Rumor Has It (Jock Star Book 1)

by Caterina Campbell

  “I think it’s only your perception he cares about.” Uncle Rodney rounds the bar, coming to stand beside my mom, both staring at me like I’ve been given a bad diagnosis. “Haven’t you researched him?”

  I shake my head. I haven’t searched him at all. I’m a girl who likes clean breaks.

  “You should,” Uncle Rodney professes. “That kid doesn’t give two shits about what people think of him. It’s your mind and yours alone he cares about changing. Google him. You’ll see that’s a first. So, I wouldn’t be so quick to judge. There is no perfection in you.”

  “Maybe not. But I never lied about my imperfections. I accessorized them with Crocs and flowered shorts.”

  Losing the battle I waged with myself after leaving The Seam, I sit on my bed with my laptop, legs folded beneath my yellow blanket, and stare at the wall. I’ve been sitting here for an hour now, contemplating my mom’s and Uncle Rodney’s take on things. I want so badly not to give a shit. I want to wrap this chapter up and call it a night, but something nags at me. No one in my twenty-plus years has ever made me want more than I already have.

  Deciding I can’t sleep without knowing more, I type “Van Hatfield” into the search engine and wait as Google populates. I first scan the images and waffle between being appalled and impressed. He dates models, none lasting longer than a picture or two. The most recent is a picture of him and a stripper named Amber Dietrich. This is a guy who likes plastic and beauty and was dating both a week before I met him. On one hand, I can see why I might be an embarrassment. On the other, why would he waste his time on me when there is no lack of willing, beautiful women?

  I groan, confused, and click on my next option.

  The most recent article I can find is about his “recommended leave of absence,” imposed by the manager of the San Jose Renegades following an altercation with a photographer at a Ballers Against Bullying event in Las Vegas a week or so before I met him. In a video clip, he is apologetic but staunch: “Shoving someone at an event against bullying isn’t a true representation of who I am, nor do I want it to reflect poorly on the Renegades franchise. With that being said, no man has the right to say the things Mr. Howard said to the woman beside me, and I will defend that no matter the fallout from my actions.” The woman beside him, disrespected by the paparazzo Abel Howard, was Amber Dietrich, the stripper. I don’t know if I should be upset or impressed. I’m an underdog, and few outside of my family have ever stood up for me. I think I’d appreciate the brutality if I was Amber.

  The plethora of information about Vance online, which I know isn’t all true, is overwhelmingly harsh and critical. More than one site called him “The Bad Boy of Baseball.” Others called him “hot-headed and brooding.” After viewing a bench-clearing fight that resulted in his ejection from a game along with another player and a manager, I can understand the criticism. Nevertheless, his teammates speak highly of him, and few comments are from Vance himself in any of the articles I read. The one I can find corroborates Uncle Rodney’s opinion that Vance doesn’t give two shits about what people think of him. At least three of the words were printed as expletives when he was asked about an article listing his brother, Eric, as a source.

  According to his Wikipedia page, he was born Vance Dayton Hatfield, but a little league coach shortened his name to “Van” after Vance pitched his first perfect game, calling him, “Van the Man.” I feel a slight pang of guilt. It’s just a twinge and could be ignored as gas if I didn’t feel so much of it in my chest. He didn’t lie about his name; in fact, he gave me the less famous one used only by those closest to him.

  Dammit!

  The rest of the page focuses more on his life prior to being drafted and his accomplishments on the field. There are statistics galore, which I skim over to get to the meat. It mentions his estranged brother, Eric, and speculates the estrangement to be over Eric’s drug addiction and his penchant for speaking to the tabloids and selling memorabilia from Vance’s childhood. There are less noteworthy comments about a younger sister, a grandfather he credits for his drive and his love of the game, and his parents, who never missed a game during his youth. He went to the Renegades right out of his Portland, Oregon high school with the help of his manager, Chip Pervis, and agent, Alex Swift. He hasn’t had a moment’s peace since. At twenty-five, he’s lived his whole adult life in the tabloids.

