by Kata Čuić
The caption reads:
It’s been 547 days since she came into my life, and I can’t imagine another single day without her.
Love you, Peaches.
Tears spring into my eyes. I glance up from the phone screen to find him watching me carefully.
“I, uh…” He clears his throat. “I figured that first season if I kept you at a safe enough distance that this thing I feel for you would just fade away. That it was just lust, you know? That didn’t work. And then the whole hotel thing…”
A laugh that sounds a touch hysterical sneaks out of my chest. “Seeing me pee made you fall in love with me?”
A full, glorious smile spreads across his face. “Yeah,” he admits, sounding surprised himself. “Maybe a little. It didn’t barrel into me all at once, but it picked up in speed and intensity until I couldn’t lie to myself anymore.”
My emotional pendulum swings the other way. A sob catches in my chest. “But, but, but…you said you would never have made the first move!”
Oh my God, I thought he gave in. I thought he just wanted sex. He hasn’t been scratching an itch at all. He didn’t offer himself up to me until he was already in too deep to do anything else.
“No. I wouldn’t have. That wouldn’t be fair to you. Being with me isn’t easy, Peaches. I know that. My life, my job, my fucked-up past…those aren’t small hurdles.” He wipes my damp cheek with his big hand. “Just because you’re my unicorn doesn’t mean I’m yours.”
I cannot possibly abuse everything he’s given me tonight by lying to his face. “I…I’m not there, Mike. I can’t tell you what you’re telling me.”
“I know.” His eyes are soft and his touch even softer. “That’s partly my fault. How could you possibly fall in love with me when I haven’t even shown you who I really am?”
I shake my head and bite my lips. I’m so tempted to say he’s already shown me who he really is time and time again, but I won’t do it. Not tonight.
He pulls the cell phone from my grip and places it on the coffee table again before folding my hands in his own. He stares at where we meet. “You have some decisions to make, Tori. And I…I can’t make them for you. All I can do is give you the full picture, so you can make the best choice for you.”
“And hope?”
He glances up at me with confusion clouding his eyes.
“You can give me all the information I need and hope I’ll choose you?” I clarify.
His smile is small and tinged with sadness. “I’m not the hoping kind. I’m the hard work type.”
Another entirely different sort of shudder rolls down my spine. “After all the hard work you’ve put in so far tonight, I’m a little worried about what else you might have in store for me.”
His smile turns predatory. “There are a few things I haven’t tried yet.”
If he intends to make good on that offer tonight, the front door bursting open definitely kills the already tenuous mood. Like he’s afraid we might be riddled in a burst of gunfire, Mike pulls me down to his chest so fast and hard that my teeth snap together. He rolls me beneath him like he’s practiced this move a million times.
Maybe he has.
“Who is it?” I can’t see a thing beneath my human shield.
“Alex? What the fuck are you doing here?”
“You gonna tell me why you’re really here, or am I just gonna watch you drink yourself stupid for the rest of the night?”
He didn’t want to talk in front of Tori, and I wasn’t about to push. Not when I have no idea why he’s sitting at my kitchen island. Peaches isn’t willing to leave me alone with the guy, so she’s upstairs, getting ready for bed. He doesn’t have any excuses now.
Alex raises his already bloodshot eyes to mine. “Jesus, Mike. What’s with the interrogation? It’s my bye week. I can’t drop in on an old friend?”
“Unannounced? No.” I’m just thankful Tori wasn’t naked on top of me in the living room when he arrived. We’ve christened most of the house already. I never had to worry about unexpected visitors before.
He rolls his eyes then lifts his third beer to his lips. “I told you I was coming. It’s not my fault you never read your texts.”
He clams up when Tori comes into the kitchen, wearing nothing but one of my t-shirts. She glares at him the entire time. He winks and checks out her bare legs.
“You really do have a death wish tonight, don’t you?”
He smiles at my threat. “Maybe.”
