by Lila Felix
My phone rang a little later. I didn’t recognize the number—probably one of my teammates or a news reporter.
“Hello?”
“Crown, this is your Uncle Eric. We were wondering if your aunt and I could come over and see you. It’s been too long.”
It had been too long because Eric was my mom’s brother. Whenever my mom had died, her whole family cut off communication—not that they were all that communicative to begin with. Family was nothing but trouble and chaos. Eric was a complete stranger to me. The only thing that connected us was some tangent DNA.
“My physical therapist will be here in a few. How about later?”
“Sure. That would be fine. We’ll plan on six. Is that fine with you?”
Not really. Can’t I just exist here without drumming up old family relations? Then again, the guy was giving me a free place to stay. The least I could do was let him see who I’d become without their help or interference.
“See you then.”
He was probably going to leak whatever info I gave him to the newspapers.
The physical therapists around here were apparently pillars of the punctuality community because exactly at noon the doorbell rang, but I was a little busy in the bathroom trying to aim my stream into the toilet from two feet away.
Three more rings of the doorbell and I’d finally made it. The mugginess that was Louisiana met me at the door—it felt like a whoosh of the sun’s heat coupled with the wetness of a waterfall. I didn’t understand how these people could breathe in an atmosphere like this.
I’d expected a woman as gravity-gifted as the nurse in the hospital. Instead, standing in the doorway, looking like he had better things to do, was a boy who looked like his man-hairs hadn’t even come in, dressed in green scrubs that looked like they’d seen better days.
“So you’re it?” I asked him, not even attempting to let him in.
He cleared his throat, offput by my greeting. “Mr. Sterling, I’m Blake. I’m your physical therapist.”
I could tell already, this guy was a little snottier than his current position afforded him.
I might not be able to play for the time being, but I could still put a bastard in his place. He shifted from one foot to the other, waiting for me to initiate whatever he hoped this would be.
Probably an easy buck and a story to tell in the therapists’ break room.
“They couldn’t have sent someone whose balls have dropped?”
He steeled his posture. I had obviously gotten to him, which was the point. If you’ve got to go through the pain of physical therapy, it would help if she was hot—and she was actually a she.
“You know, Crown, that’s the same question I asked when I got assigned to you. I knew you’d be some entitled jerk. So, how about you drop the bullshit and let’s get this over with.”
This guy doesn’t know who he’s talking to.
He pushed my wheelchair backwards into the apartment with his foot. “First question is, why are you still wheeling around in that wheelchair? I’ve seen women in their sixties who are up on crutches the same day as their surgery. I thought they were sending me to some celebrity athlete. Must just be a celebrity.”
He puttered around the place for a minute, then taking the liberty of sitting down on my couch while punching whatever information into his tablet.
My skin was practically bubbling up with the heat of anger. He was doing that on purpose, of course, to motivate me. And don’t get me wrong—it was working. I was already scanning the dump of an apartment, trying to remember where I’d stored the crutches.
“They’re over there in the corner. Why don’t you actually do something productive, grab the crutches, and let’s see.”
He smirked before getting the crutches and thrusting them at me. This guy had no bedside manner. Weren’t physical therapists supposed to be inspirational or at least nice?
Coach made us watch a movie once where some guy hurt himself and the physical therapist helped him change his attitude and made him better.
Where’s that guy?
I hefted out a couple of weighted breaths before attempting to stand up. With the flight from California and all the other arrangements, I’d gone two days without physical therapy and the absence was already punishing me in the form of stiff muscles that felt like they might crack instead of bend.
“Come on tough guy. Let’s push through this. If you don’t get moving now, that knee will freeze up and it will land you right back on the operating table. I don’t suppose your adoring fans will appreciate that much. Anyway, I’m pretty sure that wheelchair was once property of the local nut house. It smells like it too.”
This wasn’t my life.
Life had struck a deal with me long ago—and this wasn’t part of it—not by a long shot. When life took my dad, it automatically owed me. It owed me something to replace him with.
The only thing I had was the game.
There was no choice. I had to get through this and get back to the only thing in life that loved me as much as I loved it—the game.
As I sloppily found my balance on the crutches that didn’t smell much better than the wheelchair, the PT, I’d already forgotten his name, shifted the wheelchair out from under me, folded it up and shoved it aside.
“Let’s walk around for a while—get you stretched out. I won’t lie. This is going to hurt like a mutha, but the other choice is worse. Keep that in mind.”
Sixteen times he made me walk from the bedroom to the living room—sixteen. I think it hurt more than the original injury.
Just when I thought I’d met the cusp of the worst pain ever, he started bending my knee back and forth, each time pushing it way past the point where I’d scream at him. I’d balled up my fist on more than one occasion to punch the sap sucker, but decided against it.
After all—at that point, he was the only person who was even speaking to me.
Not my manager, not my agent, not even the people on my team could be bothered with checking up on me.
