Rumor Has It (Jock Star Book 1)

by Caterina Campbell

  “Bristol?”

  Her voice carries over the stall beside mine. “Yep?”

  “Do you have any clothes over there that aren’t for seven-year-olds?” Groaning inwardly, I hold up a pair of pink cotton shorts covered entirely with orange, white, yellow, and fuchsia flowers. They are a girl’s size ten, but they’re spandex stretchy, which is about the only thing worthwhile about them.

  “That’s against the rules,” she says, snickering. “You chose your own room. Live with it.” That’s easy to say if you picked the room with Quiksilver and Roxy clothes.

  I have no right to complain, but I’m not that gracious and do so with a fevered pitch. “There is nothing in here for someone over seven.”

  “Good thing you have little boobs.” Her optimism pisses me off, but the grunting that follows eases it slightly as I envision her trying to fit into size two jeans.

  Fifteen minutes later and after several angry curses about me taking too long, I emerge from my dressing room dressed like a seven-year-old hooker-in-training. My pink, floral print, stretchy shorts ride so far up my ass they have ripped my crack to my shoulder blades, and my itty-bitty tank top is obscenely deficient. Fortunately, the rules do not deny me the right to wear my own underclothes, so my bra covers what the paisley tank does not. Over the tank, I wear a white down vest with a fur-lined hood, sized children’s small, the bottom of which only comes to the top of my navel. It zips up maybe an inch before the teeth strain and it’s forced to stop. My midriff, between shorts and vest and stuck zipper and tank, is bare.

  Accessorized with a gold turban on her head, Bristol collapses forward, gripping her knees, which incidentally are hidden beneath a pair of high-water red and blue diamond-patterned pants. A pair of raspberry-colored slacks is wrapped around her chest, and with no straps visible, it’s anyone’s guess where her bra went. Her midriff plays peek-a-boo between the tied pant legs dangling over her belly. Bristol had to improvise a fucking shirt and still looks better than me. She laughs hysterically, tears forming but not falling. Fighting for composure, she turns away to catch her breath.

  Tori is speechless with her mouth gaped open like she is waiting to be fed a worm. Her cheeks are red, and she slowly dissolves into laughter as the full calamity of my outfit hits her. She looks like a rich snob with a lack of color coordination and apparent ignorance of her recent weight loss. Her wool pantsuit is, at minimum, a size fourteen, and she is, at best, a size six. As she laughs, she hoists the deep Barney-purple slacks up to her chest. The shirt, which I think might be a pajama top, is orange with an owl saying “hoot” across the midsection, and the brown wool coat has arms long enough for a gorilla.

  Tracy wears a pink flannel nightgown that is so tight around her neck she had to leave it unbuttoned to breathe. It’s sleeveless, which makes the whole flannel thing even weirder, and her short black hair makes her look like Snow White, and no one wants to think of Snow White meeting her prince in granny’s jammies.

  With literally no shame and the added accessories of knee-length socks shoved into lime green Crocs, me and my big set of balls walk into public ridicule. Lucky for me, it’s a short walk to Tori’s car and an even shorter walk into Watson’s to eat chicken wings with Toolbag Carl.

  For the most part, we’re ignored as we walk to our table, and the few snickers and insults we hear are mild compared to Toolbag Carl’s reaction, which garners the attention we dodged walking in. The high-pitched squeal-laugh thing he does is embarrassing on days we’re not dressed like hookers and country club rejects. He scoots out of the booth, and his squeal, blocked by his fist, still pierces.

  “This is awesome!” He’s practically in tears, slapping his leg as a way to release his blooming amusement. “Holy shit,” he cries out, “this is the best year yet.” His cackle escalates as he absorbs the scene, and his face, usually the color of an enhanced salon tan, is rosy red, and his veins, thick and protruding, pulse. “Jeezus, Brenna. I-I-I can’t look at you.” His squeal sounds like something out of an aquarium, and the girls begin laughing all over again. Bristol’s turban accessory bobs with her laughter.

  “You’re an ass,” I snap, scooting into the booth so I’ll be at least partly hidden behind the table when someone decides to hit record on their cell phone.

