Chapter 56

Crystal
In her opinion, she’d been home long enough. Even though her mom had been great, Crystal was finally at the point where she wanted to cut the apron strings. She much preferred living on her own. Crystal didn’t feel the need for her mom to take care of her anymore. Besides, she wanted to open the sorority house.

She would be president this fall and planned to tackle a list of maintenance items before the other girls got back. It would be much easier for the workers if the girls weren’t running around and getting in the way. Or at least that was the excuse she’d given her mom.

While at home, her dad had summoned her. Not surprisingly, he wanted to talk about David instead of catching up with his daughter. He wanted her thoughts on how David would react. Not that her dad would change his plans; he simply was looking for insight on how to manage David. With what her dad had told her, Crystal had the perfect excuse to do what she really had come back to school for: to see David with the added benefit of warning him.

She walked in the front door of the sorority and noticed it smelled musty from being closed up all summer. In the past, they’d left the house open during the summer months. The problem was that with no one to supervise, the handful of women living there let the place become a filthy mess.

She made a mental note to hire cleaners to come in and give the whole house a good once-over. Crystal went up the stairs to the third floor, where her room was. She’d grabbed one of the coveted singles for the coming year. It was either that or a much larger triple, but she was glad she hadn’t gone that route.

The singles were small, but Crystal didn’t want the hassle of having a roommate to sleep with. Even though house rules prohibited guys from sleeping over, it happened. With roommates, it could be awkward. More times than not, one of their roommates would ‘accidentally’ open the door to catch the amorous couple in the act. Sorority girls were more incorrigible than guys sometimes.

Crystal looked around the room and debated whether or not to paint but decided against it since she wanted to move in. She didn’t want to bunk in another room while the paint dried. The few marks on the walls could be covered up by posters.

She sat down on the edge of the bed and smiled.

’This is going to be a great year!’

It had been a busy day. Her room had been dirtier than it looked at first glance, so Crystal had scrubbed every surface. Then she discovered her mattress had a bunch of mysterious stains on it. She hauled it down three flights of stairs and threw it in the dumpster. Her new mattress wouldn’t come until tomorrow, giving her an even better reason to go see David.

She’d showered and changed into a cute shorts-and-tank-top set her mom had bought her. Crystal walked over to the football practice fields. Her dad had taught her that if you wanted to crash a meeting or event, you just acted like you should be there. She’d always done that when her old boyfriends were practicing or lifting weights.

She spotted David throwing passes and walked out onto the practice field.

“When will you be done?” Crystal asked.

David, his teammates, and the coaches all snapped their heads around.

“You can’t be here,” David said.

The look in his eyes was stormy and wild, like he couldn’t believe she was standing there.

“Why not? I just had a short question, which you haven’t answered,” Crystal replied, daring David to tell her not to be there.

“I’ll be done when the coaches say I am.”

“Okay. I’ll wait right here for you,” Crystal said.

She pulled out her phone to read the book that had her hooked. It was about a kid selling kittens and getting into all kinds of trouble. She was at the part where he’d ‘sold’ his sister with a funny ad and found her missing. Crystal suspected the kid’s sister had scammed him somehow.

“How about you go to the other field?” David suggested. “Alex is trying out to be our kicker, and I saw Chloe was with him. Maybe the two of you could catch up.”

“Thanks. That would be nice.”

“If you two are done, maybe we can get back to practice,” one of the coaches said.

David’s teammates found that amusing as David went back to throwing the ball.

Crystal went to the other field and found a woman coaching Alex to kick a field goal. She introduced herself and learned the coach’s name was Amy Stackhouse. Coach Stackhouse asked if Crystal was dating David, and when she replied ‘yes,’ Amy asked if they could have coffee later that week. Crystal answered in the affirmative, and Coach Stackhouse went back to coaching Alex.

“You want to do it the same way every time. Two long steps back and then two side steps so you’re ninety degrees from the ball. That’s the perfect distance for both speed and power. When you run up to kick the ball, you’ll lock your ankle and knee at the point of contact, and that will maximize height and distance.”

The coach put the field-goal tee on the football. It was a two-legged triangle with a metal pole set on top of the ball to hold it in place. Alex took his steps back and to the side to get ready. He ran up and kicked the ball, which boomed off his foot but only got three feet off the ground.

“That wasn’t right,” Alex said.

“Sorry, my fault. Aim for the bottom third of the ball.”

Alex did it again. The ball looked like a field goal kick this time, but it went way left.

“Much better,” his coach said. “But you’re doing a soccer-style kick where you swing your leg horizontally in front of your body. Instead, swing your leg through the football and toward the center of the goalposts.”

She teed up another ball, and Alex tried it again.

“Better!”

Alex smiled because it actually went through the goalposts.

Chloe waved to get Crystal’s attention, so she joined her.

“So, you and Alex?” Crystal asked, nodding toward him as he kicked again.

“We got close pretty fast, especially after we almost died,” Chloe said as their eyes met; hers were wide and scared as she apparently relived something traumatic.

“What happened?”

Chloe told her what had happened at the market in Cali and the chase back to the Sandoval compound.

“David was a hero. Did you know he’s a pilot? He flew a bunch of women and children out of danger,” Chloe shared.

“I did know that. On our first date, David took me to San Francisco for dinner,” Crystal said. “I didn’t know about his heroics. I would’ve expected that would be on the news, especially with him being a celebrity and all.”

“David’s security made us not post anything on social media.”

“Speaking of media, it looks like your mom’s in the middle of it,” Crystal said.

“My parents’ lawyer told my mom the FBI has indicted like 50 people, and of those, over 30 are parents. My dad wants to fight it because they didn’t know the guy they contacted had bribed anyone. My mom wants to negotiate some kind of settlement because all they would probably get is a fine and community service. But Dad says they shouldn’t back down because they didn’t do anything wrong.

“I just wish it would go away. The Internet trolls have been all over my sister and me. I had to shut down the comments sections on my social media because of all the hateful things people have been saying,” Chloe said.

“Your mom might be right because the media will eventually pick someone to be the face of this scandal. If it lands on her, she may never work again.”

Chloe’s mom was Deirdre Price, who was on a long-running sitcom, playing the love interest of the show’s star.

“She just got word that they’re letting her go. The same day, she received a notice that someone’s suing everyone involved in the case for $500 billion, with a ‘B.’ The lawsuit says their child had applied to several of the universities and contends that, with these people fraudulently taking slots, their kid had been denied a chance to enroll.”

“A good lawyer will make that go away,” Crystal predicted.

“My parents’ guy laughed out loud when he read their filing. He said it was done just to get someone their fifteen minutes of fame.”

“What do you plan to do? I heard you’re not coming back to USC.”

Chloe shrugged.

“I don’t think I want to go to college. A friend of mine is making a living off being a social-media influencer. She’s a complete idiot and currently has like a hundred thousand followers. I think people just want to see her make a fool of herself.”

“That’s not such a bad idea. I know social media is toxic for you right now, but you have name recognition because of the scandal. And luckily for you, your sister is the lightning rod for the bad press. If you’re looking for a rich, entitled poster child for the scandal, she’s it. Is she completely clueless?” Crystal asked.

Chloe chuckled.

“More like she doesn’t give a fuck. Why else would she be traveling the racing circuit with a bunch of old, rich guys?”