Page 28 of Hell Bent (Portland Devils #5)

THE MOST AGGRAVATING WOMAN

Sebastian

Alix called me at eight the next evening, to my surprise. Hey, I thought as I swiped my phone to answer, this is going better and better. I moved out of the living room and into my bedroom, because, yes, there was another car-crash-and-explosions movie playing on the big-screen TV.

As soon as I answered the phone, Alix said, “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!”

“Uh … what?” I racked my brain for what I hadn’t told her. As far as I was concerned, I’d had to tell her way too much.

“You saved a touchdown!”

“Uh … yeah.” I was confused. “Were you in the ladies’ room or something?”

“Of course I wasn’t in the ladies’ room. We missed a lot of the game, is what, because of the hangover deal.”

“Oh.” I felt somehow lighter. “Well, yeah. I made a tackle. One tackle. That’s not all that impressive. Not like I’m a defensive back or something.”

“Sebastian.” That stern voice of hers, the one I kinda dug.

Her foreman voice, I was guessing. “The announcers said it was a perfect kickoff, which is harder now, because …. something something rules, and then you tackled about the hardest guy to tackle in the game! And kicked the winning field goal! At least I saw that one. Why didn’t you say anything when I didn’t mention it, though? ”

“Because it would’ve been a dick move?” I was smiling now. Couldn’t help it.

“You must have thought I didn’t care,” she said. “You must have been hurt.”

“Hey. I’m thirty-one years old. I’m a professional athlete. I can’t afford to get hurt when somebody doesn’t tell me what a strong, brave boy I am.”

She saw right through that one, because she said, “Come on. You thought, ‘Who is this woman that she’s not impressed by something that impressive? And why am I hanging out with her?’”

“Maybe a tiny bit.”

“Ha,” she said, and I laughed.

“What I did think,” I said, “was that nobody pounds you on the back after you do your job. Or shows it on replay to millions of people as an example of excellent wiring. They expect you to do it, that’s all.”

“Oh, come on,” she said. “How can I bask in your reflected glory if you won’t even reflect it?”

“Don’t stop basking on my account.” I knew my smile was foolish, but nobody else could see it, so that worked.

“Hey,” she said. “Let me talk to Ben.”

“Uh … sure. Is that it, then? No phone sex?”

“Get over yourself,” she said, and I laughed again. Then I went and got Ben.

“Huh?” he said, not looking away from the TV.

“Pause it,” I said. “Alix wants to talk to you.”

“Oh.” He did pause it. He also sat up and smoothed his hair.

Alix had made an impression. I didn’t hear much more for a while, just, “No way,” a few times, and, finally, “Yeah, he told me. See you on Saturday, I guess.” Another pause, and he said, “Are you kidding? No, thanks. OK. Saturday,” and hung up.

I took the phone from him. “Good talk?”

“She says I should watch the replay of the third quarter. Before we got there.” He did the kind of ultrafast remote-clicking and fast-forwarding that only somebody who watches a lot of TV manages, then asked, “When was it?”

I felt pretty stupid by this point, as you can imagine. I said, “It wasn’t that big a deal. Go back to your show.”

“Alix said I should look, though. She’s, like, strict. She’ll probably quiz me on Saturday, and she’ll know if I watched it or not and give me a whole lecture about appreciating other people. She made a joke about the hangover already. I mean, geez, I get it, OK? It’s easier just to watch it.”

I had to laugh, and I took the remote from him, showed him the play, which lasted about thirty seconds, and said, “There you go. My big moment.”

He said, taking the remote from me and rewinding to watch it again, “Do you get paid more if you do that? Tackle?”

I laughed again. “I have no idea.”

“The announcers are saying that kickers are going to have to tackle more now,” he said. “How come?”

I explained the kickoff rule change, and he said, “Huh.”

“It makes kickoffs more exciting, more of a contest, is the idea,” I said. “I was afraid Coach would say today that I shouldn’t have done it, but he didn’t. Said instead that I should up my tackling practice so I can do it better next time, so I guess for once, the announcers got it right.”

“Yeah?” Ben asked, not moving to restart his demolition derby of a movie. “So is that cool with you? Having to tackle?”

“Yes. It felt good. New, but good. I’m a pretty good size for a kicker, and pretty mobile, too, because of the soccer. That helps.”

He seemed to think about that, then said, “It would kind of suck just to kick and nothing else. The other guys are all celebrating and stuff, and you’re just kicking and running off.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Astute of you. You’re part of the team, but … sometimes not so much.”

