Beautiful Player

by Christina Lauren

  “Say what you want, Hanna. That boy is smitten. Frankly, I’d be surprised if I’m the only one who’s noticed.”

  Beginning to feel warm, I shook my head. Pulling two Styrofoam cups from the cupboard, I filled them with coffee from a huge stainless steel carafe, adding sugar and cream to mine and cream only to Will’s. “I think pregnancy’s mottled your brain. That’s not what this is about.” My sister wasn’t an idiot; I’m sure she heard the lie in my voice as plainly as I had.

  “Maybe not for you,” she said with a skeptical shake of her head. “Though I don’t really buy that one, either.”

  I stared blankly out the back window. I knew where Will and I stood . . . at least I thought I did. Things had shifted over the past few days and now I was eager to define this relationship. I’d been so afraid to give it limits because I thought I wanted more room to breathe. I thought it would upset me to hear how he slotted me into his schedule as conveniently as he did other women. Lately, my desire to avoid the conversation felt more about keeping my own heart caged than about how free he was with his. But it was a useless exercise. I knew we needed to have the full conversation now—the one he’d tried to have before. The one we’d touched on last night.

  I would need to put myself out there, take a risk. It was time.

  A door shut loudly somewhere and I jumped, blinking back to the coffee I was still stirring. Liv touched my shoulder. “I have to be big sister for just one minute, though. Be careful, okay?” she said. “This is the infamous Will Sumner we’re talking about.”

  And that, right there, was reason number one I was terrified I was making a mistake.

  With coffee and snacks for the road in hand, I made the rounds and said my goodbyes. My family was scattered all over the house, but the only two I couldn’t seem to find were my brother and my ride.

  I headed out front to check the car, the gravel path crunching beneath my feet. I neared the garage and stopped as voices filtered out through the cool morning air, above the birds and the creaking of the trees overhead.

  “I’m just wondering what’s going on between you two,” I heard my brother say.

  “Nothing,” Will said. “We’re just hanging out. Per your request, I might add.”

  I frowned, remembering that old saying about not eavesdropping because you probably won’t like what you hear.

  “Is ‘hanging out’ code for something?” Jensen asked. “You seem awfully familiar with her.”

  Will started to speak but paused, and I stepped back a bit to make sure my long shadow wouldn’t be visible to anyone standing in the garage.

  “I am seeing a few people,” Will started, and I could just picture him scratching his jaw. “But no, Ziggy isn’t one of them. She’s just a good friend.”

  I felt like I’d been dropped in ice water, goose bumps spreading along my skin and despite knowing he was just following the rules we’d agreed on, my stomach dropped.

  Will went on: “Actually, I am . . . interested in exploring something more with one of the women I’m seeing.” My heart started to hammer, and I was tempted to step forward, and keep him from saying too much. But then he added, “So I feel like I should end it with the other women I’m seeing. I think for the first time I might want more . . . but this girl has been cagey, and it’s been hard to take that extra step and just cut off the old routine, you know?”

  My arms felt like limp noodles and I leaned against the gate, steadying myself. My brother said something in reply, but I wasn’t really listening anymore.

  To say the atmosphere in the car was merely tense was laughable. We’d been on the road for almost an hour and I’d barely strung together more than two words at a time.

  Are you hungry?

  No.

  Temperature okay? Too warm? Too cold?

  It’s fine.

  Could you put this into the GPS?

  Sure.

  Mind if we stop for a bathroom break?

  Okay.

  The worst part was that I was pretty sure I was being bratty and unfair. With what Will said to Jensen, he was only following the rules that I’d put out there. I’d never really expected him to be exclusive before last night.

  Open your mouth, Hanna. Tell him what you want.

  “You okay over there?” he asked, ducking briefly to catch my eyes. “You’re being awfully monosyllabic.”