Tori grabs a bottle of water from the fridge then slams the door shut. She stops at the edge of the island, staring Alex down.
She’s too beautiful to ever look threatening, and Alex is too stupid to consider cowering—even if only for show.
He smiles his trademark grin at her but weirdly says nothing.
She points at him, points at me, shakes her finger in the air, then finally slides it across her throat.
He outright cackles at her silent threat.
I have to bite my tongue to hold in my own laughter. I hold out an open palm for her. “I’m dying to hear how many curse words he can pull out of you. You can talk again.”
“Ooh. Silence games.” Alex winks. “Kinky. Didn’t think you had it in you, Mitchell.”
Surprisingly, Tori doesn’t lunge at him. She places her hand in my own and squeezes tight.
That simple gesture erases all my fears—over what she thinks of me now, why Alex is really here, all of it.
She lets me pull her into my side and wrap my arm around her waist.
I drop a kiss onto her shoulder. “We’re good, babe. Don’t worry. You can go to sleep if you want.”
Alex showing up might actually be the perfect reason for her to take some time and really think things over. I dropped a hell of a bombshell on her, and I don’t want her automatically reacting with pity. It’s obvious she isn’t afraid. She didn’t run away screaming after all. I want her to be able to look at the guy sleeping next to her in bed and feel like she can trust him—even knowing all the reasons why she shouldn’t.
Peaches slides her hand down the back of my head in a way that would make me purr if Alex wasn’t watching us like a hawk. She leans down to press a kiss at my temple. “I’ll be upstairs if you need anything.”
Such simple words, no innuendo, but full of promise anyway. I can’t fight the automatic smile on my face. I don’t even try. I don’t want to.
She ascends the stairs like she does almost every night.
“She looks good on you, Mike.” His tone is genuine. He’s not talking about the compromising position he caught us in when he barreled through the front door. “Been a long time coming. I’m happy for you, bro.”
I’m not out of the woods yet, but I don’t think Alex is popping the top off a fresh bottle to hear all about my problems.
“You get a call from Rob?” I guess.
He nods and stares at the marble surface of the island. “I’ve already lost her, haven’t I?”
“Yeah.” I don’t know how much Rob told him about his second marriage proposal plans, but Alex doesn’t need me to lie to him either way.
He raises his gaze to mine. There’s a little bit of his old fire—the real one—burning in his deep blue eyes. “What the hell did he give her that I couldn’t?”
Alex and I don’t have conversations like this. Never have. Suddenly, I understand what brought him here. He genuinely wants to know what he did wrong, and he knows I’m the only person who isn’t too biased to tell him the truth.
“You didn’t give her everything.”
“Bullshit,” Alex spits. “She needed a shoulder to cry on? I was there. She needed someone not to treat her like a fucking toddler the way you two do? I was that man. She needed loyalty and someone she could trust?” He leans across the island and hisses, “I haven’t had sex in two years, Mitchell! Two fucking years! And I’ve had plenty of opportunity!”
I almost feel bad for him. Almost. My mind worked exactly like his a few year
s ago. I thought I’d given Chelsie everything, so I was just as angry as him when she called it quits without even bothering to tell me.
If Alex hadn’t inadvertently brought Tori into my life, maybe I’d still be the same way. For that alone, he deserves the tough love I’m about to dish out to him.
“You didn’t give her everything,” I repeat slowly. “All that shit you just said? That’s called being a decent fucking friend. Anyone can do that. Did you ever once call her up to cry on her shoulder after a shit game? Did you ever confide in her your deepest fears? Your darkest secrets? Did you trust her enough to shoulder your burdens and make your relationship a two-way street?”
He rolls his eyes. “She’s been through enough. She needs someone she can count on, not someone who’s going to take more from her.”
