26
Quinn
One week later…
In the entire time that I had worked at MontRec, I had been accumulating vacation time. The owner insisted upon it, even when I was still just a part-time receptionist in high school. He could afford to let hours roll over a certain amount, and I had taken maybe ten vacation days in the entire six years I’d worked there. I’d always fantasized about how I would finally just take a whole two weeks off of work, and recently, I thought it might be on some vacation with Zeke. It turned out to be in order to recover from our breakup and my loss of semi-pro status—not quite the luxurious, beachside relaxation I was hoping for.
The front door to my apartment opened, and Alec came sliding through the door. “All right, you said you couldn’t decide between Mexican, Italian, or Chinese, so I got all three.”
I offered him a weak smile. “You didn’t have to do that.”
Alec had been awesome during the breakup. He’d also taken time off of work and had been waiting on me hand and foot. I typically didn’t like being doted on for any reason, but he reminded me of all the times I’d guided him through a broken heart and that, though he wasn’t hoping he’d ever have to, he was glad for an opportunity to return the favor. After some light protests that I didn’t really have the energy for, I finally gave in and let him pamper me with ice cream, fuzzy socks, and greasy takeout food.
Today, he was especially solicitous because he knew I was supposed to have a game. The Widows hadn’t met for practice since our loss, and Cal didn’t push the issue. He said we’d come back together when we were ready, and until then, he’d be working on how to get us other opportunities.
“It’s not like it won’t get eaten.” He set the different bags of takeout down on the kitchen counter and looked at me. “Okay. Do you want one of the three or a superstorm? I’ve got alfredo, chipotle burritos, and sweet and sour chicken, plus the fixins. Chips and salsa, breadsticks, fried rice and egg rolls.” He smiled. “The world is your oyster, so long as it exists in one of these bags.”
“Alfredo and egg rolls,” I replied.
“Ah, yes, the famous feast of many,” he responded jokingly. He grabbed a plate from the kitchen, loaded it up with chicken alfredo and a couple of egg rolls, and then brought it over. “Bon appetit.”
“That’s French.”
He rolled his eyes and poked a fork out at me. “I’ll forgive that because I’m happy to hear you joking around.”
I was starting to dig in when my phone rang. I’d generally been avoiding everyone in the week that I was sulking, but I figured I wasn’t the only one who was sad about the missed game. I fished it out from under the blanket that was covering me and noticed it was Hollie.
I answered it and lifted it to my ear. “Hey, Hol.”
“Turn on your TV. Go to any news channel.”
I set my fork down on my plate. “What?”
“Now, hurry up. News. Go, go.”
I grabbed the remote and turned it to the local news station. My heart thumped when I saw Zeke’s face in a small window near the telecaster’s head.
“Good. Bye,” Hollie said and hung up, so I dropped my phone and upped the volume on the TV.
“Zeke’s phone provider confirmed that the messages were, in fact, fabricated, though they weren’t able to confirm who had manufactured them,” the reporter said.
Alec walked over and looked at the TV. “What’s going on?”
I was grateful for our television’s ability to capture all of whatever channel was on at the time, so I pressed rewind until it looked like I had reached the beginning of the story.
“In other news, Montpelier’s semi-pro football league got even more attention today, when Zeke Matheson took to Snapchat Live to discuss the Black Widows’ shocking loss to the Colorado Sirens last Friday night.”
The story changed to a video of Zeke talking directly to his camera, likely his phone, on a popular social media website. “I was saddened to learn that one of the Black Widows’ players, Lila Skeddit, jumped teams at the last second, leaving her team in the lurch. Plays were shared. Underhanded tactics were used. It wasn’t a fair game.”
The video switched to our game against Colorado, with a circle drawn around Lila kneeling on my back and refusing to let me up at the beginning of the game. The reporter spoke again over the frozen image. “Experts in the sport say that the behavior of the player, confirmed as Lila Skeddit, would not ordinarily be accepted in any semi-pro or pro game and that the player should have been ejected. They posit that refs were paid to give a lesser penalty, probably by someone high in the ranks of the Idaho Athletics Board.”
“Wright,” I muttered out loud.
“Matheson went on to make an emotional confession that shocked fans all over the country.”
The video of Zeke came back up. “We were really looking forward to playing the Black Widows. We’ve been working non-stop in anticipation of our rematch. We were in the stands, watching and horrified by what we saw.” His face looked anguished. “I do have to accept the role I played in all of this. Texts I sent to an official member of the Athletics Board were used to fabricate a conversation between myself and Lila. I can’t speak to the motive, but I believe it had something to do with my falling in love with the captain of the Black Widows, Quinn Dallen.”
Goosebumps covered my skin. In love. I thought about how awful I felt for the past week, and how losing our chance at semi-pro status and breaking up with Zeke carried nearly the same weight. He was the only thing that threatened to mean more to me than football, and losing both at the same time had nearly taken me out. If I were to think about it logically, didn’t that mean that I was probably in love, myself? It didn’t take much for Zeke to wind me up, even long before we started dating. Maybe I’d been falling the whole time and just didn’t realize it.
“He’s probably just trying to save his own ass,” Alec growled, crossing his arms.
“Shh,” I hissed.
“The Vipers voted last night, and we unanimously decided that we would still like to have our rematch with the Widows’ next week. We realize that their road to the semis was cut short by what happened, which is why we’re willing to wager our status. If the Black Widows are willing to play the Vipers next Friday and win, we will give our already secured semi-pro status over to them and step down.”
I gasped. “What!”
All Zeke had dreamed of was going pro. With the way things were going for the Vipers lately, in a season or two, he could actually get picked up. Why would he give all of that up?
Alec flicked my forehead. “Quinn, you’re not falling for this, right? He’s betting it because he doesn’t think you can win, just like last time.”
“Zeke’s phone provider confirmed that the messages were, in fact, fabricated, though they weren’t able to confirm who had manufactured them,” the reporter repeated. We’d caught back up to where we started. “There has been no word yet on whether the Black Widows will accept the Vipers’ request for a rematch.”
There was a knock at the door, and Alec walked over and opened it. “No,” he barked. “Leave, and don’t come back.”