  I turned and watched his profile as he drove: his stubbly jaw, his lips curled up in a smile just knowing I was staring at him. He let his eyes dart my way a couple of times, reaching for my hand and squeezing it. It was so much more than sex. He was my best friend. He was the one I wanted to call boyfriend.

  The idea of him being with other women this whole time made me faintly nauseous. I was pretty sure that, after this weekend, he wouldn’t be with them again since—Jesus—we’d had sex without a condom. If that didn’t warrant a serious discussion, I didn’t know what did.

  I felt so close to him; I really felt like we had become something much more than friends.

  I pressed my hands to my eyes, feeling jealous and nervous and . . . God, just so impatient for us to figure it out now. Why was it easy to talk to Will about every feeling I had but the ones we needed to declare between us?

  When we stopped at a gas station to refuel, I distracted myself by going through the music on his phone, building the proper sequence of words in my head. Finding a song I was pretty sure he hated, I smiled, watching him hang up the pump, walk back to his side of the car.

  He climbed back in, his hand hovering with the key perched in the ignition. “Garth Brooks?”

  “If you don’t like it, then why is it on your phone?” I teased. This was good, this was a start, I thought. Actual words were a step in the right direction. Ease into the conversation; prepare a soft landing and then jump.

  He gave me a playful sour look, as if he’d tasted something gross, and started the engine to pull away. The words cycled through my head: I want to be yours. I want you to be mine. Please tell me you haven’t been with anyone else in the past couple of weeks, when things seemed so good with us. Please tell me that hadn’t all been in my mind.

  I opened his iTunes and started scrolling through his music again, looking for something better, something that made my mood lighter and more sure of myself, when a text message flashed across his screen.

  Sorry I missed this yesterday! Yes! I’m free Tuesday night and I can’t wait to see you. My place? xoxox

  Kitty.

  I don’t think I took a breath for an entire minute.

  Turning off the screen, I sank lower into my seat, feeling like someone had reached down my throat and pulled my stomach inside out. My veins flushed hot with adrenaline, with embarrassment, with anger. Sometime between fucking me without a condom at my parents’ house yesterday afternoon and kissing my neck this morning, Will had messaged Kitty about getting together on Tuesday.

  I looked out the window as we pulled away from the gas station and got back on the road, dropping the phone gently into his lap.

  A few minutes later he glanced at his phone before wordlessly putting it back down.

  He had clearly seen Kitty’s message, and he didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look surprised.

  I wanted to climb into a hole.

  We arrived at my apartment but he made no attempt to come upstairs. I carried my bag to the door and we stood there awkwardly.

  He pulled a stray hair from my cheek and then quickly dropped his hand when I winced. “You sure you’re okay?”

  I nodded. “Just tired.”

  “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asked. “The race is Saturday so we should probably do a couple of longer runs early in the week and then rest.”

  “That sounds good.”

  “So I’ll see you in the morning?”

  I was suddenly desperate to hold on, to give him one last chance, a way to come clean and maybe clear up a huge misunderstanding.

  “Yeah, and . . . I was
wondering if you wanted to come over Tuesday night,” I said, reaching out to place my hand on his forearm. “I feel like we should talk, you know? About everything that happened this weekend?”

  He looked down at my hand, moved so his fingers could twist with mine. “You can’t talk to me now?” he asked, brow furrowed and clearly confused. It was, after all, only seven at night on a Sunday. “Hanna, what’s going on? I feel like I’m missing something.”

  “It was just a long drive and I’m tired. Tomorrow I have a late night in the lab, but Tuesday is open. Can you make it?” I wondered if my eyes were pleading as much as the voice inside my head was. Please say yes. Please say yes.

  He licked his lips, glanced at his feet and up to where his hand was holding mine. It felt like I could see the actual seconds tick by and the air felt thick, almost solid, and so heavy I could hardly breathe.

