Playing His Game (The Reynolds Brothers) (25 page)

Stupid,
motherfucking, egotistical asshole; I can't believe I let him destroy my life.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Scott

Winnie: I'm
leaving. I'm sorry for any trouble I've caused you that's made it so hard for
you to call me over the past few days or pick up the phone today. While you're
doing God knows what and hating me, consider my feelings in all this. I loved
you. I risked everything for you... because I loved you, and somehow I seem to
be the only one suffering from our actions. While you're out giving interviews,
partying it up at night and living the highlife, I'm stuck getting my name
leaked in the press. I'm the one feeling like a whore, hating myself and filled
with self-doubt. You did this to me and then treated me like the dirt you walk
on at your house the other night. I never thought I'd say this but I regret it.
I regret making that video with you, I regret ever sleeping with you and I
regret ever meeting you because in the end I got hurt and you got another notch
on your bedpost.

I fucked up. I
thought I was doing the right thing by giving her time and space. My head was
such a clusterfuck the other night but I was just so pissed off with everything
my brother said that I didn't even think before I spoke, and I hurt Winnie
because of it.

She shared
something with me just hours before that I've never had a woman share. No one
has ever said those three words to me. She was giving me a gift but I wasn't
sure how to receive it. By telling her that I cared about her I thought I was
buying myself time until I could say those three words back to her, but then
everything went to hell with the release of our video.

I've missed
several texts and phone calls from her today. I read her texts over and over
again, confused by some of the things she said. I'm not living it up. I'm doing
the mandatory promotion I agreed to in the contract. If I don't promote the
movie wherever Don tells me to, then he can come after me for the money he's
paid me. It's in my contract. She must not have read her contract thoroughly,
or maybe that clause wasn't in hers since she didn't get paid.

I call her cell
phone but it goes straight to voicemail. She must be in a bad area so I wait a
few minutes to try again but it still goes straight to voicemail. I reread her
text for probably the fiftieth time. What does she mean she's leaving? Leaving
me? Leaving my house? I need to clear this up with her.

I'm in a cheap
hotel room in downtown L.A. with Don and his PR guy. I've been on the phone all
day with different media outlets asking me questions about the video, and the
hotel room door has been opening and closing with magazine writers coming to
ask me questions in person for their next article.

Who knew there
were so many outlets of media in the porn industry?

The truth is the
last few days have sucked. I've barely had a minute to myself and if I have to
talk about my dick one more time, I might shove it down the next reporter’s
throat. I was not cut out for this business. Don reassures me over and over
again that we're almost done and that I've almost fulfilled my requirements in
the contract, but then some opportunity comes up that he can’t turn down and
I'm stuck doing even more press.

I want to talk to
Winnie. I need to talk to Winnie, but I don't want to do it over the phone and
I haven't had a free moment to myself over the last few days unless it was to
sleep.

We finish up with
the last interview around nine and I'm done. The words sperm, anal, and pussy
have somehow become a regular part of my vocabulary in the last few days and I
can't take one more second of it.

"Tomorrow
we'll have a lighter day. Go home and get some rest," Don says from over
by the small wooden table in the room.

"Tomorrow? I
don't think so. I'm done, Don."

"You're done
when I say you're done, or should I pull out your contract again to show you
exactly what you signed."

Don's a good
looking enough guy and I know he's been in the industry for a while, but in
this moment he looks like one of those disgusting old men you see in the
movies. His greed seeps out of his pores and it makes it hard for me to look at
him.

"Pull out the
fucking contract. I've done more than enough for you, Donnie. I signed that I
would do a day or two of media and press. This is the end of day three and I've
barely had a moment to fucking breathe. Now I'm going to walk out of here and
start getting my life back in order. You can try and sue me but I swear I'll
fucking win in court and your attorney will be paying my court fees."

I don't look back
as I storm out of the hotel room and run to the stairs. I take them down three
at a time until I've reached the bottom and then jog out to my truck. I should
go home and shower after spending the entire day in that dirty hotel room, but
I need to see Winnie. Giving her time is not working and I have a lot of
groveling to do before trying to convince her to come back to the house with
me.

She can't leave
me.

Getting out of
L.A. is never easy. Even at nine at night the traffic is a bitch. It takes a
while but I eventually pull into my brother's gated community in Calabasas.
While I have the clearance to get through the gate, my brother still doesn't
trust me with a key to his place so I'm left standing outside the doors,
ringing the door bell over and over again.

The light from the
entryway turns on and then I hear the locks being unlatched and the door open.

"I was
sleeping, fucker. What do you want?" Jared asks, rubbing his eyes as he
squints in my direction. I pull out my phone and look at the time: 10:13pm.

"I'm sorry,
grandpa. I didn't realize men in their twenties went to bed so early."

"What do you
want, Scott?"

I push past him
and walk inside his house. "I need to talk to Winnie. Is she sleeping
too?"

He watches me
confused. "Winnie's gone, man. She went back to South Haven."

My stomach drops.
When she said she was leaving I just assumed she meant she was leaving me. Not
that she was leaving the state of California.

"When did she
leave?" I ask a little more demanding than I intend to.

"This
morning. I don't know much except that she left Autumn a note saying she was
going. Autumn's tried calling her all day but Winnie won't pick up."

Fuck!

"I’ll be the
first to admit that I don't know what the hell your relationship with her is
like, but after what she sacrificed for you and the shit you pulled afterwards,
how could you have expected her to stay, Scott?"

"I fucked up.
That's what I do. I'm a fuck-up. She knows that."

"You're also
twenty-eight years old. You need to grow the fuck up and take responsibility
for your actions. I'm your brother and I love you, so I'll always be here.
Women like Winnie won't."

