The League
Synopsis
When awkward, wealthy computer genius Brian Warecki gets his heart broken by the woman he loves, he uses his unlimited resources and money to do what no one has ever done before. He creates the League of Players, recruiting the nation’s handsomest, most notorious heart-breakers to seduce her, then leave her used, in the hopes that she will return to him. His reward to the ultimate player is incredible, and so, the greatest game of hearts ever played begins. But not every outcome can be calculated, and this game has an ending none of them expect.
Prologue
“Gentlemen,” he announced, “Welcome to the League of Players.”
There was silence for a few moments before one tall, russet-haired guy cocked an eyebrow, lounging on the cream leather sofa, then rudely asked, “And what is that supposed to mean?”
Warecki tried smiling thinly while gripping the edge of the podium until all his knuckles turned white. God, he hated this particular brand of male with a passion. But he needed them.
He needed what they could do with one look, glance, touch. Something that he – awkward, freckled, spaced-out computer nerd – could never do.
They were here to seduce her.
In answer to the strikingly attractive young man’s demand, Warecki leaned over and silently pressed the button on his streamlined, custom-designed laptop. He didn’t turn around; judging by the numerous gleams that had sparked in most of the players’ carelessly handsome faces, her picture was up there on the slideshow, smiling behind his back.
And yet, Warecki found himself turning around anyway, his gaze helplessly drawn to the photo he’d taken of her when she had smiled at him, not knowing that he’d decided to test out his micro-camera that day – an invention he’d been working on. It seemed like an eternity ago.
The same soft brown hair falling in waves, the large soft gray eyes, the soft pink lips. Everything had seemed so soft about her, so easy to get lost in, so easy to forget that he had never really outgrown the label of ‘nerd,’ even though his multi-billion dollar mansion on the coast of Malibu attested to the genius beneath the glasses and awkward exterior.
Warecki suddenly realized that the pause was stretching on too long, and that the world’s largest and most unfortunate collection of good-looking assholes were beginning to mutter amongst each other.
It had taken Warecki a long two months to put his plan into motion. The hacking into school feeds and private accounts had been utterly nothing; he could’ve done it in his sleep. It was hand-picking them that had taken so long. Once he’d determined, based on facebook friend numbers, various networks, and gossip, which males were the reigning school gods, he had sent each one a private inbox informing them of the time his private airline would pick them up at, and giving brief details of his offer. He’d told them just enough to capture their fleeting, shallow interests, and to ensure that they came.
He’d been careful not to sound like a complete psychopath, though; one false move and the FBI would probably be pretty damn interested in why Brian Warecki had assembled a group of twenty-something year-olds instructed to target his ex.
From where Warecki stood on the stage, he could see all of them, in various states of bored, lounging on the leather chairs he’d provided. He stared at them now. After two months of flipping through pages of profiles belonging to egotistical renowned heart-breakers, it became possible to notice a pattern. Brian had always been good at patterns.
Most of them wore a default expression which was hard to describe, but somehow they all achieved it. There was confidence written in their faces, confidence bordering on cockiness, and that was something that Brian had never exactly felt. Sure, he could afford to be confident about his work, his company, his many houses. But he’d learned a long time ago that the brain wasn’t the part of a boy’s anatomy that girls tended to appreciate the most.
For reasons he’d given up trying to understand, he’d also noticed that many girls liked boys who had reputations for being bad. The self-centered, cheating, careless heart-breakers were the ones who had girls landing in their laps, begging for attention, willing to give anything and everything up to them. It wasn’t fair, and at first it hadn’t made any sense.
Warecki had spent nights sitting up in front of his computers, studying the profile pictures of bronzed, muscled, grinning males with over three thousand facebook friends, trying to solve the mysteries smirking at him.
In any algorithm or problem, there was usually just a missing link or key that stood between the mystery and the answer. So what made girls attracted to these particular ones? Mystified, but now too invested to turn back, Warecki had delved deeper.
There had been contradictions. Not every male who was physically attractive had a lot of friends messaging him; in some cases, for those who were outrightly cruel and enormous tools, Warecki had even gotten the sense that they were generally hated. He’d come to the conclusion that it wasn’t merely their outwardly appearances that placed these males above others in their desirability factor, though good looks were a big part of it. He’d narrowed it down to several parts.
The Desirability Factor of a Male was influenced by:
1. Appearance: the initial first-glance did untold things in a girl’s psychological impression. A good-looking male had exponentially increased chances of getting a girl than someone unremarkable.
