Rumor Has It (Jock Star Book 1)

by Caterina Campbell

  I harden my eyes, eyeballing my mom, and open my mouth to speak when I should take a deep breath instead. “No, harsh is telling you you’re incompetent at reading people and not giving me the credit I deserve for shouldering the brunt of her reputation. ‘Experiences’ don’t give you license to be an asshole.”

  I storm out. The chatter about me being sensitive falls short and broken as I head out back, fuming, and dare I say it, a bit “sensitive.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Getting through another day without being reminded that Vance still hasn’t called or that my life is now public fodder whether people recognize me or not is impossible.

  Mr. Jones, my neighbor, is utterly amused by mine and Bristol’s resemblance to the girl in the photographs when he stops by to show us the ‘uncanny lookalikes’ in his store-bought copy of Candid magazine.

  The “Rumor Has It” section of the weekly tabloid features the same pictures The Hook was so proud of. Headline: Lil’ Miss Right Now. The featured article talks about my plain looks and my uphill battle to hold onto baseball’s most eligible bachelor. I stopped reading last night when they started discussing his conquests and my lack of anything worth pursuing.

  I sigh at Mr. Jones’s copy in my hand. What can you say to an eighty-year-old man who, despite being nosy, truly does have a soft spot for you? As my next-door neighbor for more than half my life, he’s spent more time with me in one year than my dad has in eleven. My hope is if he can’t recognize me, no one else can either.

  “I thought you’d get a kick out of it,” he says in that quivering voice he’s acquired over the last year. Taking the folded copy back from me with a shaking right hand he can no longer garden with, he adds, “It’s a shame they have to be so cruel. I’m glad it isn’t you.”

  “Yeah, poor girl. I would hate to have my life on blast like that. It’s going to get a lot worse for her if they ever discover who she is.” Bristol, with a free opportunity to get under my skin and drive her point home, jumps in with both feet. “Pretty stupid if you ask me. So not worth it.”

  I glare a wicked side-eye at her and descend the front steps of our house, refusing to let her bully me. We’ve fought over it for nearly two days. “I’ll see you later Mr. Jones. I have to pick up fliers from the printer.”

  “Fliers for what?” His interest makes me smile. I’ve spent a shitload of time making those fliers worthy of Mrs. Dixon’s faith in me.

  “Miracle Days,” I reply, walking backward toward the street, thankful for any distraction not related to Bristol’s opinions.

  Free of Bristol’s not-so-subtle hints that I’m way out of my small-town league, I stop in at The Seam after picking up the fliers and dropping them off at the Chamber of Commerce for distribution just before they closed. I timed it right so I could watch a portion of Vance’s game against Colorado and grab a sip of water. Uncle Rodney, as expected, is behind the bar holding a beer mug, eyes on the TV, ears acutely aware of what’s around him.

  “Hi, doll.” He hasn’t looked away from the television in the corner above the bar, and still he knows it’s me. The man is scary good. If he had kids, they’d get away with absolutely nothing. I always thought it was sad he never had a family of his own, but when I questioned him about it after I interviewed him for a history project, his answer was simple. “My life isn’t conducive to little ones and a wife. I’m here all the time and don’t want to be anywhere else.”

  “Who’s winning?” The score is posted in the bottom left corner of the screen, but asking Uncle Rodney is my preference.

  “It’s on the screen. Bottom left.”

  I laugh, thinking I should have known better. “How’s Vance doing?”

  He looks away from the television, and he doesn’t just look at me, he plants his green eyes on mine. “All these years, I’ve tried everything to get you interested in baseball. I sat through baseball tea so you’d be happy and I’d be halfway happy. I would have settled for mildly interested, and all I got for that hope was, ‘Why do they grab their balls all the time, Uncle Rodney?’ Van Hatfield shows up for a couple of beers, treats ME to a game, and now all of a sudden you give a shit how the game is going?”

  I laugh, recalling the tea party and my inquiry into the male fascination with their junk. “Maybe you should have put beer in the teacups.”

  “Jesus, maybe.” He grins, taps my hand and returns his eyes to the game. “Colorado has a goose egg. I can’t ask for more than that,” he says to me with a side-eye glance. “Would you like a beer?”

