The Cheat Sheet: A Novel

“NATHAN! Put me down!” I screech as he carries me out of my room.

“There is nothing wrong with getting a little help in life. Friends help each other get ahead. In fact, I think my next project will be getting you out of this dump.” He knocks a knuckle on the wall and paint chips fall.

“Don’t you dare buy my apartment building and renovate it!”

“I might. I’ve got money to blow, baby.”

Who is this man?!

“You’re unhinged!” I yell at his butt.

“Yep. Feels good too. Now, come on, yell at me some more in the truck. I really don’t want to go to the party tonight without you, and I know you don’t want to miss it.”

I kick and flail. “No way! I’m not going with you. We’re fighting! You don’t get to get your way right now, you big brute!” He gives my behind a single gentle pat after I say the word brute, which makes me gasp with outrage and also want to die laughing. UGHHHH I hate Nathan. Why can’t we just fight like normal people?

“You can’t touch my butt! That’s against the rules,” I say as he walks me back toward the front door, stopping to turn out lights as he goes. My hair dangles in the air below me like a weeping willow.

“I never did see a list written out anywhere.”

“I’ll make you one and laminate it! Why are you acting so weird tonight anyway?” It’s freaking me out. Something about Nathan feels different. He’s always been playful with me, but now he’s… I refuse to let my brain finish that thought.

“I think I’m acting normal.”

“No, you’re not, and I’m not going with you to the party! PUT ME DOWN! Wait, can you grab my tennis shoes? They’re down there beside the couch. And don’t forget my sweater!”

With me still draped over his shoulder, Nathan sumo squats and retrieves my shoes before turning out the final light, picking up my sweater, and taking us into the hallway. He swings me around so he can lock the door behind us, and I find myself face to face with my sweet elderly neighbor Dorthea. Her curlers are in her hair for the night, and her eyes are as wide as saucers.

I smile like everything is normal. “Hey, Mrs. Dorthea. Did you get that stack of coupons I slipped under your door this morning?”

Mrs. Dorthea is a widow, and I know she struggles financially. Since I also fall in the category of struggling financially, the most I can do is clip coupons for her and share my leftovers. More than once, however, she’s thanked me for the hundred-dollar bill she found in her mailbox even though I never gave her one. I thought maybe her memory was just beginning to slip, but now I see the truth. Nathan. I need a paper bag to breathe into. In how many other areas of my life has this man secretly Mother Teresa-ed me?

“Well, yes, honey, I did…but…” She’s at a loss for words since I’m casually thrown over Nathan’s shoulder like this is a normal way for a woman to be carried around in the twenty-first century. Some part of me says I should be appalled to be hauled around by a man like this, but I can’t hear her because the larger part of me is too busy yelling, YES! Carry me back to your cave and make sweet, sweet love to me!

Suddenly, I’m swung around the opposite way, and now my butt is aimed at my poor sweet neighbor.

“Hi, Mrs. Dorthea. Looking pretty as always. Do you have everything you need tonight?” Nathan asks—with a big charming smile, I’m sure. I bet all those pearly whites are completely dazzling her.

Yep. He totally smiled, because now Mrs. Dorthea is tripping all over her words trying to thank him for his compliment, assuring him she’s as blessed as the Pope and congratulating him on another win this past weekend. I roll my eyes.

I’m then carried down three flights of disgusting stairs. I can hear Nathan’s shoes peeling off the sticky floor with every step. Yuck. You’d think this apartment would come with super low rent for how disgusting this building is, but NOPE. That’s LA for you. I pay way too much to live in a building that smells like armpit.

Before we make it to the lobby, I decide if Nathan can touch my butt, I can touch his. I scrunch my nose then move my finger and thumb toward his butt cheek with the intent to pinch the daylights out of him so he’ll put me down. The first attempt, however, is unsuccessful. He only laughs and flexes his rock solid glute, making it so there’s no padding I can grab to inflict damage.

