Jugador: The Mendoza Family, page 13
Brian stopped me. “Lily, don’t say anything about this. Nothing happened here, so don’t turn this into something you aren’t equipped to handle.”
I cocked one eyebrow, while my temper was simmering at the surface. “Oh, you mean don’t leak anything to the press about how Everyone’s All-American doesn’t have as squeaky clean an image as everyone believes? Wouldn’t want him to lose some of those wholesome commercial endorsements now, would we?”
“Nothing happened here,” Brian reiterated again. “Okay?” I heard someone off in the distance shout out “MVP,” and few other people joined in the chant until the cheers grew louder. I glanced behind me, seeing a gathering of bodies behind the closed off barrier pumping their arms in the air. I guess Marco had fans wherever he went. He wasn’t acknowledging them though; his eyes were on me. Waiting…
“It was a misunderstanding you weren’t so clear to clear up,” Brian added with a condescending look to boot.
His words pissed me off even more. I opened my mouth about to lay into him.
“Brian, get in the car,” Marco hissed, glaring at his friend who shook his head and, after a few seconds, leisurely climbed into the SUV. I started to walk off, but Marco called out, “Wait.” I paused, not looking at him staring out in front of me; my body was ramrod stiff. “I’m sorry.” His voice was low, and I could feel his presence as he moved closer. “I didn’t know it was you. Why didn’t you say something?”
“Maybe I was hoping you would remember me. Or maybe I was in shock over your callous attitude toward women in general. If this is your pickup line, then I must say, I’m completely disturbed. Still haven’t resolved those issues, have you?” Regardless of my disgust, I chanced a glance over my shoulder to see his face one last time, and what I saw made my heart reluctantly ache. Through his jadedness was that anguish he’d always kept bottled up inside, I saw the vulnerable eighteen-year-old boy who’d sat on the edge of my bed with his head between his bloody hands. I found my voice even though the words sounded foreign. “Go. Enjoy your night. Don’t worry, Marco, I won’t mention a word of this. I was never one to spill your secrets. Believe me, I don’t want to deal with the embarrassment either.” With that, I pressed on with unsteady legs until I found Lalo not waiting to hear what Marco would say.
When I reached Lalo, his forehead wrinkled in concern. “Lily?”
“I’m fine. I have a headache.” I rubbed my temples, hoping to erase the last hour of this evening. I glanced up to see Marco still standing outside the vehicle watching me before he turned and stepped into the SUV.
“Were you talking to Marco Cruz? The hottest athlete on the planet?” Lalo sounded like a Nick Jonas groupie. “How?”
“We went to high school together,” I replied flatly. “He’s just someone that I used to know.”
Marco—Los Angeles
City of Angels. And I was the devil waiting to plow through every halo hoping along the way my soul would be converged by some kind of immaculate epiphany that would fill this empty shell Lily so eloquently compared me to. That was as far as my metaphoric bullshit meter would allow, and it didn’t even ring true. Oh well. I stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows of my Hollywood Hills home, glancing down at the sea of lights glittering against the smog and orangish-blue skyline of the city below me. I never got tired of California sunsets. Although the New York skyline was impressive and Manhattan was where I lived during the season, I felt like LA was my home and where I lived and trained during the off-season.
Going back to my USC days, I remember when I first stepped off that plane when I landed at LAX, immediately falling in love with the beautiful weather. Every fucking song written about California wasn’t far from the truth. You had everything here at your fingertips, especially if you had money. Thank God, I fit the bill.
“You want to go for a swim?” I felt a hand curl over my shoulder.
“No.” I swirled my glass around in my palm, hearing the ice clink against the glass. “But, Ana, I could use another drink.”
“It’s Ava.”
“Okay, Ana Ava.” I shook my glass again and smiled. “My glass is thirsty.”
She tsked and took my empty drink and stomped off in her white bikini; the cut was French Riviera style, showcasing most of her tanned round ass. Gia, Ana, Ava, Bridgette, Emmanuelle…the names were starting to run together. It wasn’t like I was searching for models, but they seemed to run in the same crowds as me. Just like I wasn’t planning on hosting parties every night, but it seemed everyone showed up anyway.