"I'm
sorry."

"I'm not the
one you should be apologizing to."

"Yes, you
are. I'm sorry about everything. I'm sorry that even after everything I put
you, Mom, Dad, and the rest of our family through a few years ago, I still fell
off the wagon. I've ruined so much in my life and I finally had it good. I
should have come to you when all of this started to blow up, but I was afraid
I'd lose you. Now I know that could never happen. Sure, you would have been
pissed and maybe even beaten the shit out of me, but you're my brother. You
would have helped me."

"I'll always
help you, Scott. We're family and I don't like to see you struggle, but I can't
help you with this. Winnie's gone and you need to go get some help, otherwise
you're going to end up in a similar situation six months from now."

"You're
right. I know you're right, but I need to fix things with Winnie first."

"And what if
they can't be fixed, Scott? Do you even realize how bad you've hurt her?"

"I know, and
I'll never forgive myself for that, but... I love her. I need to try and fix
this or I'll regret it for the rest of my life."

Jared's concern
for me starts to fade from his face as he breaks out in a grin. "You love
her? Did I just hear Scott Reynolds say he's in love?"

"Shut the
fuck up. Yes, you did."

"Well, if you
love her, then go get her. I'm going back to bed so I can hold my sexy as fuck
wife and be glad that I don't have to deal with the bullshit you're dealing
with right now."

"Thanks,
Jare."

"And Scott?
Next time you owe money and your face is beaten to shit and you think the only
option is to make a porno with your girlfriend and market it using my name,
call me first so I can tell you what a fucking idiot you are."

I laugh.
"It'll never happen again.”

"Good. Now
leave and go get your girl."

He locks up behind
me and I hop in the truck. Pulling out my phone, I scroll through the screen
and hop on the internet to book the next flight out of here. I'll use the plane
ride to come up with some kind of plan on how I can win her back.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Winnie

My head hurts. My
face is sore and my body aches. All battle wounds from the endless amount of
crying I did last night while listening to
Stay with Me
by
Sam Smith
over
and over again on my phone.

Crying really is a
full body workout.

I peel my eyes
open and look around the bright room.

I'm in hell.

The pale pink
walls that hold so many memories of my childhood surround me. On one wall are
all of my dance competition awards from my childhood and on the other walls are
the signs of my teenage rebellion. Posters of
Slipknot
,
Six Feet
Under
,
Megadeth
,
AC/DC,
and my personal favorite,
Dance
Club Massacre
, cover up the pale pink I was dying to erase.

I'm lying in the
twin bed I slept in for sixteen years of my life because my parents wouldn't
let me get a full. The green and pastel floral design of my comforter looks
like something you'd bury your grandmother in, but I was forced to sleep under
it every night.

My parents’ house
wouldn't have been the first choice of places for me to stay, but since I lost
the apartment when I moved to California, it was my only option. After their
initial shock in seeing me last night they sat me down and lectured me for an
hour.

Honestly, I
expected worse.

They expressed
their disappointment and embarrassment of the situation, along with their
concern for my bad decision-making, but ultimately they were just worried about
me. Their love for me, even after all this, is what broke the well and I cried
the rest of the evening. My mother stayed with me for half the night, even
bringing me soup on one of the rare moments that my tear ducts were all dried
up. Eventually, even she went to bed because she had to work at the boat shop
in the morning. It's the end of the summer season.

I get up out of
bed and walk out of the room, going straight into the hallway bathroom to wash
my face. When I look in the mirror I'm horrified. My eyes are almost swollen
shut and my hair is a knotty mess. I'm unrecognizable. I wash my face quickly
and then head into the kitchen to grab some pain reliever and an icepack.
Hopefully, the puffiness will be gone soon with a little cold compress.

My parents’ home
is a typical Midwest home. It's a bi-level with the kitchen and living room on
the main floor; the downstairs that is kind of like a half basement is seven
steps down and the upstairs is seven steps up. It's a real hodgepodge as far as
houses go.

I take the seven
steps down to the basement and sit down on my dad's favorite recliner. I lean
it back as far as it can go, close my eyes and apply the icepack to my swollen
flesh. The coolness feels nice.

I have no plans
for the day, but I need to do something. If I just sit around the house all day
I'll be forced to think about the video, California, and Scott. I don’t have
many female friends I can call. Being the wild one in a small town like South
Haven doesn’t make you many friends of the same sex, but it makes you a lot of
friends of the opposite sex and if any of those friends saw my video I know
they'll want to hang out, which means I have no one to hang out with because I
have no plans on fucking anyone anytime soon. I'm going to try something new
for a change and be celibate.

I could call Josh.
The fact that I'm even contemplating calling him shows how desperate I am. He
texted me last night asking to hang out. He found out I was in town from my
mother, which is impressive because I had only been home for a couple hours.
That woman could never keep her mouth shut. If they awarded a town gossip, she
would win.

I know it's a bad
idea to see him, mostly because I know he would love to get back together with
me and I have zero interest in him. He ruined any chance at having a
relationship and I'm just too heartbroken over Scott, but Josh could be a nice
distraction today. Maybe catching up will help me forget about Scott for a few
hours.

After leaving the
icepack on for another ten minutes I take it off and decide to text Josh. Maybe
we could go to a movie or something. An action flick might actually do the
trick in distracting me for a while.

Me: Still want
to hang out?

Josh: Always
with you.

I look up at the
time on the top of the screen and realize it's the middle of the afternoon. I
slept over half the day away.

Me: Movie?

Josh: Dinner
and a movie?

Me: Platonic
dinner and a movie?