The Game That Breaks Us (10 page)

I tell her it runs in the family.

“Here, have some food.” He shoves the plate with the cheese fries on it over to me. “They have the best food here, trust me.”

I pick up a fry and take a bite. “Mmm, you’re right.”

The waitress comes back with the plates, napkins, and Bennett’s second beer and quickly leaves the table. 

I grab a plate and pile some cheese fries on it and pour out a little of the ranch. 

“Have some nachos too,” Bennett says, forking over a bunch onto my plate. “You guys want some?” he asks Elle and Ryland.

“We’re good with these,” Ryland says, picking up a fry and popping it in his mouth. 

“Cool, more for me.” Bennett shrugs and shovels more nachos into his mouth. “Eat.” He points at me.

I laugh. I hadn’t realized I was staring at him. I take a bite of the nachos and swear my stomach sighs with happiness. I really have to get better about taking the time to eat between classes. It’s hard when a class is on one side of campus and the next is all the way on the other. Since I’m an overachiever—according to my brothers, at least—I loaded up on as many classes as I could possibly take. I’m regretting that decision now.

“So,” Bennett begins, “how are you liking college life so far?”

I shrug. “It’s more adultier than I expected.”

He chuckles. “Adultier, is that even a word?”

“I just made it one.” I shrug, dipping a fry in ranch. 

“How is it more
adultier
than you thought?” He takes a sip of beer to hide his smile. 

“Well, for starters, I have to do my own laundry.”

He laughs. “Laundry?”

“I hate doing laundry,” I reason. “It’s just time consuming, and when I went yesterday, the room was full so I had to wait for someone to finish before I could even start. It took my whole afternoon. Luckily, I brought my laptop with me so I could work on my paper.”

“You already have homework?” He raises a brow.

I laugh. “
Yes
, this is college, you know? Oh, wait,” I whisper under my breath, “I bet you had one of your fuck bunnies do yours.”

His lips quirk up slightly on side. “Touché.” 

Now it’s my turn to question him. “I’ve heard rumors, but I want to hear it straight from you. Why are you on campus? I don’t know much about hockey, but it seems odd that you’d be doing your rehabilitation with your college coach. Isn’t that what the coach on your professional team is for? And if not, surely they could’ve hired someone to get you back into shape? Frankly, I’m not buying what I’m hearing.”

Shutters come down over his eyes. “Whatever you’ve heard is true,” he says.

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“Believe me if you want or don’t want. It doesn’t matter to me.” He looks away and finishes his beer. He immediately signals for another.

I’ve struck a nerve, and now I’m desperate to uncover the truth.

One way or the other, Bennett will tell me.

Maybe not tonight, but someday. 

“Fucking hell,” I curse and crumble up the magazine in the grocery store checkout line. 

“You’re going to have pay for that,” the clerk informs me.

I give the pimple-faced teenager the middle finger salute.

I grab up all of the magazines showing Grace and me in the bar and throw them on the conveyer belt with my snacks and water. I came to the store to stock up on healthy things to eat and then ended up having this stupid magazine shoved in my face. It’s been a week since that night, and I hadn’t even given it any thought that a photo of us might end up in some gossip magazine. After all, we were there with two other people. But the photo, obviously taken on some punk asses phone, has Elle and Ryland cropped out. It’s zoomed in on Grace and me, and I’m leaning close to her just as she is to me. Her hair hides most of her face, but the angle from which the photo is taken makes it look like we’re kissing. There’s another photo too, smaller than the first that shows our faces clearly.

The headline reads:
Is Bennett back to his old antics?

I grab one of the magazines off the conveyer belt and flip through until I find the article. More photos line the pages—this time, ones taken over the last few years in various bars and nightclubs, most of them showing me with a different woman.

“Fuck, fuck,
fuck,
” I yell in the middle on the grocery store and slam the magazine in front of the checker so he can ring it up. I know I look like a psycho, but I’m beyond pissed that Grace of all people has been dragged into this mess. I know enough about her to know that she’s a good girl. The kind of girl you wouldn’t think twice about bringing home to your parents. And now the media has portrayed her as just another notch on my bedpost. It’s
not
okay with me.

The checker reluctantly gives me my total—I think he’s terrified of me after the performance I’ve put on—and I slide my card through the slot. My receipt prints, and I snatch it out his hands, shoving it into one of the plastic bags. I grab all my stuff and haul ass out of there to my car. I’m tempted to go back and buy every single one of those blasphemous magazines that are bound to line the other checkouts. But I know that’s only the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds of thousands of those out in the world, all across the United States, and I can’t hunt down each and every one. 