“Huh,” he said again. “I used to watch you play soccer.”

“Yeah?” I sat beside him and shoved a hand into his popcorn bowl.

Nothing wrong with popcorn, diet-wise. He’d disapproved of my vegetable-intensive dinner, but he’d eaten it, filling in the edges with chocolate milk, a second baked potato, a bowl of cereal, and now popcorn.

I was seriously reevaluating my next grocery order.

“You’re better at football,” he said, and once again, I was laughing. Laughing, grabbing him around the neck, and rumpling his hair in the way I’d done when he was a little kid, and he was ducking and laughing himself.

“Whatever pays the bills,” I said.

“Is that really what it’s like?” he asked. “You’re not part of the team? I’d think it’d still be cool.”

“You’re right, it’s still pretty cool. And I shouldn’t say that. I’m feeling more like part of the team now. I’m new, that’s all.”

“Girls want to go out with you, for one thing,” he said, refusing to be redirected. “Like Alix.”

I considered denying it, but said instead, “You have to figure out what they want you for.”

“Yeah, right. Obviously it couldn’t be the money.”

“If that’s why, they’re pretty ignorant. More than half of retired NFL players go broke.”

He stared at me. “No way.”

“Way. I guess you get used to making the big bucks and don’t make a plan.

And have forty or fifty more years of life ahead of you to spend money in, of course.

That’s where it’s better not to be a superstar and not get used to it in the first place.

And then there’s the TBI deal. Traumatic brain injury.

How about broke and psychotic? Would that make you want to sign up? ”

He said, “Man.”

“I know, right? Maybe we should tell Alix to run for her life.”

“So you don’t give women good presents or anything, I guess. Because then it would be all about your money, and you couldn’t tell if they were gold-diggers or not.”

“What?” I asked. “Where does this come from?”

“My mom said that you probably blew all the soccer money on women, because you never bought a house and never married anyone, just had a bunch of hot girlfriends, but that you’d probably learned your lesson now that you’ve ‘fallen down the ladder of success.’ That was before you started playing for the NFL, obviously. ”

“Obviously,” I agreed. It was a comfort to realize your family held you in such high regard.

“Yeah,” Ben said. “This is a pretty nice place, I guess, but it’s still not a house.

You don’t have much of a car, and Alix said that dinner we had was, like, the third time you guys had gone out.

The first time was a burger place, and this one wasn’t all that fancy either.

There weren’t even tablecloths or anything, so I figured … ”

I said, “I didn’t blow all the money on women and I’m not doing it now, but not because they’re gold-diggers. I’m not extravagant, because that would be stupid, but I’ve had plenty of money to buy reasonable presents when necessary. And to take women out, too.” Geez, I sounded stuffy.

“Oh.” Ben considered that. “So you are going to get Alix a birthday present.”

“What? Of course. Whenever that comes up. ”

“Dude,” Ben said, “it’s in about two weeks. January fifteenth.”

I stared at him. “How would you know that? You haven’t been getting in her wallet, have you?”

He sighed. “Maybe because she bought a bottle of wine at the grocery store and had to show her ID, and the clerk made a joke about her turning thirty and it being all downhill from there? No, I haven’t been getting in her wallet. Nice. Would I tell you if I had? No. So obviously, that isn’t how.”

“All right,” I said. “Good to know.”

“So what are you going to get her,” he asked, “that isn’t extravagant?

How do you not be insulting if you’re some multi-millionaire and she’s an electrician if it’s not extravagant?

What, you’re going to get her a vacuum cleaner or something?

Or—hey. Here’s a good one. Welding gloves.

” He was laughing. “Dude. Face it. You’re just cheap. ”

“She’s not a welder, though,” I said. “So the welding gloves are out. And excuse me? I’m cheap? In what way? Do not say ‘the car.’ I like my car. It’s a hybrid. It’s environmentally conscious and extremely practical.”

Ben rolled his eyes. I said, “Wait and see,” and stood up. And he made cheeping noises like a little baby bird.

Yes, he did. Unfortunately for my quasi-parental authority, I laughed.

I wasn’t laughing at seven o’clock Sunday morning.

I’d talked to both Alix and Ben from the hotel the night before. Ben had continued to express his low opinion of starting his school assignments with his new tutor “when the term hasn’t even started yet!”

When I’d said, “First, I’m taking you to see your mom a week from Tuesday as well as your school days being shorter, and we need to be sure you’re keeping up.