  “I’m an ass?” He’s a bit more contained now that he’s in defense mode. “You’re the one who showed up in your third-grade clothes.”

  The girls take turns hugging him before they scoot into the booth and squish me into the wall. Toolbag takes the outside, sitting next to Bristol, and faces me with a grin and a wink, letting me know in his own way that it’s all in good fun.

  Our waitress arrives. Her blonde hair is several shades darker than mine and Bristol’s, but her blue eyes are duplicates of our dad’s. My body stiffens involuntarily, my unease visible as I search for something to say. Saving me from a tumble over a stiff tongue prone to cursing under stressful situations, Colette, my half-sister, greets us. “Welcome to Watson’s.” Four years younger than us, she drew the long straw when our dad denied her existence until eleven years ago when a court said he had to recognize her, at least monetarily, after a DNA test confirmed her to be a Sloan.

  She smiles uncomfortably, placing a glass of water in front of each of us without so much as a lift of her eyelashes to peek at the sisters she’s usually much better at avoiding. Outside of local gossip and the court proceedings that brought us together, she knows nothing substantial about us. Distant and without an ounce of acknowledgment, Colette pulls out a notepad. “What can I start you out with tonight?”

  Bristol stiffens across from me, her bitterness a physical presence and her distaste for being snubbed noted prominently in her scowl. We don’t talk about Colette. She is the sordid secret that prompted Mom’s drinking binges, the loss of friends, openly hostile public confrontations, and our dad’s departure from our lives. It’s no more Colette’s fault than it is ours, but she is a living, breathing reminder of those rough early days and the years that followed. “Really? That’s all you’re going to say to us. Not hello, or hi, long lost family, how have you been?”

  Colette’s cool blue eyes, narrowed slightly at the corners, meet the focused, gritty green of Bristol’s. “The only thing that makes us family is sperm.” She snaps her eyes to me, but they pinball back to Bristol when my tongue seizes in shock.

  “Well, I’ve lost my appetite,” Toolbag chimes in. “I can’t eat after that word.”

  “Sperm and that check you cash each month make you a Sloan, like it or not.” Bristol’s brash tone matches her stern expression while her fingers relieve a straw of its paper.

  “I’m not a Sloan, and I don’t associate with Sloans.” Colette’s all-business front collapses, and the real Colette, bitter and defensive, takes center stage. “That filthy name and its legacy can die with you, as far as I’m concerned. Your dad is trash and so are you.”

  She looks us over, eyes dropping and lifting like she’s just realizing how we’re dressed. The outfits do nothing to change her opinion of us, of that I’m well aware, but even I know there is more to her than the controversial circumstance of her conception. The stigma of being a Sloan has cost us all a lot. That said, it’s easy to brush off the judgment when it’s people like Tiffany Langley belittling you, but when your own DNA dismisses you, it chips away some of your tolerance.

  Bristol’s intolerance has sharpened her tongue, and she lashes out. Words, like bullets, can leave a good-sized hole in weakened flesh, and Bristol barrels for Colette’s thin skin. “Trust it’s true when I say I don’t want you to be a Sloan any more than you want to be one. But you are, and your bloodline is every bit as tainted as ours, more so if you ask me. We’re not dirty little secrets.”

  With her pulse throbbing in her crimson neck, Colette scurries off, leaving our table speechless for all of ten seconds.

  Toolbag clears his throat, fingers scratching at his napkin. “After that exchange, I’m pretty sure w
ings aren’t in our future tonight.”

  “Watson’s wings are overrated anyway. Water’s fine with me.” Tori says softly, then she looks at us sympathetically. “I wouldn’t give her a second more. She doesn’t know what she’s missing.” With two fingers on each hand she pinches her shirt, showcasing the owl. “Who, who, who wants to have fun?”

  We laugh and manage to put aside the reminder that our dad’s misdeeds can still burn us even years later. Tori’s spot-on timing with her dumb interpretation of an owl brings us back into the circle that matters.

  Sliding an arm over the back of the booth behind Bristol, Toolbag eyes me, his pearly smile so Crest-white it’s blinding. We’ve always had a great friendship, and though it was strained during a small period of time when he and Bristol were on the outs, we’ve maintained it for well over ten years, even when it wasn’t the popular thing for him to do. His grin spreads, cheesy as ever. “So, ladies.” He makes it a point to look at each one of us, and as an added effort, touches Bristol’s shoulder. “All joking and stupid people aside, I did a solid for a guy my dad works with, and he took care of me in return.”

