He smirks. “I’m waiting on you, man.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I feel as if I’m walking into a landmine. Who knows what he wants to rail on me about? It could be anything, the way I’m fucking up everything these days.
“Chase, the last couple of months, you’ve been a complete prick. It’s obvious you’ve been going through something; you’re just too damn stubborn to admit it. I knew sooner or later it was going to sink in and you’d start to figure it out. You look like your head’s about to explode, so I’m guessing things are starting to come into focus. I’m not going to push. If you want to talk about it, we can talk about it. If you want to talk about nothing, that’s cool too. I’m not your sister. I’m not going to nag you until you break.”
I punch his arm. “Don’t talk about my sister that way.”
Spence chuckles but doesn’t respond. He’s waiting for me to start, but I don’t even know where to begin. When I don’t say anything, he plays around with my iPod and turns up the volume. After a few songs, he pulls the iPod back out and searches it again.
“I feel like everything’s completely fucked up, and I don’t know where to begin to fix it.”
Spencer puts the iPod down and turns down the volume. “What’s fucked up?”
“My head is a mess. I’m playing like shit. I’m avoiding Jenna like the plague because I don’t know what to say to her anymore. The season’s started, and I’m expected to be dominant and in control, and I don’t know if I could find control with a fucking map and a compass. I need to be a leader, but how can I be when I feel so fucking lost?”
“Slow down. Let’s take this one step at a time. Start with Jenna. What’s going on there?”
I pause as I merge onto the freeway. I keep checking my mirrors as if I’m being a diligent driver, but there’s not a car in sight. I’m just stalling.
“Chase, it’s me. You can tell me anything. I won’t breathe a word of it to anyone. Not even your sister.”
I exhale, releasing the stress. “I saw Jenna today, and my gut instinct was to run in the opposite direction. She’s not the same person she used to be. She’s demanding and whiny. I’m going through all this shit, and she doesn’t even care. All she can focus on is the damn wedding. At first I thought it was just typical chick wedding drama, but now I think it’s more.”
“Look, dude, I’ve known Jenna for a long time. A lot longer than you. It took me a while to see how you guys could work. I mean, she’s so different from what I thought you would want long term, but I think I get it now. Maybe you do too, and that’s why you’re realizing it’s a mistake.”
“Holy cryptic, Batman. That made no sense at all,” I reply. “Try again.”
“Let me ask you. What do you see in Jenna? Why did you first get together?”
I tap my thumbs on the steering wheel as I think. I’m used to the family giving me shit about Jenna. I usually shut down any conversation that comes up about her, but I’m thinking I need to stop and really think. “I met her at that work party you dragged me to last summer. She was sweet. She looked at me like I could do no wrong. Jenna went along with everything I said: no fighting, no debating over every little issue. She knows dick about football and couldn’t care less about how fast I run the forty or my completion percentage. If I threw an interception, she didn’t want to Skype with me so we could analyze the film. Everything with her was smooth because she didn’t push me on anything. Life with her is easy, predictable. At least it used to be.”
“See, I think you’re in love with the idea that she can give you an easy life,” Spencer says. “Working with Jenna’s dad for all these years, I’ve gotten to know her pretty well. The Jenna you’re seeing now is the only Jenna I know. She’s a princess who wants to get married, have a bunch of kids, and live a pampered life. It’s all she cares about. She won’t push you on shit because she doesn’t care about you as long as you’re giving her what she wants: the red carpet, the black cards, and the monstrous house. And she wants the dream wedding. She’s giving you push back now because you’re not giving her what she wants.”
My seatbelt feels as if it’s strangling me. I pull at it to get some breathing room while he continues.
“You’ll have a life together, but it’ll be separate. She’ll do her thing, and you’ll do yours, connecting only for social functions. She’ll never care about football unless it negatively impacts her bank account. She’s not the woman you can come home and bare your soul to. There’s nothing wrong with that kind of life, if that’s what you really want?”
