Players

by Rachel Cross

  She was meeting with a college counselor in a few weeks to discuss transferring credits to the state college. Maybe there was some kind of test they could give her so she could figure out the rest of her life, now that she was retired. And alone.

  • • •

  Shane arrived at the studio with five minutes to spare. Goddamn LA traffic. He was no longer nervous. Everything made him angry these days. The way things had ended with Amy. The fact that she wouldn’t take his calls. He didn’t know where she was or if she was all right—or how she was recovering.

  He was pissed at Amy, pissed at this Kayla who had sent him into a tailspin when she claimed he was the father of her child, knowing full well he wasn’t—she’d finally dropped the suit. And he was furious with Erika. He worked out, ran, biked, and skated—yes skated, with an underlying ferocity. He pushed himself in his workouts so hard, his trainer had asked him who he was running from, and worried that the twenty pounds he had added for the role might be in jeopardy.

  He told himself he was trying to get into character before the audition, but somehow along the way he’d become Hank LaMott. An irredeemable fuckup.

  The worst part was that after all the training and bulking up and skating, the role he wanted so badly, he no longer gave two shits about.

  He knew what people thought of his turn as the Dark Avenger—that he’d been horribly miscast. And yet here he was, auditioning for the role of another antihero.

  At least they couldn’t see right through him to what he really was. Darker and sicker and shadier than anyone else.

  Amy had come the closest to finding out. Even to him, his betrayal was monstrous.

  She hadn’t understood what she was seeing. And what she knew was only a hint at what lay beneath. She couldn’t possibly love what he was, a gaping hole, one that he tried to fill with the compulsions of his body.

  They called him in the room. There were nods of greeting all around. The director’s face was set. He was against this whole thing—clearly Ike had applied some pressure to even get Shane in the room.

  Not you.

  He’d been to auditions like this before, where they had someone else in mind for the role and no matter how he played it, he had no hope. Well, fuck them.

  He was here. He had memorized the lines, lived them lately. They’d picked the most harrowing scene from the script. The scene where LaMott accepted that love doesn’t conquer anything and the past won’t stay buried. His demons didn’t just revisit him, they wreaked havoc on the lives of the people he loved, and he was powerless to halt the consequences. Unable to communicate, without the tools to move forward, his rage simmered until this scene where it boiled over.

  He prepared to read the scene where he let go of the person he loved most to give her a chance at happiness—without him. Hank LaMott’s only selfless act as he circled the drain allowed his lover to escape his misery. If only he’d been that selfless, he could’ve spared Amy the pain.

  Shane was to read the part with the woman his agent told him was a shoo-in for the role of the wife. For the first time in his life, in the guise of acting, he was connected to all his shame and rage. It was hideously unpleasant and impossible to mask.

  By the end of the scene the actress was as physically removed from him as she could get—damn near pressed up against the wall on the opposite side of the room as he’d stalked her. If he’d been auditioning for one of his romantic lead roles, they would’ve had him removed from the building.

  He finished out the scene, put down the script, and walked out in a daze.

  • • •

  It took forever, but he tracked her down. His lawyer had all her information from the lawsuit. Shane stood in front of her rundown apartment building, shaking with rage. How had he gotten to this point in his life? If this stupid bitch hadn’t filed a paternity suit, if he hadn’t been so anxious and sleepless, he never would have believed Amy could cheat, he never would have gone to the bar and met up with that woman.

  The dominoes wouldn’t have come crashing down.

  She was as good a person to vent it on as any. She must’ve known it was a bogus claim. He took the steps to her garden apartment two at a time, arriving at the dented and peeling door. He knocked.

  No answer.

  He pounded on the door, unleashing his anger.

  What was that noise from the other side? It barely sounded human. Were those wails? He stepped away from the door.

  And then it flung open and there she stood, bloated, eyes red-rimmed. She took two steps back with the wailing, flailing bundle in her arms. He took a step away also. They stood staring at each other.

  Her shoulders slumped and she turned away, leaving the door open. He stood on the concrete walkway for a moment, then glanced behind him to ensure there were no prying eyes.

  He entered the darkened apartment and flicked the light switch. Nothing.

  He looked out the window. The lights were on outside someone’s front door across the way.

  He took another step into the room and shut the door behind him.

  She sat on the stained couch, head back, and tried to get the baby onto her exposed breast. The red-faced baby screamed.

  He looked away, embarrassed, but not before he’d caught site of tears leaking down her face, running into her lank hair.

  Pity stirred and he quashed it.

  He looked around the apartment, uncomfortable. “Power’s out,” he said unnecessarily.

  “No shit.”

  God, she looked awful. Was this really the same woman he’d taken home from the club ten plus months ago?

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t pay the bill.”

  And just like that, Shane was a child of ten again, afraid of the dark. There had never been enough money so Mandy juggled utility bills—one month the water would be shut off, another the power.

  “What do you want?” she managed.

  “An apology for fucking up my life would be a good start.”

  “Your life was already fucked up, but okay, I’m sorry for my part in it.”

  “You must’ve known it wasn’t mine.”

