by Lexi Ryan
Gwen remodeled this space while she was pregnant. Contractors came in and ripped out the cherry wood cabinets my mother had chosen and replaced them with a stark white variety that feels so sterile you almost expect the place to smell like bleach and commercial disinfectant.
It’s everything my mother’s kitchen wasn’t—cold to the warm, white to the dark, showpiece to the functional. It’s as if she ripped the heart right out of my house.
“That’s fucking dramatic,” I mutter to myself.
I grab the eggs from the fridge and crack them against the side of a bowl, dumping the egg whites and tossing the yolks in the trash. I chop fresh basil and beat it with the egg whites before pouring the mixture into the skillet.
My phone buzzes, rattling against the white marble countertop.
Keegan: Someone told me they saw Mia Mendez walk into the manager’s office at the Pretty Kitty. I’m heading that way. If there’s a god, she’ll be on stage tonight.
My fist tightens around the phone, but before I can do something stupid like throw it against the wall or, worse, let Keegan know exactly what I think about his hopes for the evening, it buzzes again. And again. Two, three, four messages all coming in at once, making me realize this wasn’t a text he sent just to me but one of those mass-group texts that guarantees to keep my phone rattling for the next half-hour.
I read through the conversation as I stir my eggs.
Mason: You fucking wish, loser. Mia wouldn’t strip.
Trent: If you love me, you’ll tell me if this happens. But I heard she was working at the Woodisons’—that true, Arrow?
Mason: Not that I object to the idea in theory. Because damn.
Keegan: Why work for the Woodisons? Ass like that and she could make BANK stripping.
Chris: You’re all so low. This is Brogan’s girl you’re talking about. Show some respect.
Brogan’s girl.
I stare at those two words for so long that time drops away. Brogan’s. Girl.
I draw in a breath and my throat burns with smoke. Shit. I throw the exhaust fan on full blast so my burned eggs don’t set off the smoke alarm and wake up everyone in the house. I toss them into the trashcan and put the pan in the sink to soak. Not wanting to embark on another failed cooking attempt, I grab a protein shake from the fridge.
Chris’s mention of Brogan predictably silenced the conversation, but I turn off my phone anyway, shutting it down before I can say something I’ll regret, or worse—find out that she really is stripping.
I twist the cap off my drink, sink into one of the living room couches, and turn on ESPN out of sheer habit.
“Let’s talk biggest draft disappointments,” the announcer says to his co-host. “Give me your top five.”
The broad-shouldered black man taps his papers on the desk in front of him and pushes his glasses up his nose. His name is Craig Jennings, a retired running back for the Indianapolis Colts. When I was in seventh grade, he was my hero. He was the reason I told the coach I didn’t want to play quarterback, even though half my friends were dying for the position. No. I wanted to be Craig. I wanted to power down the field, zigging and zagging like Craig. Finding the holes and making impossible plays. He was the reason I loved football, and that stubborn declaration was just the beginning of a long list of careful decisions that pulled me to the top of my sport at each level.
Craig looks at the camera, lips pursed, eyes serious, and says, “My list starts with Arrow Woodison. And I put him as the number five instead of number one only because he hadn’t yet decided if he’d be entering the draft at the end of this year or playing his senior year at BHU. But even as a long shot, my boy Arrow is nothing short of a profound disappointment for any team who believed they might be able to pick him up this year or next.”
“Fuck you, Craig,” I whisper. I made my decisions. I knew what I was doing every step of the way. No one forced me down the path that led to my house arrest.
But when you idolize someone—whether it’s a parent or a football star—you want him to get you. You want him to understand that the terrible choice you made was the best you could do.
I didn’t think I even cared about football anymore, but Craig’s words make me feel claustrophobic. Stuck. Profound disappointment. They kick at the dead dream and remind me I buried myself these last few months, not just my football hopes. But wasn’t that the point?
I grab the remote, but even though I know I should shut off the television, I only turn up the volume, lean back on the couch, and listen to what else the man has to say about me.
