by Blair Holden
“I want you to go with me.”
“Like on the set? Sure, I’ll go with you.” I trail off as he continues to kiss me.
“No, I mean I want to talk about you, and I want you to be in the magazine with me, as my girlfriend.”
I freeze and so does Cole. He holds me in place, though, knowing that my first instinct is to deck him.
“What? Are you out of your mind?”
“No,” his voice is determined, “everyone’s bugging you about questions about me, right? They want to know about us and our history and where I come from, then who better to possibly tell them about who I am than you, Tessie?”
Damn it, he knows how to get me with his words but this is out of the question. I begin struggling in his hold and reluctantly he lets go. I pace the floor for a while, trying to make sure he escapes the worst of my anger.
“Did you not just suggest we fake a breakup not even a month ago?”
He looks a little shamefaced. “I told you I’m sorry; it was a bad idea.”
“Yet when I suggested the same thing, you wouldn’t listen. It was your idea, I went through with it even though I thought it was stupid. It didn’t get people off my back, it just made the rumors worse. Add to that how things have turned out with my dad, and I could compete with Trump for the number of headlines I’ve managed to generate. And now you’ve changed your mind? That itself would be fine, but a magazine shoot? Really?”
He huffs and stalks toward me. “I messed up, okay? After hearing everything people have been saying to you, asking the kind of questions they are, I thought this would shut them up once and for all.”
“Or just attract more attention. Look, let’s just calm down and not...not do this. No magazine shoots, no front covers, no anything. I’m your girlfriend, and the entire world doesn’t need to know that.”
He grits his teeth. “But they do. If it ends even a small part of the gossip, then...”
“I don’t care about the gossip anymore, let people say what they want. Let them assume that I starve myself, let them think I’m depressed or have a horrifically tragic past, and if they want to assume that you dumped me because I trapped you into a fake pregnancy, just freaking let them.” I don’t realize by which point it is that I’m shouting, but by the end, I feel the tears start to prick at the back of my eyes, and maybe the reaction I’ve been holding in for days is finally starting to show itself.
“Tessa...baby, if I could do something, anything, to make all these people go away...”
“You can’t. But all I’m asking you right now to do is stop playing all these games. No shoots, no fake breakups, no nothing. Just stop trying to micromanage my life.”
I push past him and walk away faster than he could stop me, that too in six-inch heels.
***
You’d think it’s tiring to be so constantly in love with someone. It sounds like a real effort to essentially link your heart to someone else’s and not trust them to be careful with it. I’m afraid, and my past has made me so. But there’s something about being on the receiving end of a love so all-consuming and unconditional, strong and stable, supportive and cherishing that makes you brave.
After leaving Cole, I drift toward our usual haunts. After making a brief appearance at the Christmas party, Travis and Beth returned to their apartment, so I’m not at risk of anyone finding me. The town is pretty festive tonight; there’s only three days left till Christmas and the joy is infectious. I try not to think about what just transpired between Cole and me, because for the most part I know I was just taking out my own frustrations on him.
Finding a quiet place out by the ice rink, I pull out my phone, which these days has become an instrument designed especially to inflict torture, because nothing good ever comes of me checking my messages or social media.
I see a couple of messages from Cami that make me feel a little uneasy. There are way too many exclamation marks included for my liking, and a link to something that I know I won’t like but it’s begging me to open it, calling my name, and so I click on it...
“I can explain.” My eyes dart from the article that I’ve just pulled up to Cole, who’s standing right in front of me.
“How did you even find me?”
“It wasn’t that hard.” The smug bastard pushes his hands in his pocket, or maybe he’s just cold?
“I followed you, but I wanted to give you the chance to cool down a bit. That was quite the speech you gave in there.”
“But...”
“Scoot over.” He tries to steal my bench space but I don’t give in. “No, first you need to tell me why there’s a giant photo of us on this website with the title...” I bring my phone closer and make sure to enunciate every single word carefully, “‘The Girl Behind His Success: Cole Stone’s In-Depth Interview about the Woman Who Changed His Life,’ really?”
