Pretending Hearts (15 page)

“Nice is usually the kiss of death. I went out with a guy named Will and I had to hear over and over again from Autumn about how nice he was. I gave him a chance and then look what happened. I’m single again,” Casey complained.

“You’re single because Will got kicked out of school for illegal gambling and you didn’t want to date him long distance,” Autumn reminded her.

Casey waved her off. “So, besides nice, what else can you tell us about Levi?”

“Well, he has two older twin brothers and they’re in his band along with his best friend. He’s been working for the college since he graduated high school two years ago, but I think he plans to try and get work with his brothers eventually. They’re part of a steel workers union,” I explained

Casey cut me off. “Seriously? You sound like you’re doing an A&E bio. I want to know the good stuff. Like is he a good kisser? Are his brothers hot?”

“His brothers are good looking, but they come across like players. Levi doesn’t seem like that kind of guy. Nice may sound boring, but I actually like that about him. Wyatt was such an ass. It’s refreshing to hang out with someone who’s not madly in love with himself,” I said.

I had been a fool about Wyatt. I had the silly notion I could tame him. I had seen the signs of his arrogance early on, but I had gotten it into my head I was special and he’d want to be a different person for me. Wyatt needed a mechanical girl. A girl who would do what he said without question. She would have no past and make no demands on him. And although my pride was in the gutter by how he dumped me, I was thankful for being freed from a disappointing relationship.

“And Blake takes the field,” Casey put on an announcer voice. Autumn pulled her focus away from us and stared intently at the television. She was entranced by the image and although Autumn would be insulted by the comparison, I was reminded of my mom. They both were trying to bridge the distance by being avid watchers of Blake’s games.

Looking at my brother on the field did make me happy. If anyone deserved fame and fortune, it was him. He’d never taken shortcuts. He was driven and focused on succeeding at football. I was sure he had natural talent, but all of the extra training and summer camps he had attended helped him hone his skills.

Blake made a catch and Autumn leapt to her feet. Blake danced around the defense for Cleveland and made his way down the field. Autumn was cheering as the yards between him and the goal line diminished. About ten yards away from scoring, the opposing team caught up and jumped on him aggressively. I winced as I watched the hard hits he took before falling to the ground. After the whistle blew, the players began to untangle their bodies and move away from my brother. I drew in a quick breath as I watched Blake remain down on the field.

“No,” I heard Autumn whisper.

I wandered in a daze to the TV set. Blake was still on the ground and by the camera angle, I couldn’t tell if he was conscious or not. I heard the announcer state that number seventeen was injured and they’d return shortly after a commercial break. Blake’s image was replaced by a coffee ad.

“Oh god, he can’t be hurt,” Autumn moaned. She dived for her phone and I watched her frantically hit the buttons. She pressed the headset to her ear and closed her eyes. Tears began to slide down her cheeks. “I just saw what happened. Please call me to say you’re okay. I
need
you to be okay. I love you so much.”

I stopped listening to her. My throat began to ache and I felt tears start to build up behind my eyes. I could hear how much she loved my brother in her voice. And as I waited to find out how injured he was, I felt ashamed for each time I wished them apart.

The game resumed and the announcer stated Blake had been removed from the field and he was taken to the trainer for evaluation. His condition would be posted once the sportscaster received word. Autumn had hung up the phone and I watched her pale as she listened to the broadcast.

“He’s fine, Autumn. Blake is tough and he’ll be calling you as soon as he can,” Casey said. She wrapped an arm around Autumn and began to rub her shoulders in a soothing gesture.

“I’m scared. I’ve seen him get knocked around before, but he’s always gotten up.
Always
,” she said in a shaky whisper.

“Couldn’t he be a bowler?” Casey groaned.

Autumn gave her a sad smile. “I hate that I’m not there with him. I feel so helpless waiting around for the phone to ring.”

I sat on the other side of Autumn. “He’ll call as soon as he can. Blake’s first thought will be to make sure you know he’s okay.”