Mia
When I pull into the trailer park, my tires crackle on the gravel road. I park in front of my childhood home and cut the engine. The windows are draped with dark sheets and part of the roof has been covered with a piece of rotting particleboard. The air-conditioning unit hangs from the bedroom window, but it hasn’t worked for years. As I climb out of the car and walk around to get my father, guilt washes over me, just like it does every time I visit. Tonight—and every night this summer, if Arrow doesn’t get me fired—I’ll sleep in the air-conditioned comfort of the Woodison mansion, a feather pillow under my head, cool, silky sheets wrapped around my legs, and Dad will sleep in this hot trailer, sweating through his sheets.
“Come on, Dad,” I say, sliding my arm behind his back. “Time to get you inside.” He’s out cold and doesn’t stir when I tug on him. “Dad. Wake up.” Nothing. Not even a grunt. “Crap.”
“Here,” someone calls behind me. He shuffles down the steps of the trailer beside Dad’s and saunters toward me before I can answer. I don’t know him, but his thick arms and broad shoulders indicate he’s a much better candidate for the job of maneuvering my fifty-year-old father inside than I am.
I step aside and let him help, holding the door as he leads my half-conscious father into the house.
“Take him to bed?” he asks.
“Please.” I point to the back of the trailer and follow him, watching as he settles Dad onto the unmade bed. I remove Dad’s scuffed work boots and pull a blanket over him as the stranger fills a cup of water from the tap and puts it on the table next to him.
“Thank you,” I say as we head back out.
The man holds the door open for me this time, but he doesn’t speak until the screen door clatters to a close behind us. The porch light illuminates the sharp angles of his cheekbones and a neatly trimmed beard. He’s tall and broad-shouldered with an aura of bad boy. Tattoos peek out from under the sleeves of his T-shirt. I make a mental note to tell Bailey about him. He’s absolutely her type.
While I lock Dad’s door behind me, the stranger dismisses my gratitude with a shrug. “If I hadn’t been here, someone else would’ve helped.”
He’s probably right. The trailer park never really sleeps. Not many people who live here work bankers’ hours, so there’s always someone sitting outside, smoking or taking in the night air. Nighttime promises blazing porch lights and the rumble of unhappy car engines. It’s such a dramatic contrast to the dark, silent acres of the Woodison Estate.
“You lived here long?” I wish he could help me keep an eye on Dad and his drinking, but I’m too ashamed to ask.
“Grew up in Blackhawk Valley and came back this fall.”
I nod and look at my feet. “You see my dad much?”
“Some. He tells me he used to work for Woodison?” He can’t be too much older than me, and I wonder if he has a job and where. I wonder if he understands that my dad isn’t rational when it comes to Uriah.
How Uriah Woodison screwed me over is one of Dad’s favorite subjects. “He was let go a few years ago. Hasn’t been able to find anything else.” Hasn’t tried.
“Woodison.” Turning his head, he looks across the gravel lane. “There’s a fucking asshole.”
That asshole is buying Dad’s groceries and keeping his lights on—not that I’d tell Dad that. “Well, I need to get going. Thanks for your help tonight.”
“I’m Sebasti
an Crowe.” He doesn’t offer a hand, only studies me. “You must be Mia.”
“Yeah, sorry. Mia Mendez. Nice to meet you.”
“You’re even prettier than they say.”
“Who?”
He shakes his head, dismissing my question. “How’s your boyfriend doing?”
“Brogan?”
“Do you have another boyfriend?”
“He’s . . . No change.” I force a smile, refusing to let him see how unnerving it is to have this guy know so much about me when I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before. “Thank you for asking.” I wander toward my car, wishing he hadn’t brought up Brogan, wishing he weren’t looking at me like he knows my secrets. “You sure know a lot about local news for someone who just moved to town.”
“In this neighborhood, it’s about all they talk about.”
Yet another reason I’m glad to be staying somewhere else. “Well, thanks again. For tonight.”