  The article his brother was a source for didn’t paint Vance in a good light and made it look like he’d ditched all of them, family and friends, for fame and money. No wonder Vance basked in anonymity with me. He’s never shown me an ounce of what’s been said about him.

  I’m confused.

  Maybe I cut him off too soon. I contemplate using the number Tori gave me and decide, after typing out several texts and erasing them, that I’m not ready to overlook anything yet.

  CHAPTER TEN

  You would think we were born in a cave by the way Uncle Rodney touches and smells everything in the limousine. He runs his hand along the leather seat between him and my mom and looks at his fingers like maybe part of it rubbed off. He takes another deep breath in through his nose and blows it out, shaking his head reverently. “This is nice,” he says to no one in particular.

  Bristol, irritated we’re indulging Vance in the slightest, is dressed for the runway at Fashion Week. She picks at her nails while humming a Disney tune, and her foot, shoved inside a wedge-heeled sandal, taps out the beat.

  My mom, more nervous than when she’s uploading her picture to a dating site, keeps checking her purse for our tickets despite being told a hundred times Uncle Rodney has them. He didn’t trust her for exactly this reason, and they sit safely inside the envelope on his lap.

  At the stadium, the limo pulls up, and our driver opens the door for us and assists me out first, then Bristol. The parking lot is virtually empty, and as Uncle Rodney steps out, he stares at his surroundings and sucks the heat right into his lungs. “What a beauty.”

  As much as I hate being here, I wouldn’t want to miss him getting to do this.

  “I still can’t believe you let them talk you into coming.” Bristol is pissed I didn’t stick to my convictions.

  My mom turns away, not wanting to be involved in our squabble. Her tendency to coddle Bristol because of all she’s been through would make her a hypocrite anyway, considering she’s the one who pressed me to come. Slightly paranoid, I check the unreliable zipper of my jean shorts. “I’m doing this for Uncle Rodney.”

  She sighs, softens, and grabs my hand. “Fair enough. But he’s going to try and win you over.”

  I choose to let the insinuation I’ll cave drop because I may, and instead, I thank her for being here with me, which draws an unexpected smile.

  We’re escorted to the dugout where we join about twenty other people in matching Goal Tender shirts. Holy damn! Are we taking some sick kid’s spot? I realize we have mental issues, but nothing we might potentially die from and certainly nothing that warrants a charity spot at the meet and greet.

  “Oh my God,” I whisper to Bristol, who hasn’t stopped looking for athletic man candy, “Those kids are wearing Goal Tender shirts. I’m pretty sure that’s a wish-granting charity for sick children. We’re not charity cases.”

  She cocks an eyebrow and speaks out of the side of her mouth. “I’m not, but you could be.” She laughs, shoving me in the arm playfully. I would laugh, but a handler of some kind rounds us all up and gives us our instructions. He looks at the four of us and takes a second look at me, and I silently wonder if he thinks I’m the one with the disability.

  The nerves I’ve been fighting all day really show themselves as three players enter the dugout. My hands shake, my heart batters my ribs, and I can’t look away. I recognize Vance immediately, even behind the brim of his red Renegades ball cap. He’s wearing a Renegades game shirt with jeans, and I would have to be dead not to look twice. He’s hard to ignore.

  He glances at me before turning his attention to a little boy who’s
about seven years old and shiny bald. He squats down to the boy’s level and talks to him, getting him to laugh mid-way through the conversation. It’s a different side of Vance, one not reported in the media.

  The other two players, to Bristol’s delight, are the Renegades’ first baseman, Corky Alvarez, and their catcher, Ben Halsey. I know this because Tracy made me and Bristol sit through an hour’s worth of detailed info about the team so we would be prepared.

  Vance, after talking to each one of the children and their parents, wanders over to us. He claps Uncle Rodney on the shoulder and thanks him for coming. His eyes track to mine, and a reluctant grin settles on his lips. I wonder how many women he’s ensnared with those lips and the occasional smile he lets slip.

  “Hi,” he says holding out a hand to me. “I’m Van Hatfield.” His grin widens on the left side.

  I look first at his hand and then at him, but do not take his hand. “You’re being an idiot.”

  “Most people take the hand and offer their name.”

