by Jamie Knight
Thankfully, years of consistent exercise and weight training is useful for something other than football. While the other volunteers gather some children around them, and help out around the cafeteria, I successfully clear the entire truck in what I would consider record time.
In just twenty minutes, I’m able to tap Scout on her cold shoulder and gladly announce that I finished unloading the truck.
“Good,” she says coolly. Her small hands on her curvy hips. “Now, get to work.”
“What?”
“Start assembling, Bryan,” she scoffs and points to the boxes on the blacktop.
I wipe some sweat from my forehead and chuckle incredulously. “Am I getting some help with this at least?”
She shrugs. “Yeah, alright. You did take forever unloading those boxes.”
Not even a thank you. And I know exactly what she’d say if I asked her for a little gratitude. She’d tell me that charity isn’t done for gratitude or validation from others, or something along those lines. I know her type. She thinks that because she’s in charge of a group of people, that she’s able to go on these power trips. But the truth is that she is nobody and her power is just a dream.
I make a decision. I won’t be her plaything. That’s not how I do things. I’m going to show her that I can take everything she can throw at me without a single complaint. By the end of the day, she’ll be tired of trying to bully me and hopefully get over herself.
Throughout the day, Scout continues to try to get on my nerves. She makes me work on the jungle gym while giving me very minimal instructions, having people take over for me whenever I mess up, and ultimately having me be everyone’s water boy. It’d be humiliating if I was around anyone who mattered, but I remind myself that this is all a means to an end.
Besides, even as I’m being minimally tortured by a woman almost half my size, I keep in mind that the menial work I’m doing is going to benefit the life of many kids. Even if my reason for being here isn’t entirely truthful, I’m doing work that others won’t do, and helping children in doing so. That has to be good.
“Excuse me,” I hear a tiny voice say. “Can you help us?”
A small child tugs at me jeans until I look down at him. He’s with three other kids. I get down on one knee, so I don’t lord over them and greet them with a smile.
“What do you kids need help with?”
“We want to play Twister, but nobody wants to spin the board. Could you be the board spinner?” the child asks.
I look for other volunteers, but they all seem to be busy working on the jungle gym. Since I had just gone for another water break for them, I don’t think they’ll be needing me for some time.
“Sure, of course, I can help you out with that.”
The kids set up the polka dotted mat and take their shoes off to start playing the retro game. It surprises me to see that kids these days are interested in games you don’t find on your phone. It’s fun watching them flail and contort all over themselves.
As I shout, “Right hand, green,” as the fourth command of the game, I feel someone watching me. I sharply snap my neck back but find nobody around.
The kids’ game continues for some time, until the shortest of the four kids is unable to stretch his left foot onto a red dot and collapses on his friends. They all laugh and ask for a second round.
“Fine by me, I don’t have anything better to do,” I tell them.
From behind me, I hear her voice. “Don’t you?”
Scout has been watching me leave my water boy duties to help these children out with their game of Twister.
“Taking a break,” she asks accusingly, her eyebrows raised.
“Just for a moment. These kids needed someone to be the uh, board spinner,” I explain.
Scout nods to herself for some time. “Good. I’m glad you were able to help these kids out. Think we can talk for a second?” Then she taps her foot impatiently.
I set down the board near the empty box and wave goodbye to the kids while I go to get chewed out by Scout. To my surprise, she breaks into a delighted smile. It lights up her whole face and makes her ever prettier.
“Hey, I guess I was… being an ass to you all day. Like I said earlier, I just wanted to be sure that you weren’t going to half-ass this and be on your merry way once someone snapped a picture of you doing volunteer work. Not that any pictures of you were snapped… I guess you could still turn around and be a dick…,” she trails off for a moment and then shakes her head. “But I saw you with the kids. You were just being good to them. That’s the kind of person we need. Someone who will help children when he has nothing else to do.”
“Thank you, Scout.”
“Ah, don’t thank me. I’m just stating facts,” she chuckles. “So, will I be seeing you tomorrow? Same time?”
Options aren’t something I have a lot of right now. She may be proud of me for helping kids play their game of Twister but it’s not like I wanted to continue being a water boy. Besides, had someone been here to take a picture of me working with a non-profit, I probably wouldn’t have stayed as long as I did.
Probably.
Regardless, I have to return and stay for as long as I can. I know that Scout is punishing me for making Children of The Future lose some of their funding, so I have to try and make her see that I’m worth taking on. Even if it’s all a sham.
“You know it. I’ll be here,” I tell her.
“Great,” she shouts, “in that case, you’ll be needing this.”
Scout steps over to a picnic table for a second and returns with a brown paper bag. From inside, she pulls out one of the nonprofit’s grey shirts.
“I figured an extra, extra-large would be your size, but if it’s too big, just let me know. We have dozens of these back at HQ.”
I take the shirt from her and unfold it over my chest. It’ll fit.
“Looks good to me. Thank you so much. I’m happy to be part of the team,” I tell her, beaming.
Maybe she and I just got off on the wrong foot and we can work together after all. That would make all of this easier.
