“He looks familiar.” Tori, ignoring us both, is staring at the door, her mind exploring the hot guy data bank she has stored up there. “I think he’s famous. Is he? What’s his name?”
Tori will be working on how she knows him all night long unless we distract her. She’s probably already turned fifteen virtual pages of the last Candid magazine in her head, and she’ll dissect the last six if we leave her unattended.
“He’s not famous.” Bristol’s reply is brittle.
“Who’s famous?” Tracy pipes in, returning from the bathroom where she apparently spent the last five minutes reapplying her lipstick.
“No one.” Bristol barks at her then redirects to Tori. “He’s the guy that helped us at the beach and then helped himself to Brenna.”
I sneer at her, and she dishes it right back. It’s like we’re ten again, fighting over who got to sit next to our dad in the front seat of his pickup the last time he bothered to show up for us.
“Oh my God!” Tracy’s exclamation and whatever might have come after is cut off by her hand flying up to her mouth, air whistling through her fingers as she depletes the room of excess oxygen.
I look to find a source for her surprise, but with Tracy it could be a Kate Spade purse, so I’m really not all that concerned until she points at Vance, who is reentering The Seam with a grin he’s slowly losing track of.
“Ya-You’re Van Hatfield.” Tracy’s voice trips over her tongue in a whisper, the extreme opposite of her original attention-getter.
“He’s who?” Bristol is the one to ask, because I’m still looking between Tracy and Vance to see what the hell I’ve missed.
Tori clamps her hand over her mouth, eyes bulging over the top of her fingers. “She’s right!” It’s muffled, but you’d have to be deaf to miss it. “I totally called it.” She looks at me, “Brenna,” she grabs my arm, holding back a squeal I can see forming, “your hot guy is Van Hatfield, pitcher for the San Jose Renegades.”
I jerk my head away from Tori and stare straight into blue eyes that don’t look at all amused at the mistaken identity. They drop along with his chin until he picks them both back up and releases a sigh, exhaustion written all over his face. Is he going to speak up? Is he going to blow off their accusations with an “I get that all the time” spiel we can all laugh at? Is he going to fucking deny it?
Everyone is looking at me, wanting answers to questions that I’m shouting in my head. No, I didn’t fucking know the guy I’ve been crushing on for the last several days was a pitcher for the San Jose Renegades. No, I didn’t know Vance is Van or Van is Vance. No, I didn’t know that for the last three days, I’ve been sharing intimate parts of my past and present with someone who was lying to me. Jesus Christ, I showed him my ass and stood through the embarrassment of being told I had a camel toe without even knowing it was Van Hatfield telling me. And then it hits me with the weight of a thousand bricks to the chest—not only was my guard down with him, but so was everyone else’s. He got to see the huge complexities of my functioning dysfunctional family like we’d known him for years. I’ve spent the last two years trying to keep my name off of bathroom walls and wagging tongues but didn’t think twice about sharing my family with someone who couldn’t even give me his real name.
Vance moves forward, his body confident in its strides. His face, however, looks stricken.
“Is this a fucking joke?” Bristol’s tone matches my own emotions, and I wait for Vance to respond to her, but instead, he walks past her to stand in front of me.
“Can we talk outside?”
“Is it true?” I ask softly, looking up at him, trying to find any resemblance of the celebrity in his features. It’s there. It’s always been there. I’m just an unobservant cow who saw dark hair, abs, and striking blue eyes. I see it now. I’ve seen him on the cover of Jock magazine while standing in line at Walgreens. I’ve flipped through countless copies of Candid at Tori’s, and he’s probably been in half of them, but I don’t pay attention to who’s “hot” according to tabloid trolls. I have a hard enough time keeping track of the not-so-hot guys my mom brings traipsing through our house.
“Can we step outside, please?”
As I’ve been processing all of this, Bristol, too, has come to her own conclusion. “It’s true, isn’t it? Holy shit. Van Hatfield.”