  A big nod accompanies a smile, and Uncle Rodney, giddy at my acceptance, is probably also a bit fearful if he doesn’t move fast enough, I’ll change my mind.

  Vance looks sexy as sin, and when they show a closeup of his face I can see his jaw tick and the intensity in the set of his eyes. He’s all business, seeing nothing but his catcher and the line he wants his pitch to take. I’m mesmerized by him when he lifts his knee and lets that ball fly at ninety-five miles an hour, and by the time he’s rolling the ball in his hand for the next pitch, I’m throat deep in butterflies and breathless when he licks his fingers.

  I don’t know what the stats are for Vance’s six innings, and I don’t particularly care because it’s foreign to me, but I do know by the time Vance is relieved in the top of the seventh inning, I’m already buzzed.

  “You’re a lightweight,” Uncle Rodney says to me as I climb off the barstool a little shaky.

  “I’m also a cheap date, which bodes well for wallets, which bodes well for . . . I don’t know. I’ve never made it to a second date.” I laugh, grabbing the seat of the stool before the whole thing topples.

  Uncle Rodney’s smile falls, and his thick salt and pepper eyebrows pinch together. “He hasn’t called?”

  I shrug. “I didn’t expect him to.”

  “Maybe that’s your problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You don’t have high enough expectations.”

  “They’re always met that way though.” I really should have left well enough alone, because when Uncle Rodney rounds the bar, he’s on a parental mission. He wraps a tight arm around me, squeezes my shoulder and kisses the side of my head.

  “Sit down.”

  I groan, huff, and take my spot back on the stool with as much trouble as I had getting off of it.

  “Now face me.”

  Lips pinched and cockeyed, I turn to face him, placing my feet on the top rung of the barstool.

  “Listen, doll, your mom has lived her life lowering her expectations so someone, anyone, will meet them. Does she look happy to you? If you expect nothing, Brenna, nothing is what you’ll get every damn time.” He tufts my chin with his index finger. “Aim high, love, and someone will jump to reach it.”

  I stare with a numb distance, trying to keep my tears behind my lashes and my lips from saying something stupid. On a normal day that is a full-time job; hopped up on alcohol, it’s damn near impossible. I’ve only had the two beers, but it may as well be six. “I don’t know if I’m destined for all of that, Uncle Rodney. If my family history has anything to say, I’m guessing I have one good relationship in me. I don’t know if I want it this early in my twenties. Besides, I’m tougher than I look. I can withstand a lot.”

  “Horse shit!” he barks loudly, and half the bar, which at this time of the evening is around five people, looks at us. “Don’t buy into that hogwash Bristol force-feeds you. I’ve never talked badly about your dad in front of you out of respect for who he is to you, but he was a piece of shit. While I don’t believe a man should have to pay for his sins for a lifetime, your father certainly deserves to carry that cross for a good long way. Not only did he ruin your mother, but he left two little girls without a good male role model and a third without an identity. A man who fathers little girls has a responsibility, a duty, to show them what a good man looks and sounds like. They should know by how he treats their mother what kind of treatment they should expect from their partner
. But you’re not an idiot, Brenna. You know. You know that cheating is wrong. You know that your word is your bond. You know. Stop using your mother as a scapegoat for your lack of expectations. That’s on you. You can turn this shit around. Your destiny is only crippled by your effort, not by your bloodline.” He tosses a beer towel at me, and I catch it despite the blur of tears.

  I wipe my eyes, lick my dry lips, and jump off the stool to stand toe-to-toe with him. “You sell yourself short,” I tell him. “I couldn’t ask for a better role model if one came packaged with Astronaut Barbie.”

  “Oh, hell. You need your head checked. There’s a reason I don’t have children.”

  “I hope that reason is sterility, because I think you’d have been a great dad.”

  His brow furrows, and he snaps me with the towel he swipes directly out of my hand. “Go home. Find something to do. Text Van and tell him you watched the game. Do something, Brenna.”

  On tiptoes, I kiss his cheek. “You are a great dad.” The smells of cotton, beer, and Irish Spring make up Uncle Rodney, the only man who’s ever really been a dad to me.

