Power Play

by Deirdre Martin

  Eric leveled him with an irked look. “Don’t push it, okay?”

  “Jesus, Eric, lighten up.” Jason threw a crumpled wad of bills on the bar. “So you’re definitely okay with the house purchase?”

  “Let’s go in halves. That way I’ll feel like I’m doing something.”

  “No problem,” said Jason.

  “You know, there aren’t many people I know who want a summer place in North Dakota.”

  “It’s the right thing to do.”

  “Totally,” said Eric. “I just hope Mom and Dad agree.”

  Eric was one of the few Blades who actually enjoyed attending charity dinners. He knew he looked great in a tux, and he was always up for superficial glad-handing and schmoozing. But tonight he was in no mood to don his humanitarian persona. The Blades’ road trip had been a disaster, the team losing three out of four games. He’d played like crap.

  He knew he’d been unusually quiet on the ride with Monica to the Four Seasons, where the dinner was being held. When she told him about not getting the part in the play because of her work in daytime, he’d expressed genuine outrage on her behalf, but he couldn’t maintain it for long. Within seconds he sank back into his own misery, worried about being subpar on the ice, worried about his parents’ plight. “I’m sorry,” he told her, meaning it. “I’m just in a bad mood tonight. I’m sure I’ll snap out of it once we get inside.”

  Unfortunately, he didn’t. They usually split up to mingle at these functions. But not tonight; tonight Monica was glued to his side, beaming at him with love that was all too real. Of course he was proud to be seen with her, but tonight’s Velcro act was making him feel smothered. He was actually relieved when she excused herself to go to the bathroom.

  “Can I say something?” said Ulfie, the minute Monica left the Blades table.

  “Shoot,” said Eric.

  “You’re totally pussy whipped. It’s like she’s got you on a choke collar or something. Everywhere you go, she goes. You don’t hang out with us that much anymore, dude. You’re still an asshole, but you were a shitload more fun when you were a horn dog, my man.” Ulf shook his head sadly.

  This wasn’t what Eric wanted to hear right now. He turned to Thad, who’d been listening while trying to build a series of pyramids out of all the drink straws littering the table. “What do you think? You agree with Ulfie?”

  Thad nodded. “Yeah, it’s like you’re boring now that you’re not Mr. Tomcat.”

  Eric began to panic. “You clowns don’t get it, do you? It’s not a serious relationship. It’s just a status thing for me, same as every other hot chick I’ve ever bagged.”

  “Yeah, but you were always done with those other chicks pretty quick. This thing has been going on for months,” noted Thad, giving up on his architectural efforts.

  “Of course it has,” said Eric, “because she’s the hottest thing on two legs. What kind of an idiot would pass up that kind of opportunity? Admit it, she’s the best piece of eye candy I’ve ever nailed, right?”

  “You got that right,” said Ulf.

  “I don’t care about her,” Eric scoffed. “All that’s mattered to me is that I’ve been banging Monica Geary. If I can keep getting laid by the most gorgeous woman in daytime, why not just let it roll on?”

  Thad coughed uncomfortably, his eyes cutting quickly to the left. Eric turned. The hottest thing on two legs was standing not two feet away.

  SIXTEEN

  “Get the hell away from me.”

  Monica wanted to run. Sprint away from the asshole who’d just told his friends she was nothing more than a status symbol for him. Tear into the night and hop into the nearest cab, telling the driver to get her home as fast as he could so she could relieve her heaving stomach and puke her guts up. But she couldn’t run; her heels were too high; she’d break her neck. So instead, she was storming away from Eric the best she could, but it wasn’t fast enough; Eric caught her arm before she’d even reached the hotel’s front doors.

  “Monica, listen to me.”

  She jerked her arm from his light grasp. “I just did, you asshole.”

  She wouldn’t look at him, because she knew what she’d see in those blue eyes: the false bullshit sincerity he’d been laying on her for months. She could hear his voice in her head: Of course I care about you—the real you. Fuck him. She’d talked herself into believing he cared about her, Monica Geary the woman, when all he cared about was Monica Geary the image. She wished she could spit in his face. Truly. She would never forgive Theresa for suggesting this little ruse, never. And she would never forgive herself for thinking she could be the one to change him. Surprise, surprise: superficial Eric was the real Eric; caring Eric was the part he played. Some student of human behavior she was.

