FALSE 9: Red Card Series

by Erickson, Megan

  One night, in her basement while we were supposed to be watching movie, she slid her hand down my pants, her little teeth biting her lip, and gave me a fumbling hand job that I’d remember for the rest of my life. She let me touch her, just over her panties, and I’d never forget the fluttering of her lashes as she shuddered and came.

  The next week—no joke—her father moved them across the country. She bawled her eyes out to me, and said that he had accepted a new job, and she didn’t want to leave me, but had no choice. I swore her asshole father knew if he didn’t move her, I’d have his daughter’s virginity by senior year. At least, a kid could hope.

  I’d been devastated. She’d been my best friend too, and it’d been torture watching her pack up her room, tears in her eyes while I sat on her pink-sheeted bed. After she left, we tried to keep in touch, but cross-country long distance between two sixteen year olds was a recipe for disaster.

  For a long time, I’d wondered if maybe I’d tried harder, we could have made it. But now I knew without a doubt that we wouldn’t have. I hadn’t fought for her, because what I’d felt for her was a fraction of what I felt for Bianca. For Bianca, I wanted to fight. I just didn’t fucking know how.

  “Saint, get your shit together.” A thick finger nearly jabbed my eye, and I reared back. I rubbed my hand down my face, gazing around as my teammates stared at me in confusion. Oh right, it was halftime in a game where we were down by two goals and instead of listening to Coach ream us out, I was off on another planet.

  “Sorry,” I murmured. I wasn’t having a horrible game. Not great, but not horrible. Somewhere around okay, which wasn’t a surprise because mediocrity was the story of my life.

  Coach drew his finger back, and he got that look in his face that he’d been giving me for two weeks, that look that hovered somewhere between anger and pity. I knew that look. He thought I was a pathetic bastard for getting hung up on his niece who a) I wasn’t allowed near and b) who had played with me until she got bored. I hadn’t seen her on campus at all, not once, but that didn’t stop me from imagining her sneaking off to do God knows where with some other guy.

  That guy should be me. I was the one who should be in danger of getting expelled because of her latest adventure. I was the one who should be puking my guts out after some eating contest. Me. It should be me. But it wasn’t. And it never would be.

  A smack landed on the side of my head, and I sucked in my breath. “Head in the game,” Coach sneered before walking away.

  The smack helped a bit, grounding me. I jumped a few times, working some heat into my muscles as the ref blew the whistled, signaling the end of halftime.

  Dre fell into step next to me as we walked onto the field. “Man, you okay for real?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Really.”

  Dre looked concerned. “Focus, okay? If not for yourself, then for all of us.”

  Shit, he was right. I looked him in the eye. “I’m in. Swear.”

  He smiled and patted my back before walking to the goal.

  I took my position, and waited for the ref whistle. For the next ten minutes, I ran my ass off. Soccer was the one thing I was fucking good at, so I threw myself into the game. We scored two more goals, tying the game with five minutes left. I assisted both goals.

  The ref signaled for a corner kick. The other team’s goalie yelled, “Mark up!” I felt a heat at my side, and a voice in my ear that’d been annoying the fuck out of me all game. “Shove me one more time, asshole, and I’ll take you out.”

  I’d been ignoring him for an hour, but I was done with his mouth. “You need me to play softer? Sorry man, this isn’t a travel team you’re only on because daddy coughed up the big bucks.”

  Shane, ball tucked under his arm, jogged to the corner. I kept my eye on him, knowing his beautiful bended kick was heading my way.

  “Better hope the ref doesn’t turn his back or you’ll be coughing up blood.”

  “Seriously? Fuck off.” I jostled with him, vying for the best position at the far-post just as the ball came sailing toward us. I leaped in the air, thrilled when the ball connected with my head on a solid hit. I angled my neck, sending the ball into the goal.

  “Motherfucker,” someone hissed. I heard a cheer, the swish of a ball hitting a net. I grinned just as something sharp slammed into my ribs. I gasped for breath, distantly hearing the sound of something hard hitting metal. Pain exploded in my skull as everything went dark and silent. I didn’t even feel my body hit the ground.