My words weren’t hollow. Blake and Autumn had an unbreakable bond and they’d always put the other person first. Blake may have been in excruciating pain, but he’d be more concerned Autumn was hurting for him.

My phone rang and I tensed as I scanned the screen. My mom was calling. She would also be hysterical over seeing Blake injured. Although her relationship with my brother was tense, she still loved him. And if I was honest, I sometimes wondered if she loved him best.

“Hi Mom, I just saw Blake get hurt,” I said in greeting.

My mom sobbed. “I don’t know anything. They’ve only said he was taken in for evaluation. Was he knocked out? I couldn’t tell. I understand that they don’t want to exploit the injured player by zooming in on him, but they’re not giving out any information….”

“The angle was hard to see, but he looked to be moving. Maybe he was trying to stay still until he got checked out,” I said in a hopeful voice.

“If you talk to him, Delia. Can you have him call me? We didn’t have the best conversation the last time we spoke, but the idea of him hurt….”

“As soon as I hear anything, I’ll call you, Mom.”

I hung up to the sound of Autumn’s quiet sobbing. I pushed down the urge to break down. Blake being hurt was terrifying, but I wanted to be strong in the way he would be in any given situation. Casey shot me a helpless look as she tried to comfort Autumn. But the only balm to heal Autumn was to hear from my brother.

Several minutes later, I held my breath as Autumn’s phone rang. Autumn answered in a rush. “Blake, what happened?” Her entire body collapsed in relief after a brief pause.

After a breath, she said in a calmer voice. “You’re okay? Thank god.” The tension in my body lessened with the news my brother was obviously not seriously injured. Concern was still set in Autumn’s features, but she didn’t appear devastated by whatever Blake was telling her.

“Blake, if the doctor is telling you to get off the phone, then you should go,” Autumn was saying. She continued, “I love you too… Yes, your sister is here… I’ll let her know. Call me back as soon as you can.”

Autumn bit down on her lip as she hung up and seemed to mull over what my brother had told her. Suddenly, she must’ve noticed my anxious expression because she addressed me, “Blake says that he’s fine. He was knocked out, but he said he came to after a few seconds. Nothing feels broken to him, but his shoulder is sore. They are going to take him for x-rays despite his insistence he’s ready to go back out and play.”

“Does he have a concussion from being knocked out?”

She nodded. “Sounds like it. He says he passed the initial neuro exam, but I imagine your brother could do that by sheer force of will.”

I had to smile. “He is stubborn.” Autumn continued wringing her hands together and I could tell she was still concerned despite Blake’s insistences of being fine. “But he’s also strong. He’s going to be okay.”

“He wanted me to tell you that he’s not seriously hurt and… to let your mom know the same.” Autumn appeared uncomfortable and I could imagine what she felt like relaying the news. My mother and Autumn had a long and hateful history which continued to haunt them both.

Autumn’s willingness to put aside her dislike of my mom was further proof of the depth of her feelings for my brother. As my worry over Blake subsided, I was beginning to realize just how much I’d been trying not to see what Blake and Autumn meant to each other. Their relationship wasn’t based on revenge against my father. They were madly in love.

And to be honest, I felt like I was in the middle of an epiphany. Why had I been running from relationships? Why had I been so anti-love? Although I had told myself at the time I wanted a relationship with Wyatt, it hadn’t been true. If I sought a serious relationship, I wouldn’t have chosen to date someone whom I could never truly love.

I’d been caught up in the consequences of love: the heartbreak, the vulnerability, the loss of self. I never considered what I could be missing out on by never allowing myself the chance to fall in love.

Walking back into the dorm hurt more than I anticipated. I despised the feeling that I had been chased off like a dog with fleas. In the span of minutes, Wyatt and Georgie had made me feel worthless. I resented my mom for planting the seed Wyatt and Georgie were more worthwhile because of their monetary value.

“Thanks for coming with me,” I said softly to Levi at my side.