“So she’s using me?” I try to sound surprised, but deep down, I’m not. They’ve been telling me this for months, but I haven’t been listening. Hearing it now doesn’t hurt like it should if I truly loved her. Maybe my ego is a little bruised, but my world isn’t shattered.
“Just like you’re using her so you can punish Ari.”
I turn my head and glare at him. A horn honks, snapping my attention back on the road. “Ari has nothing to do with this.”
“That is such bullshit, and you know it. Jenna is the polar opposite of Ari, and that’s not a coincidence. You rushed into a relationship with Jenna last summer when the news started talking about Ari and Henrik and all the crazy trips they were taking. The bungee jumping, and white water rafting, and—”
“I remember,” I snap.
“The day Sports Illustrated put them on the cover as the sports power couple, you ran out and bought a ring and proposed. Out of fucking nowhere. You two were casually dating at best! Then Ari comes back to town, and all of a sudden, you’re coming unglued. Your game is off. You’re fighting with your sister. Keep lying to yourself if you want, but you and Jenna has everything to do with you and Ari.”
Fuck me.
“If you want to marry Jenna so you can have an easy life, then go ahead. I’ll support you,” he continues. “But be prepared. It’ll be an empty life. She won’t break your heart, but you’ll lose your soul.”
I have no response. Spence is the most levelheaded person I know, and he knows me better than I know myself. He’s probably seen this coming, but he’d never tell me. He always lets me gather just enough rope to hang myself, then stops me before I put my head in the noose. It’s always been easy for him. He and my sister have the ideal relationship. It’s everything I could ever hope to have, but it’s not in the cards for me. My match is marrying someone else.
Traffic is slowing on the 280. It’s for the best since my head is in the clouds and I can barely keep my truck in my lane. “Since we’re laying it all on the table, I’m sorry for not telling you about me and Ari.”
He laughs. “I’ve known for years. Longer than anyone.”
“What? How is that possible?”
“Five, maybe six years ago—your freshman year, I guess—I was interning downtown, and I saw you two on a street corner near my building. I had to triple check because it was the first time I’d seen you two together when you weren’t going at it. Well, you were going at it, just not the way I was used to. I followed you till you went into a furniture store. I kept waiting for you to say something to me about it, but you never did. I figured since you were buying a sofa together, things must be pretty serious.”
Now I feel like a bigger dick.
“After that, things just made sense,” he continues. “You’d be great for a while, then you’d randomly go on a bender. I’d catch you up at three in the morning watching tennis. Sometimes you’d have a bottle of Jack and you’d be cursing at her. Other times, you’d be cheering. Shit like that. I kept waiting for you to say something, but I figured you were keeping it to yourself for some reason.”
I let out a long sigh and tap the gear shaft. “We didn’t want to put everyone in the middle. At first, I think we both thought it was just really hot sex, you know? We fuck like we fight: intense, raw, crazy. I figured it would fizzle out, so why drag everyone into it? Over time, it turned into more. We still fought like crazy, but we cli
cked in ways I could never explain. She gets me. When we were together, we were good—good doesn’t begin to cover it. But then the distance would get to be too much. We’d have a blow up, and I’d do something stupid–”
“Like fuck the cheer squad and brag about it on Twitter?”
I groan and strangle the steering wheel. “Yeah, like that. Then I’d end up missing her like crazy, so I’d fly to wherever she was, and we’d work it out. It was a vicious cycle that went on for years. It practically broke me.”
“Oh, I remember. It’s a good thing you didn’t play much your first year. You were a fucking mess. I don’t think the rest of the world could tell—you’ve always been good at putting on a good show—but I knew.”
“It took me a while to pull my head out of my ass. Once I realized that she’s the devil incarnate and I stopped feeling sorry for myself and started hating her with every molecule of my being, everything started clicking again.”
He chuckles. “Clicking? Is that what you calling it?”