  “Um, is this your way of coming out?” I ask, kidding, but trying to remain stoic. “I always suspected, but I thought it would be more spectacular than that.”

  He cocks a brow. “Uh, no!” He points a finger at me, pops his tongue off the roof of his mouth and continues. “As I was saying, he hooked me up with Renegades tickets to next Saturday’s game. You girls interested? I picked up the tickets on the way over.” I hadn’t noticed the envelope before now, but he drops it on the table like he’s dropping the mic at a rap battle.

  “How many tickets did he give you?” Tori, always concerned with the details, is the first to ask, though I can confidently say the rest of us don’t care as long as we all get to go.

  “In addition to mine, six. I asked Jerry and Mike to go too. And since Saturday is a certain set of twins’ twenty-first birthday, I thought, what better way to celebrate?”

  We all nod our heads quietly affirming our interest. We’re certain a celebration in San Jose will be better than one in Milagro Beach, but Tracy, scratching her neck where the lace collar has left a nice red irritation spot, pipes in as enthusiastically as I’ve ever seen her. “I would kill to meet Corky Alvarez. Kill!” She stretches the collar of her nightgown out. “Did you guys know I asked him to prom?” She is positively glowing for a girl who just admitted to being a fangirl of epic proportions.

  Tori is brimming with questions she can’t fire out fast enough. “Did he come? Wait, of course he didn’t. Oh my God, did he respond? Were you devastated? Why didn’t you tell us?”

  Bristol flicks water from her glass at Tori. “Easy, Oprah,” she teases. “First, let’s find out who the hell Corky is?”

  Toolbag Carl pulls away from Bristol and stares at her like she’s grown a second head. “You’re not allowed to have one of the tickets.” He sips from his glass of water, pretending to be appalled by Bristol’s ignorance. “I can’t take a girl who doesn’t know the first baseman for the Renegades. It’s like not knowing the President of the United States.”

  “Not even.” Bristol spouts back. “The president is everywhere. What else has this Corky dude done? Is that even his real name?”

  Tracy has the same look as Toolbag, but I’m not sure which one wants to wring her neck more. I feel the need to save her, so I butt in. “Okay, so we’ll go check out this Corky guy, find out why he stood up my girl for prom two years ago, and maybe if we’re lucky, catch a ball. I’ve always wanted to do that.” I haven’t, but I’m trying to show some enthusiasm.

  Toolbag jumps in with an objection the second I stop talking. “This isn’t Tinder. I’m not inviting you so you can act like groupies. I need real enthusiasm for the game. You’re going to eat hot dogs, drink beer, and dance to organ music. No, and I mean, NO showing the tatas on the Jumbotron.”

  Bristol tosses a napkin onto the table. “You’re no fun.”

  “I’m a lot of fun. I just like to be the center of your world, baby.” He laughs and squeezes her shoulder acting as though he’s kidding, but he’s carried a torch for her since I can remember. Tracy snatches up the envelope and pulls the tickets out, fanning them out so she can see them all. “Can I have mine? I swear I won’t lose it.” She glows with hope. Toolbag nods, his eyes gleaming with pride to have at least one of us in the vicinity of excited. “Yeah, of course. Damn, I can’t wait.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Minus Toolbag Carl, who is meeting up with his meathead friends, the four of us head toward The Seam. It’s the only place where judgment feels like friendship, and after Colette, I think we need a circle bigger than the four of us.

  In the spirit of tradition, and because we haven’t been through enough embarrassment, we walk into the bar to share our outfits with the ones who know and love us best. As we get past the entrance, but not by much, Uncle Rodney adopts the same method of coping with my outfit as Tori—mouth open wide, taking it all in slowly—while Mom, a bit more horrified, shrivels a tad as she absorbs what she’s seeing.

  “Dear God,” she says behind her cupped hand used to mask her gasps. “Is that outfit legal?” This from a woman who once accidentally wore a see-through swimming suit.

