by Selena Kitt
"Oh? And what would that be?"
She was in her twenties, all dyed black hair and cleavage. She reminded me of Ellie a little, if Ellie had been covered in tattoos. I hesitated before answering.
"Just two letters. Uh, initials. E and H."
A roar of dismay arose from my teammates.
"Cade, you fucking pussy! Are those some bitch's initials? Jesus Christ you're an asshole."
It was Jay McLelan, my best friend on the team. Giving each other shit like that was par for the course and I just flipped him the bird and a big grin.
"Don't be smiling at me like that, Cade. You're so pretty you're gonna turn me gay."
Another teammate cut in.
"Then maybe he'll get your initials tattooed onto his chest!"
I laughed along with them but I stuck to my guns. The letters E and H were inked onto my chest to the sound of my teammates jeering and ripping on me.
A short time after that my agent arranged a 'relationship' with some actress I'd never heard of and we were photographed together for Sports Illustrated a day after we'd met for the first time. They airbrushed out my tattoo and by the time I saw the final image it was too late to edit it back in. The actress's name was Jessica Ray and she was on a soap opera I'd never heard of, let alone seen. After the shoot, we were driven back into the city in a limo where we had a dinner date scheduled at a famous, paparazzi-friendly restaurant. She was wearing a short, tight dress and I could feel her waiting for me to say something as I sat beside her playing with my phone. Finally, she just reached over and put her hand on my cock. My head jerked up and she saw the look of surprise on my face.
"What? Just because this is a fake relationship doesn't mean we can't have any fun, does it?"
"Uhh, " I started, "I just, uh, my agent didn't - I don't even really know why he wanted to sign me up for this, actually."
Jessica pulled her hand away and tilted her head to the side, looking at me like I was the dumbest person she'd ever met.
"Really? You don't know why he wanted you to do this?"
I shook my head 'no' and she giggled.
"Are you unaware of your reputation, Cade Parker?"
Apparently I was. I mean, I knew nobody thought I was a regular churchgoer with a quiet life but I didn't realize it was anything to worry about.
"You have a ten million dollar contract with Kick and I would be willing to bet it includes a behavioral clause. Your people are losing their shit over your partying, they're worried you're going to lose the deal and fuck up your media profile."
It was news to me and Jessica Ray could see that. She chuckled and pulled a small mirror out of her purse to check her make-up.
"You're pretty new to this, huh? The game, I mean."
"I guess I am," I replied, "I don't even know what game I'm playing. Unless you're talking about hockey, which is the only thing I want to do. Fuck all this other bullshit."
"No," she replied, dabbing a small sponge at her face, "you're playing the other game, too, Cade. Just because you don't realize it doesn't mean you're not playing it."
"So what happens if I lose?"
"Well, it depends on how badly you fuck up. If you fuck up really badly, you lose your career. If you fuck up a little, you probably just lose all your sponsorship deals, which I assume are pretty lucrative."
Jessica Ray turned out to be a veritable fount of information. She also turned out to be a pretty cool girl, although the relationship never became intimate in the way I suspected she wanted it to.
"But what do you mean by 'fuck up?' I'm just playing hockey and living my life."
"Hey, Cade, I'm not judging. We all have our vices. But you gotta be more careful about that stuff - everyone has a camera these days and the internet is forever. You were all over the gossip blogs last week when you pissed all over that guy's car in the Snake Eyes parking lot. Sponsors are trying to sell shirts and shoes to families with little kids. They don't like that stuff."
"There's...there's photos of that?" I asked, surprised.
"Cade, holy shit, don't you ever go online?"
"I dunno. I mean, not much I guess. I'm really busy."
"Well I'm just saying, you have to be more careful about where you act out. You're famous now and," she paused and bit her lower lip, smiling, "you're also hotter than most Hollywood actors. People want a piece of you. You have to rein it in. Or, actually, you just have to be smarter about where you get up to your shenanigans."
I called the head of my publicity team as soon as I got home that night and she confirmed that I was developing a bit of a reputation for wild antics and seconded Jessica's advice to 'rein it in.' So I did. I didn't stop drinking with my teammates or getting up to crazy stuff but I started to keep myself a lot more closed off in public. It was partially to protect the deals I'd signed. It was also about Ellie, though. The thought of her searching me online and seeing me like that made me feel ashamed of myself.
Most of the reason I went so wild when I first got to L.A. - I mean the part that wasn't being a teenage guy with a sudden influx of cash and fame - was Ellie. I missed her. I missed her so much more than I could admit to anyone, including myself. I missed her knowing laugh, the secret little smiles she used to flash at me in class and the way she used to slip her small, cold hand into mine as I walked her home from school. Getting wasted filled me with false bravado. Forcing myself to take home the indistinguishable-from-each-other silicone-breasted club girls allowed me to pretend I wasn't bereft, that I didn't feel an emptiness that wasn't going to be filled with money or women or even the roar of the crowd when I scored (which at that time was still often).