  Let’s face it, two beers does not a long buzz make, and after a sandwich and a tall glass of water at the Beachstro Café next door to The Seam, I’m good to go. I’m only thirty minutes late when Tracy’s mom answers the door in her straight-out-of-the-eighties blue leotard and a pink sweatband around her peanut-shaped head.

  “Brenna!” she sings. “Come, come.” She ushers me in and closes the front door. “The fliers turned out amazing. You, my dear, are amaziiiiing. Sooo beautiful! Is it too early to start working on next year’s?” she sings again, double air kissing my cheeks. “Tracy and Bristol are in her room.” She lifts an arm and fans a hand over her armpit. “They have big new-ooze.” If she sang any higher, she’d shatter the porcelain duck on the table, all while maintaining the fan she’s made out of her hand to cool her armpit.

  Quietly wondering if I’ve been hired for next year’s flier design or if I’m being toyed with, I head up the curved staircase, too afraid to ask. When I get to the top, I look over the banister and watch Mrs. Dixon, stuck in 1985, dance her way back into the den.

  Tracy’s room is two doors down from the “love pad,” which is more than I ever wanted to know about her parents’ kink, but Tracy can’t keep anything to herself. I can hear Project Runway spilling out into the hallway from her bedroom a good ten steps before I get to it.

  “Brenna!” Tracy screeches before I enter her sanctuary, highlighted by a smirking Bristol standing beside the window seat littered with Tracy’s fifth-grade Beanie Babies collection. “Thank God you’re here.” She touches my shoulders, one hand on each so she can look me directly in the eyes.

  “What’s going on?” I question not only Tracy’s enthusiasm but also Bristol’s too-smug expression.

  “Bristol got Van to donate a signed baseball for our auction.” She squeals, jumps once, and siphons in another lung full of air. “Isn’t that great?”

  “You did what?!” I ignore Tracy and lock eyes on Bristol, who despite seeing my reaction, is still smirking.

  Concerned I might see this as a Judas move, she begins to build her case. “It’s so much better than Tiffany Langley’s stupid signed golden ticket. Hers is a fucking replica anyway. Do you honestly think she’s going to part with real American Idol memorabilia?

  My mouth hangs open, paused between shock and the breath it’s going to take to get out all the curse words I want to say.

  “Oh, for shit's sake, Brenna, take a breath. He was okay with it.”

  “I’m not!” I yell. “How did you get his number anyway?”

  “Same as you. Tori.”

  I open my mouth to yell at her, but I’m stopped by Tracy who interjects herself, trying to diffuse the situation. “Tori didn’t want to. Don’t be mad at her. And Van was truly fine with it.” She nods her affirmation repeatedly.

  My nostrils flare, I can hear my heartbeat in my ears, and my teeth, ground so tight they ache, clench deeper. I’m the last to know and yet the only one of us who has anything to lose.

  “You don’t own him, Brenna. I figured we may as well get what we could out of him while he still remembered our names.”

  “You are such a bitch,” I spit out, unconcerned with Tracy’s presence. I’ve been waiting two days for him to contact me, and Bristol’s been texting him for favors. No wonder I haven’t heard from him.

  “It’s a ball, Brenna.”

  “It’s not just a ball, Bristol. Now he’s going to think I want what everyone else wants from him.”

  Tracy grabs us both, one hand on my shoulder, another on Bristol’s, and she pulls us in for a group hug. “Girls,” she says, draping her arms over our shoulders, tightening our huddle, “let’s take a break from this. No need to fight.”

  I try to shrug off a well-intentioned Tracy, but she’s more invested in keeping the peace than I counted on, and I’m stuck beneath her heavy arm. I have nowhere to go to escape my own thoughts which are traveling to unwanted places that shake my faith in Bristol. I’ve questioned a lot of things about her actions over the years, but never her intentions toward me.

  “I’m sorry,” Bristol says in our small huddle. “I’ll text him and tell him to forget it.”

  “It’s done,” I say too harshly to sound even remotely close to forgiveness. “You can’t take it back now.” I can’t see her because Tracy is forcing our heads down and all I can see is our feet, but I know Bristol is smirking at her win. A win she probably knew she had when she called him. One-upping Tiffany was strictly a bonus.