He forces his way on the bench anyway and wraps an arm around my shoulder. “It has a nice ring to it, right?”
I whip my head toward him, “Are you crazy? Did you not hear a word of what I’ve just said to you?”
“If it helps, I did this interview two days ago.”
“But...but...this is a major website! Everyone’s going to read it and...” I sputter, but he squeezes me closer to him.
“And whoever reads this,” he tells me, “is going to find out about the girl that’s made me who I am today and who inspires me to work my hardest and do my best every single day.”
I continue to stare at him.
“I’m sorry if you think I play with your emotions or try to micromanage your life,” I wince as I remember my little show, “but it kills me to see you like this, and I’ll do whatever I can to fix it. Sometimes when I do that, I might make stupid mistakes, but you’ve got to know that anything I do for you is only because just the idea of you being hurt is my worst nightmare.”
And then he kisses me because he knows I’m no longer angry, and he knows what he’s just done for me. Whenever I retreat too far back into my own head, he knows exactly what to do to calm that storm that always threatens to take me over. So maybe his methods aren’t always perfect and he has a tendency to misdirect his good intentions, but who else can claim that her boyfriend put himself out on the internet for everyone to judge him just so that she could appear in a better light?
Chapter Seven: I’m as Stable as Nana Stone after Three Shots of Tequila
“A little to the left, that’s it! Perfect, hold it there.”
My cheeks hurt from having to maintain that “coy-yet-girl-next-door” smile on my face that I’d been told to give to the camera. It’s been five hours since we arrived at the studio, and far be it for them to actually give Cole and me a break. He’d been set to work the moment he arrived while I was prepped for the interview by a lawyer his parents insisted we have around.
A lawyer who is very lucky to still be alive after the things he’s said to me.
Moments like these make me wish I kept Steve around more often. Steve happens to be a very nice man hired by my grandfather to watch over the family as the campaign gets slightly ugly. I feel like Steve might come in handy if I ever try to kill Raymond “The Dick” Dickson, and need help hiding his body. Because Steve, for one, looks like a man who has buried several bodies.
The Dick, who is a sports lawyer extraordinaire and the Stones’ lawyer of choice, is currently listing all the things I am not allowed to talk about, which means basically ninety percent of my life. It’s nice to know I’ve led such a controversial and unspeakable life up until this point; it’ll be a nice story to tell the grandchildren.
My personal favorite? “You’d never believe this but back in the day, our housekeeper Nicole used to be...”
Yes, Nicole has again been relegated to the doghouse because of her brilliantly misfired attempt to actually help me. This fake breakup has been more of a headache than actually being constantly under attack by the football floozies. Going back to the checklist the Dick—oh wait, I’m sorr
y, Raymond—has been going over with me, I try to forget the following:
My brother ever being kicked out of college and his love for a good old shot of tequila or, you know, five.
My father, who of course has done the family name proud in the past with his public affairs with women young enough to be my sisters. That and the fact that my mother went to town with the secrets of their failed marriage. Do people really want to know that she caught him with their housekeeper in the laundry room? I think not.
My mother, no further explanation needed.
Weight. How much I weighed or how I lost it. Anything that remotely makes people think I’m less of a quarterback girlfriend-bot.
Something else that I’m probably forgetting and will likely blurt out later on.
“You guys really complement each other, some fantastic symmetry there.” The photographer changes our position and continues to take multiple shots that blind me. He moves me in front of Cole and has him wrap his arms around my waist.
“I want you to look into the camera and channel a little Darcy mixed in with some Thor.”
“I’m sorry; what?” My sweet, sweet boyfriend doesn’t really speak fangirl language, so I help him out a bit.
“You need to look at the camera like you want to pummel someone but still look sexy and brooding and hurt while doing it.”
“Is that even possible?”