I look to my mom for help. She looks a little starstruck, totally oblivious to my racing heart and inescapable embarrassment. What she doesn’t look is surprised. Oh my god. She knew. And of course Uncle Rodney knew. They won’t hesitate to tell me I have a bat in the cave when it’s just us, but they couldn’t even give me a hint when I looked like a bridge troll in front of a baseball god? Sonofabitch. They both fucking knew.
“I knew I’d seen him somewhere!” Tori rails on as if I’m not standing beside her shocked stupid. “He was just in Candid for dating a stripper. He’s also been linked to Nikki Kline and Juniper Jones, but I think Juniper was a load of crap. She’s hopelessly in love with Grant Crandall.” Her eyes glaze over while mine wish for their ignorance back.
I shut out her commentary and lower my eyes from my hands to my Crocs, mortification setting in deep. Couldn’t this celebrity reveal have happened when I looked less like Honey Boo Boo and more like me? I mean, I’m short, and ten of my one hundred fifteen pounds is ass, and Victoria’s Secret probably wouldn’t snatch me up out of a mall like they did Nikki Kline, but I’m not Go Fund Me ugly. I’m certain, even staring down at my Crocs, he could do worse.
Motherfucker!
Why do I care? He lied.
A whiff of Irish Spring soap fills my nose. It’s the smell of strength and stability that has come to symbolize every good thing in my life that I can recall. The source of its power slips an arm around me, drawing me into his side. “Okay girls, let’s keep our voices down, or I’ll have to ask more than one of you to leave.”
“Seriously, Uncle Rodney. You’re going to choose his celebrity over us? Me?”
“No, Bristol, I’m choosing calm over chaos, and in this bar, everyone, including him, is entitled to their privacy. Now zip it or hit it.”
She grumbles but doesn’t argue, which only means I’ll get an earful of opinions and unwanted advice later.
“I need air.” I maneuver past all of them, unable to get out of there fast enough.
Outside, the night air is thick with salt and eucalyptus, and the light breeze is just enough to take the edge off the warm summer night. I don’t want to go home, but I don’t want to go inside and answer questions either, or for that matter, face the one guy who’s ever made me feel more than just a passing attraction. It would be nice to get into a pair of shorts that don’t touch my asshole, but walking home alone like this is a no-go.
Compromising, I sit in one of the metal chairs and watch cars pass by, the occupants oblivious to my heart’s curiosities and subsequent disappointment.
Across the street, the boardwalk is quiet, the waves off in the distance a phantom sound from memory. Stray Charlie’s, across the street and a few blocks north of The Seam, is shut for the night as are all the other vendors that line the boardwalk. Traffic in front of me is light, the weekend coming to a close for most.
“Can I explain?”
I jump at the voice and look back over my shoulder to see Vance standing outside the bar’s entrance. The sight of him hasn’t yet lost its appeal, but I’m expecting it to soon. He takes a few steps toward me, looks out at traffic, sighs, and does the opposite of everything I anticipated. “I’m sorry.”
Having survived countless apologies that have only deepened my disappointments, I don’t respond. I’ve learned to cut my losses and move on rather than let it eat away at me.
“I wasn’t planning on—”
“Doesn’t matter now, does it?” I cut his explanation off and get to my feet, abstaining from pulling my shorts out of my ass as I start walking toward home, willing to risk it rather than stay in this conversation.
“Bre
nna?”
I keep walking, but he doesn’t stop talking.
“If you had known who I was, would you have treated me differently?”
I spin, the Crocs gripping sand for an easier pivot. “No!” I am firm in that belief, and based upon his expression, he believes me.
“Would you have been different?” He takes the opportunity my pause creates and jumps in with more. “Would you have dressed in that ridiculous outfit had you known I was Van Hatfield?”
I wouldn’t have. “I don’t know,” I say softly, the lie absent of conviction.
“And that’s what I was trying to preserve.” He steps closer to me until he is inches away. “I loved that you were uncensored and completely you around me. I liked that you didn’t know about me from the tabloids or baseball. I liked getting to be Vance again. I liked you. It wasn’t until you kissed me that I realized you were more than just a peaceful retreat.”
“Jesus Christ, you let me kiss you, knowing I had no fucking clue who you were.”