“Yo, Cruz, that Walker kid’s got quite an arm. You might have to watch your back, bro,” LaDarius Jones, one of my college BFFs, was sitting on my couch watching the NFL combine. He was my go-to running back at Southern Cal, a local boy who grew up in Crenshaw and was lucky to have been drafted by the Buffaloes when we came out of college, which meant he got to live here year-round.
I glanced at the eighty-inch flat screen as Cal Walker, last season’s quarterback at the University of Oklahoma who’d declared for the draft after his junior year in college, took a hike and chucked it down the length of the field as scouts and fans watched the ball sail through the air in a perfect spiral. “So? He played in the Big twelve. Everyone knows that league is offense-driven. And anyone who’d played quarterback for years could throw a damn football. What could he do against a pro defense? It’s a different game in this league.” There will be someone who comes along who is better than you to knock you off that mountain.
That had been my bulletin board material to fuel me ever since I entered college. Now when I thought of what Vince told me years ago, my thoughts went back to Lily. It’d been two weeks since I’d seen her. What a fucking potential debacle that could’ve been? I conducted myself like the asshole I was, and she was quick to call me out. And her opinion still bothered me, like it always did.
She was beautiful, elegant, and still had that fierce spunk. Then why the fuck did you not know who she was that night? Because I didn’t expect her to run in the same circles as me. Besides, she was dressed completely differently than I’d ever seen her in the past. Her hairstyle was more sophisticated—her wild gypsy curls were straightened in a sleek style. Not to mention, her face was made up like some glam goddess. She’d captured my attention as soon as I spotted her. And it’d been years. Years since I’d seen her. But I’d thought about her over the years. Wondering how her life ended up.
I figured Lily would be happily married with two kids and a nice two-story cookie-cutter home in a cookie-cutter neighborhood working in a boutique and designing clothing for hippie chicks.
Yeah, I thought of her more than I should these past couple of weeks. Even sniffed around social media (which I never did in my life) to see if I could find out any information about her under a fake account. So, uh, that made me a loser creeper too.
Years ago, I tried to call her, but she never answered, probably thinking it was some kind of scam call since I’d changed my number, so my crazy, neglectful mother couldn’t harass me anymore about money, which was pointless. I never left a message, just sat silent, saying nothing after her voicemail beeped.
“Your drink.” Ava? Yeah, Ava, I think, held it out to me. I met her last night at the Staples Center at a Lakers-Clippers game. Larry Spodek, a well-known investor, who had his fingers in several pies, had a suite, and there was a hodge-podge of actors, athletes, producers, etc. rubbing shoulders with each other. Not uncommon. When you were big time, it wasn’t unusual to bump elbows with the same people. Nor was it uncommon to have access to things for free. Funny how that worked. More money, more free stuff. Anyway, I saw said girl whose name begins with A in that suite. I guess I invited her over. Not quite certain all I said, last night was a little fuzzy. That’s why I had assistants who looked out for me.
Ava swept her inky black hair off her shoulder. Her sultry dark eyes were raised to mine. “Come swim with me.” There was something about her look that attracted me in the first place. I had a penchant for dark hair, dark eyes, and silky skin permanently tanned. But the voice wasn’t the same. Her mannerisms were somewhat off.
“No. But go ahead. I’ll watch you from here.” I managed to say, squashing the voice in my head that clearly called me a fucking weirdo for associating with girls who resembled her.
“You promise you’ll watch?”
I lifted my lips, knowing the game. “Of course. How could I not?”
“Okay.” She rose on her toes, throwing her arms around my neck and locked her lips to mine. “You won’t regret it.”
Of course, I wouldn’t. I lived my life with no regrets. Regrets made you weak. I gave her an encouraging nod just so I could at least get her the hell away from me. Suddenly, I only wished all the motherfuckers would leave, leave me alone. Lately, I craved being el lobo solo, but I couldn’t tell people no. Stay away. Leave me in silence. The more my thoughts traveled in that direction, the more people wanted to be around me. Unfortunately, my mouth didn’t have an off button. Impulsive as hell it was. Idiot.
