Hard Stick

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Hard Stick Page 6

by Paige North


  “So is there a solution?” I ask.

  Morgan shakes his head. “Once the contract has been signed, the only thing they can do is put pressure on a player to make him want to quit.”

  “Pressure?”

  “Yes. Make things entirely unsuitable so that he’ll seek to have his contract bought out by another team, or break the contract altogether.”

  I study Flynn, wondering if they’re already putting the pressure on him to make that happen. Maybe that’s why he’s so angry out there.

  Or maybe that’s just who he is.

  After a while, the players start to filter off the ice, toward the locker room for their showers. “Let’s get you set up for your interviews,” Morgan tells me as I pack up my files. “I’ll show you the office you’ll be using.”

  I nod, and as I stand, my knees knock together. I am that nervous. Not that Flynn would ever use his right hook on me, but I know there are things he possesses that are just as deadly.

  Chapter 8

  My “office” is actually the janitor’s closet-slash-break room. Somehow, I’d expected one of those tiny, bare interrogation rooms with a stark white table in the very center, like the ones you see in cop shows. But I’m put at a folding table between a mini-refrigerator and an industrial sink, right in front of a rolling garbage can that smells like old popcorn and ammonia. There is a soda machine humming along in front of me, and a snack machine with Fritos. Mmmm Fritos. If I didn’t feel like I was going to throw up, I’d be all over those.

  I’ve gotten through the first two interviews, with Martin and Ingersol, and they both went swimmingly. The guys were very cordial, answered the questions easily, no nonsense, no problems. As Morgan had promised, it took less than ten minutes. If all my interviews went that way, this gig would be a piece of cake.

  Unfortunately, I’m not that lucky.

  By now, I’ve been waiting, alone, in the closet for fifteen minutes, inhaling what are probably noxious fumes and staring alternately at Fritos and my cell phone, waiting for my final interviewee. He, surprise surprise, is late.

  Not that I expected punctuality. No, with Flynn, I already expect the unexpected.

  He strolls in ten minutes later, so freshly showered that the scent of his aftershave overpowers the ammonia, the hat low over his eyes again. Giving me a little smirk, he grabs the back of the chair, turns it around, and sits down, inspecting his surroundings. He whistles, long and low. “These are some fancy digs.”

  As much as I don’t want to, I’m already blushing. “It suits my purpose fine, Mr. Taylor,” I say, trying to keep my voice firm.

  He raises an eyebrow. “And what purpose is that?”

  “I’m sure you’re aware of that, and I don’t have time to rehash it with you, since you’ve kept me waiting this long.” I’m looking at my phone, since I have a hard time meeting his eyes. I shift my eyes to the page in front of me. “Now that you’re finally here, we can commence with the survey.”

  He spreads his arms out broadly, like I’ve been given such a great gift by his presence. “Commence.”

  I press my lips together. Ten minutes. You can do this. Focus.

  “All right,” I begin, pushing the paper across to him. I read, word for word, the instructions that Professor Morgan had typed out for me. “I am going to read to you a series of statements. You’re to give me how you feel on each statement on a scale of one to ten, one being that you strongly disagree, and ten being that you strongly agree. Please answer as honestly and thoughtfully as possible.”

  I venture a look up at him. He’s biting the side of his thumb and giving me that world-ending stare.

  “Understand, Mr. Taylor?” I add that part because when Morgan adds it, it has a way of making me feel like a moron. I would so love to take Flynn Taylor down a couple notches.

  Not that that happens. He picks the paper up and studies it. “Fire away, Miss Shaw,” he sing-songs my name.

  “Okay. Number one. I am very competitive.”

  He studies the paper for awhile, until I’m not sure if he really does understand.

  “Again, Mr. Taylor. A one would indicate you don’t think you’re very competitive, and a ten would indicate—“

  “One,” he says.

  I pause. Clear my throat. Flynn Taylor, not competitive? He’s intentionally screwing with the survey. With me. “You understand that a one indicates you’re not at all competitive.”

