#Score (14 page)

I need to find out what’s going on with her, and it’s not just because of my own curiosity. I care about her . . . a lot more than any other girl I’ve slept with. And maybe even more than the couple of girls I dated back in high school. She’s a cool person, a sexy woman, and a talented artist, what’s not to like?

All right. It’s time to face the music. I finish up at the gym, getting a quick shower before taking a seat on one of the locker room benches, texting Ramona.

Down 4 another weekend of fun?

I throw in a cheesy smiley face and hit send, ignoring the churning in my stomach. Why the hell am I nervous?

It feels like it’s been forever when the phone goes off in my hand, Ramona’s reply message popping up.

Can’t. Too much to work on. Sorry.

I carefully put my phone back in my bag and head out. I guess that’s how it’s going to be now.

R
amona

S
ometimes I wish
I could just trap that feeling, that spark that keeps the brush moving. And I wish it wasn’t so easy to get caught up in my mind that I can’t pull myself out of it long enough to get anything accomplished.

My painting, for instance. This huge, stupid, unfinishable thing that hangs on my wall just to taunt me. It should be finished, it should’ve been finished a long time ago. I thought it was finally all coming back to me and I was going to have it done and ready to send it to Eliza.

But here I am, yet again standing in front of this massive undertaking, and getting ready to rip it to shreds. When you’re questioning your integrity to the point of thinking that it may have been a better idea to just become an accountant, then there’s a problem.

I step over the tarp on the floor and rummage through my art drawer, looking for something, anything that’ll help me get a better idea of what I want to do to finish it off. Because no matter what Benji said, it’s not finished.

The early morning light filters through my blinds, drawing lines of light that move slowly across the wall across the painting. I stand, stretching my arms widely over my head, and letting them go until I start working on my shoulders down, trying to arch my back. How long have I been at this?

My room is a giant mess, something that tells me I really am off my rocker. I move a stray tank top aside and push back a few books to see the green numbers on my alarm clock glowing an eerie 6:48. Well, I certainly wasn’t expecting that. I guess my alarm clock has suddenly decided to stop working. I’ve been up for over thirty-six hours now, and somehow without a cup of coffee.

It hits me all at once – the exhaustion that should’ve knocked me on my feet several hours ago overtakes me until I’m quickly blinking my eyes just to keep standing in place. I want to sleep so badly, maybe not wake up for the next thirty-six hours in fact, but I know I can’t. With the deadline for the art gallery showing looming ahead, I know I have to sit here until I figure out the last finishing touches on the painting. No matter how crazy it makes me.

I randomly decide to take my shirt off, my pants off, and sit down in front of the painting until the answers slap me in the face. I pick up the book next to me, one of my favorite books on art history, and thumb through it, poring over the ancient runes, the neoclassical paintings, the Greek statues that have always inspired me, looking for something that will help me decide.

I check my phone several times for a text from Jasmine, who is texting me pictures from around the beach, where she and her parents are attending a wedding. Even the sand and the surf don’t inspire me enough.

When my phone dings and I get a notification to check my messages on Facebook, I bite my lip, not sure if I should distract myself with something else or sit tight and ignore it. Something tells me to check it anyway, so I do, sliding my thumb over the icon until a name and face pop up, tiny little letters next to it blurring the message. There is no message, there is only the face, only the name.

I should be panicking. I should be throwing this phone across the room and never picking it up again, scared that even looking at his face will burn my eyes right out of my head. But I’m not, I’m just so fucking tired, all of it goes over my head in a wash of numbness. I’d be lying if I said I’ve never looked him up on social media just out of curiosity, trying to see if he’s ruining someone else’s life at the moment.

I bite down on my lip hard, tasting the coppery tang of blood. I should put this phone down right now and go find Benji, tell him sorry for the other night, and explain everything. But I can’t, and I don’t want to, not really. Who is Benji to demand answers from me, anyway? Wasn’t he the one who was probably busy getting laid the entire time he was gone? The fact that I could hide my insane jealousy so well scared even me. I look back down at my phone and take in a sharp breath.

The face,
his
face, is cut from metal, so sharp and angular that I always thought I would slice my finger open when I touched him. His hair is shorter than it used to be, enough that it jars me more than seeing his face for the first time in four years. I’m not surprised to see him smugly looking into the camera for his selfie, or the fact that he is trying to look like an intellectual, holding a copy of The Art of War.