At the end of the session, he made me sit back down with so much ice, I couldn’t move even if I wanted to. In the middle of him lecturing me about keeping up with my independent exercises, his phone rang. Totally unprofessional—that’s what it was.
When he pulled his phone out, the caller i.d. read Blake’s lovely wife.
Blake’s wife had him firmly by the dick—the only explanation for such an offensive display of whipped behavior.
“Sucks to be you,” I remarked, snatching the hospital-made flyer of post-op instructions from his fist and pretending to study them in lieu of hearing whatever gag-worthy conversation those two were about to have. He surprised me by declining the call with a chuckle.
Yep—the boy was whipped.
“No, it doesn’t. I’m one lucky man. So, you’ll need to take your meds on schedule this week and next week. The first two weeks of PT are the worst, especially since you’ve fallen behind. My info is at the bottom of the flyer and with that, we are done today. I will see you on Sunday, bright and early.”
I hated the guy already.
As soon as he’d left I popped two pain killers and one anti-inflammatory. Before I knew it, I was out cold.
A knock at the door woke me from death sometime later—I didn’t know how much later. I’d answered the door more since I’d been here than I had in the last five years. Matilda usually answered the door when people came over.
Did people come over?
I couldn’t remember anyone ever coming over to my house to visit unless there was an after-game party.
I slung the damned thing open with a fury—not because of someone knocking on the door, more because it took me a wretched hour to get to it.
“Hello, Crown.” It was my uncle. I’d forgotten they were coming over. I’d seen pictures of them when I was little in a red leather photo album that my dad kept in the bottom of the closet, along with the rest of my mom’s items.
The resemblance to
my mom was uncanny.
“Hi.” I stood there like a certifiable idiot not really knowing the protocol for family. My dad had no brothers or sisters and his parents had died before I was born.
“Aren’t you going to invite us in, dear?” A short, plump woman beside Eric stepped forward as she spoke.
“Sure.” I didn’t really want them to come in, but upsetting an older lady wouldn’t be good for my profile.
We sat in silence as they took in the place. Apparently it had been completely repainted and the flooring had been replaced before I moved in. They obviously hadn’t seen the results.
They were impressed—I could see it on their faces.
Let’s face it—most people were impressed with all things Crown Sterling.
“We brought a casserole and dessert. We thought maybe we could take the opportunity to catch up.”
My answer was swift. “I don’t eat that stuff. I have to stay on my diet.”
“Oh.” The woman’s face fell downtrodden. “Well, we can still chat. Other than soccer and your unfortunate incident. How are things?”
Other than soccer—there was nothing other than soccer.
“Fine, I guess. Most of my life is taken up by my job. Actually, all of my life is taken up by it.”
She seemed to be suffering from disbelief. “Really? No girlfriends? You’ve never thought about college?”
College—it was my one regret. I’d wanted to play for a college team—go to school on a free ride after I’d graduated high school. Plenty of schools had accepted me but my dad had his eye on professional teams. The year between high school and getting signed was brutal. We’d traveled to wherever the scouts were for meetings facilitated by Gina, of course. I’d long thought my dad and she were involved, but those notions were blown to dust when he passed.
Avoiding the other issue, I answered. “I have no time for girlfriends.”
“What about marriage—a family?”
Eric patted her thick thigh and she let the subject go. He picked up the slack. These people must’ve memorized a list of shit that I could care less about answering.
“We’ve been watching your career. We don’t get the games here on television always, but we watch when they’re available and we try to keep up. You’re very talented.”
“Thank you.” Gina had always tried to teach me false humility. I knew when to use it. These people were like strangers to me. They were probably recording this conversation somehow. “What do you know about the girl next door?”
Eric bowed up in defense. “She’s quiet—keeps to herself. Leave her be. That’s the best thing to do. Lyra has been through a lot. If…” Eric glanced at his wife who nodded. “If you see anyone around, like an older man or anything, run him off or call the cops.”
“Is there something I should know about?”
“No,” Eric squirmed. “Just keep a watch out. Think of it as rent since we are letting you live here for free. Lyra works a lot out of town, modeling. She deserves some peace.”
“I’m not gonna bother her. She was the one who barged in here this morning, starting something she couldn’t finish.”
“What did you do?”
He assumed I’d done something wrong. Either his assumption was that I was the devil incarnate or that the girl next door was an angel. She looked like an angel, if it weren’t for that wicked temper and tendency to be a real bitch.
“I had the music up too loud—or so she said.”
“Try to keep it down. She’s been my tenant for years. You’re only here for a few months. Don’t blow in here starting trouble for us. Well, we’ll get going now. You’ve probably had visitors and phone calls all day long.”
They both got up and showed themselves out.
Yeah, they were definitely feeding someone info.
Leaning back, I waited, again, for all those visitors and phone calls to come in, but they never did.