  He shrugs. “Right.”

  I let out a huff of air. Stop. Do not fall apart, I remind myself. Think of the important work you’re doing. Think of what good it will do. Think of your mom, and how proud you’re making her. “All right,” I say calmly.

  Reluctantly, I circle the one, as he pushes off the chair and whirls around, studying the offerings in the vending machine, then reaches into his pocket and comes up empty. That doesn’t stop him, though. He feels along the side of the machine, as if looking for a secret button, then gives it a hard shove. Instantly, the Fritos come loose from their metal cage. Holy cow, I thought that only worked in movies. He reaches in and grabs them, opens them, offers one to me.

  I will not be tempted by the devil’s corn chips. “May I continue?”

  He shrugs. “May you?”

  I inhale sharply. I will not let him see that he’s getting to me. “Anything that is worth being done is worth being done to the best of my ability.”

  He nods, crunching loudly on the chips. “I’ll drink to that.”

  “So you agree?” I press.

  “Sure.”

  “How much, would you say, on a scale of one to ten?”

  He scratches his chin. “Eight. No, nine. More like eight point seven five.”

  I hover my pen over the paper, not sure how to record this. Screw him. I circle the nine.

  He coughs, like there’s something caught in his throat. Then he wheels around and elbows the buttons on the soda machine, releasing a Mountain Dew, which he retrieves and starts to chug.

  “I like to play hard. The rougher the sport, the better.”

  He stops chugging and grins, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, then tosses the empty green bottle over my head, into the garbage can. “You don’t say.”

  I know my face is on fire. “On a scale from one to ten . . .”

  He pulls the chair up close to the table and sits in it. His eyes are hard on me. “Rate your orgasm from the other night on a scale from one to ten.”

  I can’t help reacting to that one. My jaw drops. I put down my pen and squeeze my hands together in my lap. “Mr. Taylor, if you continue this . . .”

  ‘What? You’ll get wetter?” He leans forward, his voice a breath. “Tell me, honestly. How wet are you right now? On a scale from one to ten.”

  I push my glasses up on my nose and let out a shaky breath. The answer, of course, is eleven, a fact I wasn’t aware of until he asked the question.

  And my nipples are stiff—I can feel them pressing against my shirt. He can probably see them now as well.

  He leans even closer to me. “Can I feel?” he drawls, which forces me to another startling realization: I want nothing more than that. I want him to strip off my clothes and put his hands all over me.

  And that. Can’t. Happen.

  “I can’t do this,” I say to him, my voice barely a whisper. I force myself to stare right at him and harden my voice. “Are you trying to cost me this job and my chance at graduating? Do you really want to ruin my career? Is this fun for you?”

  He crosses his arms. “Not fun. I’m cooperating fully. Not every answer is gonna be what you want to hear. If you have a problem with my responses, maybe you need to find another job.”

  I open my mouth to respond, but he isn’t done.

  “And I’m a hell of a lot more honest than you, because I don’t keep secrets. Especially from some college girl who thinks she can study me under a microscope. I’m not a test tube experiment, and this study is bullshit.”

  Rage bubb
les under my collar. “Then why did you—“

  “Because I had to. Believe me, I ain’t here for the intellectual stimulation.” He stands up and shoves the chair in so hard that it clatters to the ground. Then he picks it up and settles into it again, putting his feet up on the table. “Do you actually play sports, or are you just a spectator?”

  I don’t answer. I feel tears welling in the corners of my eyes.

  “You know what they say about spectators, don’t you?” I don’t, but I know he’s going to tell me. “They’re weak,” he continues. “They don’t have the balls or the talent to do things themselves, so they like to watch others do them. Well, you can watch me all you like, but the truth is, you’ll never understand me, and you’ll never be like me either.”

  I take a deep breath. “The aim of this study is not to find a way to be like you. The aim of this—“

  “Like hell it’s not. You’re dissecting me, and hell if I’ll let you,” he says, effectively shutting me up. He snorts, satisfied. “Face it, sweetheart. You don’t have the heart for this. You’ll never know what makes someone like me tick.”

