Page 25 of Big Balls
“Shut it, princess,” yells Shane and throws a handful of popcorn at me. “There’s no talking during the game.”
My head thumps against the back of the couch, and I flip him off with my eyes still closed. “I wasn’t even using actual words, boy genius.”
Ren makes a clucking noise of disapproval. “Well, you are now, so maybe it’s time to stop.”
“Dad.” I whine out the word under another shower of popcorn kernels. “Make them stop picking on me.”
“Butter brickle, it’s time for the game to start, so we all need to behave like grown-ups and quit messing up my living room.” He sighs as I pick out popcorn kernels from my hair and drop them on the floor to be gobbled up by his fat little cocker spaniel that looks more like a footstool than an animal.
“Goldilocks,” I coo at her, “you should be happy that Shane is such a dick.”
Dad clears his throat and wags a finger at me. “Besides, since when do you not like the Sinners? You’ve been a diehard fan since you were a little girl. We all have.” The little swell of pride in my father’s voice makes the fissure in my heart ache.
And there’s the problem. My family doesn’t know that I had a job working as Big Balls Alexander’s nanny. There was a zero percent chance of me telling them about it without them getting weird and asking for autographs or something, and I didn’t want to have that conversation with them.
So they know about the nanny job, including that I no longer have the nanny job. But they don’t know exactly who I was working for, or why I am in actual physical pain over the mere possibility of having to watch stupid Ethan Alexander make these ridiculous plays and carry the Sinners to another victory.
I hate him so much for taking away one of the greatest pleasures of my life. Sunday football with my family is one of my very favorite things, and he had to go and spoil it by acting like an actual asshole when I was already completely devastated by Katy’s accident.
Worse still, I guarantee that he’s got her locked up in that stupid mansion of his, probably not even letting her out of her room anymore. I know that he’s just reacting out of a place of fear, but that doesn’t mean that he’s doing what is best for Katy at all.
She’s a smart, capable girl who deserves to do all the normal little kid things. She can do pretty much anything as long as she’s prepared with the tools she needs to be at her best.
It’s simple enough. When I figured out how sensitive Katy was regarding loud sounds, I got her some noise-canceling headphones.
When I figured out that she didn’t know when she was being too noisy, we just practiced until she was able to keep her voice between a two and a four. She’s super smart and loves having adventures.
And now I guarantee that the idiot man striding out to the field like some sort of action-figure Adonis is holding her hostage in her room all over again, probably undoing every single good thing that Katy and I got accomplished during my incredibly short tenure as her nanny.
I groan in frustration, and all of my brothers and my dad look over at me with varying degrees of censure and concern written on their features.
“Zoe,” my father says slowly, “do you want to tell us what has you tied up in knots?”
I shake my head, pointedly turning away from the television. “I’m just thinking about job stuff I guess. That man was simply impossible.” Kind of true, but also kind of not true. But this is what happens when I have to keep things from my family.
My dad reaches over and gives my shoulder a little pat then musses my hair like he did when I was a little girl. “You’re going to be fine. Just because your last boss was an asshole, they won’t all be. And maybe that fancy school will call you after all.”
I smile, but I know it’s thin and watery-looking, because I have that ache at the back of my throat that means I could start crying at any time. It’s definitely time to head out before the situation gets worse.
The men of my family are the type who would flatten someone for making me cry. I remember when my high school boyfriend, Will, dumped me and then ended up with a black eye and a fat lip two days later. None of them would say who did it, but it could have been any one of my brothers. They would all be willing to rough up someone who they thought had hurt me.
But I can’t exactly send these guys to rough up their favorite wide receiver. Also, Ethan definitely doesn’t need that kind of press right now, and I know how private he is about anything involving his family life.
I would never take chances with his reputation or his privacy, no matter how angry or hurt I am by the way he treated me. I know he was upset about Katy getting hurt, and I don’t blame him for that.
And how many times during the last forty-eight hours have I gone over and over the details of how she broke her arm, trying to rearrange the pieces in a way that made it so I could have done something different and magically spared her from getting injured?
I stand up, shaking the last little crumbles of popcorn from my hair and clothing. Goldy swoops in for another round of popcorn clean up, and I shrug apologetically at my dad. “I’m going to go for a walk. Unless you guys want to watch the Rams game instead.”
The five of them stare at me like I’ve sprouted a second head. Yeah, I knew that wasn’t going to work, but it was worth a try anyway.
“What kind of idiots do you think live here?” Shane screeches at me, horror painted across his face.
“A bunch of smelly men who don’t care what football game is on.” I shake my head. “Tragic, the lot of you.”
Then I sashay toward the door, ignoring their protests as I leave. But let’s face it, I know who the tragic figure is in this equation, and it’s not any of the men in my family.
It’s my sad, moping self, who’s now trudging along my street in the crisp early fall afternoon air, sunk deep in the sea of self-pity.
