Changing Teams (18 page)

Chapter Twenty

Britt

After Sam dropped me off on Sunday morning, I stayed in bed for the rest of the day, alternating between crying, fuming, and beating my pillow and wishing it was Sam’s heart. What’s that they say about being careful what you wish for? I had wished and wished and
wished
for Sam to not be gay, and presto, he wasn’t. My perfect gay man was gone, and a liar had been left in his place.

It was late afternoon on Sunday before I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower. The tears started up again when I saw my cheap conditioner, so I threw the bottle against the tiled wall. “You’re a bastard, Sam MacKellar,” I sobbed as the pink liquid dripped down the wall and into the drain. “Nothing but a fucking bastard.”

After I finished showering, I put on my ratty old robe and raided my cabinets and refrigerator for alcohol. All I could find was a half empty bottle of Chardonnay I’d used for a sauce a few weeks back; being that I don’t care for white wine it had been minding its own business in the fridge door rack, but broken hearts have the tendency to make all alcohol look delicious. While Chardonnay wasn’t my favorite poison, it sure did the trick. The fact that I hadn’t eaten since the wedding helped the booze go straight to my head, and I was passed out before nine.

So my heart has splintered into a thousand pieces and I’m embarking on a new career as an alcoholic. Awesome.

Monday morning dawned bright and sunny and gorgeous, and I hated everything about it. I was hung over, starving to the point I was digesting my own stomach, and my heart hurt so much I thought it might kill me.

I found a box of crackers and shoved them into my face while I thought back over my few past relationships. I realized that I’d never been heartbroken before. Oh, sure, guys had broken up with me, and I’d dated my fair share of losers, but no break up had ever hurt this much. Even when my one long-term boyfriend and I had parted ways, I hadn’t felt this gutted.

God, Sam MacKellar, I don’t know if I can live without you—but I’m equally certain that I can’t live with a liar.

Around noon I stumbled across my phone, dead battery and all. I plugged in the charger, then I powered up my laptop and checked my email. Nothing yet from Marlys about all those jobs I’d supposedly been offered, but it was only Monday morning. I guess even agents needed weekends off. There was an email from my mother, with a subject line that read “Patrick has really lost it this time.” I pretended not to see that one. I had plenty of my own drama going on, and no time to worry about his nonsense.

My phone buzzed, then buzzed again. I shut my laptop and went to investigate, and saw more pending text messages than I’d ever gotten in one sitting. There were three from Ben, which meant that I’d forgotten to block his number. I deleted those without opening them, then I saw two from Astrid, five from my mother, one from Melody, and a whopping seven from Sam—and that wasn’t counting the voice mails.

Against my better judgment, I opened the text messages from Sam first. The first three, all sent the night before, read thusly:

Sam: I love you, baby. Talk to me.

Sam: I can’t stand the thought of you sad. I’m going to fix this, baby.

Sam: Britt, baby, I need you. Please, talk to me.

Seems like I hadn’t been the only one drinking on a Sunday night.

The next four were all from Monday morning, and all of them had been sent within the last hour.

Sam: I need to talk to you.

Sam: Something has happened.

Sam: Come on, baby, write back.

Sam: If you don’t reply I’m coming over.

“No, you’re not,” I muttered. I pushed the shattered bits of my heart aside and called Astrid.

“Hey,” she greeted. “How was the cousin’s wedding?”

“Horrible,” was all I got out before the waterworks came back on. Somehow, I choked out that Sam and I had gone together as planned, that I was head over heels in love with him, and that I never wanted to see the rat bastard again.

“Hold up,” Astrid said. “You mean to tell me you fell in love with a gay man?”

“He’s not gay,” I snuffled.

Astrid was silent for a moment. “Exactly how do you know that?”

“Trust me, I’m pretty positive.”

“I’m coming over,” Astrid declared. “Want me to pick anything up?”

“Lobotomy in a box?” I suggested.

“Ha. Be there in an hour.”

I spent that hour making my apartment presentable, if not my person. I splashed some cool water on my eyes, but it did little to help the puffiness. Eventually I made some tea, then I stuck the waterlogged bags on my eyes. At least the warmth was nice.

I fell asleep on the couch with the tea bags plastered to my eyes; thus, they were as cold as my cold dead heart when I woke to a knock at my door. I tossed the bags in the trash, looked through the peephole and did a double take.

“Melody,” I said as I opened my door. My newly married cousin was standing in the hallway, surrounded by stacks of matching hot pink luggage. “Shouldn’t you be on a honeymoon or something?”

“I’m not having one,” she said, jumping up and down and clapping her hands. “I did just like we planned!”

“Uh, what plan was that?”

“I didn’t sleep with Darryl! He’s furious, and he wants an annulment!”

I stared at my cousin, wondering if all the Sullivans and Moores shared a brain, and if my stepfather had been hogging it for the past few years. “You
what
?”

“Remember? My part of the plan was for me to not fuck Darryl, get an annulment, and live out my dreams just like you do.” Melody tilted her head to the side, and asked, “You did keep up your end of the plan, right?”

“What end would that be?” Astrid asked as she strode into my apartment; in my shock over seeing Melody I’d forgotten to shut the door.

“Britt was supposed to fuck Sam,” Melody said.

Astrid froze in place. “Sam MacKellar? You
fucked
Sam MacKellar?”

Melody’s eyes narrowed. “You did fuck him, didn’t you?”

“Will everyone please stop saying fuck,” I shrieked as I slammed the door. “Astrid, meet my cousin, Melody. Melody, meet my friend, Astrid. I’m going to go sit in the corner and die.”

