#Awestruck (A #Lovestruck Novel)

by Sariah Wilson

  My parents would literally choke on spewing out “I told you so” over and over again. Nobody wanted me to chase this career path. When I’d told them what I planned on majoring in at college, my dad had spent months quoting statistics at me about the unlikelihood of me ever becoming an announcer for any professional team, let alone a network, while my mother tried appealing to my emotional side. Why did I feel like I had to be an announcer? What was it that made me want to call games? Why was it so important? Could I really not imagine myself doing anything else? Wouldn’t another job make me just as happy and fulfilled? They both did everything they could to discourage it. And I’d always been the perfectly obedient child. Although I’d never had an issue standing up for myself with peers, for some reason I’d always had a hard time when it came to authority figures. I wasn’t the defiant type. But this had been really important to me. So I’d cried all the way through it, but I’d told them it was my money and my choice, and they didn’t get a say.

  The only person who’d ever believed in me was my grandmother. One of my earliest memories was of sitting with her at a Jacks game, listening to the play-by-play of the announcer over the loudspeakers and her telling me, “Someday that will be you, my little gingersnap.”

  I was pretty sure if I lost my job my parents would never let me hear the end of it about how right they’d been and how I should have listened to them. And that I’d have to move home would just make the entire situation untenable.

  “You also shouldn’t be making decisions based on what you think Mom and Dad will do.”

  Easy enough for her to say. She was the perfect child making all the perfect choices. Our parents bragged about her constantly, and I’d spent most of my life trying to live up to her. “Maybe this is what’s supposed to happen. Did you ever think that maybe this is the universe giving me the chance to get my revenge? To turn the tables on him?”

  “But you’re still sitting at the same table.”

  Before I could ask her what that meant, she sighed and put her hand on my shoulder. “I love you, Ashton. And I will support you. I won’t tell anybody else the truth. All the beans will remain firmly unspilled. But I think maybe instead of listening to this boss of yours, you should start listening to what’s inside your heart.”

  “Oxygenated blood?”

  She shoved me lightly, laughing along with me. “And you have to call Mom. Now. She has been freaking out the entire day.”

  I glanced at the clock on the wall. “Isn’t it kind of late for her to be up?”

  “Trust me on this one.” She stood up, putting her purse over her shoulder.

  “What am I going to tell them? I can’t tell them the truth.” My parents couldn’t keep a secret even if I stapled their lips shut. If I told them what was going on and then introduced them to Evan, my dad would be like, “Great game, my daughter’s only dating you to do an exposé on you, and could you introduce me to Coach Sitake?”

  Our mom was a family therapist, and it was like keeping all the information about her clients private made it so that she had no filter and no privacy setting whatsoever when it came to her kids.

  “Oh no. You definitely can’t tell them or Rory the truth. It’ll be on the six o’clock news by tomorrow if you do that. I don’t know what story you and Evan have made up for mass consumption, but tell them that.” She held out her arms, and I stood up to hug her goodbye.

  “We don’t have a story planned out yet. Just that we’re going to stay engaged for a few months.”

  “I don’t envy you having to have the parental conversation. But your lie will be blown apart if some press come to talk to Mom and Dad. It will seem weird that the world knows about your engagement but you didn’t bother to tell your parents about it.”

  As I walked her to the door, she hesitated, playing with the zipper on her purse. “So what if he’s not lying, and this is who he really is?”

  I’d done nothing but consider it since our dinner. “I wish I could let myself believe that, but this Evan feels . . . fake. Like my thirteen-year-old self dreamed him up and brought him to life. So he’s saying everything I want him to say and telling me I’m beautiful, and I can’t trust it. It so goes against everything I’ve thought about him for years, and I can’t buy into the fantasy.”

  I thought of Evan’s comparison earlier—only I was the atheist who didn’t know what to think when Evan showed off his angel wings as he descended from the sky. It rocked my worldview, and I couldn’t figure out how to reconcile it with what I’d always believed. All of my interactions with him felt like they were happening to someone else. Because it couldn’t possibly be my life.

