“Come on, Brick. You live in a world of some very wealthy guys. Are any of them faithful to their girlfriends or wives?”
“I can’t speak for the entire NFL, but I get your frustration. I’m not too fond of women right now, either.”
“Oh, that’s right, you just broke up with someone, too.”
I pretend not to know anything about Brick’s break up when in fact I read a lot about it online. Brick was dating a gorgeous reality cooking star who accused him of abuse during their relationship. Their break up was public and nasty and people are picking sides, most of whom believe her because Brick was accused of the same thing—back in college.
I don’t usually like to do the whole playacting thing, but I suppose I was bound to pick up some of my mom’s bad habits. The difference is my delivery is much more believable.
“I just spilled my guts, so why don’t you tell me your story?”
“It’s not as dramatic as your story.”
“Still, go ahead.”
“Lisa and I were dating for a few months. It wasn’t love, but I thought things were good until they weren’t, you know?”
“Yeah,” I say to be polite, but I don’t really mean it. There were red flags about Elijah practically in our entire relationship. If I was truly honest with myself, things between the two of us were never really good.
“I don’t know that she ever really got to know me, not like my friends back here do, and I’m not too sure that she even cared about knowing me.”
“You think she was after your money?”
“Nah, she makes her own money, but it’s the fame I think she wants. There were some rooms I could get her in that she couldn’t get into on her own.”
“The NFL definitely has a certain cache that a cooking show probably doesn’t have. Did you ever watch that series about Julia Child? They barely gave that woman any respect her entire career.”
“She wants more than respect. She needed to be seen, photographed and talked about constantly.”
“And you didn’t?”
He nods his head no.
“I just want to play ball.”
We pull off again and after several moments, I shed a few more quiet tears as we enter the next township.
“Hey, Brick?”
“Yeah?”
I turn to face him as he continues to drive.
“Don’t tell Kyle about Elijah, okay?”
“He’s going to find out eventually that you two aren’t together, and from what I hear, he’ll be happy about it.”
“No, I mean, I don’t want you to tell him the reason why we broke up.”
“Kaya–“.
“You know that no man will ever be good enough for me in Kyle’s eyes and he’d probably do something stupid like try to hurt Elijah over this.”
We stop at a red light when Brick uses one a tissue to dab my face dry. When he’s finished, I’m bewildered as that same hand cradles the side of my face.
“Your brother is right. There is no man good enough for you. But if there’s one thing you already know about me, Kaya, it’s that I can keep a secret.”
The light turns green, but the car remains still in the middle of the road.
