The Love Bug

by Tara Wimble

  “Just because I don’t talk about him doesn’t mean I didn’t care.” Bella says.

  Jacque rubs her eyes. “So I should be more considerate because you being here means that you can’t mention him around me?”

  “I know you didn’t like him.”

  “Like him? Like- Bella.” She doesn’t want to do this. She doesn’t want to get in a petty push and pull war about Blake because she doesn’t deserve to hear Jacque’s side of it. Bella doesn’t get to just come back here and demand answers from her like they’re even going to matter. Bella’s always going to be straight. “I didn’t like that you took so many risks with him- if even a word had gotten out, if Kathryn wasn’t such a good friend- that would have been it for us. No more soccer.”

  “So you disliked him because he could have ruined our careers?” Bella sounds like she’s scoffing.

  Jacque throws her palm out as if she’s pushing the air in front of her away. “What do you want me to say? That I hated him? I didn’t hate him. I hated the principle of him because he’s a generic body of a man who could have been anyone and I would have disliked him.”

  “Because he wasn’t you.”

  Fuck you, she thinks. “Is this why you came here? To get me to admit that I played a part in ruining your relationship with him?”

  Bella rears forward. “You didn’t ruin anything-”

  “-well that’s what it sounds like you’re saying-”

  “I came back here because you’re my friend and I did a shitty thing-”

  “-which only now you admit,”

  “It never felt right!” Bella finally shouts. “I loved him and I wanted to be with him but the moment that I came back from Germany nothing about my decision felt right because you’re my best friend. And he was just-”

  Bella is holding back tears now. “A generic body of a man.”

  “You have to understand, I can’t take anything from that.” Jacque tells her. “Saying that you left him for me- it can’t mean anything. I can’t read into it as something you do for a best friend. You left him because you missed me. There’s no difference to me whether you did it because you missed me as a friend or as a partner or because the act we built was preferable to what you had with him.”

  She lets that settle on Bella’s chest for a second. “Did you leave him because the guilt finally got to you or because of me, whatever that means?”

  Bella tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. “I don’t know yet.”

  Jacque really wants that drink now. She wants to sleep and try this again or never some other time. “I’m sorry that I surprised you by bringing someone back.” She rubs her knees. “I’m gonna sleep this off and maybe we should just think about talking about this some other time. You can stay here. You can stay until you don’t want to be here.”

  “I don’t- it doesn’t matter. I don’t care if you’re in love with me.” Bella’s voice quivers. “I just miss you. I miss my best friend.”

  Jacque twists the wedding ring on her finger. “I miss you too.” She came back for her. She left him for her. For all the wrong reasons and to say all the wrong things.

  “But you should care about me being in love with you. Because it matters.” Bella stays still when Jacque gets up from the couch. The road ahead is a lot longer than Jacque thought. “It matters to me.”

  *

  Every time she looks into the hallway she sees Jacque pushing that woman up against the door, hands on zippers and thighs. And when she sits in the living room she thinks of Jacque telling her that it does matter, reaffirming the giant elephant in the room, the nature her feelings.

  Maybe it was naive of them to think that this arrangement was a totally innocent opportunity that could benefit them both. There was never a risk that Bella would fall in love with Jacque, but she made the mistake of ignoring the chance that maybe Jacque’s feelings would change.

  It’s not an egotistical thing. Bella isn’t flattering herself with this thought. But living together, playing together, sleeping in the same bed and developing this web of lies-

  Looking back on it they weren’t just naive. They were stupid to think that this was a thing that could last without consequence.

  What were they going to do realistically? Even if Jacque had never fallen in love with her. Do this forever and just keep people in the dark? Have ‘flings’ on the side and sustain themselves on that. Divorce eventually down the line? There’s so much that they didn’t ever think about because there was one singular goal, to get Bella her citizenship so she could play, that much else was just thrown to the wayside in their haste.

  And what if she had never met Blake? What if they’d never even thought about divorce because things weren’t jolting them towards it? What if their friendship got comfortable enough to forget that this wasn’t normal?

  What then? Bella couldn’t even begin to think about that. Thinking about that means thinking about Jacque and that woman, and the one before that, and the one who left her clothes under Jacque’s bed. It’s a splintering of thoughts that all leads back to her. And while she wants to understand, she wants that, she can’t reciprocate those feelings.

  But she’s not cruel enough to involve Jacque at all in her attempt to understand, she’s already left Blake as a result of one attempt.

  At the same time, qualifiers are around the corner and assuming they both get called into camp it’s back to the same old trick. Except it’s not the same. Because now she knows that every time they touch, every time they get goaded into anything past standard hand holding, and even then, it means something to Jacque.

  And it has for who even knows how long.

  Bella doesn’t mean to but she tries to think of a moment. Something or a sign that she missed. But when everything has been an act, one that they perform so well, how can she even guess at what might have been the start of it?

  Because all this time she’d just thought Jacque was better at the game, a better actress than her, and in a way that’s still true. Because she was playing two games when Bella only thought they were playing the one.