“Don’t be such a stranger.” He tucks his hands into his pockets, and I sense his gaze still on me, even if I can’t tell in the darkness. “I’d like to see you around more often.”
Oh, shit. I don’t have the energy for this tonight. “Listen, I hope I didn’t give you any ideas by accepting your help. I’m not looking for . . .” I’ve always sucked at these conversations. Whether I’m trying to flirt or let a guy down gently, it never comes as naturally to me as it does to Bailey. “My life is kind of complicated right now.”
He arches a brow and rocks back on his heels. “I just asked about your boyfriend, and you think I’m coming on to you?”
“I . . . well . . .” I roll a piece of gravel under the toe of my sandal. “I’m sorry. A lot of people think that since Brogan’s accident, I should . . .” I hate this, but I force myself to lift my chin and meet his gaze through the darkness. Away from the porch light, I can’t make out his features at all, but I’m questioning myself now. Maybe he does look familiar. Maybe I’ve seen him around before. Not here, but where? “I just didn’t want there to be any confusion.”
“Your dad needs you. You should come around more for him.”
Nodding absently, I climb into my car to dodge the guilt trip I don’t need. I’m doing all I can for my father. At Nic’s funeral, Mom tried to talk me into going back to Arizona with her. In the years since she left, she’s gotten a teaching degree and now has a good job teaching Spanish at a high school out there. She told me I could live with her and go to college there. She practically begged me, and I declined—not just because my relationship with her is screwed up, or because I didn’t want to be that far from Brogan. Part of me relished the idea of running away after that horrible night, but I could never leave my dad alone.
No, I don’t need a guilt trip. Guilt is a constant for me.
I pull away from the trailer park as quickly as I arrived. I’ve had to take unscheduled hours off from the Woodisons four or five times in the two months I’ve worked there. Thus far, Gwen has been accommodating when it comes to my absences, but I don’t like to push it. Besides, there are too many memories here. Too much pain.
When I pull into the Woodisons’ circle drive, the floodlights click on, cutting through the darkness of the country night. I take the spot next to Arrow’s Mustang, throw the car into park, and climb out. I close my eyes and take a deep breath of the clean country air. The old neighborhood suffocates me. Or maybe that’s from being around my dad. My guilt and frustration with him get so tangled that I don’t even know whom I’m angry with anymore—myself for leaving him to live in that hovel, or him for doing nothing to pull himself out.
Dad and I aren’t so different. We both want to escape our lives. The difference is the path we take. I’m searching for freedom through school and work, and Dad finds his escape in booze.
“Way to feel self-righteous, Mia,” I mutter. But that’s why I took the job with the Woodisons, isn’t it? Dad would rather see me dealing drugs like Nic than have his daughter work for Uriah Woodison. I knew that, and I told Dad I was living with Bailey and took the job anyway, telling myself that Uriah owed me this, that I was doing what I needed to do to help Dad and get myself through college, promising myself that what my father doesn’t know won’t hurt him.
But were those my only reasons? Or did part of me hope this might get me closer to Arrow?
Before tonight, he hadn’t spoken to me since our fight on New Year’s Eve. He came to the hospital the evening after the accident, but the only indication that he even knew I was there was the moment his eyes skimmed over the bloodstains on my white dress. He sat in the waiting room with his teammates and didn’t say a word to me. Not I’m sorry about your brother or—what I really needed to hear—It’s not your fault.
I stare at Arrow’s Mustang and fight to keep my breath as grief threatens to rip it away. Arrow might be angry with me, but I’m disappointed in him. I needed him after the accident, and I thought he was better than this. I didn’t expect happily-ever-after. Cinderella is a fairytale, and this is real life. But even though I didn’t expect him to be Prince Charming to my Cinderella, I expected him to be the friend he’d become. The friend I needed when my world was at its darkest. I thought he was a big enough man to forgive me for New Year’s Eve. I thought he was a good enough man to comfort me when I lost my brother, to stand by my side as I watched Brogan fight for his life in the hospital. Instead, the steadfast Arrow I’d known disappeared.