Chapter Four
Lyra
Nude is the new black
“Do something about this.” The photographer, who seemed to have more attitude than manners, had found something else wrong with me. So far this morning, my thighs were too pudgy—my thighs weren’t even going to be in the shot I hoped. My boobs were too small—I saw his point on that one. And now, just when we thought everything was fine—my hair was too brown and because of his rant about brown hair and too much brown hair, which quickly progressed into a full blown hatred of all things brown, including mud, chocolate and wood, there was now a team of very suggestive and charismatic people surrounding me in a desperate attempt to get me to dye my hair red.
For the price of a plane ticket, I’d gotten myself stuck in model hell.
Red just wasn’t going to happen. I’d tried red before. It made me look angry.
“You’re not touching my hair. Either Photoshop it or find another model.”
I maintained a calmness that this industry wasn’t used to. It shocked them into giving up. Some of them cursed in their native language, some threw their arms up, and my make-up artist simply rolled her eyes and went back to her previous obsession with eye shadow.
Tippi had dumped me in favor of a food tour and I was two seconds away from dumping these people for the same thing.
“Yes, yes.” The photographer who was way too big for his britches agreed in a thick Italian accent. “Get her on set—we will figure this out later.”
An enormous bed awaited me on set. The artificial sun poured through the windows making the whole scene look serene and inviting. But as I climbed up on the bed listening to the directions, I felt the stiff scratchiness of the sheets and smelled the newness of everything around me. It was all so artificial. Most models I knew loved the freedom of fashion shoots. They loved to get creative with their movements and poses. I just wanted them to tell me what to do, where to be and how to look—then grab my paycheck and get the hell out of there.
So this set-up was perfect.
In my nude-colored Spanx-looking getup, they wrapped me in a plum silken sheet, making sure to make the situation look as scandalous and alluring as possible given my adamancy against baring the parts I didn’t want to. The gleaming, overpriced diamond necklace didn’t move as I pretended to writhe around in an ecstasy. Of course every woman in the world would gather that this glorious jewel around my neck had brought me to the peak I conveyed. What they didn’t know was that it was actually cubic zirconia, because it’s shinier—also, it was glued to my effing chest like boob tape.
Silliness—that’s what it was.
I was nuts to choose this profession after working so hard to put myself through college. But the thing about an English major was that it didn’t really afford anyone a nine to five job—not that I wanted one.
But it was days like this that seriously made me question my sanity.
I was contorted this way and that, my hair covered my face, just the way I liked it—my too brown hair that would probably be changed to red or blonde or more offensively, ombre. After three hours, Mr. Charismatic and Catty got his shot and shooed me off the set. I got to keep the dress, since I was the only one who would ever wear it.
I promptly named her, Judey Nudey. It fit.
Tippi was back at the hotel when I got in at two a.m. laid out in a pasta coma. I wondered why she never wanted to come with me to shoots or see what I did, but she never showed interest.
“Dude, what time is it?”
I toed both of my shoes off and picked through the plates on the small table—nothing left for me, the little piggy. “A little after two. Did you have fun today?”
I sounded motherly when I said it. I’d had to be Tippi’s mother in the beginning. She passed out at my front door one night when she was just eighteen and I was twenty one. It scared the hell out of me. I took her in, got her straight and we’d been friends ever since.
“I had a great time. Florence is amazing. I had polenta with black cabbage. I’d never seen that before. It looked like somet
hing straight out of Slytherin, but it was amazing.”
“Sounds good. I wish I had some good food.”
Tippi rolled over, hogging most of the King-sized bed I’d requested before I knew she was coming. “Pfft, I’m sure they fed you like a queen on the shoot.”
She had the whole modeling business mixed up. They insinuated that none of us actually ate, so of course, no food was provided. We might bloat or God forbid, actually gain a pound.
We got water bottles and if you asked nicely and were a good girl, someone would do a slippy-slippy of laxatives under the make-up chair.
The whole business was precious.
But damn it paid well.
“I’m starving. Let’s go out and find something to eat.”
My answer was Tippi throwing a pillow over her face and kicking her legs.
Room service for the win.
~~~
We got home Sunday night, late, and Tippi got into her car after about a million appreciative words. I lugged my suitcase into the house while stealing glances at the windows next door. I expected another showdown with the wheelchair king.
I felt like shit for how I’d acted toward him before. I shouldn’t. I should feel this righteous sense of accomplishment for shutting down a peace disturber.
My parents had taught me pacifism above everything else.
Maybe that’s why the next door neighbor thought that getting away with it would be so easy.
And if left up to my parents, it would’ve been.
As I tugged the last bag out of my car, I saw movement in the downstairs window. There was no nurse or other person in the house when I’d barged in and killed his stereo system. Did he have to sleep downstairs on that horrible black pleather couch?
Certainly he had a girlfriend or a booty call person who wouldn’t mind helping him to bed.
“Ugh,” I kicked one of my planters on the way to my front door. I didn’t care. I didn’t care. For all I cared that perfectly horrible, perfectly gorgeous man could sleep beside a dumpster.
“I’m ignoring him.” Yes, I talked to myself. “I’m pretending like no one shares a wall with me.”