Anatomy of a Player (Taking Shots #2)

by Cindi Madsen

  At the time, I’d been proud of myself for reacting. I’d told myself the next time a guy played me, I wouldn’t just stand there like an idiot. Finally, I’d shown a guy that he’d hurt me and proved to him—as well as myself—that I wasn’t a doormat.

  Only…while I’d wanted to hurt him like he’d hurt me, the pain in his features hadn’t made me feel strong and vindicated like when I’d given Trevor a piece of my mind.

  No, with Hudson, each facial twitch, each sign my verbal blows had landed, only echoed inside me and deepened my pain. I’d thought it was because it had been so fresh and raw, and because I’d cared about him more than I had any other guy, but days later, thinking of it sent a swell of agony through me.

  No matter how much I told myself Hudson deserved every word I’d said, that slap, and a scathing article slamming his team, I couldn’t quite convince myself of it. Maybe that made me weak. Maybe even gullible. Most possibly it made me a girl who couldn’t stop loving the guy, despite all the evidence that she shouldn’t.

  Not to mention, I hadn’t been completely honest with him from the beginning, either. I liked to think omitting certain things because they were job-related and I was undercover made it okay, but lines had definitely been crossed, and I was far from exemplary.

  I opened up my recent files and “Anatomy of a Player” replaced my ten-minutes-from-due article.

  Anatomy of a Player

  Features:

  • Face: From pretty boy to preppy to bad boy, players know how to work what their mammas gave them. Don’t let their casual-sexy-cool appearance fool you, either. These guys spend plenty of time grooming themselves.

  Clean-shaven or scruffy, a player knows what highlights his best features and uses this knowledge to snag his prey.

  • Smile: Lazy, confident, cocky. The player has many smiles, all used to make you lose your common sense and succumb to his charms.

  • Names: Strong-sounding monikers that roll off the tongue. The kind that turn you into a teenage girl who wants to scribble your first name with his last one.

  • Chest: Carved, drool-worthy pecs

  • Abs: Ripped AF

  • Hands: A player is good with his hands. From the lightest brush to moves requiring more pressure, he knows exactly how to use them for maximum effect.

  • Scars: stories you can trace with your fingers. If approached at the right time, players may even tell you the stories behind them.

  • As for the rest of his anatomy… Let’s just say he knows how to use it.

  Moves and character traits:

  • Calls girls by nicknames, everything from “sweetheart” to “baby” to other generic terms of endearment. In part because of forgetting a girl’s name or to keep from calling her the wrong one, but also to create a sense of intimacy before it’s even there, thus fast-forwarding to the sex part.

  • Never has to work for phone numbers.

  • Will hit on your friends, even if he spent last weekend being all charming at a pool hall. No girls are off-limits.

  • Turns everything into an innuendo.

  • An expert-level charmer, the player has perfected every line and knows how to flirt his way in and out of every situation.

  • Emotions: Often unreadable. Those who try to dive deeper will get swept away and forget what they were looking for in the first place.

  Occasionally a player will show you a rare glimpse at a softer side, one that makes you think this one might be different. Studies are currently under way to prove if this theory has any validity, and we’re cautiously hopeful.

  My heart knotted on that last line. I highlighted “are currently under way to prove if this theory has any validity, and we’re cautiously hopeful.” I considered deleting it. Adding something like, “Studies have shown that players don’t change. Avoid at all costs.”

  But then—even though I knew I was only torturing myself—I closed my eyes and pictured the player I’d researched. In the beginning, his anatomy had been all physical, from the perfect amount of scruff to the smile and the eyes and the many impressive muscles.

  Somewhere along the way, though, I’d crossed into more personal territory. His scars told a story of more than a cocky hockey player. He’d defended his mama and I knew he still would, no matter how many times she let him down. When my insecurities flared, whether about my ex-boyfriend, my relationship with my mother, or my body, he’d responded with surprising tenderness and made statements about my beauty that left no room for doubts.

  Instead of deleting what I’d highlighted, I clicked on the bottom. The cursor blinked along with my heartbeat, and then I added another heading and typed in one last bullet point.

  The key:

  • Heart: The heart of a player is a complicated organ. Upon first look, it may appear that he doesn’t have one. If you look closer, you might find that it’s been heavily reinforced with walls. That disappointment and past hurt have made him hesitant to let anyone in. If you dig deep enough, you might just find a heart of gold.

  Tears caught in my eyelashes and made them heavy. Mascara was most likely tracking down my cheeks. Pain radiated from my broken heart, misery replacing the blood and pumping through my entire body.

  Maybe it was just a romantic notion that each player had a story explaining why he was the way he was, and that the right person could overcome all the barriers and not only find that heart of gold, but hold the key to it. Unrealistic or not, it was a notion I wanted to hold on to.

  Too much damage had been done on both sides for me to be that person for Hudson. I no longer knew what was real or fake between us, and as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t fully trust him anymore. After everything that had and would come out, how could he trust me, either?

  Without trust, we didn’t have a shot. As much as I knew it, it didn’t make the truth hurt any less.