I flopped onto the couch and hugged one of the throw pillows to my chest. Astrid sat down beside me. “I brought wine,” she said. “Merlot, your favorite.”

“Won’t help.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“That won’t help either.”

“Maybe not, but I’m dying to know what happened,” Astrid said.

Since I’m not one to disappoint my best friend or sort of best cousin, I talked. I gave Astrid and Melody the annotated version of my relationship with Sam, leaving out his nightmares and whatever had happened with his aunt; just because I was furious with him didn’t give me the right to spill his darkest secrets. After all, I was
not
the jerk in this scenario. When I was finished, they both stared at me, slack-jawed.

“So all this time he’s just been pretending to be gay?” Astrid asked. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“He claims that something happened to him when he was younger,” I said. When they both looked at me expectantly, I added, “It’s not the sort of thing I should out him on.”

“Yeah, I suppose being outed as a heterosexual is more than enough,” Astrid muttered.

My phone rang, the name on the screen making my heart beat a mile a minute, happy and terrified all at once. “It’s Sam.”

“How many times has he called?” Melody asked.

“A few.”

“And how many times have you called him?” Melody pressed.

“None,” I admitted. “Not once, but maybe I should—”

“Let me,” Astrid said, taking the phone from me. “Sammy baby, it’s Astrid,” she greeted. “Britt’s right here. She’s…yeah, she’s pretty upset. Hang on, I’ll ask.” Astrid put down the phone and asked, “Would you like to talk to Sam?”

“No.”

Astrid put the phone back to her ear. “I’m sorry, Sam, Britt doesn’t want to talk right now. Um, okay, I’ll tell her.” Astrid ended the call and set my phone on the coffee table.

“What are you supposed to tell me?” I asked.

“He wanted me to tell you this: I love you, Britannica Lynn.”

I shoved my face into the throw pillow, while Melody asked, “Britannica Lynn? Why is he calling you an encyclopedia? Oh, is that his way of saying you’re smart?”

“My name is Britannica,” I said. “Britt is a nickname.”

“You’re named after an encyclopedia?” Melody asked. “No offense, but that’s a little weird, even for you.”

“I thought you two were related,” Astrid said.

“We’re step-cousins,” I explained. Desperate to change the subject, I asked, “So, Mel, what happened with you and Darryl?”

“Oh, well,” Melody began, “I never really wanted to marry Darryl.” She turned toward Astrid. “I have this uncle—he’s Britt’s stepfather, that’s how she and I are related—and he arranges things for the family. When he arranged a marriage for me, I just figured it was time.”

“Wait,” Astrid said, holding up a hand. “In twenty-first century America, this man is arranging marriages?”

“That’s Patrick,” I said. “Why do you think I stay here in the city, far away from him?”

“It wasn’t a bad arrangement,” Melody said. “The pre-nuptial agreement provided very well for me. I’d never want for anything for the rest of my life, so long as I followed the stipulations in the agreement.”

“But,” Astrid prompted.

“But she’d have to be married to Darryl,” I supplied. “How did you describe him, Mel? Cold and clammy like a fish?”

Melody shuddered. “The thought of having sex with him was revolting. However, I’d just accepted that it would be my life, at least until Darryl and I divorced in a few years. Then I saw Britt and her date, Sam. At first, I couldn’t believe Britt brought that man from those horrible internet pictures to my wedding.”

“Hey, those pictures are hot,” Astrid said.

“Sure are,” I chimed in.

“Then I saw how Sam looked at Britt,” Melody continued, “and I realized that Darryl had never once looked at me like that.”

“How was Sam looking at Britt?” Astrid asked.

“Oh, like this.” Melody retrieved her tablet from her bag, and called up a folder. “The photographers have already sent me all of the wedding pictures. They took numerous shots of those two lovebirds. Really, you’d think it was Britt and Sam’s wedding.”

Astrid moved to sit on the arm of the couch, looking at the tablet’s screen over Melody’s shoulder. “Britt, that dress is stunning,” Astrid murmured.

“Thanks,” I mumbled. “It’s the one Jorge made.” Since I’d left it at Sam’s, I figured I’d never see it again.

“Here’s a good one,” Melody announced. Astrid took the tablet from Melody, and whistled.

“Damn, girl,” Astrid said. “Could he be any more in love with you?”

I frowned and grabbed the tablet from Astrid. The image was of Sam and I on the dance floor; he had one of his hands on the small of my back, while his other hand held mine over his heart. My face wasn’t visible, being that the photographer had been behind and to the left of me, but Sam was looking down at me as if I was the center of his world. “I remember this exact moment,” I said, a hot tear slipping down my cheek.

“What were you talking about?” Astrid asked.

“His tie,” I said. “I’d tied it for him back at his apartment, and he said he wanted us to be together for so long I’d always tie his ties. Out of habit.”

“Britt, baby,” Astrid said, “maybe you should talk to him.”

“But he lied,” I said, flailing my arms and almost flinging the tablet across the room. “He lied to everyone!”

“So?” Melody asked. “
Jane Eyre,
which is the greatest romance in the history of romances, is basically about Mr. Rochester lying. Then he came clean and he got the girl.”

“Didn’t he lose a hand?” Astrid countered. “And go blind?”

“Romance novels suck,” I muttered. “I’d rather read something worthwhile, like a comic book or the classifieds.”

“Be that as it may,” Melody said, “don’t you want your own happily ever after?”

When had my vapid cousin become the smart one in the family?
I swiped through the images from Melody’s wedding; she was right, the photographers had followed Sam and I like hawks. I paused, my finger hovering over an image taken just before we had left the reception; Sam was standing behind me as he settled my shawl onto my shoulders, and I was looking up at him. I remembered kissing him in gratitude.