I might be crazy, but I’m not mad—there’s a difference, trust me.

I throw the groceries in my car and head back to campus, driving at speeds I shouldn’t. I’m so fucking mad, and I need to do something to release the tension. 

I shouldn’t let this get to me. After all, it’s commonplace, the media spinning the truth, but the fact of the matter is, they’re usually right when it comes to me. This time they’re not and Grace has gotten dragged into this clusterfuck. 

My phone rings and I curse. I press a button on my steering wheel, answering the call. “Hello?”

“What the fuck is this, Bennett?” Bernard yells over the phone. “I thought we talked about this? You need to clean up your image and all you’re doing is throwing it down the fucking toilet. How the fuck do you expect me to help you if you can’t even help yourself?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Dammit, Bernie, it’s different this time. We were at a bar with two other people. I didn’t even kiss her. Give me a break.”

“It sure as hell looks like you kissed her in this photo!” I hear something slam, and my gut says he’s thrown the magazine at the wall. “Luckily, these photos aren’t as incriminating as some of your others, but I’m done, Bennett. Clean up this mess, I’m not doing it this time. You’re not worth the headache.”

I wince. That was harsh. “I’ll fix this,” I say. “I have a plan.”

“Sure you do,” he says sarcastically, and the phone clicks off a second later. 

I sigh and mutter to myself, “What the fuck am I going to do?”

Think, Bennett, think.

“Dammit,” I curse when my purse falls from my hands in my haste to grab my phone. I hadn’t been going to answer the call, but after someone’s third repeated attempt to reach me, I feared something bad happened. 

I drop to the ground and pick up my bag and the lip gloss, pens, and other various items that had spilled out, shoving them back inside.

Breathless, I pick up the phone, seeing that it says DAD, and just before it stops ringing, I answer. “Hello? Dad? Is something wrong?”

“Yeah,
yeah
, something is
wrong
.” He sounds
pissed
and anyone that knows my dad knows he doesn’t get mad often. He’s the most carefree person on the planet. Protective, yes, but never angry.

“Is it Mom? Lincoln?” I worry, taking a seat on one of the benches dotting the picturesque campus.

“No, no,” he stutters, “this has to do with you.”

“With
me?
” I squeak. “What could I have possibly done?” My tone of voice grows slightly defensive. 

“I’m standing in line to checkout at Wal-Mart and I look over, and what do you know, there’s my daughter on the cover of a magazine kissing some guy. I thought I was paying for you to go to college, not to do
this
,” he hisses. 

“What are you talking about?” My brows furrow in confusion. “Dad, I’m sorry, but I think you’re mistaken.”

“I’m not
mistaken
,” he throws the word back. “It’s obviously you with some Bennett guy.”

“Bennett?” I question. “I know him but I certainly haven’t kissed him.”
Not that I haven’t thought about it or anything.

“Some hockey player prick,” he rants. “Do you know what hockey players do, Grace? Huh, do you? They shove their stick in every puck they can find.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose, fighting the urge to laugh—if I laugh, it’ll only make matters worse for me. 

“Dad.” I sigh. “I didn’t kiss him, and even if I did, there’d be nothing wrong with that,” I say softly. “I’m grown up now. You have to realize that eventually. You’re not this hard on Dean or Lincoln.”

He’s quiet, and then in a small voice that breaks my heart, he says, “But, Gracie, you’re my little girl—my
princess
. I know you’re grown up now, but all I see is a little girl that still needs her daddy.”

I bite my lip. “Dad, I still
need
you. I’ll always need you. You just … have to take a step back and let me explore the world on my own. I’ll always come back.”

“I know.” He takes a deep breath. “I love you. We all miss you.”

“Love you too, Dad. Tell Mom and Linc I love them too.”

“I will.”

“Bye,” I say and hang up, just in time, too.

“Grace!”

I look up from my phone and see Bennett running toward me. 

I wave and stay seated. He comes to a stop in front of me, and I glare at him. He winces. “You already know about the magazine, don’t you?”

“My dad just called and chewed me out,” I explain.

“Shit.” He sits down beside me. “I’m sorry.”

I shrug. “It’s okay.”

“I have a plan, though. One I need your help with.”

I give him a speculative look. “What could you possibly need my help for?”

He looks around at the various people strolling along campus. Several people look at us and whisper. I’m learning that Bennett draws attention wherever he goes.