  They’re going to have to talk about things before they’re called into camp. This year is too important for them to mess up. The Olympics. A chance at standing on the podium.

  And Jacque is too important for her to mess things up with her as well.

  It’s these thoughts that she carries with her into the kitchen and starts prepping for Christmas dinner tomorrow. Bella doesn’t get any closer to figuring out what to do even as she peels vegetables and organizes things for the morning.

  She goes through the motions of making something else when she hears Jacque coming out of her room.

  She walks right past the kitchen to the bathroom and shuts the door before Bella can even think of a greeting. For a half a second she thinks about standing outside the door and waiting for her to come out just to force conversation. But then she thinks about how creepy that would be and decides not to do that.

  So she busies herself instead, throwing the peeled vegetables in the general direction of the recipe they belong with, and starting to chop the veggies that go into dishes that need extra baking or cooking.

  The sound of the shower turning on means that she has even more time to think about what she’s going to say. And to get some things in the oven.

  Jacque takes forever and by the time the shower shuts off Bella’s throwing the stuffing and a few other things that will fit into the oven.

  The door opens. Bella pops her head out of the kitchen.

  “Hey.”

  All of that time to think and this is her master plan. And Jacque’s in a towel. And looking at her like the idiot she feels like.

  Really she needs to work on her timing.

  “Not now, Bella.” Jacque hurries out, tightening the towel.

  “You’re naked.” Bella blurts out, embarrassed. “Like really naked.” And still mostly wet from the shower. Standing in the stupid hall where she brought someone back last
night. Bella hasn’t quite shaken herself from thinking about that yet. Suddenly Jacque’s sexuality was a thing, a visible thing, that existed to her rather than a corporeal label.

  Jacque starts inching towards her bedroom. “Good catch, nothing gets past you.”

  “Sorry!” Jacque nods and then rushes through the rest of the hall, slamming her door shut.

  The smell of smoke coming from the kitchen breaks her out of her trance of intense social awkwardness.

  Shit. Something’s burning.

  Rushing to the oven, she throws open the door and pulls out the source of most of the smoke.

  She looks down at the baking tray and sighs. Cupcakes. Maybe with enough icing they wouldn’t taste as burnt.

  *

  Bella did a great job on all of the food, despite the burnt cupcakes that Jacque’s not going to touch for a host of reasons, not the least that they’re actually black but supposed to be vanilla.

  But everything else is delicious and Jacque makes sure to let Bella know that she thinks so because she’s attempting minor steps towards civility and this is the first one.

  And it helps. Their fragile relationship starts to get a little better each day from Christmas. Thawing like the cold.

  Stunted conversations grow longer and longer. Soon they’re able to even share the same space for longer than five minutes at a time and it’s progress.

  Hell, they even manage to spend an entire New Years eve together and Jacque would have laughed if you told her that would be the case a week ago.

  It works mostly because they’re living in a bubble. It’s just them. Jacque’s ignored all correspondence from her family past letting them know she’s actually alive and no they don’t need to call the police. She assumes Bella has done the same.

  So, of course, real life has to come creeping up on them at some point or another and in this case it comes in the form of a personal phone call to them both from John Herdman.

  He sounds pleased to hear that they’re together for this, mostly so he doesn’t have to make a separate phone call, and invites them to attend a nine day camp before Olympic qualifications. All accommodation details will be forwarded, their payment for it, travel details and a few words about looking forward to working and training with them. He seems different.

  Hanging up on him is like having a bucket of cold water poured over them. Because while they’ve acknowledged it’s over between them, Jacque’s given up on any sort of hope, it’s neither the time nor the place to start dumping that all on the team. They have to keep up appearances, have to look drama free for this new coach, this new vision, if they want any chance of their podium dreams coming true.

  “So what’s the plan then?” She’s tired of taking point on this.

  “Well, we’re getting a divorce.” Bella states and Jacque nods, pushing any sort of raw emotion out of her thoughts until she actually can process it later. But that’s it, those are the magic words. It’s done.

  “We are.” Jacque agrees with some difficulty. “But we can’t look like we’re going to cause drama. So we have to keep up appearances.”

  “Are you just saying that--”

  “If the next words out of your mouth are going to be ‘because I have feelings for you’ I suggest you find an alternative and quickly.” Jacque shuts her down. “This team can’t afford to lose focus on the qualifiers or the Olympics. Not after the World Cup.”

  “If you’re not comfortable with that then we think of something else.” Jacque states. “But I’d prefer it if we told them after the Olympics.”

  Over half a year more of pretending.

  Bella rubs a thumb over her knuckles. “I can- Okay. That’s okay.”

  Jacque waits. “Are you sure? Because if you say this and then things get weird and then things fall through because you can’t keep this up.”

  “I won’t.” Bella responds quietly. “I know this is important, okay, I think I can do it.”

  “Bella,” Jacque pauses, feeling too much like she’s had shades of this conversation before. “you have to be sure. You can’t just think it, you have to live it.”

  “I’m sure.” Bella nods. “It’s just six more months, we can do this.” She licks her lips. “We can do this, right?”