I look at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Sure, you snapped back into the land of the living, but you changed. You stopped spending as much time with the family, like you were shutting everyone out. All you focused on was football. I never see you have fun anymore. It’s like you’re just going through the motions. It’s that easy life I was talking about.”
I sigh. We’re going around and around in circles. “So it’s back to Jenna, is it?”
“Dude, Jenna’s not the cause. She’s a symptom. When was the last time you were truly happy? When you woke up so excited you couldn’t contain yourself? Unable to sleep because you couldn’t come down from the high that is your life?”
“Not everyone has what you and Charlie have.”
He rolls his eyes. “Don’t give me that shit, dude. When was the last time you were happy?”
I pound the steering wheel with my fist. Why does he have to push? “I’m happy!”
“Bullshit. You’re living the dream as an NFL quarterback, albeit not very well as of late, and you haven’t been happy for one second of it. When was the last time?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“When, Chase?” he says firmly. He’s not going to let up.
“Your wedding! All right?” I take a second to calm down. “It was at your wedding. Then everything got fucked up, and it hasn’t been right since.”
“There’s your answer. Now what are you going to do about it?”
“She’s marrying someone else. There’s nothing I can do.” I stop at a red light, and I rub my eyes with the heels of my hands.
He taps his fingers on the center console. “I won’t betray confidence, so don’t even ask. But I’ll tell you this.” Spence pauses, probably trying to choose his words carefully. “Things aren’t always what they seem. Just because the world thinks a wedding is going to happen doesn’t mean that’s still the plan. Look at your ‘wedding.’ You and I both know that’s not going to happen, but the rest of the world thinks it is.”
He doesn’t offer further explanation, and I don’t ask. He pulls out the iPod and cranks up the volume again. He doesn’t say a word the rest of the drive to the golf course.
Chapter Thirty-Two
June3, 2013
Pebble Beach, CA
Spencer and Charlie’s Wedding
Chase
Damn it! Another rain cancelation. At this rate, she’s going to miss the damn wedding. She was supposed to play in the finals of the French Open on Saturday, but France has been getting battered by five days of hurricane force winds and monsoon downpours. France never gets weather like this! Freaking global warming! If they don’t play tomorrow, she won’t make it here by Friday for the rehearsal.
Thankfully, Charlie is taking it in stride that her maid of honor is stuck at Roland Garros and may miss the wedding. Most brides would be freaking out, but instead, my sister is waiting on pins and needles to organize a French Open party so we can all cheer Ari on. My sister is probably the most calm, laid-back bride to ever walk down the aisle. She has Spencer, and that’s all she needs. For the first time in my life, I think I finally understand what they have.
Now that I get it, I don’t want to spend another second away from Ari. I want her here. Well… after she kicks ass and takes home the trophy. I know she’ll slaughter Freja Ostberg. She’s been putting pressure on Ari, desperately hoping to steal the first-place ranking, but she’d have to cut Ari off at the knees for that to happen. That Swede has nothing on my girl.
Charlie may be a laid-back bride, but this is anything but a laid-back wedding. I think over five hundred people are attending this wedding. Charlie would have been happy to elope, but that just wasn’t possible. Between all of Dad’s baseball friends and colleagues and Spencer’s father’s associates, the guest list got out of control. About one hundred of their closest friends and family came in a week early, and we have taken over Pebble Beach. Poor Charlie had to organize multiple golf outings, sailing on Monterey Bay, a private showing at the aquarium, and a ton of other activities to keep everyone busy. I know she can’t wait until this is all over and she and Spencer can disappear on their honeymoon.
By Wednesday afternoon in France, the rain finally breaks, but the courts need a full day to dry out. Charlie gets the folks at Pebble to host a French Open party. CBS gets wind of it and sends a camera crew out to show Arianna’s cheering section. I let Charlie think she was dragging me to the party, and I had to rein in my cheering when Ari took her opponent down in three sets. She’s going to catch the first flight she can, but she’ll be cutting it close.