  “All I ask is a minute,” Eric begged.

  “Why? So you can hand me some line of bullshit and tell me that what you told your friends wasn’t true?” She felt herself becoming tearful and suppressed it. She was an actress, goddammit. She would cover her pain with anger and indignation.

  “I exaggerated to my friends. I had to save face with them.”

  “And what a job you did of it,” Monica sneered. “Throwing me under the bus, making me look like some kind of desperate loser.”

  “I apologize for that,” Eric said sincerely.

  Monica snorted. “You think I care?”

  “I know you do.” He looked like he felt sorry for her. She wondered what would happen if she kicked him in the balls, watching him crumple in pain and humiliation right there in the lobby. God knows he deserved it.

  “You are such a jerk, you know that?” She was talking louder than she intended. Heads were beginning to turn. She concentrated on lowering her voice; the last thing she needed was a story in the press about her having a hissy fit.

  “This is over,” Monica declared. “You’ve saved face. Now get the hell away from me.”

  “I never meant to hurt you,” Eric insisted softly. Monica suppressed a flinch of pain as she watched the expression on his face change from sincere to defensive. “We entered this purely as a business agreement, remember? I shouldn’t have let it go any further.”

  “Oh, right, I forgot,” Monica replied sarcastically. “When you told me you cared about me, the real me, that was just an act, right? Even though there was no public there to witness it. Gotcha.”

  “We’d agreed at the beginning it would end at some point,” Eric continued.

  “And now it has,” Monica shot back airily. “So why don’t you go back inside to your stupid jock friends and tell them another lie: that you just dumped me, when in reality, I just dumped you.”

  Eric paused. “I think we should tell Theresa to tell the press it was mutual.”

  “Fuck you, Eric.”

  His mouth fell open in indignation. “You think I’m gonna let you say you dumped me? No way.”

  Monica shrugged like she didn’t care. “Lie. I mean, you do it so well. Tell the press you dumped me. And I’ll counter and say I dumped you. And the press will just lap it up, won’t they? Lots of headlines, the kind we both love, saying the split is acrimonious. Who really dumped whom? they’ll speculate. Was one of them having an affair? Can we get one of them to talk? Eric the puck-passing stud, on the loose again. Who’ll be his next conquest?”

  “Monica—”

  “Good-bye, Eric. When your hockey career ends, you should seriously consider becoming an actor. Your powers of pretending are amazing.”

  She pushed through the glass doors of the lobby. Cabs were lined up at the curb outside the hotel. Monica hopped into the nearest one, pulling the door closed with a slam as she gave the cabbie her address. She’d never wept in the back of a cab, and she wasn’t about to start now. She distracted herself by talking to the driver, who told her all about his father’s failing mango farm in Bangalore and how he was saving up money to bring his whole family to the States. He’d had to leave his wife behind, and he missed her terribly. Monica wi
shed the cabbie’s tale put her own problems—so inane in comparison—in perspective, but it didn’t. By the time she got home, she had a headache from clenching her jaw to hold back her tears. The headache was a blessing; she took two Valium, put on her favorite silk pajamas, and collapsed into bed, grateful for the rapidity with which her mind plummeted into darkness.

  “Eric! What happened?”

  Delilah was staring at him in utter and complete shock as she handed over a slice of pepperoni pizza. For two days, news of his split from Monica was all over the media, though it was deliberately vague, as Theresa had advised. She’d issued a statement saying the split was mutual, and that he and Monica wished each other all the best. Eric had been “no commenting” his head off. Monica was doing the same. It was all very polite and civilized.

  His brother was staring at him across the kitchen table like he’d never seen anyone so pathetic, which Eric didn’t appreciate. “What’s your problem?” Eric asked sharply.

  “You know what my problem is. You blew it, didn’t you? All this ‘The split was mutual’ crap all over the press? It’s bull, isn’t it? You cut her loose, didn’t you?”