  Jacque nods a few times before stopping. “Yeah, we can.”

  Bella visibly relaxes. “So, go to camp. And we try to -” She stalls and Jacque can tell that she doesn’t want to imply that they’re getting back to the normal that they established.

  “-pick up where we left off.” Jacque fills in. “We haven’t see each other for a few months. We’re happy to be back at camp together. And build from there.”

  “And Kathryn?”

  Jacque rubs the back of her neck, twisting the short strands of hair not up in her ponytail around her fingers. “I’ll talk to her.” She knows that Kathryn won’t say anything, she trusts her not to say anything, but Jacque owes her an explanation.

  In reality she owes almost everyone in her life an explanation at this point. An explanation they don’t even know they’re owed but Kathryn’s as good a proxy as anyone so that’ll work for now.

  “Back to the grind?” Bella questions and it almost sounds like she expects Jacque to throw a hand in the middle and they’ll do a little cheer.

  That’s obviously not going to happen but Jacque nods and mentally starts to remember how to compartmentalize.

  “Yeah.”

  She’s going to need it.

  They both will.

  *

  By some stroke of bad luck CSA messes us their reservations so they get booked on a flight that leaves the day camp starts. So they hop a red eye, bleary eyed and blank faced, from Toronto to Vancouver.

  The airline manages to lose Jacque’s bags so even though they fly in together Bella ends up making it to camp hours before she does because she has to stay at the airport and make sure her stuff actually makes it.

  It ends up being a saving grace because by the time Jacque arrives she does a quick change out and then jumps into her own warm ups and she gets thrown into drills.

  There’s no grand entrance. No big show of it. Just straight to business.

  Basically the perfect situation.

  Because there’s no Ginny Cam waiting for them to run across the room and jump into each other’s arm, no waiting audience to look and experience their ‘honeymoon period’ after having been apart for a few months.

  Just straight to soccer, straight to proving themselves on the pitch and not in each other’s arms. The former obviously being the preferable of the two.

  But all good things eventually have to come to an end and once John dismisses them they’re on their own.

  And then the trouble starts.

  “It’s the marrieds!” Jan pops up from seemingly nowhere and shouts out.

  Jacque flinches and immediately looks over her shoulder to look for a married couple. Belatedly she realizes that Jan is referring to her.

  She and Bella aren’t even really standing near each other but instantly Jacque knows this is the clock starting on their six months. Officially.

  Anyone who’s paying attention laughs at Jacque, thinking she’s playing a joke in her genuine confusion.

  Still she freezes, taking her cues from Bella. Bella who immediately makes her way over and throws an arm around Jacque. “Hey Jan, back off my wife.”

  Usually Bella was the one who was good at this sort of act but even this attempt seems flat. The smile on her face doesn’t quite reach her eyes and Jacque usually tries to mimic Bella’s enthusiasm but she can only manage a small smirk in response.

  Jan seems to buy it just as much as everyone else though, with a little bit of a sideways look at the two of them, laughing she walks off and Bella immediately drops her arm.

  Jacque doesn’t even really acknowledge that it’s a thing that just happened and picks up her stuff, walking faster to catch up with Carla and Niav, knowing they won’t try to mess with her
too much.

  It’s all about the soccer, that’s the mantra she keeps repeating to herself. That’s the thing that’s going to get her through the next few weeks.

  Hopefully.

  They make it back to the hotel pretty quickly after training ends and roommate assignments are handed out once they arrive.

  Jacque gets paired with Lauren and it’s a fairly neutral assignment, they get along pretty well and Lauren’s not one to really dig, pry, or ask too many questions. It should work out okay.

  Bella draws Oliv and that’s a thing that might become somewhat of a problem. She gets a worried look thrown her way like, ‘fuck, this just got a little harder’, and she does the best she can to send back a reassuring look and tamp down the hurt that comes with Bella treating any extra time spent ‘playing the game’ as an inconvenience.

  Outside of any feelings that Jacque has for her they were best friends at some point so having to spend a little more time in her space past training shouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

  But just in case she resolves to try, as much as humanly possible, to stay out of Bella’s way. If not for Bella’s sake than at least for her own

  *

  They only have a short amount of time before qualifiers start so their trainings are long and hard and leave everyone brimming with expectation. John is different than the coaches they’ve had before. He has a new vision for this team and it’s unblurred, unbiased, towards them. He sees them as new as he is to them. There’s no feuds or politics going on in the background to mess them up. As long as Bella and Jacque manage to keep up their appearances.

  With longer training and tape watching and gym sessions comes less time for them to be together. Which is good for them. They’ve been struggling since Bella showed up before Christmas to get by and camp is a pressure cooker of watching what they say and what they do. A little time apart, be it time that they spend doing sprints or squinting over practice tapes, is helpful to them not blowing this whole thing.

  Jacque managed to seal off one potential mishap a few hours in when she cornered Kathryn.

  It hadn’t been a long conversation. Most of it was spent trading exasperated looks and Kathryn sighing like she knows that this is all a bad idea. But she promised to follow Jacque’s lead and that’s all that mattered in the end.