Bridgette
“Do you miss them?” Scott asked as he maneuvered his car to enter the freeway.
I loved having him here.
It felt like we were a normal couple, just spending the day together.
I couldn’t have him all day of course since he had practice and I had a lot of things to do, but when we spent time together, it was great.
He was easy to talk to and he offered me a different angle on things.
Case in point, I was feeling sad about leaving Okihana’s, but the extra load of school work this semester wasn’t going to give an inch.
I needed all the time I could manage to scrounge up.
So I made the decision to say goodbye.
Saying goodbye to my friend, Miguel, had been the hardest, but he understood and in a few days, he was also quitting the restaurant since he’d been accepted to the job that he’d been waiting for in Vegas. We hadn’t been hanging out lately either. It was sad, but such was the case of busy college life. We made a promise to catch up whenever he was around LA, and the constant texts between us were going to keep our friendship alive.
“I miss them,” I said, my left hand tangled in his right arm. I liked having my skin close to his. “They gave me a chance when other people looked down at my inexperience. But I know that I won’t have much time for my classes, painting, and you if I kept it.”
His head turned away from the road for a quick second, the Ray-Bans he wore glinting its reflection against the car’s windows. He looked so handsome, so comfortable in his skin.
“You making room for me in your schedule, babe?” A small smile appeared on his face. Scott’s face was not the animated kind. He was in serious mode all the time.
On the field, he was ice.
In front of the media, he held himself back a lot. The camera loved him and he smiled in front of it, but it was never in the carefree mode that he was in whenever he was with me.
I answered back, “How can I not make room for you? You’re my boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend. Huh.” The smile on his face grew ten times bigger and he held my hand tighter. He was driving one-handed, and I found myself loving this closeness between us.
“What?”
“I never asked you to be my girlfriend,” was his easy comeback.
I rolled my eyes, and just shrugged my shoulders, “Oh well. I guess that’s the end of it. You can just drop me off on the side of the 101 Freeway and I’ll see if I can get an Uber.”
His shoulders shook in mirth, followed by his head. “I’m proud to have you as my girl, Bridge.”
“Me too, Ice Man.” Ice Man was my new nickname for him. It started when I watched a video of his team racking up the points in last year’s game against New York via the Football Network’s channel from the third quarter until the last twenty seconds of the game.
The Royals were down by 21 at the 3rd quarter, but Scott and his teammates won by 10.
I was bored, so I decided to study football. And by studying I meant watching my boyfriend do his thing in the NFL.
It was easy for me to learn about football.
It was pretty much like anything I wanted to learn about, I had an easy time with it. It was a talent that I’d never take for granted.
Anyways, what I learned from all the commentators and from watching Scott’s games was that he was pretty much born and bred in the North Pole.
His blood didn’t care if they were down by a lot of points, when Scott took the field, he was a lion inside of it.
He never hesitated.
He threw with the exact precision of a laser beam.
He could calculate the distance that he needed to dispatch the ball to his receivers and boom, they got it.
A big part of it was how fast the receivers ran or the routes that they’d mastered in practice. But I had no doubt that a larger chunk of it was the confidence that they had for their quarterback.
A rookie one, no doubt.
He was still a newbie in the NFL.
But his teammates trusted him like he’d been there for decades.
And how could they not? He had the stats and the swagger to back it up.
My mind couldn’t help but wander to the other football player in my past life…the one who had all the swagger, but not the humility to say sorry when it counted.
Scott hadn’t asked about Dex. It was odd, but I didn’t linger on it too much.
“Will you come to my game?” His request wasn’t expected, but it was not out-of-the-blue. Just like the topic of Dex, he hadn’t pushed me into attending his games.
I looked to my right, watching the packed streets of LA as we passed by familiar and unfamiliar stores. The buzz of traffic was as normal now as seeing a Starbucks every three blocks.
We’d established that I was his.
In the bedroom, I gave him my body, it was his to command.
But Scott – he never forced me into anything, my body was his, but the pleasure was mine.
He respected my will.
“I’m not sure yet.” I answered flatly, “I don’t know.”
“Why?” He shouldn’t have to ask. Any other woman would be there in the stands with their man, proudly supporting him. Especially when they were obviously great at what they did.
I couldn’t keep it from him forever so I had to try.
It was hard to explain but I had to.
“My parents were motivated by fame.” I said softly, my eyes on the roads that we were driving by, “I’ve watched how much the camera ruled their lives. My father almost broke my brother because of his thirst for fame.”