  She stood quietly, not responding. Which I recognized as another lawyer tactic—people felt compelled to fill in the silence. And even though I knew it, I still kept talking. “Not to mention it feels like it’s all just an act to win me over so that he doesn’t have to feel bad about whatever part he played in what happened to me.”

  “Well, he is real. You didn’t conjure him up, and nobody’s forcing him to say or do anything he doesn’t want to. If you think he’s being fake, I guess you’ll find out one way or another eventually. No one can keep up an act like that for forever.” Then she hugged me again. “And call Mom.”

  “I will!” I said and told her good night. As I shut the door behind her, I realized she was right about my parents. I had to call them. Since Evan and I didn’t have our stories straight, I was just going to have to wing it. I entered my mother’s phone number into my cell.

  She picked up immediately. “Are you pregnant?”

  “What?” Was she serious with this? “Yes, the most famous virgin in the world impregnated me. It was an immaculate conception. Do you ever even read anything about him? His celibacy is, like, this whole big deal.”

  “Well, people slip. Especially when they’re in love.” She let out an overly dramatic sigh. I could deal with my mother’s drama. It was her criticisms and suggestions about how I should live my life that made me feel like I couldn’t cope. “You had such a crush on him in high school.”

  “I remember, Mom. Thanks.”

  “What I can’t figure out is why you’d become engaged to Evan Dawson of all people without even telling us you were dating him.”

  I headed into my bedroom and got under my plush comforter. If I was going to be interrogated, I was at least going to be relaxed while doing it. I could picture her in her kitchen, cutting vegetables to calm her stress. My mother considered herself to be a bohemian free spirit, but nobody had told her about the usual optimism that went along with it. She wore the flowy skirts and chunky necklaces but generally thought the world was always on the verge of ending.

  And now she was on a melodramatic roll. “Were you going to tell us? Ever?”

  “Obviously I was going to tell you, Mom. It’s just . . . things happened so fast. We didn’t know people were taking pictures of us. I didn’t call you earlier because I had this thing, and then Evan and I had to figure out where we were going from here and what to tell people.” All true. Sort of.

  “I suppose it’s sweet in its own way that you two found each other as adults, but I’d hate to see you get hurt like that again.”

  “So would I. That’s not going to happen.” She would assume I meant because he loved me, but I meant it wouldn’t happen because I wouldn’t let myself get hurt like that by him again. I had learned my lesson in the worst possible way. Even if he hadn’t been directly responsible for what had happened to me, he had been a silent bystander. If I had to keep him at arm’s length in order to focus solely on advancing my career, then that was what I would do. “Things are different now.”

  Just not in the way she imagined.

  “Well, your father and I would like to meet him.”

  That didn’t sound like something I wanted to have happen anytime soon. “You’ve already met him.”

  “Ten years ago. You said things were different now, and it is customary to bring your fianc
é home to meet your family.”

  She skipped right over the rest of her planned guilt trip and headed straight into logical, rational arguments. But it sounded like a terrible plan. If I waited long enough, our engagement would be over, and then my two worlds would never have to collide.

  How could I get out of it?

  “Oh!” she said. “I know! We can meet him tomorrow after the game.”

  “Maybe. But he’s going to be really busy after the game with interviews and stuff.” That wouldn’t be happening. If I had to fake a heart attack to get my family to leave the stadium, I would.

  I knew that at some point it might happen—I just preferred to delay their meeting for as long as possible.

  “Well, Thanksgiving is this week. That would be a perfect time to bring him over.”

  I was hoping that wouldn’t work. Along with the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys, the Portland Jacks always hosted a Thanksgiving Day game. Our family had a long-standing tradition that had begun with my grandma of celebrating the holiday on Wednesday, allowing us to attend the game. It also worked out well for Aubrey and Justin, as they were able to visit Justin’s family after the game on the actual holiday.