After the scare with my brother, I had called Levi. I wasn’t assuming he’d be the guy I’d finally open up to, but I had to admit something was there. Something I really wanted to explore. Levi may not have fit my traditional mold of the type of guy I was attracted to, but with my spectacular failures with my men, I was ready to explore other alternatives.

On a whim, I asked Levi to come along for moral support while going back to the dorm to retrieve the rest of my stuff. I didn’t want to face the chance of running into Georgie on my own and I also figured moving would go much swifter if he came along to help. 

When he picked me up at my apartment, I was tongue-tied. His smile was wide with a noticeable dimple in his right cheek. His hazel eyes looked lighter in the sunlight and I had to remind myself to stop gaping at them like a creeper. He assaulted my senses—making it impossible to ignore my attraction.

The best feature of Levi was how open his expression always appeared—he never seemed to conceal how he felt. After all the family secrets, I was attracted to the quality.

Levi matched my pace as we traveled to my dorm room. Deliberately, I took hurried steps to get to the dorm. I hadn’t memorized Georgie’s schedule, but I believed she had morning classes for the next couple of hours. I knew Georgie would delight in embarrassing me in front of Levi, but I wanted to avoid a reiteration of the last time I’d seen her.

On my way to the dorm room, I passed a few familiar faces on my floor. A couple of girls sent a hesitant wave my way, but I could see the questions in their eyes. My ex-roommate was quick to spin her tale of how I’d been harboring deep and dark secrets during my time at Cook.

Levi was quiet at my side. I found his silence soothing. I liked the fact he wasn’t talkative—a trait that made me feel as if his words carried more weight.

Thankfully, my key card still worked and I was able to slip inside my old room. I could sense Levi close behind me. He shut the door softly as I turned on the lights. I grimaced as I saw Georgie had taken advantage of my leaving and had spread out most of her stuff to my side of the room. From a quick inspection, I noticed most of my things were still where I had left them. At least, Georgie hadn’t decided to take the leap to complete psychopath and trash my belongings.

“Is this the crazy roomie?” Levi’s voice interrupted my scrutiny of the room.

I turned to his voice and saw him looking at the photos displayed on Georgie’s desk. He had zeroed in on a particularly obnoxious selfie of Georgie and I bit back a smile. Georgie’s cheeks were flushed and her hair plastered to her face as she held up a red, white, and blue cosmo she’d been drinking at a Fourth of July party last summer. The picture wasn’t flattering, but Georgie had told me she hung it up because if you squinted the right way you could make out a Kardashian in the background who had also been in attendance.

“Yes,” I said distractedly. My gaze diverted away from the photo wall to the screensaver on Georgie’s laptop. Before I left, she had used a photo of her and her girlfriends partying at the beach over the summer. The picture had been replaced by the image of Georgie and Wyatt in a tight embrace with Wyatt kissing Georgie on the cheek. From an outsider perspective, the picture could merely portray a cute platonic pose between friends. But there was an intimacy between them that I hadn’t seen before. The way Georgie’s eyes sparkled and Wyatt’s shit-eating grin told me I’d been blind to not see the animosity between the two of them was their approach to fight an obvious attraction.

“Who’s that?” Levi asked gesturing in the direction of the computer.

“He’s my ex,” I said and spun away from the computer. I was single-minded as I pulled out the empty suitcase from under my old bed and opened it. I began to toss the clothes out of my drawers into the suitcase.

I stopped when I felt Levi’s hand on my shoulder. His eyes widened with concern. “Are you okay? You seem upset….”

I kept my eyes fixed on the ground. “I’m not upset. I mean I’m not going to assume they’re together because she changed her screensaver. But if they are, I’m happy. I can’t think of two better soulless people who deserve each other.”

The forcefulness of my statement didn’t seem to convince Levi of my sincerity. I refused to be bothered by Wyatt moving on. The nausea I’d been feeling since coming into the room, I’d chalk up to bad memories and not any longing to return to a guy who spent more time fixing his hair than on foreplay.