  I swallow, then grab my backpack and rush out of the room before he can say another word. I can’t let him see me cry.

  Which, of course, I do, the second I get outside.

  Chapter 9

  When I get back to the apartment, the tears still haven’t subsided. Although I’ve followed sports from a young age (perhaps it was a way to be close to my fanatical sports fan of a dad), playing them is a different story. As much as I wished I could be a star, it wasn’t in the cards. I was cursed with two left feet, and my eyesight was always so bad that I had horrible depth perception. I was a mediocre softball player, at best. Maybe Flynn is right. Maybe I don’t have what it takes to work in sports psychology.

  The thought makes me want to burrow deep under my covers. Instead, when I open the door, I see a strange guy in a BC sweatshirt standing in the doorway to the living room. He’s tall and lanky and has a ruddy face. “Jen,” he calls, giving me a concerned look. “You have a hysterical young woman standing in your foyer.”

  Then he offers his hand to me. “You’re Jen’s new roommate? I’m Pat.”

  “Oh! Hi,” I say, wiping my eye with the back of my hand. I extend my other one to him and shake it. “Sorry. Just . . . bad day.”

  “Jen told me you’re working with the Argonauts,” he says, running a hand through his scrubby blonde hair. “Pretty cool. She said it could be stressful.”

  “Please don’t be begging her for autographs already,” Jen scolds him, appearing at the top of the stairs. She takes one look at me and her eyes widen in concern. “Omigosh, honey! Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. It’s nothing,” I say, as Pat hands me a tissue. I blow my nose. “Nothing a good date with my bed couldn’t fix.”

  I start to trudge up the stairs but Jen tells me to hold up. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?” Truthfully, I do. I was never one to hold my feelings in, but it was always my mom I came running to. Part of the reason I feel so bad now is because I can’t talk to her about this, because this is one thing she really wouldn’t understand. When I don’t answer, Jen says, “Pat, you start without me. I’ll be down in a bit. We need some girl bonding time.”

  I say, “I don’t want to take you away from—“

  “Oh, stop. We were just planning to get take-out from somewhere. Our stomachs can wait.”

  Pat waves at me as I climb the stairs. “Nice to have met you.”

  “Likewise.” I go into my bedroom and drop my backpack on the ground. I feel weak, completely spent. “He seems nice,” I say miserably, crawling cat-like onto the bed and collapsing there, then trying to suffocate myself with my pillow.

  “Was it really that horrible?” she asks, following me in and standing at the foot of the bed. “Were the players all jerks?”

  “No. Just one,” I mumble into my pillow, thinking of what that one had said to me. If any other person had told me I didn’t have the heart for this, I would’ve laughed it off and tried to prove them wrong. But now, I feel immobile. Beaten. Every time I relive the meeting, I cringe even worse than I had the time before.

  “Oh. Just one? That’s not so bad. You shouldn’t let one jerk get to you.”

  She doesn’t know the half of it. I throw the pillow off my head, roll on my side, and prop myself up on my elbow. “Can I tell you a secret?”

  She nods.

  “I mean, a really big secret. One that could make me lose my job, if anyone knew.”

  Her eyes widen. She zips her lips and throws away the key. When I don’t say anything right away, she whispers, “Is it something really bad?”

  “Yeah. My advisor, Professor Morgan—he’s really strict. All he did the first day I met him was tell me that I can’t have any personal relationships with the players, because that could compromise the work we’re doing.” I shudder again, thinking of everything that happened today. Why is it that, even when he was making me feel like crap, I still wanted him? What is wrong with me that I’m thinking with my other body parts instead of my head? I hesitate, hardly able to believe I’m going to say this out loud. “Well, when I was moving in here on Sunday, I lost my key. And I met this guy on the street and he helped me get in. One thing led to another and . . .”

  She fills in the blank. “You slept with him?”

  “No, but close enough,” I say, face reddening.