Ari doesn’t make it in time for the rehearsal or the rehearsal dinner, but she should get in late tonight. I was really hoping to get to talk to her before my date for the weekend arrived. Ari hasn’t been taking my calls since the draft, and we never got a chance to talk about what we were going to do for the wedding. I sent her flowers before each match at the Open, as I always do. She texted a thank you and promised we would talk at the wedding. Most guys would get butt hurt by the blow off, but she’s playing in a major competition. She needs her head in the game. We’ll be fine; I’m not worried about us. The tough conversations can wait.
My plan was to go to the wedding stag. Well, not actually stag since I knew whose bed I would be sleeping in at the end of the night. But then Charlie and Mom warned me that over a hundred single women under the age of thirty-five would be at this wedding. With the ink on my fat contract still drying, they were worried the wedding would turn into a circus of women clamoring for my attention. It’s lame but a real concern. To keep the focus on the bride, where it should be, I promised I’d bring a date.
I asked a friend, Stacy Henderson, to be my fake date. She’s on the Stanford golf team and plans to go pro after she graduates. With all the big wigs in the sports world at this wedding, there will be plenty of people for her to rub elbows with who could really help her career. She knows that this isn’t a date, but a mutually beneficial situation. She can meet people she wouldn’t otherwise have access to, and I have someone to help me fight off scores of gold diggers. The best part is Stacy is a lesbian, so I really have nothing to worry about.
I wish I could just bring Ari as my date. I’m so sick of hiding. But if we came out as a couple now, it would really steal the spotlight from Spence and Charlie. I can’t do that to them. But this will be the last fucking time we have to play this game. As soon as the wedding’s over, I’m stealing Ari for a few days, and I’m going to propose.
Ari doesn’t get in until early Saturday morning. The first time I get to see her is when she’s walking down the aisle. It takes all my restraint not to run to her and propose right here and now. She’s a vision. Even after flying all night and not getting any sleep, she’s the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I can’t keep focused on the ceremony because I keep picturing our wedding. Guys aren’t supposed to think about this shit, but I can’t help i
t. What the fuck have I been waiting for all these years?
When the ceremony is over, I finally get to touch her as I walk her back down the aisle. She takes my arm and gives me a wink.
I lean in and whisper, “Still mad at me?”
She smiles. “I’m always mad at you, but when you look that good in a tux, it’s hard to remember why.”
“That’s a relief. With how breathtaking you look, I was going to have to spend the whole reception groveling for your forgiveness.”
She laughs. “Now that I would like to see. Forget what I said—I still hate you.”
As soon as we make it back down the aisle, we’re ushered off for pictures. When we’re paired together for shots, I whisper dirty things in her ear. She pretends to get mad, but I know she loves it. If she didn’t look pissed at me, someone would think something was up. As the pictures wind down, I can sense Aiden is eager to steal her away.
I nonchalantly walk behind her and say, “I need to see you. Alone.”
She nods and leaves with Aiden. Once they leave, I’m swarmed by people asking me about the draft. I give everyone the same sound bite and flashy smile, then I try to turn the conversation toward my sister. We’re here to celebrate her, not me. Twenty minutes later, I get a text to meet Ari in the small reception room off the lobby. I excuse myself and find the room. She’s not there yet. Typical, always making me wait. A few moments later, she walks through the door.
Before she has a chance to close the door, I sweep her into my arms. “I’m so sorry for everything I said. This past month has been hell. I’ve missed you so much.”
She wriggles out of my arms, and my heart sinks. She looks in my eyes and brushes a stray lock of hair off my forehead. “I’ve missed you too.”
She kisses me with a hunger that tells me she’s missed me as much as I’ve missed her. I want to tear off her dress and take her right here against the wall, but I know we can’t.
Hate to Love You Page 25