Hard Luck

by Sara Ney

  “You little…” I laugh. “You just met me. And don’t call me Ms. Wallace—it sounds weird. Call me True.” I shoot her a sidelong glance. “Also, don’t you dare say anything about respecting your elders. I’m not that much older than you.”

  “Older, but not older enough to not get pregnant,” the little shit mumbles beneath her breath, just loud enough that I can hear. If I wasn’t so amused by her, I’d be offended by her candor.

  Still. She’s not wrong about that, either.

  Wait… Did what she just said even make any sense?

  Dammit, where did this kid come from, and what are her parents feeding her?

  “Are you still puking your guts out?”

  Um. “No—why would you think I’m still puking my guts out?”

  Tripp’s neighbor girl—and my new confidant—snorts into the straw of her mocha something-or-other. “Please, you were puking when I got to his house. That didn’t look like a one-time thing.” She shoots me a glance across the front seat. “You didn’t actually think you could convince me you weren’t pregnant, did you? By pretending you ate bad food? Please.”

  She scoffs.

  “I told you by accident—I barely knew what I was saying that day.” I’m sort of irritated she didn’t believe me. “You’re way too cynical for a teenager, do you know that?”

  “Listen, there’s puking, and then there’s puking, and you were practically inside the toilet. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out.”

  My brother hasn’t figured it out.

  Yet.

  “Okay, what else gave it away?”

  “That’s pretty much it. Mostly just an educated guess. But I was right, so…”

  “And now you’re coming to my doctor’s appointment with me by tricking me into taking you to Starbucks.”

  “I don’t know if you know this, but teenagers spend most of their lives operating on assumptions and manipulations. I happen to be better at it than most of my peers.”

  “Where are your friends?” I blurt out. “Aren’t you in sports or something?”

  “I play soccer, but it’s winter, so…”

  Fine.

  She plays soccer but it’s winter.

  Which gives her plenty of time to stick her nose in my business. “Are your friends this nosey?”

  “Nope.” Her answer is definitive, but then she goes on. “I mean, mostly they’re into boys at this point in their lives. Even my friends who play volleyball and stuff—boy crazy. Oh, and all they do is sit on their phones and obsess over the likes their posts on social media are getting, and do you know what it’s like when a fifteen-year-old has a meltdown because the algorithm sucks?”

  I don’t want to know what that’s like. “Do me a huge favor and don’t bring any of them to the house while I’m hormonal—I won’t be able to handle it.”

  “Yeah, I don’t bring them around anyway. Half of them have mad crushes on your brother, and it gets weird.”

  “What’s a mad crush?” I am so not down with this lingo. Teen jargon or whatever.

  “Um, a serious crush?” She’s looking at me as if I’m so utterly clueless, because I totally am. What the hell do I know about teenage girls? Even though it wasn’t so long ago that I was one myself.

  I spent most of my years chasing after my brothers, living in their shadows.

  “I can’t imagine Tripp with a group of teenage girls in his house. He would die.”

  That makes Molly laugh. “Oh god—I brought over my friends Liza and Annabelle one time, because I didn’t realize he was home from an away game, and he was in the hot tub and Liza kept staring when he finally climbed out of the water. She asked if she could climb in too if she ran and got a swimsuit. I was so embarrassed.”

  I can only imagine.

  My brothers are both insanely good-looking, if you’re into that big, dark, broody type. Most women are.

  “What did Tripp do?”

  “He went and got dressed in like, thirty layers—even put on a winter hat—and stood in the kitchen with his arms folded across his chest as if we were going to accost him.” She laughs. “I’m super good at reading nonverbal cues, so I knew I had to get them out.”

  Super good.

  Mad crush.

  Like, like, like.

  If I hang out with this kid much longer, I’m going to be talking like her and probably wanting to hang out at the mall.

  “You seem to have a really good head on your shoulders,” I say, because it’s true, as we pull into the parking lot of the obstetrician.

  Molly preens under my approval. “Thanks. My parents are super strict, but they trust me, which is cool.” She unbuckles her seat belt and pops her drink into the cup holder. “I used to work at a store, but then Mr. Wallace moved in next door, and let me tell you, my dad just about died. He was freaking out—he won’t admit it because he tries to be cool, but he’s a huge fan.”

  We slam our doors, walking side by side to the front entrance, and I won’t lie, it’s nice having someone along.

  “So then one day I was outside in the yard doing whatever, and Chewy saw me and ran over, and when I brought him back home, that’s when Mr. Wallace asked if I’d walk the dog and babysit him sometimes and stuff. It’s a pretty good gig. I got to quit my other job.”

  “Probably because of your dad and his man crush.”

  “Oh for sure because of his man crush! He pretends not to care, but every so often he asks me a million questions. Who hangs out at the house, what Mr. Wallace is like, blah blah blah.”

  “And your parents aren’t…worried you’re hanging out at a dude’s house all the time?”

  “I mean—Mr. Wallace has a girlfriend, and he’s not actually home all that much, especially during the football season, so they’re not worried he’s going to take advantage of me.”