  Eleven

  Am I Going to Get Whacked?

  Something was tickling my fingers. It was kinda cold. And wet. I opened my eyes and at first my vision was a little funny, but I blinked until I was able to focus. Then I blinked again. Because my eyes were telling me that Bianca was sitting beside my bed, long dark hair pulled off her face, tongue at the corner of her mouth in concentration while she painted my fingernails. The jet-black nail polish bottle sat on my desk.

  She leaned back, eyeing her work before digging back into the bottle and continuing onto my pinkie.

  Dre walked into my bedroom, and my eyes went to him. “Hey man, I was just coming to check on you.”

  After coming to on the field after that motherfucker slammed my head into the goal post, I’d been checked over by the training staff, diagnosed with a concussion, and was finally home after being watched for a few hours. Now I was in my bed and seeing things. Maybe I should go to the hospital. “I’m okay. Do I have a cool scar at least?”

  Dre grimaced. “Uh, not sure about that. Your head was bleeding like a motherfucker. They had to shave part of your hair to get the stitches in.”

  I reached up, feeling the side of my head, where there was bare skin and a row of sharp stitches. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I slammed my hand down on the bed. “How come I never get cool scars, huh? I should have played hockey.” Dre only smiled at my distress. I closed my eyes and only just managed not to whine. “Concussions are no joke.”

  “Yeah I coulda told you that.”

  “No, like I’m seeing things.”

  He frowned. “Huh?”

  “Yeah, I’m hallucinating that Bianca is here painting my nails. Which is, you know, fucking nuts.”

  I laughed but Dre didn’t laugh with me. His eyes darted to the side. “Uhhh, that’s not a hallucination, bro.”

  I froze, the laughter dying in my throat as I slowly turned my head. Bianca was grinning at me, and then she waved, just a little flutter of her fingers with the hand holding the nail polish brush. “Hey you.” Then she leaned down and blew across my nails. Despite my injury, my dick reacted to the hot puffs of air. She wore a pair of tight blank leggings and an oversized sweatshirt with sleeves that bunched around her wrists. With her hair in a high ponytail, she looked a bit like Ariana Grande. Her bare feet were propped up on the railing of my bed. I swallowed. “Uh. Hi.”

  She screwed the lid back on the nail polish bottle and handed me a glass of water with a straw. “Drink.”

  I did as she asked, closing my lips around the straw because I was in no position to argue. I was still trying to convince my brain that my eyes weren’t lying. She was here. In my bedroom. As if I hadn’t handed her my heart a week ago only for her to gag on it.

  “Uh, I’ll leave you two alone. Need anything?” Dre was already backing out of my bedroom.

  “No thanks,” I called after him.

  I let my head fall back on my pillow, and then held up my hand, eyeing the black polish. “Why’d you paint my nails?”

  She shrugged. “I got tired of watching you sleep so I snooped around and found it in your closet.”

  “It was a hazing thing from when I was a freshman.” I didn’t know why I felt like I needed to explain why I had nail polish. “Uh, next question. Why are you here?”

  “Coach said you got hurt.”

  That was it. That was all she said. She stopped there like it was enough information.

  I grunted. “And you care because?�
�� Her chin dipped, and I regretted my words instantly when her lip trembled. “Bianca—”

  She blew out a harsh breath. “It’s okay. I deserved that.”

  “No, I shouldn’t have said it.”

  “You should have,” she said fiercely. “Just own it, Lavin. I hurt you. And you have every right to feel that hurt and be angry with me.”

  “Okay, if you want honesty and for me to own my feelings. Here is the truth. I was angry, for a few days. And now I’m not angry anymore. I’m sad.” I ran my tongue over my teeth. “And I miss you.”

  “Lavin,” she whispered, and then she was crawling over me onto my double bed, dropping her slim body down between my torso and the wall. Her warm cheek rested on my bare shoulder, and she draped an arm across my naked chest. Her knees nudged my thigh as she tucked them up, feet against the wall.

