The Cheat Sheet: A Novel

Sweating and worn out from our run, Bree and I dump ourselves onto the floor in front of my giant white couch. To my left is a floor-to-ceiling three-million-dollar view of the ocean, but to my right is the view I would give my soul to see every day for the rest of my life. Obviously, Bree doesn’t know I feel this way about her.

I knock the back of my knuckle against her knee, right beside the jagged scar that changed the course of her entire life. “What are you doing later? You want to come meet me for lunch at CalFi?”

CalFi is my team’s stadium. It has a recently added training facility where we practice and work out during the week, complete with a cafeteria catered by some of the best chefs in the business. And I, in case you are wondering, am an overeager puppy, begging for Bree to play with me—to always play with me.

She rolls her head so her soft brown eyes lock with mine. Bree is all honey-brown, long, wildly curly hair and a wide, gorgeous mouth with dimples the size of my thumb on either side. She has a Julia Roberts smile—one so unique and stunning that once you’ve seen it, no other smile even comes close. With our heads laid back against the couch, our foreheads almost touch. I want to lean in an extra inch. Two inches. I want to feel her lips.

“I can’t. I have a toddler creative movement class at 11:00 today.”

I frown. “You never teach on Tuesday mornings.”

She shrugs. “Yeah, well, I had to add another class in the mornings twice a week to cover the studio’s rent. My landlord contacted me last month and said property taxes went up again so he had to raise my rent by a couple hundred bucks.”

Bree tries to stand, but I hook the T-back strap of her tank top and tug her back down beside me. It was borderline overly flirtatious, and I instantly know it was a bad move when she looks at me with wide eyes. I quickly continue the conversation to cover my tracks. “You’re already teaching too many classes a week.”

Bree employs one other instructor at her studio who teaches tap and jazz, but really, she needs to add another to help with the load. Her studio runs in more of a non-profit capacity, but her overhead doesn’t reflect it because every studio space in LA is enormously expensive. It’s unfair because there’s a large population of people in this city who are low income and under-resourced whose needs are overlooked. Bree’s desire has always been to provide a place for kids who otherwise wouldn’t be able to receive dance instruction, allowing them to attend her studio at minimal cost to their family.

Problem is, the tuition is too low for her current business model. She knows this but feels stuck, and I hate that her chosen solution to the problem is to teach more classes and trade more of herself to cover the deficit instead of accepting my money.

“I teach the normal amount of classes for the average instructor,” she says with a clipped warning tone. Bree’s warning tone, however, sounds as threatening as a cartoon baby bunny. Her eyes are big and sparkly and make me love her more.

I soften my own voice, preparing to go to a place I know is touchy. “I know you can handle it, and I know you’re absolutely tough as nails, but as your friend, I hate having to watch you work through so much pain in your knee. And yes, I know your pain is flaring up because I saw you favoring your right leg during our jog today.” Reflexively, I hold up my hands. “Don’t pinch me, please. I’m only trying to make sure you take care of yourself while you’re out there taking care of everyone else.”

Her eyes dart away. “I’m fine.”

“Are you? You’d tell me if you weren’t fine?”

She narrows her eyes. “You’re being overly dramatic about this, Nathan.”

She says my name in a way that’s meant to cause me pain but instead just makes me want to smile. Bree is one of the strongest human beings I know, but she’s also somehow the softest. She can never fully bring herself to snap at me or anyone else in her life.

“My knee is not going to fall off if I use it too much, and I can push through a little pain. You know I don’t control my rent, so if I want to be able to keep my tuition low for the kids, I have to add an extra class until I can find a different solution. End of story. And—AH!” She holds up her finger to press against my lips when she sees me about to argue. “I won’t take money from you. We’ve been over this a thousand times, and I need to do this on my own.”

My shoulders sink. The only consolation for continuously losing this argument is the fact that her skin is pressed against my mouth right now. I’ll stay silent forever if she will promise to never move. And with her finger pinned over my lips like this, I don’t have to feel guilty about not telling her I’ve been secretly paying part of her studio’s rent for years. (Not true—I still feel guilty about going behind her back.)

Bree’s landlord raised the rent on her once before when she first took over the studio from the old owner. She cried on my couch that night because she wouldn’t be able to afford it anymore (much like what’s happening again) and thought she was going to have to find a cheaper location outside of the city, which would completely negate her purpose of providing a dance studio for the kids in the city.

Let’s just say her landlord had a magical change of heart and called her the next day to say he’d moved things around and didn’t need to raise the rent after all. We can also safely say that if Bree ever finds out I’ve been paying a few hundred dollars toward her rent each month, I will be relieved of my favorite dangly parts. I probably shouldn’t have done it, but I couldn’t bear to watch her lose her dream like that. Not again.