2. Reputation: this was a smaller version of fame. The better-known he was, the more girls wanted to hold his attention because it would mean that she would be getting attention, too. The things he could be known for varied, but in general the more hype about the male, the more desperately girls would throw themselves in his direction.
3. Money: this wasn’t always a big factor and plenty of guys got plenty of girls without being extremely well-off, but lots of money usually helped. Girls were attracted to shiny things, and money could buy a lot of those.
4. And the missing link.
There had to be something more to them, something else that made girls want them so bad, Warecki mused. But what?
It had been on the twenty-seventh day, he had all his profiles of selected candidates splayed out in front of him, and it had been two thirty-three a.m. when the answer had come to him: it was their charm.
Based on endless amounts of photo comments, hacked private convos, and other mutual friends talking about them, Brian had come to see that each guy had a different approach when it came to landing girls. Once he had his solution, graphing, charting, and labelling the rest had been easy.
Warecki had made lists, storing them on his private servers and watching to make sure his data wasn’t being tracked. Even though outside forces had no hope of hacking into his internal system, a small part of Brian knew that what he was doing was lame, obsessive, and – if he was honest with himself – more than a bit creepy.
But her memory would send a sharp jab at the region of his aorta, until he imagined that he felt his pulmonary arteries contracting painfully.
The final step had merely been sorting them into the six categories Warecki had managed to identify:
The Not-so-sweethearts: Deceptively sweet at first; they actually made the effort to get to know the girl, put on a chase for show, before using her and dumping her in whatever low fashion they saw fit.
The Honest Assholes: Honesty was attractive; that was a proven psychological fact, Brian knew. And the guys who were honest about what they did and what they wanted usually had plenty of girls who were willing to give them what they wanted.
The Charming Clowns: Those ones tended to be hugely outgoing and extremely well socially-connected, with tons of friends, invitations, which always meant tons of girls. Their cheerful good humour either made girls think that all they wanted was an innocent good time, or it made them easier to forgive. Whatever it was, they, at least, were remotely likeable.
The Jocks: No other name or explanation was particularly needed. Brian had despairingly come to the conclusion that even the girls who hated sports couldn’t resist a sweaty pig of a man in uniform. Even though this didn’t biologically make any logical sense, Warecki just chalked that entire group of males up to being one of the unexplained mysteries of the universe.
The Bad Boys: The challenge, adrenaline, and the feeling of being special that accompanied getting with a bad boy usually made a lot of girls go crazy. These were those cool, don’t-give-a-damn, leather-jacket-and-motorcycle types who could taste like stale campfires because of their cigarettes, and still get whichever girl tripped into their path. Brian personally hated them.
And finally, there was the elite group, the elite among the elite, that Brian had lamely and shame-facedly named The Zeuses.
According to Greek mythology, Zeus had been a god ruling over the other gods, and the idea that this could happen had fascinated Brian. There were only three males that he had brought in whom he’d given Zeus status, and he still hadn’t been able to perfectly define what, exactly, made them stand out.
Marco Perelli, Wes Travena, and Damon Adams. He had their names, faces, and net worths memorized.
Those three were the ones Warecki had his money on – literally. There was something about them that set them apart, even here.
He hadn’t informed them of the grand monetary prize yet. In fact, Warecki hadn’t told any of them why they were here yet – not exactly. They’d all been told something vague upon their individual arrivals, being escorted into one spacious, modern room to await Warecki’s presentation.
Right before walking onto the stage, Brian had stood on the other side of the one-way glass panel, his heart hammering, his glasses fogging up from how hard he was breathing. These guys were all cut from the same mold as all the other types he’d known back in school – the ones who had tormented him.
“Brain” instead of “Brian,” and “nerd” had been by far the most flattering nicknames, and not at all original. It didn’t really matter to Brian that most of his tormenters were now living very ordinary lives, far from the false glamour of their high school and university years, struggling to make ends meet while Warecki had become a billionaire at age twenty-two.
It didn’t matter because he still hated them. And yet, just like he was back in ninth grade, covered in zits and cornered by jocks standing on the toilet, Warecki hated himself. He hated that he still felt intimidated by them. Put players in mass numbers into one room and Warecki almost hadn’t made it to the stage.