He blows out a breath. “I didn’t know you were going to do that.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that it happened or that you lied to me.”
“You’re right, and I’m sorry. It got away from me. What do you need to hear from me?”
“Anything I would have wanted to hear should have been said upfront.”
“I realize that now. At first, keeping my life a secret was intentional. I’ll admit that. But once I got to know you, I wanted you to know me.”
I swallow the dry knot of disappointment in my throat. “Sadly, I don’t know Van Hatfield.”
“You know him better than you think.”
I shake my head voluntarily while the rest of my body shakes of its own accord. “I don’t trust him or his motives, and that, Van Hatfield, is our problem.”
“Brenna?” He uses the voice that so often had me wishing I was capable of landing a guy like him. He touches my hand as he crouches down to look into my eyes. His touch is fire against my cooling skin.
I lift my lashes and look him in the eyes. “Save it,” I say before he can say anything else. “I’m not interested.”
He adjusts his stance so it is powerful again and not accommodating of my height.
With a heavy heart, I walk away, knowing it’s the last time I will ever see him. I’ve witnessed too many men break my mom’s heart because she overlooked things and made them a priority when she wasn’t theirs. I won’t be her. I won’t settle for less than I deserve.
I make it a few paces away before his voice interrupts my thoughts, my reservations, and my resolve. “I won’t keep you tonight, Brenna. But this isn’t done. Not by a long shot.”
Steadfast, I continue walking. “Your celebrity and smooth talk do not make you irresistible.”
“No, but my tenacity will. When you change your mind, Tori will have my number.”
CHAPTER NINE
After two days of feeling sorry for myself, I finally manage to take my board out on the waves. When running doesn’t help, surfing almost always clears my head. Not today. Probably because all I can see is that damn lookout where I watched the sunset with Vance. I should have gone somewhere else, but it didn’t click until I parked my mom’s Jeep in the small, sandy lot.
Tired, I strain against the surf as I traipse through the whitewater to get to shore. In the parking lot, I peel off my wetsuit and toss it in the back of the Jeep. I throw on a dry T-shirt and pull my bikini top through an armhole, discarding it with the wetsuit, and then jump behind the wheel.
I’ve taken this whole thing with Vance, Van, whatever his fucking name is, way too personally and have probably made more out of it than I should. He didn’t say it, and I didn’t accuse him of it, but I feel like if I had been platinum blonde with size F tits and a modeling contract, he would have introduced himself as Van. Instead, he lied and let me look like a fool on multiple occasions. But then I get real with myself, because the truth is, I walk around like an idiot all the time. Case in point, my run-in with Colette wearing my thrift store getup. Channing Tatum could’ve been in the bar, and I still would have walked in with my camel toe preceding me. It’s who I am. It’s who I’ve always been, and Van Hatfield isn’t going to change that about me.
I am summoned to the bar two minutes into my drive home and given no opportunity to refuse unless I want to be dragged in by my hair, as Uncle Rodney so eloquently put it in a text. So, sandy and dressed in my inherited Dairy Queen T-shirt and bikini bottoms, I head on over.
The bar is empty when I arrive and, except for the Renegades game being broadcast on ESPN from Arizona, it’s silent.
“Uncle Rodney?” I yell it because he could be anywhere, and I don’t have the energy to look.
The loud thunk that rattles the bar is Uncle Rodney’s head colliding with the underside as he rises to answer my call. He rubs his thick head of graying hair and mouths a cuss word. “I heard you, doll.” He winces, checks his fingers for blood, and the absence of any seems to appease him enough to focus.
“Oh-kay.” I take a stool two spots away from where Vance usually parked his ass when he came in to nurse a beer.
It’s ten minutes at least before I have Uncle Rodney’s undivided attention, and then only after I lean over the bar top to grab a napkin. He stares at me, mouth open, brow knit tightly. “Where are your friends?”
“I don’t know, why? Did you call them? Are they supposed to be here?” I’m looking around, expecting Tori and Tracy to appear out of nowhere.