  “I’m not most people.”

  “I’ve noticed. But could you play nice for five minutes?” He holds out his hand one more time, and this time I take it because of his audience.

  “Brenna Sloan,” I offer with a small smirk I try to hide with my resting bitch face.

  “Brenna Sloan.” He says my name slow and deliberate, and hell if it doesn’t make my sex clench. “Thank you for coming.”

  “I didn’t have a choice,” I say, glancing at a little boy. “But you set it up that way.”

  He shrugs. “I’m not someone who gives up.”

  “You have a fan.” I nod to the little boy, who is tossing a baseball between his two hands. “I won’t be the reason he doesn’t get his autograph.” I step back and wave the boy over. He looks up at me with wide brown eyes and smiles his appreciation.

  “We’re not done, Brenna Sloan.”

  My family, no longer at my side, have entangled themselves in the melee of excitement and are participating in a group picture with Corky, Halsey, and other team members I don’t recognize.

  The guys stay longer than their scheduled forty-five minutes and I successfully dodge Vance, though he hasn’t really tried to get close despite occasionally glancing in my direction. When I’m about to leave with my group, though, he grabs me by the elbow.

  “See you later?”

  I look up at him, offering a nod as my response.

  Inland heat is different than coastal heat, and right now the inland heat is getting the better of me. My eye makeup, applied generously between the meet and greet and the game, has smeared toward my temple and bogged down my tear duct. Meanwhile, my underwear has gone from comfortable cotton to wet, absorbent chamois.

  We arrive at our seats extremely early for the game against the Padres so Uncle Rodney can have the full experience and Bristol can maximize her opportunity to see more players. Why she thinks she wants to be whisked off her feet smelling like ass and onion rings is beyond me, but I let her have her hour and forty-five minutes before game time without a verbal complaint.

  The seats are phenomenal and no doubt come at a premium price. Home plate is visible without binoculars, and Uncle Rodney is in heaven. He uploads his first picture from Renegades Stadium to his Facebook with the caption, “Eat Me.”

  “I didn’t know hell had stadium seating,” my mom says, fanning herself with a heavy hand.

  “Stadium seating, but apparently no baseball players. I’m a little surprised by that.” Bristol’s sense of humor, to my surprise, has been kept intact through today’s heatwave.

  I’m more upset about the Everglades between my thighs than the lack of hot guys in hell, but I remain silent and let the two of them troll for standouts.

  After an hour of nothing, we are treated to a handful of players taking the field. A few crude exchanges between Bristol and number twenty-eight, Robbins, are the best part of warm-ups so far, but I’m pretty sure illegal in a handful of states. The sex education the rest of us get is priceless, and the little Oompa Loompa in front of us, who’s the ripe old age of maybe twelve, now knows anal means more than attention to detail.

  Music blares through the stadium, jazzing up the crowd, and the seats have filled in around us, making it even hotter. Body heat is not your friend when it’s already eighty-something degrees and some people didn’t see fit to wear deodorant. I fan myself with a souvenir program and thank the gods I’m not sitting beside the three-hundred-pound ball of sweating man-meat sitting one section up.

  “Excuse me?” In unison, we look up at a stadium employee. I am instantly fearful we are being kicked out after Bristol’s sexually-charged oral exchange with number twenty-eight. I have endured two hours in the blistering heat, and I am being escorted off the premises on my twenty-first birthday.

  “Oh my God, are we being kicked out?” I ask, mortified and a little bit terrified of his stern expression. Is this going to be the next Sloan scandal?

  The man with the authoritative demeanor and zero social warmth, actually smiles. “No. I’m here to provide you with your wristbands for Red Hooligans this evening. Mr. Hatfield offers his apologies for the oversight. He wasn’t aware of the requirement.”

  Properly banded and relieved that we don’t have to suffer through the humiliation of being tossed out, I settle in with the recently rare but enjoyable feeling of not being the center of attention for once.

  Player announcements begin shortly after, and I focus on the names I know. “And on the mound, your returning starting pitcher, Van Hatfield . . .” The crowd cheers, and I watch as the girl in front of me, wearing his jersey, screams like a raving lunatic. It’s funny when others appear that way, but not when they come from my own bloodline.