Scott knew about my dad.
Who wouldn’t?
Every person who watched hockey or was into sports knew about the legend that was Beau Cordello.
I could recite his stats in my head like a broken record.
“It’s not my story to tell, but Bishop and I suffered a lot because of their unquenchable hunger to be famous and remain famous.” Even if I’d shelved the past in my do-not-open list, I could taste the bitterness that my parents had left embedded inside my heart.
“Is that why Bishop plays rugby instead of hockey?” He asked, his left hand firm on the wheel as the car stopped in front of a yellow light that turned red in seconds.
“Yes. My brother will never play pro hockey despite many insinuations about him. He feels happy in rugby and I’m happy that he’s happy.”
“Okay…I still don’t get why you don’t want to come to my games, babe.” His question didn’t have any hints of annoyance, it was free from frustration. He was simply asking.
So I answered, “My mother is on TV every week, telling everyone how to look good, how they should behave, how they should act in public. She’s been trying to get me to join her ever since she got it in her head that she’s made mistakes.”
Mother was coming to visit in a month and I was dreading it. She was going out of her way to repair the damage that her neglect had caused in our relationship, but I wasn’t even close to stepping on that bridge with her.
“I’m not ready to be on camera.” The simplest of truth freed us.
“How?” He asked, not quite getting it. I knew he didn’t bask in the spotlight, not like Dex. But I also knew that he didn’t abhor it like I did.
“You’re the shining star of the franchise, Scott. You came out of college, drafted number one, and in your first year with the Royals, you took them to the division championship game. You’re the athlete that the media loves to photograph,” I said, the burden of truth unleashing inside of me.
I’d thought about it.
I’d gone to sleep thinking about it.
I’d gone without sleep thinking about it.
“If the media gets wind that I’m your girlfriend, that I’m there sitting in the stands watching you play…” The force of the inevitable truth knocking the wind out of my sails, “My life would no longer be the simple college life I’ve envisioned it to be. The media would be knocking on my door, asking for interviews from people who’ve probably met me once.”
“My life is simple in the shadows…” I said with a sigh. “And the fact that my brother is also famous won’t make it any easier for me to continue to be in the background if I start showing up at your games.”
Right now, it was a miracle that we’d gone out several times and there were still no headliners about who Scott Strauss was dating.
I attributed it to luck.
But luck could run out.
He pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant that I’d driven to so many times now.
Always alone.
Never with him.
As the car’s engine became silent, Scott turned his body around to face me.
“I like being with you, Bridge.” His voice was filled with understanding and determination. “You add so much substance to my life. I know it’s not going to be easy if the media knows about you, about us. I’m proud to have you as my girl and while I’d love to tell the world that you’re mine…I want you to know that I understand. I completely understand why you don’t want to come to my games in person.”
“Thank you,” I said as he held both of my hands against his chest.
Then, he lifted his left hand in the air and slowly skimmed it along the side of my cheek, “I want to keep hoping though that one day you won’t mind stepping away from the shadows…”
He pushed up his sunglasses so that they could sit on top of his head, and I watched the hope in his green eyes build as he said, “If for a minute you change your mind and you want to watch my game in person, if you would come out to see me when I get out of the locker room, if one day…you were there standing in front of the stadium I’ve given my whole life to, I will step out of the shadows with you, Bridge.”
My breath hitched, and for the first time the walls that I’d built around trappings of fame were slowly being shaken. Scott touched his fingers to my lips, and in a voice draped in so many emotions that I couldn’t name, he said, “I will always be there with you, babe. Inside the shadows and outside in the light. I will be wherever you need me to stand with you.”
I felt safe in my brother’s arms.
I felt protected, once in Dex’s hands, but he broke it and when that blanket of protection shattered, I cocooned myself inside a shell that no one would be able to breach ever again.
But staring at the breathtaking eyes of the man who could have any woman he wanted and yet here he was, asking me to be proud of being in his arms in front of everyone’s prying eyes, in front of the world –
The seed of hope started to plant inside my soul.
Maybe one day –
I’d step out of the shadows, outside of my shell, and walk with him under the piercing glare of the limelight.
And it wouldn’t matter.
Because Scott, he’d be right there, standing beside me, shielding me from the excesses and reducing the effects that his popularity carried, away from me.
Because Scott’s star shone brighter than the others, and his presence eclipsed everyone else’s.
So even if we stepped out together, I would remain blanketed under his shadow, and I knew without a doubt that he would always protect me.