  Bristol breaks out the waterworks, and Tracy takes a step back, breaking our stupid friendship huddle so she can either repair or minimize the damage. “Don’t!” It’s meant for both of them. “Just . . . don’t.”

  I sit down on twelve layers of plush, pink bedding, and sink in, wishing it would swallow me whole. I look up, finding a wide-eyed Tracy looking uncertain about her options and a teary-eyed Bristol making a good show of her remorse. As much as I want to continue being pissed off at her, she makes it hard. “At least now I know why he hasn’t called.” I’m bitter, but we aren’t supposed to let boys come between us, and I’m supposed to choose her no matter what. Life, as usual, has made its intentions for me clear. I’m just tired of always coming up on the underside of what’s fair. Me and Bristol against the world. But what if that world stops revolving around her? What then?

  At home after spending a ten-minute car ride trying to convince Bristol I’m fine and she doesn’t have to fear my retribution over the ball, we go to bed. Bristol, weightless and absolved from her dirty deeds, falls asleep quickly, leaving me to write and erase ten texts to Vance before deciding I’m not that girl. Despite Uncle Rodney’s advice to do something, I will not chase him.

  From a dead sleep I didn’t know I’d succumbed to, my phone sings me awake. I roll to my side and grasp blindly for my phone on the nightstand, and after a few F-bombs, covers thrashed around me, I end up finding it on the floor.

  In disbelief, I disentangle from my sheets and talk myself out of squealing. I stare at Vance’s text for minutes on end, stomach churning.

  Vance: You still awake?

  My heart skips about six beats more than it did when I thought I might be dreaming. I look at the clock in the upper right corner of my phone. Eleven twenty-five p.m., which means the game I watched with Uncle Rodney has been over for about four hours now.

  Waiting an embarrassingly small amount of time to type out a reply, I send it before I can think about it.

  Me: Yeah.

  Vance: Sorry it’s so late.

  Me: It’s okay. What are you up to?

  Vance: Thinking about you.

  Me: Really?

  Vance: Yes, really. How’ve you been?

  I sit on my reply, but within a few minutes I decide to remain true to myself, and if he doesn’t like it, what am I truly out?

  Me: Other than second-guessing everythi
ng, I’m fine.

  Vance: What are you second-guessing?

  Me: I know about the signed ball. I’m sorry.

  Vance’s reply isn’t as quick as the last several, but I remind myself it’s nearly one o’clock in the morning where he is. I’m sure he’s tired and in the middle of getting ready for bed after partying or something. While I wait, I listen to Bristol’s breathing, and the familiar sound puts things into perspective. Bristol, though feeling threatened, isn’t going anywhere. She’s just trying to see how far I’ll venture.

  Vance: Don’t be sorry. Why is that what you’re thinking about?

  A second after the last text, another text comes in before I’ve typed out my reply.

  Vance: Can I call?

  I erase my reply, walk out of my bedroom so I don’t accidentally wake Bristol, and alone in the hall, I hit the phone icon to call him. He picks up on the second ring, and his voice, deep and sexy, makes me smile and eases the tightness I’ve been carrying in my chest because I hadn’t heard from him.

  “Hey.” It’s one word. One simple word, and I feel like half of the weight I’m carrying is being lifted.

  I sit on the sofa, easing into it slowly as I respond, smiling like a lovestruck idiot. “Hi.”

  “There’s that voice I’ve missed.”

  I can hear the smile in his tone, and I think I absorb it too long and forget to reply.

  “Brenna?”

  “Oh, sorry. How are you?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You know, I guess I just worried that when I didn’t hear from you—you know, it doesn’t matter. Great game tonight.”

  “Brenna?” His tone changes, and I’m acutely aware of the shift as I kick myself for not just enjoying the relief of his call. I pull a blanket from the back of the sofa and flop it on top of me. “I’m sorry it took so long to call. I forgot my charger at home and I didn’t realize it until my phone was too dead to call out. I didn’t get time until tonight to get another charger and just got enough juice to call you now.” I hear his exchange of breath, his contrition heavy. “I wanted to call sooner. I really did.”