There were several people lounging around the pool area. Some I knew, some I didn’t. More than likely, they were probably a friend, of a friend, of a friend—same old story, not even a different verse. Money talked, bullshit walked, and people would always be drawn to it. Both, that is. More motherfuckers gathered in my living room as my brain gave this narrative. Guys slapping hands and talking shop about their workouts and the outstanding ballers at the combine. Newsflash: football players really did get off on watching young pups coming up from college to the pros. They also loved talking shit about themselves. And they loved pot, too. Legal in Cali. Not legal in the league. Oh, and don’t forget about Xbox.
Case in point. LaDarius jumped up, lighting the blunt between his lips, and hollered, “Which one of you pussy motherfuckers gonna play me in Madden?” I turned back to the window ignoring the shouts and taunts behind me because, well, you had to resist the pull of Madden, and I kinda promised Ava Ana I’d watch her swim. Why? I was polite like that. I brought my drink to my lips and gazed down at the lit infinity pool beneath me.
She was slowly making her way down the steps as her arms swept the still water in front of her. She was breathtaking; if I squinted my eyes and imagined her breasts being a little fuller and her hips slightly wider, then she would look just like my perfect girl who’d supported me when I was going through some bad shit all those years ago. God, Cruz, good-ole-day syndrome much?
I set my empty drink down and shoved my hands in the pockets of my shorts, feeling the worn leather of my Louis Vuitton wallet. Usually, I didn’t carry my wallet around, but when several strangers were here whom I didn’t know, I learned fast to hold on to my ID, cash, and credit cards. Even when you lived where the privileged did, it didn’t mean that people who you thought were peers would follow the code of society. Old habits died hard.
I pulled out my billfold and thumbed it open and plucked out the folded picture I kept in every wallet I’d owned since the summer when I graduated high school. Material things changed over the years, but this picture was priceless. I’d double folded it that day long ago, so it would fit in the sleeve where I carried my cash. I smoothed out the permanent creases, thinking about that summer day when I was eighteen and full of dreams. Lolling around in the sun, amidst a field of flowers with a girl who represented anyone’s favorite childhood memories. I was probably a little in love then. My dumbass would’ve never admitted it, but as I stared at the worn photo of the beautiful, feisty girl with stars in her eyes who’d pulled the curtain back on her world, I shook my head. Why didn’t you take her with you? I’d convinced myself football would always be my first love. And it was. Football always did me right. Football never made me feel irrational and make stupid decisions.
Christ, I was drunk, acting the fool. Just like I’d been that night at the gala. Why didn’t I recognize Lily that night? Was I so desensitized by fame? I’d been fucked up when I was poor and having fame and money probably perpetuated it. Fame and money didn’t suck. Truly it didn’t. Maybe I was turning into that dickhead who thought he was untouchable, unbreakable. Maybe I was. When you delivered the goods, you saw the fruits of your labor. When you were a hot commodity, you had people crawling all over each other to be a part of your team. When you had a team of powerful individuals looking out for your interests and propelling your popularity, you were inclined to shed that “Aw shucks” attitude and get a big head.
“Dickhead,” I repeated under my breath as I studied the picture of Lily and I smiling like two teenagers who were genuinely happy and had not a care in the world. I remembered when I’d taken her to the local Walgreens a few days later because she wanted to have the pictures developed. This photo was always my favorite out of all we’d taken that day at the Arboretum.
“You know you could be a model. I could put together a portfolio for you,” Lily said lightheartedly, thumbing through the hundreds of pictures she’d taken of me at the Arboretum. “If this football gig doesn’t work out for you.” She had a sassy smile on her lips, teasing me.
“Eh, you’re giving me too much credit,” I retorted as I watched her flip through photos. When she came across the picture of us, I slipped my hand in and snagged it out of the stack between her fingers.
“Now this. This is the money shot.” I held up the photo, studying it like it was a rare photo that’d been showcased at the Metropolitan Art Museum.