  “Sorry, I had to ask.” It would have been remiss of me not to, and now that Molly is in my life, it’s my duty to look after her the way my brother obviously looks after her.

  Wallaces stick together; clearly Molly feels some obligation to watch out for me as well.

  What a strange kid.

  Four

  Mateo

  The season doesn’t start for months, but we’re gearing up for training camp—which isn’t in Illinois, but Arizona.

  Normally, I’m pumped to leave town and do so early, just after the holidays, split from the cold-ass Midwest weather and make for the western sun, but something has kept me here longer.

  A feeling.

  A nagging in my stomach that something is about to happen…

  I watch Buzz Wallace, the team’s closer, walk past me in the locker room, eyes averted because he knows what I’m going to ask: What’s your sister’s phone number?

  How does he know? Because I’ve already asked him a few times, only to be rejected, much like his sister already did.

  Call me a glutton for punishment, but don’t call me a quitter, ’cause I’m asking again and his scare tactics aren’t going to stop me.

  There’s a duffle bag hanging at my side, and I heft it onto my shoulder so it’s more comfortable, tailing him as he makes his way to the conference room we use for team meetings. It’s set up kind of like an informal press conference room, with desks and a table up front where the coaches and managers speak. Show game tapes, go over strategies—shit like that.

  “Stop following me,” he says without turning, voice echoing in the concrete block hallway.

  “We’re going to the same place—I have to follow you.”

  “Then stop staring at my back.”

  Buzz Wallace is ridiculous sometimes, an actual grown-up child. I wager that were we stuck in the back of a car together, he’d complain that I was looking at him for the duration of the trip, and I’d most likely win that bet.

  “You have weak shoulders,” I smart, teasing him to get a rise.

  It works.

  He turns momentarily to argue. “I do not!” Postures,
standing straighter.

  “Okay, you don’t.”

  “Don’t agree with me like that—it’s annoying.”

  I laugh. Having grown up with six sisters, not much fazes me. He’s being difficult because he doesn’t want me asking about his sister; deep down inside, he knows the reason I’m asking is because True and I had a connection.

  Okay fine, maybe he doesn’t know we had a connection—and maybe she doesn’t know we had a connection, but how the hell am I supposed to find out for sure if he won’t give me her fucking phone number?

  “Did she tell you not to give me her number?” There. I said it.

  He hesitates, weighing his words. “I just told her I wasn’t going to.”

  “So…does that mean she was asking about me?”

  “No, jackass, it means I told True you wanted her number, then I told her I wasn’t giving it to you.”

  What the fuck? “What did she say?”

  Was she as outraged as I am? Did she want my number? Maybe I should tell him to pass it along, put the ball in her court instead of randomly messaging her out of the blue. I thought about dropping into her inbox on LinkedIn—the one place I haven’t tried contacting her—but that feels so juvenile, and I’m a grown man, for fuck’s sake.

  Maybe I should write it down for him just in case.

  Wait, he has my freaking number—he used to text me all the damn time.

  “She didn’t say anything.”

  “But you asked her, so she had to have said something.”

  Buzz spins around again. “Dude! Why do you care? You don’t even know my sister!”

  Oh, but I do. In the biblical sense, if you catch my drift, but saying that out loud is going to get me punched in the face—I can see it in his eyes.

  Anyway, he’s not behaving any more irrationally than I’ve behaved on behalf of my own sisters, so I try to cut him some slack.

  I’m a patient man like that.

  Mostly.

  “We shared a moment,” I explain vaguely, doing my best not to sound like We shared a moment, wink-wink.

  Buzz doesn’t look amused. “You shared a moment—what the fuck does that mean?”

  Exactly what you think it means. “All I’m saying is we were able to talk at your wedding, and I think she’s cool. I’d love to get to know her better.”

  “You think she’s cool? Cool,” he deadpans, uninterested. “Any guy who uses the plebian term cool to describe my sister isn’t getting her number.”

  Did Buzz Wallace just use the word plebian?

  But shit, he’s right—using cool to describe True did sound douchey and way too casual, and I don’t blame him for refusing me or getting pissed. That’s what brothers do.

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” I’m trying to be casual about this, alright man? Cut me some slack.

  I need to know why she bailed on me. Was it something I did? Was I horrible in bed? What scared her off? What if I do it to someone else? If it’s something I can fix—something I have control of—I want to know about it.

  Also, it’s driving me insane that she ghosted me.

  I need closure, dammit!

  Every insecurity that comes with making yourself vulnerable only to find out you’re not good enough is rearing its ugly head. Did True not find me attractive once she saw me naked?

  Did she only sleep with me out of pity?

  On second thought, True Wallace wouldn’t have to pity-fuck anyone; she’s gorgeous and the sister of two of the most celebrated athletes in American history, for fuck’s sake.

  Crap. I just swore twice.

  Mi madre would have a fit. Probably smack me on the back of the head good and hard if she heard the voices in my head cussing a blue streak.

  For good reason—but still.

  She don’t fuck around.

  There I go again…

  The long, cold hallway comes to an end and we enter the team meeting room. I pause in the doorway, waiting for Buzz to take his place at a desk—normally we sit together, but he isn’t in the mood to play nice with me, and I instinctively know he wants me nowhere near him.