  I stayed motionless, unsure what to do and what this meant. She was here, but it could be out of pity for all I knew. I was too tired and my head hurt too badly to play hard to get with her. I’d missed her.

  “How’s your head?”

  “It’s okay. Throbbing a little.”

  “I’m going to hunt down that asshole who shoved you, key his car, slash his tires, and fill his Gatorades bottles with laxatives.” She spoke fiercely, her breath gusting over my chest in hot little pants.

  I laughed, which turned into a groan because the action made my head pound. The only consolation was that warmth flooded at her protectiveness of me. “Remind me not to piss you off.”

  “I was there.” Her voice had lost its bravado. “Out of sight. But when I saw your head bounce off that pole, I thought I was going to throw up.”

  I winced. “That bad huh?”

  She shuddered. “That hollow metal thunking sound is going to haunt me.”

  I rubbed her shoulder. “Hey, I’m okay. I got a thick skull.”

  “He could have really hurt you.” She wasn’t letting this go, her brow furrowed in a stubborn pout.

  “Well, he kinda did, but I’m alive. He’s probably off the team already. That shit doesn’t fly with any team.”

  She huffed. “Still might key his car.”

  “Okay, you little hoodlum.”

  She was quiet for a while, her arm tight across my stomach.

  When she spoke again, her voice was soft. “How’d you find out?”

  I took a guess at what she meant. “Shane was watching some entertainment show that had the Kardashians watching the runway, and there you were.”

  She sighed. “I’ve been selfish,” she said softly.

  I didn’t respond, because I didn’t know what to say.

  “I have to confess something.”

  I stared at the ceiling, focusing on a watermark that looked like Groot. “Okay.”

  “Don’t hate me until I tell it all, okay?”

  I tried not to let my voice shake. “Okay.”

  “When those football players approached me on campus, and I saw you at my back, my first thought was that you seemed like the kind of guy who would just… go along with what I said. I didn’t want to go to that party alone, not with those guys who clearly just wanted to show me how big their dicks were, but I wanted to go to a college party here to see what it was like. Meanwhile you were there looking at me like you would have literally laid down face first in a puddle to keep me from getting my feet wet. You felt harmless to me.”

  I swallowed, wanting to deny it, but also knowing that she was not wrong. She lifted her head to glance at me, and for once in my life, I get my mouth shut. I just nodded, and for some reason, that made her wince. She dropped her head back on my shoulder.

  “It sounds so callous, but I hadn’t planned to talk to you after the party, but that all changed when I got to know you. I like being near you. You’re funny, you’re hot as hell—way hotter than you give yourself credit for, and you don’t play games. You’re just…unabashedly Lavin. You make me feel safe, and I can’t stress enough how much it means to me to feel safe.”

  “Why me though? You have a million options, and you’re choosing to hang out with me?”

  I wasn’t sure what I expected her reaction to be, but her indignant squeak of “Options?” wasn’t one of my guesses.

  “Yeah, options—”

  She speared me a zinger of a look that had my jaw clamping shut. “This isn’t about choosing an option. I don’t need a man, Lavin. I’ve been on my own for a very, very long time. The absolute last thing I ever intended when I came here was to meet someone I liked. In fact, that’s the last thing I need.”

  “So why—”

  “I’m with you because I want to be with you. You. Not because you’re an option I chose in a damn lineup.” Goddamn, she was pissed, eyes blazing at me. “Seriously? Is that what you think about yourself? About this?”

  I squinted at her. “There’s what I think and then there’s what I want to think. Sometimes wires get crossed and I don’t know anymore.”

  She gripped my face, lightly, because I was pathetic and injured. “I have no reason to lie to you. The truth is that I don’t date. I had one boyfriend, an older guy, who lasted a year and half before he moved onto a younger model.”

  “A younger model? You’re twenty-one, B.”