  “There was a two-week window. It could’ve been anyone’s. I figured my luck couldn’t be that good. I hoped you’d pay me enough to go away and be quiet.”

  “Ah.”

  The face she turned to him was unutterably weary, lined with exhaustion.

  “How old are you?” he asked.

  “Twenty-four.”

  Two years younger than Amy. A stab of grief pierced him and he grimaced. When would thoughts of her cease to make him want to put holes in walls?

  “You looked younger when we met.”

  She barked out a laugh. “Ya think? This baby shit ain’t easy.”

  “Would you have had it, you know, if you were sure it wasn’t mine?”

  She was silent for four beats of his heart, then she looked up from the baby and met his gaze evenly. “I don’t know. But I don’t regret having her.”

  “Is there anyone else who might,” he looked around the dismal, dark apartment—it wasn’t dirty, just run down, “help out? Step up?”

  “I’ve got a few friends who have helped out, but no family locally—thankfully. I’ll manage. I always have.”

  She reminded him of Amy. Tough and self-reliant. But he knew what this life was like. Hell, maybe his mom had been like this before poverty had ground her down.

  He blew out a sigh. “Anything I can do?”

  She leaned forward, unlatching the baby, now asleep. She wrapped her gently and deposited the bundle in Shane’s stiff arms. “I could use a year of sleep about now, but even half an hour would help. She won’t need me for another few hours. Would you stick around? Please.”

  He looked down in horror at the little dark-haired girl in his arms. “I don’t know anything about babies,” he whispered and tried to hand her back, but she refused to take the child, staring him down until he nodded, cradling the little body to him ging
erly.

  She stretched out on the couch and fell asleep.

  He rose and walked down the dark hall into the bedroom. It all came back—the condom, the photo she’d tried to take. Panic.

  He studied the room. There was a mesh playpen thing next to the bed. He carefully laid the sleeping baby in the center. The bed was made. A bureau doubled as a changing area with a pad, wipes, a few baby clothes stacked. This room was neatly arranged, too.

  It would be a drop out of his bucket to help her out of this situation. Give her a leg up and see what she could make of it.

  He went into the bathroom to make a few calls without waking either the girl or the baby.

  • • •

  He left Kayla’s apartment, quietly closing the door behind him, exhausted.

  The first time he’d read that script and identified with Hank LaMott, he’d assumed LaMott should’ve kept his distance from people. Stopped trying to reconcile with his wife and his children since he was so obviously broken. But for the first time it occurred to him that LaMott was not terribly smart—and not brave, for pushing everyone away, but never investigating his failings. He should’ve focused on fixing his rage, then made amends.

  He’d always assumed that once he fell in love it would fill the hole in him, that his cravings for anonymous sexual encounters would stop. In the past when the compulsions hadn’t gone away, he’d assumed there was some flaw in the relationship and ended it. But there was no flaw in Amy—she was the best person he’d ever known.

  He loved her beyond reason. He could see that now that he’d destroyed it.

  He had always been completely fucked up inside. But it didn’t have to be. And maybe that was the most important thing he’d learned from her.

  Her childhood and adolescence had been as difficult as or more traumatic than his. She’d had her own issues as a result, but she saved herself by doing the healthiest thing: taking the only way out and striking out on her own. Like her, he had to stop himself from going over the cliff. Whoever had written this stupid script he loved so much about isolation and desolation and pain didn’t get it.

  The level of intimacy he’d had with Amy was completely off the wall. Living with her. Loving her. He had a choice to make: figure out what was wrong or repeat the same mistakes ad infinitum.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Five minutes. Please,” Shane asked.

  Amy steeled herself and debated shutting the door in his face. For a moment she allowed herself to fantasize about slamming his assorted body parts in the door.

  When would this kicked-in-the-gut feeling go away? She’d had the wind knocked out of her plenty of times in her life, she’d been assaulted, robbed, harassed, and stalked in her career. Yet none of those experiences came close to the horror of this one. She’d given this asshole her carefully guarded heart and he hadn’t only stomped on it, he’d publically shredded it.

  “I’ve made it clear that I don’t want to see or hear from you. I hope to avoid looking at your face for the rest of my life.”

  “I’m begging you,” he pleaded.

  “There’s nothing you could say that would change anything.”

  She glanced up, made it as far as the strong tanned column of his neck, watched his throat work as he swallowed.

  “Please,” he said again.

  Amy scowled. “Let me grab a jacket.” She was cold from the inside out, despite the warmth of the day. She followed him outside, giving him a wide berth as she moved past, careful not to brush up against his body. She led him down the pathway through the gate to the deck on the side of the house. There was no way she could stand to be in the same room with him. Dizziness surged through her, setting off white spots in front of her vision.

  Her chest constricted.

  Shoulders hunched, she perched on the edge of one of her new patio chairs.

  He sat opposite her. “Cute place,” he said.

  She laced her fingers together tightly. Even looking at him now, there wasn’t room for anger, just a stunned disbelief. Her stomach spasmed. How could her brain and her heart lead her so completely astray?

  “I’m not going to sit here and make small talk with you,” she managed through a throat thick with unshed tears.