  The game finally starts, and I watch as Van Hatfield, after a nine-day absence for “unrelated altercations on and off the field” according to the red-eared guy in front of us, strikes out the first three batters. The crowd is loud and obnoxious, but it helps to drown out my wavering thoughts.

  While organ music plays, the Renegades head in, and as the teams switch, Robbins looks for Bristol. From the way he grabs his balls as he runs past us, he’s found her. I, in sharp contrast to Bristol’s engagement with the team, keep my eyes from straying to Vance—Van.

  In a sweaty finish, the Renegades come out on top with a seven to zero shutout due in large part to Van Hatfield’s return to the mound with his blazing fastball and their flawless execution at bat against San Diego’s less-than-stellar relief squad. I get all this from the announcer, because all I know about baseball is it takes forever and little happens when one team or another doesn’t hit the ball.

  After the game, in front of the Renegades fountain, we meet up with Toolbag, his meathead friends, and Tracy and Tori, whom I’ve been texting with since arriving.

  “Holy shit, Bristol.” Carl’s face is a mixture of pain and adoration as he runs a thumb over Bristol’s bracelet. “Red Hooligans is damn near impossible to get into unless you get in line at nine a.m. or know someone. It’s like the team bar. THE TEAM!” His eyes bulge, and he drops her hand with a nice helpful shove. “Who’d you screw for these?”

  Bristol shrugs her shoulders. “Didn’t have to lift a finger. Brenna did all the screwing.”

  Toolbag Carl looks at me, brows pinched in so they practically touch the bridge of his nose. “Brenna?”

  Obviously, Tori and Tracy haven’t broken the news or he’d know about Vance. I honestly hadn’t expected them to keep it quiet, but I’m humbled by their loyalty.

  I roll my eyes as Bristol responds with what she’s been dying to reveal since Sunday. “Yeah, apparently Brenna has been dating Van Hatfield and didn’t know it.”

  The entirety of the group looks at me, some bug-eyed, others, like Tori and Tracy, hold their breath. Bristol stands smug, gloating silently at my gullibility that is so much like our mother’s.

  “You and Van Hatfield?” Toolbag Carl sounds wounded. He must think I with
held it from him on purpose instead of to spare myself more drama and hurt.

  “Oh, relax. I didn’t know. And we’re not dating. I bought him a beer. That’s it.”

  “Well, that’s not exactly true,” Bristol adds. “She practically arm-wrestled me for him, and he had a front-row seat to her camel toe. Didn’t you show him your ass too?”

  Toolbag barks out a laugh that rattles the water. “So, it’s your ass and not your boobs that gets the guy, huh?”

  I glare at Bristol, not for sharing the Vance story, but for Toolbag’s mention of the boob pic Bristol sent to Eli Perkins, my tenth-grade crush. I never told anyone that they were Bristol’s boobs and not mine, sent by her on my unknowing behalf in the hopes Eli would finally notice me. And notice me he did, as did half the school who also saw the picture. I never came clean because Bristol was already handling her own scandal, and I couldn’t throw her further under the bus.

  The buried memory adds yet another black mark to this day, and my tolerance for unwanted bombshells is waning. I want memorable for my birthday, but not like this.

  Seeing my disgruntled face, Bristol changes the subject fast, also taking the opportunity to rub our good fortune in Toolbag’s face. “Wish you could celebrate with us at Red Houlihan’s too.”

  “It’s Hooligans,” he snaps. “Jesus, you can’t even say it right. Does Van know you can’t pronounce that? How do two girls with zero interest in baseball, outside of getting laid by Van, get that lucky?”

  “We’re cute.” If gloating had a color, Bristol would be radiating it.

  “Hook a fan up, Brenna.” He sounds sadly pathetic right now.

  Bristol’s flair for rubbing things into an open wound is state-of-the-art and occasionally hits below the belt. “If you’ll excuse us, we have a club to get ready for.” She taps the watch on Carl’s wrist. “Best get in line. I heard it’s long.”