Bree was accepted to the dance program at The Juilliard School just before high school graduation, and I’ve still never seen a person more excited about anything in their life. I was the first person she told. I picked her up and spun her around as we both laughed—internally a little scared about what our separating lives would mean for our friendship. She would be moving to New York, and I would be off to UT on a football scholarship. I wasn’t about to leave town without telling Bree how I felt about her, though, and hopefully making things official between us. We’d only ever been friends, but I was over it and ready to be more.

And then it happened.

She got T-boned by a guy running a stoplight one day after school. Thankfully, the crash did not take her life, but it did take away Bree’s future as a professional ballerina. Her knee was shattered, and I’ll never forget her words over the phone when she called from the hospital sobbing. “It’s all over for me, Nathan. I won’t be able to come back from this.”

The reconstructive surgery was hard on her, but the physical therapy that summer was the most brutal. Her spark was gone, and there was nothing I could do to bring it back for her. I didn’t want to leave her once fall rolled around—it didn’t feel right to go on with my dreams when she was stuck at home without hers. Even more than that, I just wanted to be with her. Football didn’t matter as much to me as she did.

But then, she pulled away. Or more like cut me off. She left me with no choice but to go to UT as planned—and then after I got there, she wouldn’t return any of my calls or texts. It felt like the most painful breakup even though we’d never dated. We went four years without talking, and still to this day I have no idea why she did that. She’s thriving in her new life now, so we don’t revisit the past. I’m too scared to hear the answer to why she cut me out back then.

When I graduated, got signed by the Sharks, and moved to LA, Bree was here too. I believe it was cheesy, old-fashioned, honest-to-goodness fate that brought us back together. I walked into a local coffee shop, the bell chimed over my head, and she looked up from a book, eyes locking with mine from across the room. She was a defibrillator to my chest. Bam. My heart hasn’t beat the same since.

That day, I found my old friend again. The friend I knew before the accident who was so full of life and energy, except even better. She was healthier, she had these incredible, soft, feminine curves that had not been there before, and her knee had healed up enough that she was able to work as an instructor at the studio she now owns. Unfortunately, she had a boyfriend then. Don’t even remember his name, but he was the reason I didn’t ask her out on the spot.

We picked back up with our Tuesday tradition, and I’ve been barrel-rolling into the vast, never-ending hell hole known as the friend zone ever since. I’m afraid I’ll die in this friend zone because she’s constantly reminding me that she’s not interested in anything romantic. Almost every day she says a terrible phrase like:

“Just friends.”

“Practically my brother.”

“Incompatible.”

“Two amigos.”

Anyway, that’s why I did it. I couldn’t bear to stand back and watch her lose something important to her when I could easily fix it this time. So I’ve secretly been paying her rent, and she will be furious if she ever finds out.

I make a mental note to check in later with ol’ Mr. Landlord just as Bree’s finger falls away from my mouth. “Seriously, don’t worry! I’ll figure something out like I always do. But for now, I’ll take some ibuprofen and ice it between classes. I’m okay. I promise.”

Because I’m only her friend, I have no choice but to hold up my hands in surrender. “Okay, I’ll let it go. I won’t ask if I can give you money anymore.”

She tips a cute, snooty chin. “Thank you.”

“Hey, Bree?”

“Yes?” she asks suspiciously.

“Do you want to move in with me?”

She groans loudly and lets her head fall back against the couch cushion. “Nattthaaaannnn. Let it go!”

“Seriously, think about it. We both hate your apartment—”

“You hate my apartment.”

“Because it’s not fit for human habitation! I’m a thousand percent sure there’s mold, the stairs are so sticky but no one knows why, and that SMELL! What even is that?”

She grimaces, knowing exactly what I’m talking about. “Someone suspects it’s a raccoon that got in between the walls and died, but we can’t be certain. Or…” Her eyes dart. “…itmightbeadeadhuman.” She mumbles that last part, and I consider holding her hostage and forcing her to live in my clean, mold-free apartment against her will.

“Best of all, if you lived here, you wouldn’t have to pay any rent, and then you wouldn’t need to make as much from the studio.” It’s a loophole, a way for her to cut costs without accepting a single dime from me.

Bree holds my gaze for so long I think she’s wavering. “No.”

She’s a needle, and I’m a full balloon. “Why? You already practically live here. You even have your own room.”

She holds up a correcting finger. “Guest room! It’s a guest room.”

It’s her room. She makes me call it the guest room, but she has spare clothes in there, some colorful throw pillows she added herself, and several items of makeup in the drawers. She sleeps here at least once a week when we stay up too late watching a movie and she’s too tired to walk home. Yeah, that’s the other thing—her apartment is only five blocks down the street (yes, five blocks makes a huge difference in a big city like LA), so we’re practically already roommates, just separated by hundreds of other roommates. Logic.