  Surreptitiously, he glances my way, scowling, no way to avoid me considering we’re one of the first few to grab seats.

  He looks over his shoulder as I pretend to mull over my seating options, acting as if I’m unsure where I want to sit, putting on a big show to make him think I’m not going to plunk down behind him so I can whisper in his ear while our coaches are talking.

  I wait it out, let a few of our teammates meander in, throwing out greetings and head nods to men I haven’t seen in a few weeks, the holidays having broken up our routine. Gave our brains and bodies plenty of time to recharge and repair, our families time to spend with us.

  Welp. Play time is over, and we’re back to the grind.

  My ass falls into a chair in the second row directly behind Buzz so I can stare at the back of his head.

  He twitches.

  I smirk.

  “Don’t talk to me,” he grumbles, still facing forward.

  “I will.”

  “I said don’t.”

  I’ve known Buzz for five years—met him in college during a championship game in Florida where I was attending school on a scholarship during a night out after his team had won. Packed bar. Lots of beer.

  We became fast friends, staying in touch. Then, when I was drafted to Chicago and he was on a farm team, hustling to make the pros, we were in the same state. Occasionally I’d find time to practice with him—fielding balls and batting practice—and then one day the bastard was signed to the Steam.

  I couldn’t fucking believe it.

  His hard work had paid off, and we’ve been teammates ever since, riding each other’s asses and annoying the shit out of each other.

  Until I went and slept with his younger sister…

  God, I’m such a jackass.

  “You can’t ignore me forever,” I whisper, mindful that the staff is setting up and about to begin. They don’t screw around when they call us in like this, beginning promptly and efficiently—just the facts so we’re out the door ASAP.

  “You can’t ignore me.”

  “Yes I can,” he says, most definitely not ignoring me.

  “See. Told you.”

  Buzz turns around in his seat to face me. “I was saying yes I can ignore you.”

  I roll my eyes and laugh. “If you were going to ignore me, you wouldn’t have replied. Period.”

  He scrunches up his face. “You’re annoying.”

  “You are.”

  I’ve seen him bicker with his brother and sister; this is his style of arguing, and I’m happy to play along. It’s harmless and typically doesn’t escalate beyond a few immature barbs.

  “You can’t get mad at me because I asked for your sister’s number. It’s not like I committed a crime.”

  His mouth puckers. “I’m just looking out for her.”

  Okay, that’s a bit offensive. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but I have six sisters—I’m the last person who is going to treat her like shit. My sisters would kick my ass.”

  “Oh, so you tell them when you treat women like shit?”

  What the hell is he talking about? “I might have the occasional one-night stand, but I’ve never treated anyone I’ve dated like shit.”

  Unlike himself, who I’ve seen hook up with randoms plenty in the past, before he met and married his wife. Buzz Wallace was your typical pompous mega-star athlete, pumping his dick into any willing jock chaser.

  Buzz turns back toward the front of the room, and I suffer through the managers and assistant coaches giving us information about the upcoming preseason. The games, house rental information for guys who don’t own a place in Arizona near the stadium. Hotels that are home away from home. Rules.

  They pass around stapled packets—the same ones we get year after year—and I take one, flipping through to view what I already know. Breeze through the conduct code.

&n
bsp; I will accept decisions of all officials and base coaches without arguing.

  I will let the coach handle disputes during games.

  I will attend all practices and scheduled team meetings unless excused by management.

  Well no shit, that’s what we’re here for. That’s why we get paid.

  I will set a good example of behavior and show a command of sound work ethic for the community and my teammates, yada yada yada…

  I will not use profanity or vulgarity…

  No swearing? That last one actually makes me laugh out loud before I can finish reading the sentence in its entirety. Show me a guy on the team who doesn’t curse or use swear words, and I’ll show you a baseball field of invisible players.

  And let’s not get started on the coaching staff, who not only curse but turn blue in the face sometimes when they’re screaming at us for fucking up.

  You wouldn’t think that happened in the pros, but it does.

  “You break half these commandments on a daily basis,” I whisper to Buzz’s back.

  “Shut up.”

  “You’re so bitchy today.” I lean back in my seat, racking my brain for a way to get through to him, wondering why I’m so hell-bent on getting his sister’s number.

  Sure, True Wallace is pretty. And smart. And ambitious. And…

  But it’s not like I can’t go out tonight and find a woman who’s equally so. Equally charming, equally funny, equally as good in bed.

  My mind wanders, drifting back to that night…

  “Does my brother know you’re over here talking to me?” True asks as the bartender at Buzz’s reception serves our drinks, sliding two cocktails across the counter, each named for the bride and groom: the Get A Buzz On and the Hollis Wallace.

  “What? It’s against the law to talk to a beautiful woman at a wedding?”

  “No, but you and I both know he wouldn’t like it, because he wants me to become a nun and live the rest of my life in a convent with my legs zipped shut.”

  That makes me laugh and spit out some of my Get A Buzz On, the clear liquid dripping down my chin like drool.