It had been interesting to note, however, that players didn’t really get along with other players all too well. Only the more outgoing ones made attempts at even speaking to the other guys. Most of them just sat with their scowling, attractive faces – far from encouraging. It would be fascinating to study why this was; maybe it was like an animalistic instinctive behavioural reaction in which a male feels threatened. They thrived off the fact that they stood out; put them in a room where everyone was attractive in their own way, and what did you get?
Warecki was about to find out. As he stood in front of them, he willed himself not to turn around again to stare at the picture again. A small part of him cringed at the way some of the guys were staring at her, but he had chosen this.
“I’m sure you’re all wondering why you’re here, exactly,” Warecki continued, still gripping the podium. “She is the reason why.”
“A damn hot reason,” someone muttered and there were several appreciative grunts of agreement.
The marble edge of the podium was now digging into Brian’s skin as he tightened his hold and exhaled in a controlled manner, to reinstate normal levels of oxygen in his blood stream.
“You’re here because each one of you received the same offer. Every single male in this room automatically receives a cheque for ten thousand dollars just for being here, to be issued to you at the end of the competition.”
At the word competition, Warecki saw many gleams glow brighter and eyebrows go up into messy fringes.
He continued tersely. “However, for the ultimate pla—winner,” Warecki hastily amended, “there will be a grand prize.”
“So how do you win, nerd? Or are you too much of a loser to know that?” a rough voice called from the back.
Warecki gritted his teeth together, abandoning the stupid breathing exercises and letting the words pour out of him. “To win, all you have to do is get this girl to tell you that she loves you. Shouldn’t be that hard for any of you, I’m sure.”
There was a beat of silence before the snickers erupted.
“Love,” snorted a guy who clearly was of the ‘bad boy’ brand. “Cute,” he smirked without the smile really reaching his eyes.
Brian ignored their outburst. “She won’t say it unless she means it, however, so it’s not like any of this will be coming free. But the guy who manages to get her to confess her feelings for him will be named the ultimate winner and will receive five million dollars.”
This time, the silence was hushed. Warecki waited for some inconsiderate ass to break it, but they were all staring at him. The sweat began to pool beneath his hairline again as Brian went on.
“It’s a considerable sum of money, no matter who you are or who your daddy is. I’m sure you’re all inventive enough that you can think of ways to spend it. Cars, houses, tuition, hookers, I really don’t care. There are, however, a few rules that must be observed or you risk being disqualified.”
Still no muttering.
“It’s all simple, really.” Brian took a deep breath. “Rule one: always wear your camera to bring proof of confession back. I won’t be taking anyone’s word for it except for hers,” he pointed behind him without turning. “To do this, you will all be issued one of my own inventions, micro-cameras, which will be released to the public market shortly after our little game ends. Rule two: once she confesses her feelings for one of you in here, you drop her. As in, you cut all ties and never contact her again. If you fail to do so, or decide to return similar sentiments, you will again be disqualified and will not receive the money.”
He leveled his gaze at them and they all gazed back. Some looked shocked, some confused, but most were weirded out.
“And finally, if any of you physically harm her in any way, threaten her, or put her in any danger, I will personally see to it that your criminal record will be on databases in all fifty-seven countries that I have access to, and that your ass will remain in prison for many long years of misery. I hope I have made myself clear.”
Warecki took a deep breath and glanced at the notes he’d typed for himself on his laptop that morning.
“The game begins tomorrow when I introduce you to her. You do have a time-limit, though. One month is all you get, and you’re all competing against each other.”
One single hand went up in the back of the room. Warecki’s heart still hammered furiously and he tried to inconspicuously wipe sweat from his forehead. At the back of the room, not too close together, sat the three males whom Brian had privately given Zeus status. Neither of them had moved or said a word since he had come on stage.
But now, the hand belonged to the one in the middle. He knew from studying his file and profile pictures that it was Wes Travena, son of the fifth-wealthiest man in the world.
“Yes, Mr. Travena?”
Wes leaned forward, tilting his chin forward, his green eyes intent on the picture behind Brian. “What’s her name?”
Brian’s heart sped up and he struggled not to break down, to give up now and tell them it was all a hoax, to go home with ten thousand and never talk to him again.
But I love her! some desperate part of him cried. And because Brian had never known what to do with rejection, – even though he’d faced it his entire life – he steeled himself to do it. To expose her to the room of eager, hungry players ready for the ultimate game of hearts.
Because he needed to be sure that it wasn’t //endline here, that it couldn’t be the endCode. The End couldn’t be here already, not when he hadn’t had the chance to begin.
Softly, he said her name.
“Rain.”