  But Evan had to be busy. He’d have a game to prepare for. Practice and weight lifting and team meetings. “I’ll talk to him about it and let you know. But it’s late, and I’m going to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  We hung up, and right before I drifted off to sleep, I decided that this fake engagement to Evan Dawson was making my life more difficult than it ought to be.

  Although I wasn’t there, I had no doubt that my parents arrived at eight o’clock in the morning to grab their usual tailgate spot, along with all their tailgating friends. My sisters and I used to drive in with them when we were younger; now we typically showed up an hour or two before the game.

  Today I intended to wait until the last possible minute. I didn’t want to hang out with anyone and have to answer more questions. I headed out to the stadium, which had a long official name involving several different corporate sponsors. But everyone had always called it the Forest, because it was where the Lumberjacks cut down all their opponents.

  I found my family as they were in the middle of putting away their folding table and sticking coolers and barbecues back into my dad’s SUV. Everybody wore a Jacks jersey as per usual, but I noticed this time they were all Dawson jerseys. Mine was still generic.

  “There’s my girl!” my father said, coming over to give me a hug. Monday to Saturday he was a normal, serious, rational adult/partner in a law firm. But come Sundays he turned into a rabid, face-painting, flannel-wearing Jacks fan. He also called himself “the Punster,” which should tell you everything you need to know about him. “Did you know you made me the most popular guy here today?”

  Rory sidled up alongside me. “That’s because Dad has spent the last four hours bragging to anyone who would listen that Evan Dawson is his future son-in-law. I think you are the current titleholder of ‘Favorite Daughter.’” She gave me a pointed look, as if she suspected that something was up with my very fast engagement, but apparently she didn’t care enough to press the point.

  For which I was grateful.

  “Should we head in?” I asked, helping to put away what was left of their stuff. I kissed Charlotte and Joey hello and let my mom hug me for longer than what would be considered normal.

  “My sweet little engaged girl.”

  “Okay. That’s enough, Mom. Seriously.” Finally, I gently disentangled myself and again encouraged my family to head into the stadium. Because once that game started, nobody would ask me anything about Evan. They’d all be too caught up in the action.

  On our way inside, we passed a group of blonde women who all looked alike due to their hairstyles and makeup. Like my family, they were all wearing Dawson jerseys but for a very different reason. Were they hoping to meet up with him after the game? Did any of them even like football? They were probably the types of girls who thought a Hail Mary was something a Catholic priest said at mass.

  I remembered Evan talking about being accosted by women determined to sleep with him and realized these jersey chasers were exactly the kind of girl who would do that.

  Which meant I should probably stop and talk to them in order to find out any dirt they might have, but for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  I rationalized that I was here with my family to enjoy an outing, not to work.

  But that wasn’t what really stopped me.

  We waited in line for our turn with the ticket taker. When we got up to the front, my dad handed over his cell phone. The ticket taker scanned my dad’s QR code and made a funny face at his screen. “Can you wait here a minute? There seems to be an issue with your tickets.”

  That was strange. We were season ticket holders. How could there be a problem? I watched as the ticket taker stepped away and got on his walkie-talkie.

  “An issue with our tickets? We’ve never had any trouble getting into a game before,” my dad said, and I could see Fan Dad slipping and turning into Lawyer Dad. He was going to demand to see a supervisor in a minute.

  The ticket taker returned wearing a giant grin and walking next to a girl who also wore a purple Jacks polo shirt, indicating that she was part of the staff.

  “Hi, I’m Cassidy. I’ve been asked to assist you while you’re at the Forest today. Come on inside—Mr. Dawson has arranged for some special seating for you.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  In my fear at my family’s reaction to my engagement news, I’d totally forgotten about the luxury box. Now I wanted to enjoy their surprise and so said nothing.