She reached out to snatch it back while I held it high over my head. “Nuh-uh. This one’s mine.”
“You want a picture of us?” She raised her eyebrows in disbelief because she knew this was a faux relationship at best, if not one at all.
I’d convinced myself that too, but I didn’t try to overthink it at the time…
I raised my head and peered through the window. Ava was floating on her back talking to one of the wanna-be-ballers sitting on the ledge of the pool. She glanced up at me and signaled for me to come down. Music was blaring in my living room behind me, guys were high-fiving and trash-talking as they played Xbox, and boring-one-the-fuck-up-the-other-person conversations were peppered in throughout the noise. I used to live for this shit when I came into my own as a star. Now, I only wanted to get away.
Without a second’s hesitation, I turned and made my way upstairs to my bedroom. My room was spacious and furnished on an unlimited budget, an interior designer’s wet dream. My California king was both as dark and comfortable as the city. Black comforter, black sheets with the highest count of Egyptian cotton—because that’s what I’d heard from my designer everyone needed. Pristine and stark were words that could describe this room because I had someone who made certain it looked perfect everyday. High ceiling, floor-to-ceiling windows, windows to the world was how it was sold to me, which sure as hell wasn’t a lie. A showcase room without one personal thing in it. All my football accolades and paraphernalia were down the hall in my office behind lock and key. It’s not like I had family photos. Shrug. If I decided to sell this place tomorrow, I wouldn’t have to depersonalize my room. With phone in hand, I sat down on the edge of my bed and scrolled through my contacts.
Lily—Dallas
“Yovani! How many times have I told you no soccer in the house,” Emilio’s voice boomed from the kitchen as he helped his wife Sofí clean the dishes. I hid a grin over the ridiculousness of my two grown brothers, one having to reprimand the other for acting like a perpetual boy. Yovani, that is. His heart was in the right place though.
“Come on, Papá. We’re just playing around.” Eric, my nephew, was five pushing twelve.
“It’s past your bedtime, mi hijo.” My sister-in-law Sofía turned off the faucet and waddled out of the kitchen. She was seven months pregnant. Emilio followed behind her as though she were fine china, which might break at any moment. But never let appearances fool you. Sofí had endured more in a short span than most did in a lifetime. She and Emilio’s love was, at one time, surely deemed tragic but written in the stars. It was love at first sight for both of them, until her past came back to haunt her. She was born into a ruthless family that made it damn near impossible to escape. But, like the resilient person she was, Sofí stayed strong and conquered her demons of the past. She also conquered my doubts I’d held because she deserted my brother and Eric not long after he was born, and I’d carried a deep resentment for what she’d done. Our family was as thick as thieves and always had each other’s backs. In the end, she’d done it to protect them from the psychotic animals that were known as “her family.” Luckily, the past was buried and long gone.
“I’m not tired, Mamá,” Eric whined. “Let me stay up a little longer, okay.” He raised his dark eyes in a plea. He was Emilio’s mini-me with the deep, brown eyes, like all the Mendozas and black hair to boot. Of course, he was using his negotiating skills right now, sounding like his father. “It’s Friday night. I don’t have school tomorrow.” He glanced at Tío Yovani. “Right? I don’t have to go to bed yet.” I had to hold a giggle under my breath because my younger brother was the last person Eric should be rallying to get on his side. Yovani was low on the list of family members that Emilio and Sofí asked to watch him. Not because he didn’t love and care for Eric. He did. However, curfews were never enforced when he was in charge—not to mention, Yovani always ordered junk food for them and never made Eric take a bath.
Yovani did have the wherewithal to eye Emilio cautiously before he said, “That’s not my call, Little Man.”
“Can I have one cookie before bed, at least? As a last request?” Eric raised his puppy dog eyes to his mother with hands folded in prayer. He was a charmer in the making. Who could resist him?
Sofí smiled. “Just one more.” She ruffled his head as he headed to the table where a plate of cookies sat. He reached in, snatched a cookie, took a bite, and glanced over at my purse in the chair. “Tía, your phone’s ringing.”