“No, and I’m serious—drop it,” she says in a tone that lets me know I’m inching up to pushy-asshole-best-friend territory and I need to cool it.

Some might be tempted to think my full-time job is pro athlete. Wrong. It’s forcing myself to behave inside this grey area with Bree where I’m wild about her on the inside and nothing but a platonic guy-friend on the outside. It’s a cruel form of torture. It’s staring at the sun and not blinking even though it burns like hell.

Oh, and did I mention I accidentally saw her naked a few weeks ago? Yeah, that hasn’t helped. Bree doesn’t know, and I don’t intend on telling her because she’d get super weird about it and avoid me for a whole week. We each have a key to the other’s apartment, so I let myself in like I always do, but this time I had forgotten to tell her I was coming over. She walked out of the bathroom butt naked and then went back in without ever seeing me standing there in the hallway, jaw sweeping the floor. I turned around immediately and left, but that beautiful image is burned—no, something better than burned…engraved, transcribed, memorialized in my memory forever.

“Give me one valid reason why you don’t want to live here, and I’ll let it go for good. Scout’s honor.” I hold up my right hand.

Bree eyes it, tries not to smile, and then folds down my pinky and thumb. “You’re not a Boy Scout so your honor means nothing, but I can’t move in with you because it would be too weird. There, I gave you an answer. Now you have to drop it.” Bree hops up from the floor, and this time I let her go. Her curly ponytail swings behind her, loose wisps clinging to the sweat on her neck as she walks into the kitchen.

I follow behind, not ready to drop the topic of conversation quite yet because I think I finally found the real reason. “Who would it be weird for? You or Martin? Surely he knows he has nothing to worry about between us.” I strongly dislike her boyfriend. He doesn’t deserve her. I mean, I don’t deserve her either, but that’s beside the point. What kind of douchebag would be okay with his girlfriend living in a hazardous building and not offer for her to move in with him?

Bree’s eyes leave mine, her mouth twisting to the side. She’s debating something, and I lift my brows to encourage her. “Bree?”

She spins away, and her wrist full of ever-present, colorful braided bracelets dives into her monstrosity of a purse. “Did I mention I have something for you? It’ll cheer you right up after your breakup with Screechy…I mean Kelsey.” She chuckles to herself over her little quip, and I try not to let her see me smile. I couldn’t care less about my breakup with Kelsey. I’m more concerned about why she’s trying to change the subject right now.

She digs and digs and digs through her bag, and I know what’s coming. Bree has a trinket obsession. If she sees something that reminds her of one of her friends or family members, she buys it and stuffs it in that Mary Poppins satchel to bestow upon us later. I have two whole shelves of items she’s given me over the years. Her sister Lily has three shelves. We made a bet once to see who had more “Breenkets,” as we call them, and I lost. Lily beat me by seven.

Finally, she finds what she’s looking for, and out of her bottomless bag comes a miniature-sized magic eight ball.

Her rainbow nails place it delicately in my upturned palm, and she quietly says, “Number eight. You know, because you’re number eight on the team.” I’ll set it next to my number eight playing card, number eight shot glass, and number eight birthday candle. “Also, Martin and I broke up.”

Wait, huh?

The world stops spinning. Crickets silence. Everyone, everywhere on the planet turns to look at us. I, however, have to try very hard to remain neutral. Somehow I instinctively know that my reaction right now is crucial if I want to keep the status quo of our friendship. Don’t mess things up, Nathan.

“Since when?”

“Last night. We broke up after the game.” Her answer comes out fast. “Well actually, I broke up with him after the game. He was fine with it though. It was pretty much mutual.”

I can’t believe this. “Why didn’t you tell me before now?”

She shrugs, her attention focused on sliding her bracelets up and down her wrist one by one. “Just didn’t think about it.”

“Lie. No one conveniently forgets that they broke up with someone they’ve been dating for six months.”

She grits her teeth and rolls her eyes to me. “Fine! I just didn’t want to, okay? It wasn’t a big deal. Martin and I barely saw each other, and…he was boring. We were boring together. No sparks. I just couldn’t do it anymore.” Bree says all of this looking completely nonchalant, while I have to remind myself to keep breathing—slowly, in and out, like a normal human and not like I’m short-circuiting on the inside.

Because this—right now—is the very first time we’ve both been single at the same time in the last six years. Somehow our relationships have staggered themselves out into an almost humorous cycle.

And now…we’re both single.

At the same time.

And I’ve seen her naked. (That thought has nothing to do with anything, it just pops into my head randomly from time to time.)

If I leaned in right now and kissed her, would she let me? Would she cringe? Or would she melt into me and that would finally be the end of our platonic friendship? These are the questions that keep me awake at night.