Before I realize what I’m doing, I reach out, touching my fingers to the window of the Mustang. I squint, trying to make out something in the back seat that isn’t there. I can almost see us on the other side of the glass—desperate, greedy hands fumbling with my clothes, trying to work faster than my conscience. But when I blink, the apparition is gone, fizzled out in the floodlight of reality.
I enter the house, locking the door and enabling the alarm behind me. I’ll let Gwen know I’m back and then go to bed. I might be able to catch a couple of hours of sleep before Katie wakes for another bottle. If I’m really lucky, she might skip that feeding like she does sometimes.
Voices from the television murmur in the great room and I head in that direction, hoping to catch Gwen before she goes to bed.
It’s not Gwen but Arrow who’s on the leather couch. I stop before he sees me. He’s sitting with his legs spread, his elbows on his knees, the remote in his hand. ESPN is on the television, but he’s not looking at the screen. He’s hanging his head.
When I catch the name “Brogan” coming from the speakers, I look up and my heart breaks all over again. For myself. For everything I lost that night. But also for this powerful and talented man sitting helpless in front of me as he listens to the announcer.
“I’ve spoken with Woodison’s coach,” the announcer says. “He’s known Arrow since the young player’s elementary-school days. This kid was the kind you never had to worry about. He wasn’t one to party or drink or mouth off on the field. He was one of those rare finds—humble, hardworking, with a coachable attitude and the drive to be his best on and off the field. He knew what he wanted, and he was going to make it happen in all the right ways. But then his best friend, also a BHU player, was injured, and Woodison did a one-eighty.”
“It’s heartbreaking,” the co-host says. “And I wonder if it doesn’t speak to some weaknesses in our sport on the collegiate level. Do we talk enough about depression? What are we doing for players who have mental health concerns? Woodison was the last player you expected to see tangled up in hard drugs.”
“I agree, but whether we expected it or not, it happened. And now instead of preparing for training camp with an NFL team or for his senior year with BHU, he’s just been released from rehab and is going to spend the next six months on house arrest.”
“Any word from Woodison about his choices this last semester?”
He shakes his head. “He’s not talking to the press. Representatives from the school are saying he needs space to think about his actions and get some counseling.
”
“Can we talk about what Woodison’s football season could have looked like if he hadn’t fallen down this rabbit hole? If he’d stayed straight and entered the draft?”
I don’t understand why Arrow’s torturing himself by listening, but I can’t handle another minute of their pseudo-empathy and exploitive speculation. I walk around to the front of the couch, grab the remote from Arrow’s hands, and turn off the television.
His head snaps up and his eyes narrow. “What do you think you’re doing?”
I swallow and shrug. “You don’t need to hear that.”
The corner of his mouth twitches with a smirk. “So, you’re not only playing nanny to my little sister, you’re playing nanny to me, too? Planning to tell me what I can watch on TV and when to go to bed?” He grabs the remote from my hand. “Thanks, but I’ll pass.”
“Arrow . . .” I search for the words as his grip tightens on the remote, his knuckles whitening, but the television remains silent and dark.
“I heard you were at the Pretty Kitty tonight.” He doesn’t look at me. He keeps those dark eyes focused on his hands. “My dad not paying you enough? You need another income stream?”
I lift my chin, my aching heart pounding, but I refuse to answer. It’s not my job to make Arrow like me again. It’s my job to take care of his home and his baby sister. “Can I get you anything before I go to bed?”
His head snaps back, and he glares at me. “You’re not my fucking servant, Mia. If you don’t want to piss me off while you’re working here, don’t try to wait on me.”
Nodding, I turn on my heel and head toward the stairs. I don’t know this man, this angry and hateful version of the boy who once held me while we watched the sunrise. I feel his gaze on me and desperately want to know if there’s any regret in it, but I don’t turn around.
Arrow