Page 13 of Lovefool

I nod woodenly, trying to curb my disgust. My tongue burns with words unsaid, and I pray that she doesn’t have some internal lie detector that’s waiting to blare all my contempt in high-pitched frequencies and showy floodlights.

“Uh, yeah,” I reply bluntly, feeling my legs start to speed up in an attempt to spare me from this conversation.

Tamara skids to a halt, cuts me off, then shoves her face into my personal bubble. “Well, it’s been unanimously decided that you’ll be the one covering their ongoing season. I want you to write a series of articles all about the inner workings of the team. For the next few months, you’ll be eating, sleeping, and breathing hockey.”

This has to be a joke, right? No way. Absolutely not. Doesn’t Tamara know that my ex is on the Minnesota Mustangs? Why, pray tell, does she think I’d be the most qualified to play puck bunny and spend my very precious free time cataloging what they ate for breakfast?

For the love of all things holy, put me back in jail.

“Oh, I’m good,” I say indifferently, sidestepping her, determined to ignore the way anticipation brews in my belly at the prospect of joining Sutton in very close proximity. For an extended period of time.

Tamara chuckles to herself, her tone dipped in a saccharine sweetness that’s as insincere as the smile on her face. “Oh, I wasn’t asking.”

Tamara Bainbridge likes her ducks in order, and if she doesn’t get her way, she will single-handedly turn this campus on its head and unleash the hounds of hell. She tolerates me, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m in the fifty-eight percentile of casualties when her evil reign begins.

I tug her off the main walking path to keep the eavesdroppers at a minimum. “Tammy, my ex is on the hockey team. You know, the one who cheated on me in front of twelve million people?”

Just thinking about that low-quality porno fans the flames of indignation inside my chest—flames that were perfectly content being undisturbed. Sure, at first, I mistook the shock for hurt, but the embarrassment that followed had already smudged my meticulously cultivated reputation and dubbed me as the sad, pathetic girl who was just another one of Buford’s victims. I could shoulder the judgment, but the pity drove me insane.

She takes a beat to fossick through her memory file. “That’s why you’re the perfect candidate for this. You have firsthand experience with the team. I remember watching the video. It was bad. She was practically doing a split on his⁠—”

“Thanks for the vivid reminder.” My breakfast is retracing its steps up my goddamn esophagus.

I hate that I’m still attached to his name. I haven’t made a public statement about the whole ordeal. Right now, people think I’m this sad loser who’s accepted a Buford-less arrangement. What they don’t know is that I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about who he sticks his tiny, floppy, diseased frankfurter into. That thing is a biohazard and a threat to women everywhere.

“Also, I approached you with this piece because some people saw you talking with Sutton Whittaker. According to them, you guys were looking pret-ty cozy.”

“Word-of-mouth gossip? Please, I thought we were better than that.”

A frown cuts across Tamara’s peachy lips, our unspoken work relationship balancing on a very steep edge, where it only takes one final coup de grâce to shatter the brittle earth beneath my feet and plunge me into everlasting darkness. Crags breaking off into a restless ocean, bulldozed by the crashing of waves that only seek to erase the resilient little parts of me that won’t die easily.

“If you don’t want the job, I can have someone else cover the season. But this could be your chance to move up in the newspaper. Would hate for you to miss out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity just because your loser of an ex is warming the bench.”

Ugh, I do want to solidify my place in the newspaper. I want to have more jurisdiction—more authority. I mean, this is what I want for my future career. It’s imperative I curate an impressive resume if I want a job in the industry.

Pros: I get promoted, I get to apologize to Sutton, and I get to (hopefully) try and pick up where things left off.

Cons: I hate hockey, I hate hockey players, and I hate Buford Montgomery.

Honestly, it’s pretty even right now. Would Sutton even want to hear me out? I can’t exactly tell him that I landed in jail the night of our date. He’s going to think I’m unstable! He would be right, of course, but for some reason, his opinion of me is the only one that matters.

God, he really did a number on me. I blame my luteal phase and Mercury and the tarot reading I had done by the practicing Wiccan in my calculus class. In my defense, she seemed legit and it was free.

Nobody’s gone through as much trouble for me as Sutton has. He sacrificed his relationship—albeit a rocky one—with his teammate just to cover my ass. He lent me a pair of his clothes and walked me to my car. I felt something in that moment—after a period of numb stagnancy—and I owe it to myself to feel it again. A warm feeling niggling into the tissue of my scorned heart, purifying the blackened malady that Buford left in his wake.

As scared as I am to own up to my mistakes, Sutton deserves an apology, and I truly don’t know of a better way to give him one than to forcibly plant myself in his life. That way, he’ll have nowhere to run.

Buford is a fuckface, but I can take him. Daddy’s money can buy everything except a backbone. Plus, I know it’ll drive him insane watching me flirt openly with his teammate. Maybe then he’ll think twice about humiliating me in front of the entire world.

The first slivers of hope shine through a metaphorical silver lining, and my will to live undergoes a resuscitation that I didn’t think was humanly possible. Tamara came to me with this mammoth of a project for a reason. Call it fate or destiny or life giving me a fucking break, but I have to make the best out of a terrible situation.

“I’ll do it,” I decide, gleaning as much certainty as I can while the semipermanent anger inside of me metamorphosizes into something with a duller edge. Softened. A blade that’s still sharp but slices in methodical strokes rather than uncontrollable lashes.

Tamara sheds her nonchalance, bouncing on the balls of her feet and squealing. “Perfect! I knew I could count on you, Lake. You’ll start next week. Attend every practice, attend every hockey game, interview the players, and write a series of articles about why the Minnesota Mustangs are the beating heart of MU.”

“How am I supposed to get into practices? They’re closed.”

“Already talked with Coach Lawson. You’re good to go. Just—don’t make any rash decisions.”