I don’t get to find out the answers, though, because Bree suddenly snatches her purse from the counter and throws it over her shoulder. “Okay, well, now you know. So, I’ll see you…sometime,” she says, backing away from me with a curiously flushed face.

I follow her to the door. “Tomorrow,” I say, closing my fingers around the magic eight ball. “I’m picking you up tomorrow for Jamal’s birthday dinner, remember?” My teammates love Bree, call her the Sharks’ little sister. I refuse to ever call her that.

She trips backward over a shoe and catches herself with a hand on the wall, her long honey-brown ponytail whipping her in the face. “Tomorrow? Oh yeah, I forgot. Sounds good!” She’s being so strange. Or…more strange than normal, I should say. “Well…I’ll see you tomorrow then!”

I grin as she tries to leave through the front door, but her purse gets caught on the handle, yanking her back a step. She yelps then frees herself and runs out the door.

With a sigh, I look down at my newest Breenket. “Well, magic eight ball, what do you think? Should I tell my best friend I love her?”

I turn the ball over, and the message reads: Reply hazy, try again.

The next day during practice, it’s clear that Bree’s singledom announcement has taken up all the available space in my head. I can’t focus on drills. I screw up too many passes. Jamal—the top running back on our team—has started calling me butterfingers, and it’s catching on like wildfire. Everyone thinks it’s hilarious because I’m never like this. Coach is concerned and thinks I have the flu. He sends for a team physician to check my temperature on the sidelines in front of everyone. I feel like an idiot.

“I just have something on my mind,” I tell Jamal later when practice is over and he’s badgering me with questions about why my game was so off today.

He grunts a laugh as he finishes buttoning his shirt. I’m already dressed and sitting on the bench in the middle of the locker room, waiting to go into the media room to answer questions with the press about our upcoming game.

“Does it have anything to do with you breaking up with Kelsey?”

My head flies up. “How’d you know about that? I only broke up with her yesterday morning.”

His patronizing smile says, You’re an idiot. “She announced it on her Instagram last night, along with a link to a gossip article on In Touch Magazine’s website.”

“Dammit.” I should have known better than to date her. Kelsey is a model who at first seemed nice but then, after closer examination, turned out to be a spotlight hunter. Though, honestly, I can’t say I really care when a woman only wants to date me for the attention it brings her. I only date other women because Bree is always dating other men. But currently she’s not…and since I can’t seem to find a woman even remotely as amazing as Bree, I feel like it’s time I quit looking anywhere else.

Plus, I’m sick of my girlfriends being rude to Bree. It’s like watching someone try to swat a butterfly—cruel and depressing. Suddenly, I’m worried about that article for other reasons. Kelsey can talk shit about me all day, but if she even mentioned Bree’s name once, I’ll have my lawyers all over her faster than she can blink.

“Did you read the article?” I ask Jamal as he preens in the mirror.

He lets out a guttural laugh that tells me I’m not going to like his answer. “Oh yeah I did. And you’re going to hate it.”

My back goes straight. “Does it mention Bree?”

Jamal takes one look at my ready-to-fight demeanor and shakes his head. “No, but you’re pathetic, you know that? Look at you, ready to ruin someone to avenge the woman you’ve never even kissed. Dude, you need to get a grip. Either go after Bree, or be done with her. Clearly you’ve got some pent-up frustration that’s starting to affect your game, and that can’t happen right now, because…playoffs, bro. PLAYOFFS.” He’s shaking his fists in a desperate attempt to make me understand. As if I didn’t already know the playoffs are important.

I ignore Jamal. “Just to be clear, though, the article doesn’t mention Bree?”

He gives me a flat look. “No. Your object of desire is safe from slander. You, however…” He laughs like friends do when they see a booger stuck to the side of your face but don’t intend to tell you it’s there.

Again, I ignore him. “I couldn’t care less about the article, then.” My image has never been important to me. All I care about is playing a good game. “Besides, we only dated for a few months. I doubt she could come up with that much dirt on me.” Mostly because I’m boring. I don’t party. I don’t drink during the season. I go to bed early and wake up early.

Jamal looks like he’s about to burst from jubilant anticipation. His smile is grinchy, his eyebrows are lifted, and now maybe I’m a little nervous about what Kelsey said. He claps me on the back on his way out of the locker room. “Come find me when you’re ready to read it, okay? I don’t want to miss seeing your face when you do.”

As Jamal is leaving, another one of my teammates walks through the locker room and heads for the shower while laughing at whatever he’s looking at on his phone.

“What’s up, Price?” I ask with a head nod even though he’s not looking at me.

He laughs bigger and passes by me. “Not you apparently!”

I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean, but something tells me I’m not going to like it when I find out.