  Eric bit into his pizza, taking his time answering. He could still see himself standing in the lobby at the Four Seasons, shocked by how quickly Monica had pulled the plug and walked away. Well, what the hell else was she supposed to do? He’d expected to feel relief as she drove away in the cab, but he didn’t. Instead, he felt hollow. It was just the shock of how they parted, he told himself. He squelched the feeling and went back to his teammates, raising a champagne toast to the return of Eric Mitchell, horn dog supreme.

  “Well?” Jason pushed.

  “Jason,” Delilah chastised quietly. “Give him a chance.”

  “I dumped her,” said Eric matter-of-factly.

  “But why?” Delilah asked, frowning at her husband as he slipped a piece of pizza under the table to his Newf, Stanley. “You guys seemed so perfect together. And you seemed so happy.”

  “That’s why he dumped her,” Jason jeered. “Because things were getting too real.”

  Eric lowered his slice from his mouth. “What is with all this hostility?”

  “Monica was great,” said Jason.

  “Yeah, I know, but—”

  “Let me finish,” said Jason with a glare.

  Eric frowned. “Fine.”

  “And one of the reasons she was great was because she humanized you. She brought out your good side—the side very few people know exists, the one that isn’t a womanizing dick.”

  Delilah looked uncomfortable. “That’s a bit harsh, honey.”

  “You know it’s true,” Jason said. He looked at Eric contemptuously. “I guess you’re going to go back to your studly ways, huh?”

  Eric shrugged.

  “You are one sad bastard.”

  “I want you to listen carefully to what I’m about to say, and if you ever breathe a word of this to anyone, I will kill you,” Eric said in a controlled voice, tired of being abused. “My and Monica’s relationship? The whole thing was an act.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Jason scoffed.

  “The whole team was upset about losing Guy. No one was thrilled about my taking his place, as you may recall. I put my foot in my mouth by acting like a smug asshole on day one. I was sucking at practice. Meanwhile, the soap press was buzzing about that new actress on W and F unseating Monica.”

  “That blonde chick that sucks?”

  “Yeah. Monica was panicking, so she went to Theresa Dante. After Monica told her we’d met on the set, Theresa suggested she raise her public profile by dating me. Remember all those articles at the beginning of the season about me being the hot new bachelor in town? And of course, the People magazine list—”

  “Cut to the chase,” Jason grumbled.

  “So Theresa approached me, pointing out how mutually beneficial this would be to both of us. I knew the guys all loved Monica, and it would impress them if I were dating her, so I agreed. And that’s all it’s been: a fake relationship to keep both of us in the public eye.”

  “No way.”

  “Yes way.”

  Jason was shaking his head vehemently. “No way. What about at Mom and Dad’s, with you guys in the same bed?”

  “We made a barrier of pillows between us.”

  “Really?” Delilah asked, looking crestfallen.

  Jason still wasn’t buying it. “You’re full of it. There’s no way someone in a fake relationship could look at you the way she looked at you. The way she touched you.”

  “She’s an actress, you idiot, remember? Sadly for her, though, she did come to develop feelings for me.”

  Jason looked scornful. “Oh, and I suppose you didn’t develop any for her?”

  “Nope,” Eric garbled through a mouthful of pizza. “Total acting job on my part.”

  “God, you are so full of shit. You can’t act.”

  “Yes, he can,” Delilah pointed out quietly. “Remember when he posed as you and charmed my mother? He did a great job.”

  “Well, there’s no way he could keep up an acting job like this for months,” Jason insisted.

  “Obviously, I’m more talented than you know,” Eric replied cockily.

  “Okay, so tell me this,” said Jason, reaching down to give another piece of pizza to Stanley, but Delilah snatched it from his fingers before it reached the dog’s jaws. “If this act was working out so well for you two, why end it?”

  “I told you: she was beginning to get emotionally attached to me. You know me, Jace: I don’t like to be tied down.”

  “Did you ever sleep with her?”

  Eric grinned. “Hell, yeah.”

  “Doesn’t make sense,” Jason said more insistently than before. “Why would you be having sex if the whole romance wasn’t real?”

  “Ever hear the expression ‘Friend with benefits’?”

  Jason crossed his arms across his chest. “Bullshit, Eric. I’m your fucking twin. I know you like I know myself. It might have started as an act, but you cared for her.”