  Hopefully time would heal both of us. I was back on my dating sabbatical, but eventually I wanted to find another person I could share more of myself with, the way I had with Hudson—just without his first having made a bet to get that close to me.

  The pang in my heart made me wince.

  I pressed my hand over it and focused on this new, chi way of thinking I was going to try out. It meant that I wanted Hudson to find someone who would help him with his issues and take care of his heart. Apparently chi didn’t keep me from hating this metaphorical girl, but it probably took more than a minute to master, so I’d work on it.

  My phone chimed, and I glanced at the screen. I didn’t realize how much I wanted it to be Hudson until I saw Lindsay’s name.

  Wanting things that I shouldn’t would probably take some time to master, too.

  Lindsay: Where’s the article? I want to read it one last time before we go to print.

  Me: Sending it now.

  Before I could change my mind about the article I was starting to doubt all over again, I clicked save and then switched over to my email. I typed in Lindsay’s name and attached the file. I moved the cursor over the send button and attempted to swallow.

  I poured my heart out in that article. Which was both a reason to send it and to not send it. But deadlines were deadlines. So I clicked the send button and felt a mix of nausea and relief that it was out of my hands.

  For better or worse, my article was going to be printed in the paper and distributed across campus tomorrow, my name and picture on the very front page.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Hudson

  The fact that this videogame didn’t require much brainpower was both a blessing and a curse. I’d eaten away hours of time with it, but if I let my mind drift, it always drifted to Whitney, and then the hollow pit that had taken over my body would open even more, and it’d suddenly take every ounce of effort to push the levers and buttons.

  The door swung open and I squinted against the stripe of bright light, glad when it was snuffed out. But then the interior lights snapped on, bathing the living room in way too bright yellow light.


  Dane came around the entertainment center and parked himself in front of the coffee table, right in the line of sight of the television.

  I leaned around him and tried to kill the zombie before it infected me. Lately I sort of felt like a zombie—without the penchant for brain-eating—but I was starting to feel bad for killing creatures that just wanted to be left alone with their food and misery. Was that so bad?

  “Bro, you haven’t gone to any of your classes in days,” Dane said.

  “Thanks for the newsflash.” I punched the button, letting out a “yes” when the zombie’s head exploded. Hey, it was him or me.

  Dane lifted one of the beer bottles and rolled it around like he’d never seen one before and wanted to make a thorough examination. Yeah, the beer helped with the mind-numbing when the videogame didn’t do it. “Yesterday at practice, you told McCaffrey that you were going to classes today.”

  “I’ll tell you that I’ll go, too, if it’ll get you to shut up about it.”

  Dane jerked the PlayStation controller out of my hand. The zombie I was fighting bit into me and red splashed across the screen.

  I flopped back against the couch cushions. “I just died, thanks a lot.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m about to kick your ass in the real world, so why don’t you focus?”

  This was about to get big brother-y, so I scanned the beer bottles and picked up the last one I’d been working on. Luke warm and cheap enough that it kind of tasted like piss, but it would do the job anyway.

  For two and a half years I’d worked to prove I could do this college thing. Here I was now, being the screw-up most people thought I’d be from the beginning. Honestly, there was some relief in letting go and embracing it. In becoming a statistic. Who was I trying to impress? The only person who cared if I graduated was myself, and right now, I didn’t care all that much, either.

  Even better, I didn’t have to care about Mom’s impending marriage. I could just drink and play hockey until I flunked out. Maybe by the time that happened, I’d find enough motivation to figure out what else to do with my life. Hell, maybe I’d just enter the draft and take my chances. Backup degrees were pointless when you couldn’t complete them anyway.

  Dane sat on the coffee table so I couldn’t escape him. I debated if it would be easier to nod and pretend I’d listen, or go to my room and lock him out. Laziness won. “At the beginning of all this,” Dane said, and I could tell he was gearing up for a big speech. “I thought that bet would light a spark and get you back to your old self. I thought it was working, but I realize now that the bet wasn’t what was working. It was her.”

  I flinched at the mention of Whitney, even though he didn’t say her name.

  Right after everything went to hell, I’d wanted to blame Dane. For turning an offhanded remark about the new reporter into a bet. For having such a loud mouth that Whitney found out about my moment of competitive stupidity in the worst possible way. But I knew it wasn’t his fault.

  It was me, being an idiot.

  “You’ve gotta fix it,” Dane said, shoving my knee.

  Well, that wasn’t as big a talk as I thought it would be. It wasn’t as easy to ignore his intense stare as I thought it’d be, either. The guy knew me too damn well. And knowing people led to hurting them, and them hurting you right back.

  I sat forward, the neck of the beer bottle dangling between my fingers. “I tried. I put it all out there. She shoved it all back. She doesn’t want me, and after everything I’ve done, I don’t deserve her.”

  “No, you probably don’t.” Dane gestured to me. “Not if you’re going to flunk out of school and let down your teammates and turn into…every one of your mom’s loser boyfriends.”