  “Actually,” he said, and paused as if he was still considering, “I have a late . . . thing, for work. I have a late meeting on Tuesday,” he babbled. He lied. “But I could make it during the day or—”

  “No, it’s fine. I’ll just see you tomorrow morning.”

  “You sure?” he asked.

  My heart felt like it had frozen over. “Yeah.”

  “Okay well, I’ll just”—he motioned to the door over his shoulder—“go now. You sure everything’s fine?”

  When I didn’t answer, and just stared at his shoes, he kissed my cheek before leaving and I locked up, heading straight for my room. I wouldn’t think of another thing until morning.

  I slept like the dead, not waking until my alarm went off at five forty-five. I reached over to hit the snooze button and lay there, staring at the illuminated blue dial. Will had lied to me.

  I tried to rationalize it, tried to pretend it didn’t matter because maybe things weren’t official with us, maybe we weren’t together yet . . . but somehow, that didn’t feel true, either. Because as much as I’d tried to convince myself that Will was a player and couldn’t be trusted, deep down . . . I must have believed that Saturday night changed everything. I wouldn’t feel like this otherwise. Still, apparently he was fine hooking up with other women until we sat down and made it officially official. I could never be that cavalier about separating emotion from sex. The simple realization that I wanted to be only with Will was enough to make me faithful.

  We were entirely different creatures.

  The numbers in front of me blurred and I blinked back the sting of tears as the snooze alarm broke through the silence. It was time to get up and run. Will would be waiting for me.

  I didn’t care.

  I sat up long enough to unplug the clock from the wall and then rolled over. I was going back to sleep.

  I spent the majority of Monday at work with my phone off, not heading home until long after the sun had gone down.

  Tuesday I was up before my alarm and down at the local gym, running on the treadmill. It wasn’t the same as the trails at the park with Will, but at this point, I didn’t care. The exercise helped me breathe. It helped me think and clear my head, and gave me a brief moment of peace from thoughts of Will and whatever—whoever—he was doing tonight. I think I ran harder than I ever had. And later, in the lab, when I had barely came up for air all day, I had to leave early, around five, because I hadn’t eaten anything other than a yogurt and felt like I was going to fall flat on my face.

  When I got home, Will was waiting at my door.

  “Hi,” I said, slowing as I neared him. He turned around, shoved his hands in his pockets, and spent a long time just looking at me.

  “Is there something wrong with your phone, Hanna?” he asked finally.

  I felt a brief pang of guilt before I straightened, meeting his eyes. “No.”

  I moved to unlock the door, keeping some distance between us.

  “What the fuck is going on?” he asked, following me inside.

  Okay, so we were doing this now. I looked at his clothes. He’d obviously just come from work and I had to wonder if he’d stopped by here before going to meet . . . her. You know, to make the rounds and settle things down before stepping out with someone else. I wasn’t sure I would ever understand how he could be so wild about me, while fucking other women.

  “I thought you had a late meeting,” I murmured, turning to drop my keys on the counter.

  He hesitated, blinking several times before saying, “I do. It’s at six.”

  Laughing, I murmured, “Right.”

  “Hanna, what the hell is going on? What did I do?”

  I turned to face him . . . but chickened out, staring at the tie loosened at his neck instead, his striped shirt. “You didn’t do anything,” I started, breaking my own heart. “I should have been honest about my feelings. Or . . . lack of feelings.”

  His eyes went wide. “Excuse me?”

  “Things at my parents’ house were weird. And being so close, almost getting caught? I think that was the real thrill for me. Maybe I got carried away with everything we said on Saturday night.” I turned away, fidgeted with a stack of mail on a table and felt the crackling, dried layers of my heart peel away and leave nothing but a hollow shell. I forced a smile on my face and gave him a casual shrug. “I’m twenty-four, Will. I just want to have fun.”

  He stood there and blinked, swaying slightly as if I’d hurled something at him heavier than words. “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m sorry. I should have called or . . .” I shook my head, trying to shake the sound of static in my ears. My skin felt hot; my chest ached like my ribs were caving in. “I thought I could do this but I can’t. This weekend just solidified that for me. I’m sorry.”