  She waits for me to say more but I don’t know if I can say it aloud. “And this guy is . . .”

  “Yeah. I found out later on that it’s Flynn Taylor. You know, the Beast.”

  Her jaw drops. “You mean to tell me that Flynn Taylor was in our house? And you . . .” She jumps out of her chair and covers her cheeks with both hands. “You almost did him! You sly little minx, you!”

  “More like a big, stupid ass. I wouldn’t have done it, had I known who he is, and that it would jeopardize my work. Even so, we’re both adults, so I thought we could be professional about it. But today at the survey, he’s been acting like a total, immature jerk, making lewd comments about it. Not only is he not taking the survey seriously, I’m sure he’s probably told half of the team what we did together by now. I think he wants me to lose my job.”

  She’s fanning her face. “I just can’t even believe this. Flynn Taylor… in this bedroom? Was he naked? Does he have an amazing body? Oh, what am I saying, of course he has an amazing body!”

  I was pretty sure she said that Pat was the fan of the Argonauts, but she looks like a twelve-year old fan girl, ready to faint. I throw my pillow at her. “Jen. Focus.”

  “Right. Right.” She sits back in the chair and says, “Well, he may be a gorgeous hunk, but he’s obviously a gorgeous hunk of a-hole, harassing you like that. And Professor Morgan should be told at once.”

  She makes it sound so simple.

  “I can’t. If I tell Professor Morgan that Flynn is causing trouble, then what’s to prevent Flynn from telling Professor Morgan that we . . . you know . . . did those things?”

  She shakes her head. “No, you see, he can’t. I know this because Pat’s studying sports law at BC. Did I tell you that? Well, he told me that the Argonauts are supposed to focus on the game during pre-season training. It’s not in their contract or anything, but it’s definitely frowned upon, and if he’s already in trouble, which after the last pre-season game, he probably is . . .”

  I raise an eyebrow. “What did he do in the last game?”

  She laughs. “Punched Pawtucket’s head coach.”

  My jaw drops. “No!”

  She nods. “So if he did tell Morgan, he’d be in even bigger trouble than you’d be. His contract is already hanging in the balance.”

  “Really?” No wonder he said he had to participate in the study. That was probably his penance for the Pawtucket game. And when has Flynn Taylor ever played by the rules? His coach and all the other players might not even believe him, even if he did t
ell the truth.

  She nods. “So, tell the professor he’s giving you a hard time with the study. Flynn might be pissed at you, sure, but at least he’ll be off your back.”

  I fall back on my bed, considering this. Do I want Flynn off my back? Part of me wants him all over my body. If I do complain to Morgan, that’ll likely be over, because Flynn will hate me. It’ll be the end of us. Not that there was an “us” to begin with.

  At least, telling Morgan about Flynn’s attitude problem would be the right thing to do for the study.

  And yet where Flynn is concerned, somehow, I don’t really care about being right.

  All night long, I waffle like an Eggo. Should I, shouldn’t I? I’ve never felt so out of control and indecisive. If I tell on Flynn, it’ll definitely make my life easier, but he will be out of it forever.

  By the morning, when I check my phone and see a text from mom saying, how’s my favorite college student doing? I decide it’s what I need to do. I need to complete this study and get my degree, and no egotistical hockey player is going to stop me. Besides, he was a complete jerk to me. Why should I care about him, since he clearly didn’t care about me?

  With the decision made, I feel better. Stronger.

  Early in the morning, I arrange to meet Professor Morgan in his office. When I get there, he asks for the first surveys, and I hand them over. “Everything go as planned?” he asked.

  “Well, there were a few hitches,” I say, to which he perks up and bids me to go on. “Actually, just one. I debated telling you this because it was my first day and I don’t want to appear difficult. But in the end, I thought you should know. One of the players didn’t take the survey seriously and gave me some trouble, so I wasn’t able to continue the survey with him.”

  He checks the list of players I’d interviewed. “A-ha. I don’t have to ask which one.”

 

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