  Cassidy waited for us all to enter through the gates before walking briskly in a direction I’d never gone before.

  “Special seating?” Aubrey said to me in a stage whisper, holding Joey as she walked. “Interesting.”

  I fought back a grin.

  We walked through parts of the stadium I’d never been in before, passing multiple security guards who just nodded at our guide. We climbed up and up the gently sloping walkways until Cassidy came to a stop in front of a door. She then slowly opened it, as if trying to build up suspense, revealing our luxury box. “This has been reserved for your family. Mario is working at the bar and will get you anything you need. He can also call for me if you need me.”

  It was much nicer than I’d anticipated. Maybe too much. We should refuse. “Maybe we shouldn’t . . .” My voice trailed off as everybody pushed past me to get inside.

  My family entered the box, oohing and aahing over the leather couches, the massive big-screen TVs, and the full spread that waited for them on several dark-wood tables. Instead of having something fancy like sushi, the table was loaded with premium stadium food—like nachos, buffalo wings, mozzarella sticks, pretzels, fried chicken, and sub sandwiches.

  There was no way I was going to be able to convince them that we should leave and go back to our regular seats.

  I also saw Jacks tote bags on the couches with our names pinned to them. My mother opened hers, and inside were a football, a T-shirt, an umbrella, a tumbler, and a ball cap with the Jacks logo emblazoned on it. “Come over here and look!”

  Each football had been autographed by the entire team. The bags for the kids had a shirt in their size, a tiny rubber football, and a stuffed Paul Bunyan, the Jacks’ mascot.

  It was really, incredibly thoughtful. And nice. And unexpected.

  Another chunk of my protective barrier came crashing down.

  Cassidy went around the room, putting paper wristbands on everybody. “These will allow you to come and go on this level.” Then she approached me. I offered her my wrist, and after she had put the band on, she said, “Ms. Bailey? May I speak to you alone?”

  “Yeah, of course.” I followed her out into the hallway, and she handed me a small box wrapped in bright-purple wrapping paper.

  “Mr. Dawson asked me to give this to you in private.”

/>   She walked away, and I waited until she was out of sight before opening it. Inside I found a jewelry box.

  And in the jewelry box was an engagement ring. Even though I knew our situation was fake, I still gasped when I lifted the lid. The ring was sweet and simple—a platinum band with a large circular diamond in the center.

  The words of the women at Tinsley’s tea party echoed inside my head, and I realized I should have thought to offer him one of my rings in order to size it. I hoped it would fit.

  I took it out of the box, then slid the box into my jeans pocket. I put the ring on, and it fit perfectly. Like it had been made just for me.

  Which didn’t mean anything at all. There was no hidden symbolism or metaphor here. Right?

  I returned to the luxury box. On the way I threw the wrapping paper into a trash can and slipped the jewelry box into my purse, hoping no one would notice. I wanted to flash my ring for everybody to see but refrained from doing so. I was hoping they didn’t notice I’d had it for only, like, two minutes. Maybe I’d pull Aubrey aside and show it to her.

  Somebody had opened the big window so we could hear the roar of the fans and the announcers the way they were meant to be listened to—not on a television screen but in real life, thundering in your ears.

  My family was gathered around the food table, loading up their plates. They were all smiling and chattering away.

  I’d told Evan that my family didn’t like him because of our high school situation. He’d offered up this box as some kind of quid pro quo for the pretend engagement, but now I wondered if he’d done it for other reasons. Because it was pretty clever of him to use my family’s love of football and free fried food to win them over.

  “Dad, you spilled some of the melted cheese from your nachos,” Rory complained, trying to dab at it.

  My father took the napkin from her and said, “Don’t worry. It’s nacho problem. I’ll get it.” We all groaned in response, as if on cue. He picked up some salsa and spooned it onto his plate, next to his nachos. “Hey, I’ll have you guys know this salsa was born to be mild.”