  “No. I know. I want you to know—”

  God help her she went there. She couldn’t stop the words from pouring out. “Why did you do it? Was it something I didn’t have or—” Her voice broke. There it was. The thing that had been haunting her. That her love—that she herself—was somehow lacking. For all the fury directed at him, it was a raging insecurity driving it. She’d given him her heart, and he went looking elsewhere.

  He made a move toward her and she shrank away.

  He resettled in his chair, his expression stricken.

  “God, no. No! You gave me more than I ever even hoped for, Amy. More than I deserved. You have to know it wasn’t you.”

  She started to rise.

  He put a hand up. “I didn’t think I’d get caught. Or maybe I was hoping I’d get caught. Despite everything, I wasn’t able to rein in this . . . the part of me that gets its fucked up kicks with strangers. There’s something wrong with me. I tried so hard with you. I didn’t want to do it. I managed to talk myself out of so much of my bad behavior while I was with you. But in the end, I . . . I couldn’t resist the temptation.”

  Bile rose and she clenched her teeth. She finally dared to look at his face. This time he was the one who couldn’t meet her eyes. He looked drawn, older than his twenty-nine years.

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to that.” She stood.

  “I fucked up and I’m sorry. I have some understanding of why I did it. Not that it will make any sense to you. It was never about you.”

  Furious and dry-eyed she stared down at his blonde hair glinting in the sun. This golden wreck of a man who had permanently damaged her heart. “The fuck it isn’t.”

  He looked up briefly, his eyes red-rimmed, his face a pasty white beneath his tan.

  “There’s always temptation when you’re in a relationship. It’s not like you don’t notice other people. You make a decision to be faithful and don’t put yourself in harm’s way,” she said.

  “I’m trying to tell you that somewhere along the way, sex went from because I can to because I can’t stop,” he managed hoarsely, still unable to meet her gaze.

  She stood frozen with disbelief. “What?”

  “I don’t drink much or use drugs or . . . or any of that. Instead I have sex. Compulsively. With a lot of different people. I always have. There have been so many women since I was a teenager. And it’s meaningless. And it doesn’t feel good. Not during and definitely not after. It’s been this way for most of my adult life. Until you.”

  “What are you trying to say? That you’re some kind of addict? Please,” she scoffed. “Why is it if a guy can’t keep his dick in his pants, it has to be labeled an addiction?”

  “All I can tell you is my experience with sex, Amy. And I’m done trying to excuse it. It doesn’t matter why I use sex with strangers, only that I stop.”

  She sneered. “This is bullshit.”

  He ignored her comment, continuing, haltingly. “My sexual compulsions have jeopardized my career, wreaked havoc on relationships at every level. You recognized that early on, you saw right through me. In Tennessee you called me on it in that hotel room. But you got it wrong, Amy—it’s not that I hate women. I hate myself. And,” he inhaled, “it got worse while I was with you. I was happier with you, had more of a connection with you than anyone else ever in my life, and it was still there. I haven’t had sex with anyone else since I’ve been with you. But . . . ”

  Here it comes. Those white spots danced in front of her eyes again and her body suffused with heat.

  Oh shit, I should’ve eaten.

  She went to her knees on the deck.

  Shane rushed over. “Amy? What’s wrong?” He put a hand on her back.

  She sh
rank away. Her vision still hadn’t cleared so she stretched her legs out in front of her and laid down until her head rested on her knees, heart racing. She turned her clammy face toward Shane and he gasped.

  “Jesus, Amy, are you sick? You’re so pale and . . . thin.”

  She closed her eyes. “I’m lightheaded.”

  He kneeled next to her. “Should I get you some juice or something? I have a soda in the car . . . ”

  “I don’t have much in the house.” You don’t have anything in the house.

  He disappeared for a few minutes and came back with a warm Coke.

  She sat up and took the drink from him as he knelt next to her on the patio.

  He rubbed his face with his hands, a face contorted by anguish. “I shouldn’t have come here like this, dumping all this on you . . . ”

  “How many times, Shane? How many women were there?”

  This time his red-rimmed eyes did meet hers. “I haven’t had sex with anyone but you since we started dating. But I have done things . . . things I’m ashamed of.”

  Amy pressed her lips together, tears stinging her eyes. “Like?”

  “Sexting, touching . . . no kissing, no undressing.”

  “Sex?”

  “No. I swear it, Amy. But the things I did were things I shouldn’t have done in a committed relationship with you. And my therapist says—”

  She raised disbelieving eyes to his face, “You have a therapist?”

  “Yeah. Since a few weeks ago. And he tells me I need to be honest with you about where I am, and where I’m going if . . . this is going to work,” he said, haltingly.

  She pulled her legs to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

  “This?” She gestured between them. “This is over.”

  He hung his head, defeated.

  “But I deserve to know everything. Who, what, when . . . ”

  He looked at her. “I don’t know who. That’s part of my . . . thing. I don’t know them, other than a first name sometimes and almost never the same person twice. It’s not as,” he paused, “thrilling. But that woman they got pictures of at the bar . . . it wasn’t the first time I’d been out there, trolling. And I’d been close a few times. Really close. But I always pulled back before I took that final step. Before I went home with someone.”