The Beautiful Game

Chapter Nine - Lou

"To be a good surgeon you have to think like a surgeon. Emotions are messy. Tuck them neatly away and step into a clean, sterile room where the procedure is simple. Cut, suture and close. But sometimes you're faced with a cut that won't heal. A cut that rips its stitches wide open."

Meredith Grey's voice croons through my bedroom as I continue to binge watch Grey's Anatomy from the beginning for the hundredth time. I try to scribble down some notes about the dissection today, but I'm unfocused. It's eight pm and I can hear Ella and Kate's excited talk in the front room, they're playing Beyonce and drinking as they get ready.

What had Kate been thinking? She'd pretty much invited the antichrist into our home. Not only that, but wouldn't he bring Marcus? The very same Marcus who Ella was throwing this ridiculous party to forget about. I must admit when she'd pitched the idea the other night I'd been less than ecstatic, but I'd understood it. Marcus had damaged her confidence, she apparently needed this party to remind herself that she is hot, popular, and desirable.

Kate simply babbled that she'd been desperate, that most places had sold out because it was the weekend and Ella had asked for one specifically. She'd said that Joe's Liquor store round the corner usually saved things in the back for the football players, they worshipped them.

Ugh, it knocked me sick. The look of pure awe on the faces today when they'd realised they were breathing the same air as Carter Hughes. He'd known it too. The way he'd sauntered towards me, the look of pure male, arrogant satisfaction when I'd risked that glance to see if he'd still been there.

He'd stood out like a sore thumb, a foot above any other guys in the courtyard, infallible confidence in how he held his broad shoulders. And that damn smile. I knew what I'd seen when I looked back at him, it was the smile of someone who had found a new challenge. That I'd unintentionally become a new game for the quarterback to play besides football.

I refuse. I don't care if my heart races every time I even think about him, I don't care about the fact I can feel it pulsing between my legs as I think about his warm brown eyes, the sensual curves of his mouth. I refuse to be another notch on his bedpost. I launch the pen across my room and throw myself back into my pillows.

The sound of a FaceTime call brings me out of my moment of self-pity, it's Alex, my eldest brother. I answer the call.

"Hey." The screen is in darkness, my reflection looking back at me. "Al?"

The sound of a loud fart breaks his silence.

"Alex, you're thirty years old, really?" The phone screen lights up and the sight of my brother's laughing face brings an easy smile to my own. I can't help it; I feel my heart pull as I'm reminded how much I miss them all. Even if they are ridiculously childish and gross combined.

Alex is living in Toronto now, he'd only gone for a business trip, three weeks maximum, until he'd met his now-wife Anya. And, as they say, the rest is history. Anya had been to visit us with Alex a few times, she was really lovely. They told us how they'd met in the snow outside her favourite bakery. Anya laughing as she told us how she'd seen this ridiculous, blonde, tall man dressed in an entirely impractical suit and slipping all over the pavement in his fancy leather brogues as he tried to eat a slice of coffee cake and shield himself from the snow simultaneously.

My two other brothers and I had to pretty much force him back to the airport after Dad died, Alex had been racked with guilt, not wanting to leave us, especially being the eldest. He'd FaceTime me every day if he could, protective as ever. He'd eased off a little in the time that passed since Dad, he knew how busy I was. Now he'd call once a week.