  I lurched forward and gripped Dane’s T-shirt in my fists. The movement rocked the coffee table, sending bottles crashing together like bowling pins. My muscles shook with contained rage. Dane and I had gotten on each others’ nerves plenty of times, and we’d had our arguments—usually when we were on opposing sides of hockey scrimmages—but I’d never wanted to physically harm him the way I did now.

  “Go ahead,” Dane said. “Why don’t you just complete the process? Hit me and go back to your beer.”

  “I swear you want me to hit you. What the hell, man?”

  “You’ve worked your ass off to get here, and now you’re going to just give up? Most of the kids in our neighborhood won’t ever get a chance at college, and if it weren’t for hockey, we wouldn’t be here, either. This might be as far as we go, so we need to make sure we don’t end up back there with dead-end jobs.”

  Did he think I didn’t know that? It was what had motivated me for two and a half years. But it wasn’t enough anymore, because when I tried to think about my future, all I saw, all I felt, was emptiness.

  “So what I want, is for you to prove that you’re better than those guys,” Dane continued. “That you deserve to be here, and you deserve that girl, so you can stop moping around—before you screw up your life.”

  I let go of him and ran my hands through my hair. That was more like the big speech I’d expected, yet I hadn’t expected it to go like that at all.

  “Now that I finally have your attention…” He dug a newspaper out of his backpack and slapped it to my chest. “Your girlfriend’s article came out today.”

  I’d expected to hear about it on Monday, but when I’d looked online, the sports section was from last week’s game, and there weren’t any new stories with Whitney’s name. In the moment, I’d meant what I’d said about not caring about the article because she was more important.

  But moment of truth…I worried about what she’d written. Which of my teammates it would hurt, or the coaching staff. Not to mention how many of my secrets would be printed for everyone to read. Who knows what horrible things she’s put in here.

  My throat tightened. I’d told her so much, and the entire time she’d been planning on using it against me. Hypocritical or not, I experienced a twinge of anger that she hadn’t been honest from the beginning.

  I trusted her.

  My anger grew, and I welcomed the burn because it meant I didn’t have to carry the burden of our breakup alone. It proved my theory about relationships being toxic. And not only was she dragging me down, she’d decided to take the only family I had down with me. How fucked up was that?

  I’d known from the beginning that the idea that love could conquer all was bullshit. Still I’d jumped. Let myself foolishly believe for just long enough for it to blow up in my face, and now the people I cared about most were also going to get hurt.

  I gripped the copy of the Heights in my fist, the paper making a crinkling noise. I wanted to read it almost as badly as I didn’t want to. Unfolding it brought Whitney’s image up, and the tiny black and white picture caused my heart to snag and stop beating for a couple of seconds.

  Dane clapped me on the shoulder and nodded, the way teachers and older people did when they hoped you were about to reconsider your life. “I’ll give you a few minutes, then we’ll talk strategy.”

  I shook my head. “I worry about your mental state sometimes, I really do.”

  Dane grinned, because he obviously had issues. He turned and started banging around in the kitchen, opening and shutting cupboards, while I dropped to the couch and started reading.

  As you might have noticed, there’s been a debate going on around campus, thanks to a certain survey asking about the preferential treatment of athletes. I guess it’s time to admit that I created the survey, and while I didn’t mean to cause such a stir, it’s obvious there are very strong feelings on both sides. After a lot of research, as well as spending some time with the hockey team, here are my findings…

  She started off with facts about the number of scholarships rewarded for sports versus academics, talked about the money the college both spent and brought in through the athletic departments, and wrote that her survey found that 72 percent of students who answered thought athletes receive
d special treatment. She quoted a couple of the comments from people who felt passionately about the unfairness—one nicely worded and one that called jocks brainless jerks.

  Then she discussed all the ways that athletes did, in fact, receive special treatment. The part of me that had always felt like I didn’t deserve to be here rose to the surface, along with a steady dose of guilt, but the other part of me argued that those things were the only way I survived. I knew plenty of students studied, but the hours of practice on top of studying? How could we do that without some extra help? I was drowning as it was, and I wasn’t half-assing it, either.

  But the next section of the article pointed that out. It mentioned the long hours of practice and time spent traveling, and how competitive it was to get and keep a spot on college sports teams. Whitney even brought in the high injury risk and how an injury could result in loss of scholarship, as well as medical bills that neither the school nor personal health insurance covered much of, unless it was a high-profile player who’d been injured publicly. She quoted a few comments from the athletes, one that I found myself nodding at and another that made me cringe at how self-righteous, angry, and moronic it came across.

  I reached the final paragraphs, wondering if she’d saved the meanest for last, since so far, it had been fairly balanced. This would probably state her final decision and add the cheating she’d mentioned.

  So while I know it might not always seem fair, I guess we’ll have to file this under that saying you hate hearing from your parents and teachers: “Life’s not fair.” Most of the athletes I’ve met are nice guys who are working hard to keep up with college while playing a sport they love. Just like many of us are working hard to keep up with college while working full-time, often in low-level and crappy jobs, and trying to fit in our hobbies on the side until we find a way to turn those hobbies into something that makes us money.

  As expected, there were also some self-entitled players, ones in need of serious ego checks, who think they can walk on water, frozen or not.