And what are you going to do otherwise, watch TV all day?

” he'd answered, “Yeah, because that’s what a person does during their break! It’s not like I have any friends to hang out with.

” To which I’d answered, “Hence Thomas. Hanging out with you and helping you with school.”

“Yeah,” he’d muttered, “like I’m going to be enjoying hanging out with some old guy.” Thomas was twenty-two, played Ultimate Frisbee, and was long-haired and cool. Possibly too cool for Ben, but I thought Ben was just intimidated.

My conversation with Alix had been shorter. Too short, in fact. Her answers had been nearly monosyllabic, with none of the teasing I was used to getting from her, and all kinds of alarm bells had gone off. Now, they were going off more.

“Ben will be at your game,” she was saying, “but I can’t make it.”

“What?” I said. “Of course you don’t have to come, and I know it’s early, a ten o’clock game, but …”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m getting him an Uber, and we put the app on his phone so he can get home. I’m sure he’ll be all right. He says he will. He’s?—”

“Of course he’ll be all right. What’s going on with you, though?

Look, I know it’s a lot, Ben and Solange and all that, especially since you’re supposed to be on your life reboot or whatever this is, and you’re working that job.

If it’s that, go on and take a big old step back.

I can get Thomas to stay with him on the weekends. ”

“No,” she said, sounding so tired. Tired of what? Me? Work? What? “I’m under the weather, that’s all.”

“Oh. Sorry to hear that. What’s the problem?”

“If you must know,” she said, “my period.”

“Oh.” I laughed. “Glad it’s nothing worse.”

“Yeah. I’ll see you this afternoon. I may not be …”

“Hey,” I said. “If you’re not up for going out, we’ll stay in and sit on the couch. Works for me. I ordered another one, by the way.”

“Another one what?” Still sounding distracted.

“Another couch. Coming next week. Since Ben’s lying on the one I’ve got every single time I come home. Usually with Lexi, which leaves about zero room for me.”

“I noticed that,” she said.

“If you’re not feeling good, make him get off it and let you lie down. He can sit in a chair for once.”

“Honestly,” she said, “I was in bed by eight last night. It wasn’t a problem.”

“OK. Look—I have to go. Take care of yourself.”

“I will. It’s no big deal. Have a great game. I’ll watch you. I can even lie on the couch once Ben leaves.” Which sounded at least marginally normal.

When I got home, though, she wasn’t there.

Ben said, when I asked, “I don’t know. She texted me that she was out and running late, but I figured she’d be back before me. It took me forever to get home. I just got here about half an hour ago. I should’ve run home instead like we did last time.”

I said, “Well, she’s not obligated to be here all the time, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Ben said, “but after she said she couldn’t go to your game? Now she went someplace else instead?”

“She’ll have a reason,” I said.

“Maybe she figured out that thing about the money,” he said. “That football players end up broke. Or just that you’re cheap.”

I was about to answer that when I heard the front door open. I looked up, so did Ben, and there she was, coming in from the hall. Yoga pants, long-sleeved T-shirt, hair in a ponytail, no makeup. Her face, though …

I said, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I’m fine. I’m sorry you guys beat me home. I got delayed. Had to wait.” She sank into a chair, still holding her purse, still wearing her coat. “And I didn’t even get to watch the end of the game. What happened?”

I said, “Hang on. Hang on, now.”

“What?” she said. Ben didn’t say anything. He was looking at Alix, looking at me.

“Something’s wrong,” I said. “What?”

“I told you,” she said. “I sometimes have painful periods. I’m fine.”

Ben said, “Oh, gross.” He said it under his breath, but Alix said, no trace of her normal humor in her voice, “Women have periods. Every woman in the world, every single month until menopause, unless they’re pregnant.

Half the population. It’s a fact of life, and it’s nothing we need to be ashamed of and nothing we need to hide. Get used to it.”

“OK,” Ben said. “Geez.”

I stood up. Alix eyed me warily and said, “I’ll be good to go out. I’ll lie down for an hour or two and?—”

I said, “Come talk to me.”

“What?” she said. “I told you, I’m?—”

I said, “First, though, I’m going to get you a heating pad.”

“No,” she said. “I need ice. And I’ll get it.”

“You won’t get it. I’ll get it. You are the most aggravating woman in the world. Come lie down and rest and tell me what the hell is going on.”

Ben said, “Wow. That’s not how my mom says you should talk to women.” But I wasn’t listening.