  I roll my eyes, still pissed at my unfortunate pick of dressing rooms, but committed now. “I’m not sure,” I reply snidely, “but the bicycle cop on the corner didn’t arrest me.”

  “He was too busy taking your picture,” Tori says, because Bristol and Tracy are faltering over their own laughter. Uncle Rodney, whose one claim to fame is two lines in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator, is abnormally speechless. My mom continues to stare in disbelief and what I’m pretty sure is self-inflicted guilt. I am, after all, half from her, and what isn’t in my DNA is pure nurture, which is all her.

  “Take the picture,” I grind out through gritted teeth, though normally I’m a bit more jovial about mom documenting our twisted tradition. “No social media,” I insist, pointing a threatening finger at my mother as Bristol pushes me closer to the bar and Tracy and Tori detour to the restroom.

  My mom puts her hand on my arm, halting our forward progress. “I think someone came in to see you. If there had been time, I would have warned you.” Stuck somewhere between finally tapping out and honoring an age-old tradition, I spot Vance, standing at the bar, eyes missing no part of the spectacle I make.

  Trapped by insecurity and mortification, I stand there as his eyes look me over, tripping several times over my chest and pelvic region. I can see the exact moment he registers my identity and processes my attire for the unexplainable train wreck that it is.

  “What the hell are you wearing?” Vance asks while his eyes once again travel over my crazy train evening attire.

  I can barely look at him, and to cover for it, I pull absently on the white down vest, trying to make two inches of fabric cover a twelve-inch gap.

  “That isn’t going to help,” he chuckles, using a closed fist to stifle another laugh.

  “Yeah, I know. I’m afraid my kid is going to be born in these.” I try to look down at my shorts, but I can’t see past the poof of the down vest.

  “Real possibility. You’ll definitely have to be cut out of the vest.”

  I try to act natural in this otherwise unnatural moment, but it’s not happening. “I—I wasn’t expecting you to be here.”

  “I stopped for a beer,” he starts, covering another chuckle with his hand before he continues. “So, is this the ‘plans’ you mentioned?”

  I nod slowly. “Is this Monday?”

  “No,” he laughs. “I thought you had plans. I came for a beer.”

  “We do have plans.” Bristol, finding an oxygen level she can function with, pipes in with an air of irritation she’s starting to perfect.

  We move as a group to the right as another couple tries to get to the bar. They whisper something about a costume party and then wonder what size my ba
lls must be to wear this in public. If they’d look a bit harder, they could probably see them poking out the bottom of my shorts.

  “Are you going out like this?” Vance asks, wearing his surprise openly.

  “Is that a problem?” I respond with a bravado I don’t feel.

  “You have a camel toe,” he says flatly.

  I am slow to comprehend, but when I do, my head shoots forward as I suck my stomach in and smash the vest into my gut so that I can see a full set of vagina lips—my vagina lips—eating my shorts. Not one single supposed friend or member of my family told me my vagina was gobbling up flowers faster than my ass.

  After the initial shock wears off, I turn to glare at my partners in fashion crime. Bristol is laughing so hard she’s wheezing, and Tori is staring at Vance, looking a little shell-shocked. Tracy is nowhere to be found and therefore doesn’t have to dodge my pointed anger.

  “They didn’t tell me,” I mumble accusingly before turning back to Vance, “but, yes. Me and my camel toe have made a few appearances this evening.”

  Vance looks at me with curiosity, and I feel like he’s observing more than my attire. He takes a step toward me, his eyes never leaving mine. “On anyone else, it would never look this good.” He is matter-of-fact and direct rather than amused, and this somehow erases the lingering effects of the encounter with Colette, leaving her and all sources of humiliation a footnote in what is now a quickly improving night. “Are you sticking around?”

  Before he asked, I wasn’t sure, but now I don’t care what the plans are. “For a bit.”

  “I’ve got to take this call.” He holds out his buzzing phone. “Don’t go. I want to talk to you.”

  I nod wordlessly, and he heads toward the front door to take his call outside.

  “So, I needed a camel toe to get noticed by him?” Bristol’s ill-timed quip draws my claws.

  “Less desperation might have helped you too.” She doesn’t laugh.