As Brett leaves, I calmly walk over to the elevators and press the button. I see him walking outside, looking back at me. I want to squeal, but know how ridiculous I would look if I did. The elevator finally opens, and I step in, the doors closing behind me.

“Yesss!” I squeal in triumph. I lean back on the wall, and touch my flushed face. It feels like things might get serious with this one. I jump up and down, throwing my arms up into the air. But then I stop. Falling too hard, too fast. Remember you’re spending time with an athlete that will soon be making millions a year, Lexi. He has tons of other women waiting for him in other cities, I’m sure. The elevator stops, and I get off on my floor. I cringe. How am I going to deal with this? Coming off as cool and confident will only last me so long.

I walk to my door and unlock it. I know I should call Anne. She knows how to keep me grounded. I don’t want to go through the same kind of disappointment I went through with Tristan.

I slump onto my couch and open my laptop to see what fans have been writing me, but then I stop and shut it. I need a game plan. When I was with Tristan, I went with the flow, and trusted him. I shouldn’t do that this time. I tilt my head back onto the couch, staring up at the ceiling as I think about the red flags I had ignored with Tristan from the beginning. Our first date springs to mind.

“What are you having, Lexi?” Tristan asks as he peruses the menu in front of him.

“Mmm … haven’t decided.”

Tristan looks across the restaurant. “Wow. That woman over there looks like my mother.”

I follow his eyes and spot a fifty-something woman, that looks nothing like Tristan. “My mother left me when I was little though,” he says. “So, I guess I wouldn’t know what she would look like now.”

I cock my brow, wondering why he would say that some unknown woman looked like his mom. But my heart goes out to him; being abandoned is no easy thing. “I’m sorry to hear that Tristan. That must have been hard.”

“It’s okay. I forgave her.” His expression stoic. “I love her for bringing me into this world.”

I smile, “That’s good of you.”

“But, yeah, my family is messed up.”

I look down in sympathy, “I know how you feel. Mine’s not perfect either.”

I prepare to tell him that I was orphaned into the foster system, but then he continues, “She wrote me a couple of years ago, when I was in college.”

“Oh? So, you keep in contact by writing?”

“No. I haven’t written her back. It’s been three or four years, I will.” He looks down at his menu again.

I’m left confused. He said he forgave her, “Why haven’t you written, then?”

“Aw, my Dad and I figure she probably wants money.”

He was playing the victim card, even though he knew Katie would be coming to visit him soon. There were other moments too, like the time we were taking a walk after having lunch together.

“How much debt do you have, Lexi?” he asks one day as we stroll down Fifth Avenue. His question makes me uncomfortable. It’s personal and we’ve only been seeing each other three weeks. But if he wants us to be serious, maybe he wants all the skeletons out of the closet. I decide to confess. “I’m around six thousand in debt.” I rub my forearm. “What about you?”

“I’m not telling.”

I glance up at him, bewildered. If he wasn’t willing to share the same sensitive information, why did he ask it? I want to make that point, but it had been a lovely lunch and I don’t want to end the date on a bad note. As I analyze the situation, we walk by a jewelry shop. “What kind of wedding ring would you want?” he asks.

Shock transforms my face. It’s way too early to be thinking of that kind of thing. But asking such questions doesn’t mean he’s going to propose. Perhaps he was asking for someday—a long time from now. “Someone once told me that ‘love knows no beginning or end.’ If I had a ring, I’d want to have nothing on it. A perfect circle, no beginning or end.”

“Oh, so you don’t want anything on the ring to obstruct a circle?”

“Yes.”

Then there was that time he introduced me to his father. Although his girlfriend, Katie was coming in less than a week. I still can’t believe his father went along with us on a date. He knew Katie would be coming. Ugh. I blink a few times, as I continue to stare at the ceiling. I can still feel the moment my heart was ripped out. Tristan didn’t break it off himself; he ghosted me. Anne was the one that found out about Katie, and that they were planning to get married. Though they hadn’t even known each other a year.

I cringe at the thought of one of the last times I saw him. Anne and I were walking some streets in Brooklyn, checking out some downtown bars. I peered into one of the bars, recognizing Tristan and some of the players, their wives and girlfriends. Katie was sitting next to him with a ring on her finger. I cringed as I notice it had no gemstone on it. I suppose getting a wedding ring without anything on it is no longer something I’ll ever do.

“Look.” My brows gesture in their direction. “See all the players and their WAG’s?”

“There’s the asshole. Lexi, you dodged a bullet there.” Anne bares her teeth at Tristan.

“I know.” I sigh. Intellectually, I know Anne’s right, but I wish I could feel she were.

“I heard something else he did today from one of the players.”

“Do I want to hear this?” I ask.

“You may be interested in knowing that days before the Katie came, Tristan met a random girl in a bar. He took her home and they fucked like rabbits for a few days. She left the same day Katie came.”

My eyes widen, “I feel guilty. I feel like shit, Anne. Someone ought to tell Katie what she’s getting herself into. The tabloids that came out of me and Tristan aren’t believable. There were no photos of the two of us together, only rumors.” I’m about to head into the bar, but Anne grasps my shoulder. “There’s something else.” She holds up her hand stopping me. “I got some information from one of the wives, Waneda. Since all the tabloids came out of you and Tristan, Katie got suspicious. Katie asked Waneda if Tristan had been seeing any other girls while she was gone.”

“What?” I’m stunned. “What did Waneda tell her?”

“Waneda said, ‘Well you know how ballers can be.’ You know what Katie said?”

I shrug, “No idea.”

“Nothing, Lexi. Katie said nothing.” She places her hand on her hips. “Katie knows. The girl is a jersey-chaser.”

I give her an incredulous look. No one is that desperate and pathetic. “Maybe someone needs to spell it out for her.”

“No, Lexi. Her father is in sports. He owns an NBA team.”

I roll my eyes, “Surely Tristan loves to brag about who his future father-in-law is.”

“Probably,” Anne says. “But the point is, if that girl wanted to know, she would have asked Waneda more questions. Katie wants that life—let her have it. She’ll eventually be trapped in a house looking after his offspring and have no life of her own. Her life will be terrorized by the other women he screws. She’ll know then that he wasn’t worth it. Her kids will become the only thing that matters to her. That’s not a marriage.”

Tristan makes eye contact with me through the window. Fear consumes him. My upper lip curls, “Look Anne, I could go in there right now and crush all his precious little dreams. Look how scared he is.”

Anne giggles along with me, “Wow, you could ruin him in a New York minute. But he’s a worthless piece of shit.”

Katie looks up and notices Tristan’s deer-caught-in-headlights-stare. Her eyes follow his and she notices Anne and I giggling outside. She immediately looks down to her lap, pretending not to see us.

“You’re right, Anne. I could obliterate his fantasy. But I already wasted enough time with him. Let’s go.”

There had been strange behaviors from Tristan right from the beginning. What if Brett is the same? Am I so naïve that I won’t see the signs? I try to think if there is anything odd about Brett’s behavior. Things between Tristan and I had always felt off. I don’t feel this way about Brett now. On the other hand, could I be so wrapped up in Brett already that I haven’t noticed?