  She pursed her lips. “She was eighteen. He likes them young.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Ew.”

  “That’s why I feel selfish as hell. Because I didn’t let you go and kept seeking out your company because I couldn’t stay away. All while knowing I could have put you in danger. I didn’t give you a choice when you had all the facts. That’s on me.”

  She’d said that back at Coach’s house. I remembered. “Danger?” I said incredulously. “What, do you have a mafia ex-boyfriend who’s going to put a severed horse head in my bed?” She didn’t respond, and my spine stiffened. “Wait, you do? Fuck, am I going to get a crowbar to the kneecaps by a made man? A cap in my ass? Am I going to get whacked?”

  “Oh my God, Lavin, it’s not the mob!” She screeched.

  “Then what—?”

  “I’m hiding out here, Lavin.” Her voice was calmer now, but her eyes were so fucking sad that it broke my heart. “I’m hiding here because I have some anonymous stalker fan who has threatened to kill me.”

  I sat up so quickly that my head spun. I groaned and Bianca gasped. “Lay down!” she ordered. “What are you doing?”

  “You just told me someone wants to whack you!”

  “Shhhh!” She glanced at the door, and then back at me, a plea in her eyes. “You can’t tell anyone.”

  I shoved a pillow behind my back and Bianca sat cross-legged beside me, her hand on my thigh.

  “Explain.” I said. “Please.”

  She didn’t like talking about this, that much was clear. Her other hand was clenching her knee, knuckles white and nails digging into her pants. “At first, the messages were like other fan emails. It was no big deal. But then they started messaging me on Instagram, which is the only social media I have. As a model, I go by Bianca Marie. They began to get more aggressive. Demanding. They wanted to meet me. It was always the same username, and they wrote with a familiarity that made me uncomfortable. Then the…gifts began.”

  “Gifts?” My throat was dry. I grabbed the water on my desk and chucked the straw before downing the rest of it.

  Bianca nodded. “At first they arrive at my jobs, little things like flowers. Then came the stuffed bears, dressed in things I’d been wearing at my photo shoots or shows—the clothes I’d been modeling.”

  A pit opened up in my stomach. “Holy shit that’s creepy.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” she laughed, but the sound was tight. “I got the police involved, but we couldn’t trace where the messages came from, or how the gifts were delivered. I was scared out of my mind. The stalker kept asking to meet me, that they knew we’d fall in love, and I’d be theirs. I couldn’t sleep. I was losing weight and not showing up when I was supposed to. My manager told
me that was a part of the job, having obsessive fans, but that’s not the life I wanted.” She looked down, and wiped below her eyes. Her fingers came away glistening. “But then a bear showed up at my apartment with a wedding dress on. On it was a note, driven through the bear with a knife, asking me to marry them. That was when I bailed. I left everything behind, and I came here. My uncle is the only family I have in the States, but on paper I’m not connected to him.”

  I reached for her, pulling her against my chest where her shoulders shook as she cried silently, her tears wetting my skin as she clung to me. As much as I loved having her here with me, I hated everything about this. Bianca should be happy and experiencing college life all while looking forward to a future as a damn good event coordinator. Not scared out of her mind that some sicko was going to catch her in a dark alley and threaten her. A fucking bear with a knife? Damn.

  “I’m so sorry, Bianca. I can’t imagine how that makes you feel, because I want to hurl just listening to this story.”

  “We’ve hired a private investigator. So now there’s not much else to do but wait and hope the professionals find this person.”

  After that, she was silent for a long time, but her shoulders had stopped trembling, and her heart wasn’t racing like it had been. Soon, I felt the tension leach out of her body and she sagged against me. “They haven’t found me here yet, but my manager has told me the packages at my apartment haven’t stopped. They’re angry. And if they find me, and see you, I don’t want to know what they’d do. It’s just not fair to you, which my uncle has told me over and over and over again.” She lifted her head. “I’m sorry I didn’t stay away. I should have from day one. It wasn’t fair to you, not to tell you up front what you were getting into.”