“Of course it is, babe; haven’t you seen all those magazines in my room that have Ryan Gosling on the cover?”
“I have,” he mutters begrudgingly, because Cole has never been a fan of my obsession with the fine, fine male specimen.
“Just pretend you’re him and we’ll have all the cheerleaders climbing out of their skirts to get to you.” I say that a little more darkly than anticipated and Cole picks it up, but before he can point it out, our photographer thankfully yells that I’m a genius and the Gosling look is exactly what he’s looking for.
Aren’t we all; aren’t we all?
***
The photography portion of today is over and thankfully there was no nightwear or body oil involved. We didn’t even do any risqué posing and things were kept quite PG. I think Dickson vetoed any removal of clothing, though he kept looking at me like I’d rip my clothes off and seduce my boyfriend into pretending we’re on a Playboy shoot. I have no idea why he thinks I’m a brainless, fame-hungry bimbo, but that’s exactly how he’s been treating me so far. He’s clever of course and hides his disdain for me when Cole’s around, but he hasn’t made it a secret that he wishes I wasn’t in Cole’s life or that Cole wasn’t so insistent that he wants us to be front-page news.
I’m in one of the makeshift dressing rooms in the studio we’re working from, taking my makeup off when the man himself walks in. He’s your standard sports lawyer, ready to slit a throat for their moneymaking clients and has an impressive roster of clients. But Dick is also the kind of person who gives people the general impression that anyone who’s not important to him is the scum of the earth. I would happen to fall into that territory because unlike Cole, he can’t look at me and see potential dollar signs, but men like him don’t intimidate me. I’ve been around men like him my entire life, people who’d come to the grand parties my grandparents would throw for my father and look down upon anything that couldn’t benefit them in some way.
So I’m not exactly cowering in my high heels when he slithers his way into the room and gives me a hard look.
“The interviewer should be here in ten minutes. I hope you’re ready.”
I give him a saccharine smile instead of the middle finger that’s itching to point itself toward him.
“Of course, all I have to do is play the dumb-but-affectionate girlfriend who cannot wait to see all her boyfriend’s dreams come true. And if she asks me what my own hopes and dreams are, I’ll tell her that they all begin and end with a pink KitchenAid.”
He scowls. “Don’t be smart with me. You can do naked cartwheels on the quad in your personal time for all I care, but where my client is concerned, you will listen to me; he has a reputation to maintain, and your father’s dirty politics almost ruined it. So you better make this right.”
I space out around the four-minute mark and tune him out. I can see his mouth moving, his nostrils flaring, and his hands clenching into fists, but this is as entertaining as watching toilet paper infomercials. If he thinks he can bring me down or make me disappear, then the guy better know that I’d do that in a heartbeat if I thought that my relationship with Cole could ruin his future. But the future increasingly seems to be one that even Cole doesn’t seem to want. While he’s been great about the shoot today, I can tell that he isn’t in it one hundred percent today. It’s almost like he becomes someone else when people try to talk to him about college and the NFL.
Regardless, I would never want to be the reason why he can’t make his dreams come true. But all this utter crap he’s spouting? Yeah, it’s way out of bounds and none of his business. As long as the player delivers on the field, teams don’t care, because they’re basically recruiting raw talent. Cole would have to be one heck of a hell-raiser—well, he’d have to be his old self—for a team not to draft him because of his personal life.
All this I’ve been told by my wise older brother with whom I’d had a brief meltdown over the phone earlier in the day. But he’s been extremely reassuring and made it quite obvious where I could tell Dickson to shove his opinions.
He walks out after continuing his spiel for a little while longer, and I’m not sure if he realizes that I never heard the last half of whatever poison he’d been spewing. But luckily or perhaps unluckily in this situation, Cole walks in the moment Dickson is out of earshot, his eyebrows adorably scrunched.
“What did he want?”