No, Dimitri Resnikoff is smart as a whip, unfortunately. He was smart enough to charm me into the kind of relationship I thought I always dreamed of. The one where the cute, smart guy with the top grades in school and the fancy internship sweeps the shy, artsy girl right off her feet. Where he loves her and she loves him and everything is right until the words start. And he was smart enough to keep it all hidden, the words, the broken furniture, the holes in the wall . . . all of it.

The message is short, he’s in town and he wanted to see if maybe we could talk. A thousand angry nights tell me no, this is stupid.
Ramona, you can’t
. But I’m so tired, so in need of emotion beyond the confusion I face when I’m around Benji, that I don’t know what to do. My sleep-addled brain manages to message him back. I stare at my wall of shame, not seeing it for the potential it is but only the finished idea it is not.

If there’s one thing hanging out with Benji Lundgren has done to me, it’s that it has emboldened me to not be afraid of what life might present to you. Maybe this is a chance to bury my shell completely now, maybe this is a chance for closure. The kind of closure I never got from Dimitri. My mind battles itself for the clear answer, but I don’t care. I’m too numb, too tired, too everything to care. I’ll be careful, no matter what happens.

This might just be my one opportunity to fill in the small gap that’s left on the canvas.

And when Dimitri messages me back only a few minutes later asking for a time and a place in mind, I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and tell myself to breathe again, open them, and send him one more message.

Tomorrow, 3:00. Halsey Park - 5866 Halsey Blvd. See you there.

B
enji

“
Y
o
, Lundgren. You chillin’ with us tonight?” Souza asks me, calling me out in front of everyone in the locker room.

I finish lacing my cleats and give him the typical shrug and smile, since everyone down the row is staring at me. “Who knows? You might see me show up later, if I’m not busy with one of those twins . . .”

Boyega lets out a whoop. “Oh shit. I bet you’re swimming in that twin pussy too, aren’t you? Damn man, hook a guy up, will you?” He points to me, nodding along with a few of the other guys before turning his attention somewhere else.

Fuck. I may be sly most of the time, but I’m damn sure no liar. At least I wasn’t before now. I don’t know why I pulled the twin thing out of my ass. Maybe it’s because I’m tired of telling everybody no, tired of wanting to get out there and revel in my newfound celebrity status, my new team status. And I just can’t.

I’ve been avoiding Joshua’s texts, his attempts to FaceTime with me, because I’m not sure what to tell him. When I saw him a couple weeks ago in Portland, all he talked to me about was the sheer amount of ass he was getting on the daily. And me? Well, I’m a different story. But how can I tell him that, how would that make me look? The last thing I want is everybody accusing me of changing, turning into somebody else. I’m not about that, I need to stay true to myself.

And every time I try to think about what the real Benji Lundgren would do, I think about that paintbrush and the handle slowly being pulled out of Ramona, inch by inch. I think about the way she tastes on my tongue, how her sweet tight pussy feels around my cock. I see her looking at me, that lost to ecstasy kind of lust staring right back at me. That’s what the real Benji would do. Again and again, and he’d be happy to do it, too.

I sit in my car, tossing my phone from one hand to the other. Maybe I’m being a fucking idiot, but the other night with Ramona drove me crazy. I know she’s hiding something, something that might be too big for me to handle. If I want to move forward in any kind of way, I need to know what it is. And I need to know now.

Keeping my cool while driving to Ramona’s apartment is easier said than done, so I turn up the radio as loud as my ears can take it, shutting out the what if’s that keep going round the track in my brain. But even the loud music, the insane lyrics, and the bass can’t help me out, and I’m stuck on the same thing I’ve been stuck on since the other night. What is she hiding from me?

It could be something small, something I’m just overreacting about and I’ll feel like a total psycho for even giving a shit about quite honestly. Her boyfriend dumped her, cheated on her, cheated off of her in college, her boyfriend was gay after all, things like that.

Or something worse, much worse. Things that when I think about them make me want to scissor kick someone right in the throat, cutting off their air supply. I’m not a violent guy, but the thought of someone hurting Ramona in any kind of way . . . I’m suddenly planning the execution of a guy I don’t even fucking know.