“Do less squats,” I tell him with a put-out tone and fold my arms, resigned to drape over him like a coat until he puts me down, wondering where I went so wrong in our fight tonight.

We make it to the truck and Nathan plops me into the front seat, shuts the door, and then gives me a Stay look through the window. I search my pockets and find a used gum wrapper to toss on the floorboard of his truck out of spite.

Nathan slides into the driver’s side of his blacked-out truck—the windows so dark no one ever knows who’s in here, which is lots of fun—and gives me a look that says, Alright, let me have it. So I do the opposite because I’m in a mood to make him pay for his good deeds. I raise my brows in a sassy mocking expression then pull out my phone and settle into my seat to ignore him for the entire drive.

He groans. “The silent treatment? Oh come on! Anything but that.” I don’t answer, just turn my gaze out the window like I can’t be bothered by his distraction. “Fine. Make me pay. I deserve it.” He leans over the center console and retrieves the gum wrapper. It goes in the tiny trash can he keeps in his driver’s side door.

I’ll be honest, though, it’s tough to feel justified making a man pay for being too kind. I know it was underhanded and manipulative and deceptive, but dammit it was so sweet I could cry. It’s so Nathan that the only thing he’s guilty of is having too big of a heart. I wish he would stop making me love him more. It’s annoying.

After scrolling through Twitter for a few minutes and trying to block out Nathan’s ridiculous attempts to draw me in by rapping to 90s hip hop songs about big booties, I come across a retweeted article with Nathan’s face on it. Now, I’ve been friends with him long enough to know not to read any of the tabloids about him, but this one stands out for reasons I can’t ignore.

“OH MY GOSH, I’LL MURDER HER!” I yell so loud I’m surprised Nathan’s windows don’t shatter.

“Who?!” he asks frantically while pulling his truck into the parking lot of the restaurant where we’re meeting up with the guys.

I blink down at the article. “Kelsey! Your horrible ex! She wrote an article about you…and…” I look up at him. “Have you not seen it?”

“Oh.” He’s not concerned. “I heard something about it, but I haven’t cared enough to check. I figured Tim would call me if it was that bad.”

“Okay, well I guess you don’t care that she’s deemed you the lousiest lover in LA, then?”

“What?”

That got his attention.

Nathan takes the phone from my hand, his eyes scan down the article, and then he relaxes and tosses the phone back into my lap. “Eh, not so bad. Ready to go in?”

My mouth falls open and I peer down at the article that would have me burying myself alive. “Not so bad? Nathan, she shamed you for…” I let that sentence die off because Nathan and I have NEVER talked openly about our sex lives before. We treat the topic like it’s a building on fire and give it a wide berth. Instead, I let my eyes drop to the forbidden area of his jeans and hope this conveys the words I’m too embarrassed to say. “Not being able to…well, you read it, so you know.”

He’s trying not to smile. “It’s not a big deal.” He reaches into the back seat and a crisp, white dress shirt materializes. He shrugs it on and buttons it up. Not a care in the world.

I don’t understand his nonchalance right now.

“How are you not upset? I’m practically shaking with rage! I want to go put red ants in her underwear drawer! Put hot sauce in her coffee creamer! Duct-tape her car doors shut!”

“Ooo, how devious. Do the feds know about you?”

I lightly smack his shoulder. “Don’t laugh! This is serious.” For some reason, I’m blinking back tears right now. “She—she publicly shamed you for having erectile dysfunction, Nathan. That’s a horrible thing to do! And humiliating. And you’re the nicest guy in the whole world! And I HATE HER!”