Cole, like me, is not the biggest fan of his lawyer, but unlike me, he hasn’t yet got an idea of how big of a weasel the man truly is. His parents think he walks on water so Dickson must be somewhat decent at his job, but his personality is as appealing as hairy moles. But I do feel tempted to shake him up a little and ask him why he’s suddenly got a lawyer shadowing him if the idea of playing professional football makes him miserable.
“Nothing,” I bat my lashes for extra effect, “he just wanted to go over some interview questions. He doesn’t want me to be taken aback if the interviewer brings up the article.” I’m not going to out Dick yet or tell Cole just how big of a douche he truly is. They have a good professional relationship and I’m a big girl. Dickson doesn’t scare me and hell if I let him. So Cole does not need to either know or worry about that.
“This is going to be good.” Cole comes closer and cups my cheek. He looks and smells delicious, like a feast laid out before me. They’ve got him in a suit sans tie for an individual shoot and I’m salivating, but more importantly than that, I recall how supportive and loving he’s been today. He knows that I’m scared out of my mind. I’m not a lights, cameras, and flashes kind of girl. Being put in the spotlight is my worst nightmare, and while I’ve gotten progressively better at dealing with attention, it’s still terrifying to deal with. Sometimes it feels like I’m underwater, struggling to breathe and fighting my way to the surface. All the people watching me, silently judging me, waiting for me to mess up...these are the thoughts that have taken up a large space in my head today, but Cole’s been there every step of the way. He’s my rock, the way he’s always been, but I think he realized today that I would need to lean on him more than ever today.
He really did come through for me today.
“So you’re ready?” He nods his head toward the interview room and I take the hand he’s extended toward me. “Let’s do this.”
***
The room we’re sitting in is like a Pottery Barn pinup model. I assume it’s to make people feel at home or comfortable in the particular setting, but all it’s managed to do so far is creep me out. There’s something about a space that’s too perfect, and I’m one fluffy white pillow away from
hightailing it out of this room.
Cole seems to echo my sentiment; he leans closer so that he’s whispering in my ear. “When we get our own place, remind me never to get a fucking white couch.”
“Or that ugly quilted blanket.” I shiver in revulsion. It has doll faces on it, creepy Chucky doll faces. How is this supposed to make me feel comfortable?
“Hello there,” a soft voice chimes, and we direct our gazes away from the goose-bumps-inducing furniture toward the door from where our interviewer has just entered. We’d been told that Claire is a favorite with the readers and that she’s interviewed several players in the short time she’s been with the magazine. Crop top, high-waist skirt, thigh-high boots, and a perfectly made-up face give the impression that she should be writing for Cosmo not for a college ball magazine, but the next twenty minutes prove me entirely wrong.
“Hi,” we greet her and then it’s quickly down to business. She gives us a brief run-through of the kind of questions she’s going to ask; of course we’ve already been prepped for them. Dickson is nothing if not prepared. She then tells us that there’s nothing to be afraid of and that the article would be primarily focusing on Cole and his game, but I find it hard to believe. Dick Vader wouldn’t be here if it were all so simple.
She coddles us like children, but it’s her safety that I fear for. Dickson’s presence looms large in the room, and as misplaced as he is on the rocking chair, I can see that his being here is unnerving Claire. She politely asks him to leave a couple of times, but he doesn’t move an inch and glares at the poor young girl long enough to make her break out in a sweat.
See? I’m as tough as nails.
“So,” she stutters following her awfully comedic confrontation with Dickson, “let’s start then?”
The first half of the interview is mostly focused on football, and Cole handles it brilliantly. He’s humble and eloquent, not letting any of Claire’s trick questions get to him. When she asks him about his future, I sense the deep-seated hesitation again. He leaves it open-ended because no one like a player who’s too full of himself. There are moments when his love for the game shines through, and I’m glad that we worked through whatever problems we had on that front, but the reluctance is very much there. Probably it’s not the game that’s the problem; it’s partly the package it comes with, and I know that we can work our way through that.