I throw my car in park, making my way up to her apartment almost as quickly as the first night we were heading up to the hotel room in downtown L.A. I’ve always prided myself on not getting caught up in someone else’s drama, having enough sense to keep clear of that kind of bullshit. This is a different story, this is Ramona, and I need to know that she’s okay. Why that is, well, I’ll have to worry about that after I know the truth.

I knock on the door in my usual way, part of a little jingle but cut it short, bracing myself for seeing her face again. Nothing. No footsteps coming toward the door, no shuffling inside, no movement whatsoever. I can’t see her roommate’s car inside the parking garage underneath the building either so I step backward, shuffling my feet around as I figure out what to do next. Calling her sounds lame, but I end up not having a choice because even after knocking a few more times, nobody’s answering. It could be because she’s at work, picking up an extra shift either at the café or her parents’ Laundromat.

Or it could be something else, like her not wanting to ever speak to me again for some unknown reason. She has been avoiding my texts . . . but that just doesn’t seem like something Ramona would do, even if she is pissed off at me.

I send her the first text message. The second one follows after having waited for ten more minutes, trying to joke around by bringing up her wanting to spend more time with her paintbrushes than me. But still no answer.

I’m not the kind of guy that panics over silly shit like this. I know how women can be fickle and how Ramona can get moody sometimes. It’s hard, me standing out here for longer than what I feel is necessary, yet I’m still not able to move back down the steps, to go back to my car and leave.

And after calling her, my last resort, and hearing her voice for a split second before letting out a long relieved breath, only to hear her tell me to leave a message after the beep, I shove my phone into my pocket so hard I nearly get friction burn from my jeans. And I start my slow descent down to my car after all.

I unlock my car and slide back in the driver’s seat, slamming the door shut. Grasping the steering wheel with my hand, I think I’ve finally fucking lost it. How am I supposed to admit to myself that I actually like this girl when I can’t even handle her not answering me after a few days of avoiding me? What kind of fucked-up shit is that? I can’t be a part of something like that, I won’t be. I’ve worked too goddamn hard to get to where I am now to throw it all away on a girl who isn’t ready by any means to even talk to me, much less do anything else with me. And even though there are probably a million and one things I want to do to her, with her, for her, it doesn’t matter.

Rolling the window down, I lean back in the seat and glance over at the people walking by on the sidewalk across the street. The older couple is holding hands, laughing at something together and walking over to one of the benches that’s tucked away under the shady trees next to the playground in the park.

Something strikes me about the way they look at each other, pulling some old memory I didn’t realize I had from deep inside my brain.

I’m standing in between my parents, my mom holding my right hand, my dad holding my left. We’re walking to the park, one of the only times I have a chance to have them all to myself while Cal is at a friend’s house, probably inventing something like he used to love to do when we were little kids.

My dad and mom keep looking between each other, smiling and talking over me, and all I can think about is sliding down that big slide, the one that I’m always too scared to go down all by myself.

And when I finally do it and I run back over to them, they’re smiling at me, my dad throwing me up over his shoulder while my mom leans in to give me a kiss on my nose. It’s probably a really cute scene, on the outside looking in.

The older couple across the street reminds me of my parents, laughing together, even when no one else is paying attention, because all they care about is one another. There’s no one else in the world when it’s just the two of them. I can’t imagine what that must feel like, how it must be to know that you have someone else in this world willing to step out of reality with you and just be.

Right? I mean it’s kind of similar to how I feel around Ramona but . . . no. It’s not the same, it can’t be.

I draw my fingers along the steering wheel and look around the rest of the park, wondering if maybe I’m missing something between me and her.

And that’s when I see her, her smooth brown skin shining in the little bit of light that filters through the treetops in the park. I’ve noticed that any time we ever go out, she rarely cares how she looks, happy to stick her hair back in some kind of weird bun, and rarely does she put more than a little bit of Chapstick on her face. She doesn’t need it, of course, but I can tell from all away over here that she’s wearing makeup and she’s done her hair up. She specifically got dressed up to meet with someone. And the guy she’s meeting with is standing right in front of her, too close for my comfort.