“No. I want to know why one of them hasn’t told you you’re not wearing a bra?”
It’s painfully obvious, even beneath the capital D and double E in Dairy Queen, that I am unsupported, but I hadn’t planned on going anywhere but home. I sigh. “Why am I here, Uncle Rodney?”
He sets a Diet Coke in front of me, napkin beneath. “Because you need to snap out of this, doll.”
I take a slow sip. “I’m fine.” The fizz tickles my lying throat.
The door to the bar opens, and my mom runs in. “Sorry I’m late,” she wheezes through rib-splitting breaths.
“Why are you running? And what are you late for?” I hop off the stool, fearing her inevitable collapse and need for a spotter.
She holds up a finger, indicating she needs a minute. It takes a full five before she can control her breathing, and sweat has drenched the armpits of her gray T-shirt, but other than a lingering wheeze or two, she finally seems okay. I repeat my earlier questioning of the whys and whats of her running, and she answers, “For you. I ran from Margie’s. Did I miss anything?” she asks, looking at Rodney. Then she moves behind the bar in slow motion because her legs are Jell-O from the two-block run at what I imagine was the speed of a racing tortoise.
“All we’ve talked about is her girls hanging loose.”
My mom instantly looks at my chest, and her down-turned mouth strengthens into a deeper frown. “Brenna.”
I roll my eyes and hunker beneath the lip of the bar. “Why am I here?”
“Show her, Uncle Rodney.”
Uncle Rodney reaches beneath the bar and pulls out a manila envelope that he holds up with great theatrics before tossing it on the bar top. “That’s for me, so don’t do anything crazy like Bristol it. Understood?” I find it mildly amusing that Bristol is now a verb.
Wondering what is so important he would defend it so fiercely, I stare briefly at the envelope before opening it. Inside the envelope are four tickets to Saturday’s game at Renegade Stadium as well as information on the meet and greet beforehand. I rifle through the information with my mouth agape. My hands begin to shake when I come to a folded white card. I open it slowly and stare at the carefully handwritten print.
Rodney and Family,
Please accept the tickets and the gift package for you and your family, with my sincere gratitude for your kindness while I was in town.
Sincerely,
Van
I read the card fifty times before I look
even once at the rest of the enclosed papers. Vance has arranged for hotel rooms, car service to and from the stadium, room service vouchers, and a VIP pass to Red Hooligans, whatever that is. The package is an incredible opportunity for anyone, but more so for someone who would sell their soul to see the Renegades up close and personal—Uncle Rodney.
“Wow!” I say, sliding the papers and tickets back into the envelope. “That’s a great gift. How nice were you, exactly?”
“Not that nice.” He laughs, managing to still look serious.
“You’re not going to accept it, are you?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” His stern expression offers no leeway. “This opportunity may never come around again. For once, your ignorance about baseball is paying off for me.”
I’d roll my eyes if I didn’t think he’d flick me. “Have fun. I’m glad you finally get to go to the new Renegades stadium.”
“We’re all going.”
“I’m not.” I’m off the barstool again, only this time, I’m leaving. “I’m going to the game, but I’m going with Toolbag, and I’m sitting in normal people seats and partying at a dive bar. None of that fancy manipulative stuff for me.”
“Carl has already been told you can’t go. Bristol has been informed too, and that’s that.”
“You had no right to do that.” He probably has more right than anyone, but at this moment, it’s an overstep.
“What did he do that was so terrible?” Uncle Rodney asks as I get to the door.
“He lied,” I reply with one hand on the door handle.
“He omitted,” my mother corrects, earning another sneer from me. “And technically his name is Vance. It’s just shortened for superstardom.”
“A lie by omission is still a lie. And he doesn’t go by Vance. Therefore, it’s a lie.” Why am I the only one adulting in a room with old people?
“Did you tell him everything about you?”
“I’m not Jock Star of the Year!” I yell louder than either of us expected, and I have to lower my voice for the next part. “He’s a liar, and a ticket to one of his games isn’t going to change that. He’s just trying to buy a better perception of himself.”
Rumor Has It (Jock Star Book 1) Page 7