Scout lets me know that the bus that brought us here already left with the volunteers. As one last act of unnecessary meanness, she tells me to find my own ride home. When I ask her how she’s getting home, she tells me that she lives near this particular elementary school. With one last roll of her eyes. She walks away from me, it’s not the mean gesture she intends, since it allows me to watch her ass. Her squeezably, round ass.
Later that day, after Palir picks me up from the school, I find myself alone sitting on the couch in my luxurious home. Nothing worth an episode of MTV Cribs, but it’s definitely not a humble abode. I have a wall adorned with trophies, prizes, pictures of my teammates and myself at parties or press events. It’s a nice reminder of what’s waiting for me once I’m over this bump in the road.
This stupid, time consuming bump in the road that I shouldn’t even be dealing with.
That fuckup never should have happened.
But it did. And now, I have to waste my time trying to get people to see that I’m not a horrible person. It’s not even because it’s me that doesn’t want to be seen that way. It’s my sponsors, my coach, my team’s owners that care. I could care less what the world thinks of me.
With that said, though, I’m going to continue volunteering because I have to prove to Scout that I’m not as shallow and self-oriented as she thinks I am, even if that may be truly the case.
The way she treated me today was a slight to my ego, I’ll admit. I need to get an apology from her. A real one, not one I can wear. I thought I’d be getting one after the shirt, but no. I guess I haven’t proven myself enough to her. I’ll have to step my game up tomorrow.
Wait, what am I saying?
I don’t care about one jaded woman who thinks she is greater than she is.
I need to focus on my goal here. I have to work there for a long enough time to be seen as a regular, and then hav
e an “unexpected” photo op occur. That’s the plan. Scout is not a part of it, she’s an obstacle, if anything.
Chapter Three
Scout
I thought the t-shirt would have been enough to have his guilt satiated, but it seems as though Bryan Anderson, the football star, might actually show up for another day of volunteering. That would be a genuine surprise.
Though, I remind myself as I walk home, he may have just been talking out of his ass and that’s the last I’ll ever see of him.
Shame. I wouldn’t mind seeing him again. He makes for real good eye candy, at the very least, with his broad shoulders, huge, muscular arms, and strikingly blue eyes. And he may not be as bad of a person as I pegged him for when I saw the stories about him in the press. Seeing him get along with those kids was heartwarming.
Being attracted to someone who single handedly screwed the organization I built from the ground up isn’t something I need right now, but I can’t seem to get Bryan out of my head. I’m starting to think I have a type: Men who have the potential to destroy everything I’ve worked my whole life for.
But I doubt that Bryan feels the same way about me, with the way I treated him on his first day. Not to mention, he’s dated rich supermodels his entire life. I’m sure a regular woman like myself isn’t quite up to par with his usual arm candy.
I have no reason to be attracted to him. Just a month or so back, I found him to be one of the most repulsive people on the face of the earth. There he was on live television, drunk out of his mind hosting a fundraiser event I had helped organize, mumbling his words into the microphone, and ruining the futures of not only mine but many NGOs. Looks aside, there’s nothing there to be attracted to. I’ll give Bryan a fair chance to redeem himself, but I won’t forget the intoxicated emceeing he did that ruined the future of Children of The Future. We lost so many supporters that night. It was a disaster.
The walk from the elementary school turns out to be a bit longer than I expected. It’s made even longer because I have to carry a few boxes of cleaning supplies that some volunteers had forgotten. When I get home, my heart nearly pounds out of my chest when I lose my footing on the stairs and fall on my back, dropping the boxes all around me. Aside from a sore back, I’m fine, but I look down on the floor to see what it was that made me slip.
A letter. A handwritten letter.
For fuck’s sake.
There’s only one person I know that would write and send a letter when an email or text would make more sense in this day and age. As soon as I open it, my fears are realized. For a moment, I was hoping that it wasn’t him. Just an oddly themed bill, or promotion. But no. It’s from Grady.
Grady, my ex, is making another attempt at winning me back by inviting me out to dinner. There are just about a million other things I’d rather do, like cleaning the bathrooms of Grand Central Station with my own toothbrush. But I do have a duty to be there.
If I keep rejecting him, it’ll only give him more incentive to stop funding Children of The Future and I can’t risk that. We need every cent we can get. Even it means having to spend an evening with my overly clingy ex staring at me longingly, as if he’s an innocent little boy who is just misunderstood and not a cheating asshole who can’t take no for an answer.
The clueless asshole must have just been here and known that I would be arriving soon, otherwise he wouldn’t have written out an invitation for a dinner only twenty-minutes from now.
If he wants me to show up for a date, I hope he doesn’t mind being seated with someone who reeks of sweat and children. Looking up the address of the restaurant isn’t even necessary I already know the place. It’s famous. It’s telling that he wants to go on a date at a super expensive, swanky restaurant. He’s hoping to impress me. I, on the other hand, have no intentions of impressing him. I hope he’s ready for our date.