They’re talking way too closely. She looks so enraptured by him that I feel like some pervert for staring at them. And the guy . . . wow. If Ramona ever had a type, he’d be it. Tall, lanky, wearing a beanie and some outfit that screams “I know how to speak three languages and can replicate the Mona Lisa with just some glitter glue and a sponge.” Total art freak, there’s no other way to put it.

It’s like I’m being branded right on my fucking abs, this deep pain searing right through me. If I had any question of how I felt before, it’s pretty clear now. I’m so fucking angry I could spit. So this is why she’s avoiding me, this is why Ramona doesn’t want to have anything to do with me anymore. This guy right here.

It’s a good thing I don’t care enough to get up and go over there and say something to her. Or care enough to want to sock him right in the goddamn fucking jaw like the piece of shit this guy probably is. No, I don’t care enough to do any of that. It is what it is, life will go on. I will make sure of it no matter what.

But I get the fuck out there as quickly as possible, not needing to see any more of whatever’s going on between her and Mr. Artsy-douche.

* * *

I
raise
a glass and toast Souza, already half-drunk from the three shots of tequila I just took with another teammate, Devlin. “To the best goddamn midfielders the Universe has ever seen, literally, and . . . literally. Here’s to you, champ.”

Half the beer pours out of my hand as we all clink glasses and bottles, not even caring if we break them. Damn, it feels good to get out for once. I should’ve been doing this fucking months ago. Letting a girl get me all twisted up like some kind of fucking pretzel, nope. Not anymore. Benji Lundgren doesn’t play that romance bullshit, and he never will.

I didn’t realize I was speaking out loud until Souza claps me on the shoulder, shaking me until I’m almost flat on my ass. “That’s right, man. We don’t need no women telling us what to do. We’re men. We need to handle ourselves like men, play the game like men, step back from all that bullshit like men.”

Later, when I’m just about three sheets to the wind and Souza and I are having one of those drunken talks wherever things spill out of you like a fucking split sack of beans, I look him right in the eye and ask him why he thinks Ramona did what she did.

“I don’t know, man. Women are weird like that, one minute they want to fuck you in the middle of the grocery store, the next minute they don’t want to see you for weeks. Don’t ask me, I’m just married.”

I do a double take. What the actual fuck? “Souza. You’re married?”

He nods at me, looking like he’s about to pass out right here and now. “Yep. I’ve been married for four years, man. Me and my girl, we’ve been together for like ten years. Since high school. Know what I mean?”

I wave him off. “Nope, sure don’t. Like I said, I don’t mess around like that. I’m gonna go hang out over here where the big boys hang. Sorry man.”

Before I even make it over to where I know the rest of the team is sitting, I see a couple of fine girls staring me down. I know exactly what’s on their minds. A threesome? Fuck yeah, sounds great.
Perfect idea
.

Now these girls are my typical type, average height, with sweet asses and racks to match. Totally stacked, just like I like ‘em. Blonde hair down to their waists, big blue eyes, the works. They’re probably models, now that I think about it. And they’re smiling at me like they know what’s up.

It only takes us a few minutes to get from inside the bar to outside where they’re calling for an Uber to take us back to their house. Twins? Talk about some serious fucking irony right there.

I want to touch them, want to feel their glorious skin between my hands, and everything else that comes with fucking them. It should be so easy that I don’t even have to think about it.

We get to their house, not too far from Ventura Boulevard, and somehow even though they’ve been giggling over me the whole time, they’re pulling me out, leading me up the drive, telling me what they’re going to do my dick and crazy shit like that. Talk about a dream come true, who would’ve thought?

But as I’m standing there behind them while they’re putting in the code to their garage door, I’m lost. I don’t know where the fuck I am, not only physically speaking, but mentally. I don’t know these girls, I don’t know what they do, what they like, who they are. Or hell, what they might even have for that matter.

And I can’t go through with it. I shove my hands deep into my pockets and begin to walk away, shaking my head at myself for being a pussy. I should’ve fucking known I couldn’t do this.

“Hey. Where are you going, hon? The party hasn’t even begun yet,” twin A says as she flips her hair over her shoulder, her hand on her hip.

“Yeah. Like, we haven’t even made it inside yet, sweetheart,” twin B says, matching her sister with the hair flip and the jutting hip.

It’s like watching that weird freaky scene in The Shining, where the twins are standing there in their matching dresses looking at the poor kid down on the tricycle.