surprised how accurate a shot he is that way.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.” He presses play, and we watch for a few minutes until the video ends. Sitting back in his seat, he clasps his hands and rests them on his chest, putting one foot up on his desk. We’ve done this enough times, he gets right to the point. “Thoughts about today?”

  “I think you’ve got some solid picks this year,” I say, resting my back against the chair and stretching out my legs. “We’ve got some training to do to get them up to par, but they’ve got a lot of potential.”

  “Anyone in particular impress you?” he asks.

  I smile. “I’m sure we’ve got our eye on the same guy.”

  He smirks. “Rowen Flanigan?”

  “The kid’s got some good moves.”

  “I knew he was gonna be a good pick before I even saw him play. Comes from good genes.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yep. His daddy is Ryan Flanigan. Sound familiar?”

  It takes a second to recall the name from so long ago, but when it does, my jaw drops. “No shit?” Coach just smiles. Ryan Flanigan is a legend in European soccer, also known as football to everyone else in the world. He holds multiple records and has a career spanning almost two decades. He retire
d as one of the highest paid soccer players ever. If the team wasn’t impressed with our rookie before, they will be now. “You’re not kidding he has good genes. But why is he a midfielder? I would have thought he’d be playing forward like his dad.”

  Coach drops his foot to the floor. “I asked him that during the interview. Says he doesn’t like being offensive. Prefers a defensive position.”

  “Damn, Ryan Flanigan’s kid.” I shake my head. “He’s been retired and out of the spotlight since I was, what, eight or nine? I guess that’s why I didn’t put it together. But now that I know, it makes perfect sense. Not to mention the resemblance.

  “It’s hard to miss,” Coach says. “But if he hasn’t brought it up in the locker room yet, I’m not sure he wants everyone to know. My guess is he wants to make a name for himself, so you need to keep that information to yourself.”

  “Understood.”

  “The reason I ask you about him is because I think we need to start grooming him to take over Shivel’s spot.” I nod, not at all surprised at the turn in conversation. Coach and I have seen eye-to-eye about a lot of player strengths and weaknesses over the years. That’s one of the reasons why he made me captain. “Mack’s been a solid player for a long time, but I’m worried about his endurance. He’s not keeping up like he used to.” He presses play, and we watch a series of clips spliced together, all focused on Shivel. “He starts strong,” Coach says without looking away from the monitor, “but about halfway through, see how he just got juked? It’s like he sees them coming but can’t anticipate their moves. He’s definitely not giving the one hundred percent we used to see from him.”

  “I agree completely,” I say. “They’re getting around him way too often. Whatever his reasons, I’m glad this Flanigan kid is a midfielder. I think we’re going to need him. Not only is Shivel slowing down, he’s become a real dick to work with.”