Without bothering with a shower, I walk the few blocks to the subway. With each step, I try to keep myself calm and relaxed. I need Grady to still go along with me until I find another investor. Something I was hoping to get the night of Bryan’s fuckup. But I don’t want him in any way to think we are getting back together. That just can’t happen.
The restaurant is just as bougie as I expected. I feel like I’m losing money just standing outside of the place. The looks I’m getting from the patrons near the windows help me anticipate just how Grady will react to seeing me dressed like this in a dirty t-shirt and jeans.
As soon as I walk in, I'm approached by the unenthusiastic host. He asks me if I'm at the right place before being interrupted by Grady. He slides the host a hundred-dollar bill and asks him to let me through. The host obliges reluctantly and gets back to looking bored.
My ex smiles down at me. I used to find him handsome, now his features are too sharp for my taste. His face is too thin, like his body. His hands, which he is constantly gesturing with, are spindly.
“I’m happy to see you, but… didn’t you have any time to change before coming here?” Grady stops speaking and sniffs the air. “Ugh. Or shower? Come on, this isn’t your first date, Scout.”
No amount of time could make me forget how much of a despicable asshole this man is. He is just so condescending.
“I may have had time, just no reason to,” I tell him bluntly. “So, what's this about?” I ask as I slide into the chair across from him.
He fingers the wine glass that is sitting in front of him. It’s already half gone. “What do you mean?” he asks, trying to look innocent.
“What is this? This bullshit? Why am I here today?” I snap, poking the table with one of my fingers.
Grady is clearly embarrassed by my childish behavior. He tries calming me down so as to not disrupt the other diners but sees it pointless as I've already stopped talking. He sits upright on his chair and clears his throat before feeding me an enormous plate of bullshit.
“I asked you here hoping we could mend our broken relationship.”
I scoff obnoxiously and push my chair back.
“Stay seated, Scout,” he warns. “You've already embarrassed me. Will you please just hear me out?”
“No,” I say through gritted teeth, “if I'm not here to talk about the future of my organization, I have no business being here, Grady. You have no right to ask me to get back with you.”
“I was hoping you wouldn't be so bullheaded about this. Look, Scout, I don’t want to do this but you're forcing my hand,” he threatens. He points to my chair, which I reluctantly take again. “I have a choice to make. Whether or not to give Children of The Future… a future. I'm the organization's only backer right now and if I'm going to continue funding your little project, I need to be given something in return.” He gives me a heated stare.
“Is the future of our youth not enough?” I ask.
“Cute.”
Grady waves the waiter over to refill his wine.
“You want anything?” he asks me nonchalantly.
“No, thank you. I've had my appetite sufficiently ruined.”
The waiter leaves us, looking happy to not be involved in our visibly awkward situation. My hands have balled themselves up into immovable fists, tense with unabashed rage towards the evil man I once loved.
“It’s been six weeks, Grady, can you really at least try to move on? How much longer do you need?” I ask him desperately.
The space between us seems to shrink as if I’m in an inescapable nightmare. Like he’s getting closer and closer. Grady sighs and massages his brows, growing more frustrated with my lack of subservience.
“I don't want to move on, Scout. I want to be with you. You ended things so abruptly that I didn't—"
“You stop right there,” I demand. My temper flares. “I did not end things. You ended things when you decided to stick your dick in someone else!”
My words ring throughout the establishment, turning all the heads in earshot. This embarrasses Grady further, but he’s doing his best to hide his emotions. His eyes focus on me and no
thing else.
“We could have worked things out,” he insists. “We still can. There's a lot we need to talk about, and you've just been ignoring me, insulting me, trying to make a big thing about me accidentally sleeping with someone else.”
I raise my eyebrows and then roll my eyes. “Accidentally, oh, that's rich. Tell me, Grady, how do you accidentally meet someone online, talk to them behind my back for months, and slide in and out of her on accident?”
Without answering my question, he leans forward and tries to grab my hand. I pull back out of his reach.
“It was a mistake,” he huffs. “It shouldn’t have happened.”
“I know damn well it shouldn't have happened, but it did.” I cross my arms in front of my chest and glare at him. “And the only way I deal with cheaters is by throwing them to the curb where they belong.”
Grady sits back in his chair. He glowers down at me, picks up his wineglass and swirls it a bit. “You should really be more considerate of the person who can make or break your organization,” he warns me. “Really, I can and will pull funding if you don't hear me out.”
I call his bluff. “You’d really do that to the kids you claimed to care about so much?”
He rolls his eyes. “The kids? Scout, I don't give two shits about the kids. I started donating to get closer to you,” he exclaims.
“Jesus Christ.”
He takes a sip of wine and then leans over the table. His face is hard, angry. “Let's be real. You're just doing this because you have nothing better to do with your life and you have some Mother Teresa complex. Don't act like one organization is going to keep kids from becoming drug dealers or drop outs,” he says strongly. “Not in this city.”
Anger is pouring through my veins. I feel feverish. I want to reach across the table and slam his stupid face into the stupidly expensive table between us.
“How well do you think you're convincing me right now?” I say coldly. “Really, Grady, you think you're some master persuader making me feel like shit and showing your true colors? What kind of person are you?”