  “I agree,” Delilah piped up. “You have feelings for her, and it’s just like Jason said: you were getting nervous because it was getting ‘real.’ ”

  “Getting real for her,” Eric maintained angrily. “I didn’t want her to fall more deeply in love with me. I like her. I didn’t want to hurt her.”

  “You’re lying.” Delilah picked a slice of pepperoni off her pizza and popped it in her mouth. “You two spent a lot of time here with us. You were not acting.”

  “Yes, I was,” Eric maintained through gritted teeth.

  “I’m never going to believe that,” Delilah said stubbornly.

  “That’s your choice. But it’s the truth.”

  “I’m with Delilah,” said Jason. “You might be able to bullshit everyone else in the world, but you can’t bullshit me.”

  Eric chuckled. “You know what I don’t get about this, Jace? You were the one who, in the beginning, said you couldn’t believe someone like Monica Geary would fall for a jackass like me. Now I’m here telling you the whole thing was bullshit, and you refuse to believe it. What’s the deal?”

  “She brought out the best in you, Eric.” Jason turned serious. “I love you, Bro, and it bothers me you haven’t found someone. It just seems sad.”

  “Maybe I think your fuckin’ life is sad,” Eric shot back. He quickly turned to Delilah. “I don’t mean that. I’m just . . . I don’t know.” He stared at his brother. “Different people want different things.”

  “Whatever.” Jason reached for another piece of pizza. “So, you going out tomorrow night with Ulf and Thad to pick up some bimbos?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Same old Eric,” Jason sneered.

  “Leave him alone, Jason,” said Delilah. She looked sad as she finished off her slice. “You know what’s best for you,” she said to Eric. “We love you. And we’re here for you. But I’m really going to miss
Monica.”

  SEVENTEEN

  GRAYSON (HOLDING ROXIE IN HIS ARMS): My own, sweet Roxie . . . I-I don’t know how to tell you this.

  ROXIE: What is it, my love?

  GRAYSON: I-I’ve been unfaithful. I was drunk, I didn’t know what I was doing—

  PAIGE (BURSTING OUT FROM BEHIND THE LONG VELVET CURTAIN IN GRAYSON’S LIBRARY): Don’t lie to her, Grayson! You knew exactly what you were doing!

  GRAYSON: Paige! What are you doing here?

  PAIGE (CLOSING IN ON GRAYSON AND ROXIE): I wanted Roxie to hear the truth, not the candy-coated version I knew you’d feed her (SMILES AT ROXIE TRIUMPHANTLY). Grayson and I are getting married, Roxie! I’m carrying his baby! And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it!

  ROXIE (GASPING AS SHE CLUTCHES THE BACK OF THE COUCH FOR SUPPORT): No . . . it can’t be true . . . Oh, Grayson (FAINTS BEHIND THE COUCH).

  “Cut!”

  Monica got up from behind the couch with a sigh, her eyes glancing up at the control booth to catch Jimmy’s. He was frowning. He was always frowning these days. After all these months, Chesty still had the acting ability of a rock. Monica had heard through the grapevine that she was getting private coaching, but it didn’t seem to be helping. Oh, well. If the popularity polls in Soap World were any indication, it wasn’t Monica’s problem.

  “OMG, Monica. I can’t believe you and Eric Mitchell are splitsville!”

  When Sartre wrote, “Hell is other people,” he wasn’t kidding, Monica thought to herself as Chesty cornered her on the set. News of her and Eric’s “amicable split” was being reported everywhere, with speculation running high as to why this “golden couple had called it quits,” as the Sentinel so unimaginatively put it. Because of Eric’s high profile as an athlete, they were even generating some chat on ESPN. The guys on PTI were debating whether Eric had been unable to change his womanizing ways. Months ago Monica would have been thrilled at the response. Now she just wanted the buzz to die down so she could get on with her life.

  She’d allowed herself a one-day pity party of weeping, moping in her pajamas, and eating junk food. The next morning she resolved not to waste any more time and emotion on an asshole like Eric Mitchell. Instead of putting her heart-break into exile, she’d channel it into work. It would come in handy now, especially since Roxie had just gotten the earth-shattering news that Paige was pregnant with Grayson’s baby.