  He took a step back and glanced around like he’d just woken up and realized where he was. “I see.” I watched him swallow, run a hand through his hair. As if he’d remembered something, he looked up. “Does this mean you won’t run on Saturday? You’ve trained really hard and—”

  “I’ll be there.”

  He nodded once before turning, walking out the door, and disappearing, probably forever.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  There was a hill near my mom’s house, just before the turn down the driveway. It was an uphill followed by a blind downhill curve, and we’d learned to honk whenever we went over it, but when people drove it for the first time, they were never aware of how tricky it was at first and would later always tell us how crazy that turn was.

  I supposed my mom or I could have put up a curved mirror at some point, but we never did. Mom said she liked using only her horn, she liked that moment of faith, where she knew my schedule and she knew the curve so well she didn’t need to see what was ahead in order to know it was clear. The thing was, I was never sure whether I loved or hated that feeling myself. I hated having to hope the coast was clear, hated not knowing what was coming, but I loved the moment of exhilaration when the car would coast downhill, clear and free.

  Hanna made me feel this way. She was my blind curve, my mysterious hill, and I’d never been able to shake the lingering suspicion that she’d send something the other way that would crash blindly into me. But when I was with her, close enough to touch and kiss and hear all of her crazy theories on virginity and love, I’d never felt such a euphoric combination of calm, elation, and hunger. In those moments, I stopped caring that we might crash.

  I wanted to think her brush off tonight as a glitch, a scary curve that would soon straighten out, and that my relationship with her wasn’t over before it even started. Maybe it was her youth; I tried to remember myself at twenty-four and could really only see a young idiot, working crazy hours in the lab and then spending night after night with different women in all manners of wildness. In some ways, Hanna was such an older twenty-four than I’d ever been; it was like we weren’t even the same species. She was right so long ago when she said she always knew how to be a grown-up and needed to learn how to be a kid. She’d just accomplished her first immature blow-off with a complete lack of clear communi
cation.

  Well done, Plum.

  I’d put Kitty in a cab and returned to work around eight, intent on diving into some reading, and trying to get out of my own head for a few hours. But as I passed Max’s office on the way to mine, I saw that his light was still on, and he was sitting inside.

  “What are you still doing here?” I asked, stepping just inside the room and leaning against the doorway.

  Max looked up from where he’d been resting his head in his hands when I walked into his office. “Sara’s out with Chloe. Just decided to work a bit late.” He studied me, mouth turning down at the corners. “And I thought you left a few hours ago. Why are you back? It’s Tuesday . . .”

  We stared at each other for a beat, the implied question hanging between us. It had been so long since I’d spent a Tuesday night with Kitty, I don’t think even Max knew exactly what he was asking.

  “I saw Kitty tonight,” I admitted. “Earlier, just for a bit.”

  His brows pulled together in irritation, but I held up a hand, explaining: “I asked her to meet me for a drink after work—”

  “Seriously, Will, you’re a right toss—”

  “To end it, you ass,” I growled, frustrated. “Even though things with her were always meant to be casual, I wanted her to know they were done. I haven’t seen her in forever but she still checks in every Monday to ask. The fact that she even thinks it’s a possibility made me feel like I’ve been cheating on Hanna.”

  Just saying that name out loud made my stomach twist. The way we had left things tonight had been a mess. I’d never seen her look so distant, so closed off. I clenched my jaw, looking over at the wall.

  I knew she’d been lying; I just didn’t know why.

  Max’s chair creaked as he leaned back. “So what are you doing here? Where is your Hanna?”

  I blinked back over to him, finally taking in his appearance. He looked tired, and shaken, and . . . not at all like Max, even at the end of a long workday.

  “What’s with you?” I asked instead of answering. “You look like you’ve been through the wringer.”