Nathan barks out a laugh and his head tilts up to heaven like he’s praying for wisdom. His big hand rakes through his hair then he turns his eyes on me again. “Bree, thank you for your concern, but I don’t have erectile dysfunction. She blew the story out of proportion and was just trying to dig at me for not having sex with her…and probably for choosing you over her the day we broke up. But the joke is on her because, as you’ve pointed out, it’s very insensitive to shame anyone for the condition.” He gestures toward my phone. “Just look at the comments at the end of that article. She’s getting terrible backlash, and men are saying they feel better knowing an athlete struggles with the same condition they have.” He shrugs again. “All in all, not a terrible outcome.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he’s so noble. But my brain stopped listening after one very important key statement.

“Wait. Go back. Did you say for not…” Again I’m at a loss for words.

Nathan Donelson did not sleep with the underwear model he dated for two months? My brain is not computing. It’s going to shut down, and fumes are about to puff out of my ears.

“You never had sex with her? Why?” I ask this question even though I shouldn’t. But I need to know, because Nathan is…Nathan! Just look at him. He oozes sexuality, and every woman in the world wants him. Even Mrs. Dorthea probably has the hots for him!

His face is frighteningly serious. We’re not joking around anymore. “Because I’m celibate.”

“What!” I accidentally yell this so loud a woman walking beside the truck turns to try to peer through the darkened window. Scram, lady. I look back at Nathan and whisper, “You’re a virgin?”

“No.” His smirk is a little too indulgent if you ask me. “I guess I should say I’ve been celibate lately.”

I shake my head, thinking of all the nights I wanted to cry myself to sleep thinking of him holding another woman in his arms. Holding Kelsey. Turns out, he wasn’t. “I don’t understand…she was there the morning I brought coffee over.”

“You’re at my house a lot in the mornings too. That doesn’t mean we’ve done anything physical.”

I suddenly can’t swallow. Or feel my toes. What’s happening?! Why am I reacting this way? It changes nothing really—except I feel like everything I knew has changed tonight. My foundation is shaking.

Nathan sees my wide eyes and rumbles out a short chuckle. “Why are you making this such a big deal?”

“Because,” I say emphatically like that’s enough of an answer. “You could have anyone you wanted at the snap of your fingers. Why would you be celibate?” I NEED TO KNOW! There’s something he’s still not telling me, and it’s bothering me. I didn’t think he and I had any secrets, but now I’m learning he has two big ones! How many more are there?

His dark eyes stare back at me. “Not anyone I want.”

My heart races up my throat. Those words mixed with the night and the fact that he bought my studio and we spend nearly every day together…it all suddenly holds so much implication, and…could this be it?! Could he mean—

He chuckles, a familiar playfulness washing over him again, and all hopeful thoughts halt. As they should.

“Look at your face,” he says through a soft laugh. “You were so terrified there for a minute. Bree, don’t worry. I’m only celibate during the season because it helps my game.”

His game? He’s celibate for the sake of football? Oh. Right. That’s more realistic and yet another reason to remind myself not to think of Nathan as anything other than a friend. That’s all we’ll ever be, and that has to be enough for me. It has to! I need to sit my sad little heart down and give it a stern talking to.

I let the air out of my lungs in one big rush, pretending I’m relieved so I can maintain the status quo. “Oh! Oh my gosh! Yes. That makes perfect sense. I’ve read studies about that too! I was worried there for a minute that you meant…” It feels too uncomfortable to say it out loud, also maybe a little pathetic. “Never mind. Let’s just go inside.”

“Okay.” He smiles inquisitively. I’m afraid my face is showing emotions it shouldn’t. “Are you alright?” he asks after he’s purchased a parking ticket (he refuses to use the valet because he says it only draws more attention to him) and we’re walking toward the restaurant.

“Of course! I just—” I need a change of subject. So I come to a stop and Nathan does too. I wait until he turns to look at me. “Listen, I still hate that you went behind my back and paid my rent, but…completely off the record…” I smile. “Thank you for caring about me that much. You’re…the best of friends.”

He nods once, not looking as happy as I would have anticipated. “Anything for you, friend.”

We stare at each other for a few beats.

“But I will pay you back,” I say, breaking first.

He groans loudly and walks away.