I was such a cliché during those early years. The stereotypical young man with everything except the one thing he wanted: the girl. And not a single person around me wanted to hear about it. Not that I ever told anyone about Ellie, I just knew no one would be sympathetic. I started to hang around with Jessica Ray more often as our fake relationship progressed and we fake broke up and fake got back together. She'd picked up a bigger part on a new show and her career seemed to be on the upswing. I called her one night after a brunette, whose name I didn't know, left quickly after an almost-disastrous thirty-minute blowjob that I didn't think was going to be successful until I closed my eyes and thought about the way Ellie's ass looked in leggings. I finally finished and she got up, shifting her lower jaw back and forth, looking at me hopefully. When it became clear that I wasn't going to ask for her number she raised a perfectly-shaped eyebrow at me and looked down at my crotch.
"You shouldn't drink so much, Cade. You're too young to be having...issues."
So I called Jessica, because the alternative was sitting in bed in the dark, brooding.
"What's up, Cade? Do we have something tomorrow?"
"I dunno, do we? I know we've got the farmer's market this weekend but that's it."
"Oh my God," Jessica cackled, "that farmer's market! I wonder if they even make any money selling produce? I bet they're ninety percent funded by the paparazzi. And fame-whores like me."
She was laughing and upbeat, but she soon noticed that flat tone of my voice.
"Is something wrong, Cade?"
"Fuck, I don't know. Some chick just left. I barely managed to get off and she made a comment about it."
"Does that bother you?"
That was why I got along so well with Jessica. Once the awkwardness of her unreciprocated attraction to me wore off, she proved to be a bit of an emotional guru for me, always recognizing when something was wrong, often even before I did.
"Of course it bothered me. I'm young. Am I gonna have to start taking Viagra?"
"Was she ugly?"
"No, not at all. I think she was a model. I don't even know what the hell my problem is."
"It's that girl. The one back in Michigan."
I froze. I'd mentioned Ellie to Jessica a few times but I'd been careful to keep the tone casual. Or, I thought I had been.
"Yeah, the one
you're still in love with."
I was too surprised to say anything.
"Come on, Cade. You always talk about her."
"I do?"
"Yeah, and I can feel you trying to pretend like it's all casual and shit, but you get this goofy look in your eyes whenever you say her name."
"I do?" I said, again.
Jessica laughed out loud. "Yeah, you do. Don't be embarrassed, Cade. You think I didn't leave someone back in Ohio when I came out here to make it big?"
"Did you? And I'm not embarrassed, I just-"
She cut me off. "Yeah, you are embarrassed. I can hear it in your voice. You're embarrassed that you care for someone. Men are so dumb."
I lay back on the bed with my phone pressed to my ear, reeling. Was it that obvious? I had actually thought I was doing a halfway decent job of convincing myself that Ellie Hesketh was in the past and that any day now I was going to meet the woman who would be able to fill the Ellie-shaped hole in my heart.
When Jessica spoke again, her voice was gentler.
"I'm just teasing you, Cade. I know it's hard - I know it's especially hard for men. We all experience loss. Even smoking hot twenty-three year old hockey players who could have their pick of supermodels don't get everything they want. It's life. It sucks and you deal with it, there's nothing else to do."
I rubbed my hand across my forehead and flipped the light beside my bed on, laughing when I looked down.
"What?"
"I just...Jessica, there's pink lipstick on my cock."
She giggled. "Ugh, Cade, that poor girl. You probably gave her a complex or something. Not to mention a sore jaw."
"Ha. Yeah, probably. It sure took long enough. Fuck."
"So why don't you talk to this girl anymore? What happened?"
I sighed heavily. "Jessica, you don't want to know. My parents basically banned me from seeing her and moved us back to New York before I could even say goodbye. She didn't have a phone or e-mail and she didn't like me coming to her house."
"What? Why? That's super weird, Cade."
"No, it's not weird. Her mom was some kind of crazy alcoholic and they were really poor. She was ashamed of it."
"Oh, that's sad. But what's stopping you from going back and just talking to her?"
"I don't know. I mean, she's probably moved on. I sent her letters - actual letters, on paper - for a few months after I came out here, but she never responded. She has every right to be pissed about what a pussy I was. Besides, she probably has a new boyfriend, maybe even a husband. It was one of those really small towns where everyone gets married when they're nineteen."
"Sounds like an excuse to me, Cade."
It was an excuse. The truth was, I was terrified of seeing Ellie again. I knew I wouldn't be able to handle it if she had a boyfriend or a husband. It was like I'd convinced myself that if I didn't find out anything about her life I could pretend she was still back in North Falls, forever frozen in time as my first love.
Three months after that conversation with Jessica, I broke my wrist during practice and had to undergo immediate surgery with between two and three months of recuperation afterwards. It was right after surgery, as I lay sprawled out on one of the huge, cream-colored sofas in my living room, that it occurred to me to go back to North Falls.
My brain ran through the reasons why it was a bad idea. Ellie would probably be with someone else. She was probably still really angry with me. Even if she wanted to see me, she still wouldn't be able to leave North Falls. My parents would go crazy if they heard about it.
But I couldn't shake the idea. Woozy and dreamy on painkillers, I spent the next few days daydreaming about Ellie, something I didn't usually allow myself to do. She would be twenty-three years old, a woman. I couldn't help but smile at the thought of her being a grown woman. After all, it was technically me who made her one. Jessica encouraged me to go, telling me that even if Ellie hated my guts, at least it would keep me from torturing myself for the rest of my life over not having even tried.
So I did it. I bought a plane ticket and flew out alone with a baseball cap pulled almost all the way down over my eyes so no one would recognize me and a burning, almost painful anticipation growing inside me. I checked in to North Falls' only hotel, rented a car and then lay on the lumpy hotel bed with my legs hanging over the bottom edge, trying to work up the courage to do what I needed to.
Finally, I decided to go for a drive around town to calm myself down a little. Nothing had changed in North Falls. Every time I turned a corner part of me expected to see Ellie there in her flimsy winter coat with her mass of dark brown hair tumbling down over her shoulders. I drove to the mini-mall where the salon where she used to work was located - it was still there, and it was open. Feeling like a creep, I parked where I had a view of the front door and waited.
Not ten minutes later, she walked out. Her hair was different but it was definitely her. She was looking down, raking her hand through her purse, looking for something, and my heart was pounding so hard I thought it was going to burst.
Ellie. My beautiful, sweet, lovely girl. Tears sprung up in my eyes unbidden and I swiped them away quickly, blushing hard despite the fact that I was alone. Other than her hair, which was styled neatly in a way I'd never seen it before, everything else was the same. She took a phone out of her bag and I watched her body sag as she looked down at the screen. Five years later and my only instinct when I saw Ellie upset in any way was to comfort her. I couldn't, though. Not then. I couldn't just jump out of my rental car and scoop her up in my arms no matter how much I wanted to. She had a life. A life I knew nothing about. Maybe she had another man to wrap his arms around her and kiss away all her pain.
Ellie
The text message from Bill was vitriolic but, I'm ashamed to say, not unexpected. My boyfriend was prone to outbursts like that and our relationship was anything but stable. He was an unemployed single father to a four year old daughter. We met at the grocery store when she accidentally dropped a gallon of milk on the floor and I, having witnessed it, took her hand and led her away from the spill while Bill went to notify another store employee.
He was older than me, thirty-five, and not bad-looking for North Falls. That's pretty much all it took. Things were alright at first. Not like they'd been with Cade, but I'd long since put aside any fantasies about meeting a man like him again. Bill looked after the boys, allowing me to take on more work at the salon and the grocery store without worrying about who was caring for them. After the first six months, after we'd settled into a routine, things got rocky. Bill didn't seem any closer to finding a job - in fact he seemed more than happy to stay home with the little ones all day - and he started showing a petulant, angry side of his personality. He didn't hit me, though. And he wasn't an addict (although he certainly wasn't averse to a couple of nights a week at one of the local bars). That was enough. I didn't feel deprived or sad because I didn't allow myself to feel those things. I'd never had high expectations anyway. As long as my brothers were taken care of, that was good enough for me.
Bill did have a tiresome habit of breaking up with me every few months whenever I dared to express any kind of upset with him. That time, it had been about a job opening at the hardware store in the next town over from North Falls. I'd told him about it, lent him my car to go and fill out an application, and he hadn't done it. When I asked him why he flew into a whiny rage and told me he hadn't had the time because he'd been looking after my brothers. Tired after a long day at the salon, I'd responded badly, rolling my eyes and accusing him of making excuses. Which he was - the whole reason I'd lent him the car was so he could take the kids along - but that didn't matter. I got the text at work and went outside into the parking lot to read it so none of my nosy co-workers would see if I got upset.
"You're gonna have to cancel work tomorrow, Ellie. I'm going out. Also, I'm done with this shitty relationship. We're roommates from now on. Nothing more. I mean it this time, we're finished. Don't bother wait
ing up for me tonight, I'm going to the bar and I might meet someone."
Ah, there it was. The every-two-months break-up text, complete with threats to see other people. The first couple of times he'd done it, it had bothered me. Now it just annoyed me. If he wanted to be roommates, fine. I went without Cade Parker. I could definitely go without Bill Stanford. Still, the flat refusal to look after the kids, forcing me to take a day off work, pissed me off. Who did he think paid for his daughter's meals? Who did he think paid for his meals? I was sorely tempted to send a text back to him pointing this out but I held off, knowing it would just egg him on even further and possibly jeopardize another workday.