“I thought so, too,” I admit. “But you know what? Evie is stronger than all of us combined. Hell, she’s proven it so many times, it’s a fucking tragedy it’s taken me this long to realize it. She wants to give love just as much as she wants to receive it. She’s a grown woman who’s capable of making her own choices. She’s choosing Rob because he doesn’t always play the fucking white knight in her life. He laid out every one of his goddamn flaws for her to judge, and she judged him worthy of her love.”
What am I going to do if Peaches doesn’t judge me worthy? There’s nothing left for me to lay bare. I’ve given it all.
Alex scoffs then downs the rest of his beer. “He wasted her love on another woman. You don’t honestly believe half the shit that just came out of your mouth. You were there that night. If I hadn’t decked him first, you would have.”
“I was wrong.” Fuck, that’s still hard to admit. “He gave her what she needed. Not what he wanted. We’ve been so busy accusing him of being selfish that we didn’t realize what he did was selfless.”
I always thought love was the most selfish thing a person could experience. We like the way it makes us feel. Most people throw in the towel when that feeling goes away. That’s something Rob and Evie taught me, even though I wasn’t necessarily the fastest learner. Loving each other made them fucking miserable. I judged the shit out of them for not walking away from all that pain. I thought they were only digging in their heels to spite all the people who kept trying to tell them what to do with their lives.
It took the prospect of losing Tori to teach me the rest. I would never have been able to say all these things to Alex if I hadn’t lived them for myself for a change, instead of being on the outside looking in.
That’s the kind of perspective he still doesn’t have.
“Evie’s not your unicorn, Alex. If she was, you wouldn’t know how long it’s been since you last had sex.”
Even putting it in terms I think he might be able to understand isn’t enough.
He cocks his head back and stares at me like I’m insane. “What the fuck are you talking about unicorns for?”
“One of my teammates,” I try to explain. “He’s constantly looking for his unicorn. The perfect woman…”
Evie always tells me I’m clinging to the past. I’ve never felt it so much as in these moments when I recount to an old teammate the exploits of a new one. Accepting the changing of the guard for the position Alex used to hold in my life.
Whether we acknowledge it or not, time pushes on. The pain we’re capable of experiencing in a single moment might define our lives, but it doesn’t last forever. We build scars strong enough to withstand the next round of agony. We adapt for better or worse. Sometimes we can choose how we react; sometimes not.
I’ve made my choices, both good and bad.
All I can do now is wait for Tori’s choice.
“Post likes are down, engagement is down, and don’t even get me started on views.” David’s expression looks like he just ate an entire package of Sour Patch Kids as he stares at the projected image of the Albany Wolves’ social media insights on the wall.
The entirety of the PR department hangs their heads in shame. Some of them are pecking away on their phones beneath the conference table. Either trying to boost the current numbers with new posts or chronicling the indentured servitude nature of working for an NFL team on their personal feeds.
“We have just secured a playoff run, people!” David claps his hands to regain their attention.
His exclamation only further serves as proof of how far behind we’ve fallen. The Wolves have not made the playoffs in five years. We should be rolling in fan engagement, but we’re not.
“No one thinks we’ll make it past the first round,” Kaylie admits. Her shiny lip gloss looks a little dull beneath her lowered lash extensions. “The expectation on all the fantasy sites is that we’ll choke in the second round. Real football fans know we don’t have the depth chart to go the distance. One major injury on the starting lineup will kill this drive.”
I’ve seen those same message boards, but the mood in the upstate makes absolutely no sense to me. I’m not even a football fan, but I’m excited for all this potential.
No one else seems to be willing to offer any suggestions to an increasingly frustrated David, so I raise my hand.
He puts his hands on his hips and glares at me. “Miss Russo, this is not the third grade. If you have something to say, then say it.”
“If the fans don’t have any faith in us, then we could actually capitalize on that. Everyone loves a good underdog story.”
A few snickers and eye rolls go around the table. I’m just the intern who’s supposed to look pretty and be a good distraction after all.
Fuck. That.
“Look at what happened last year during the Superbowl between Scranton and Boston. Not even the bookies in Las Vegas predicted that upset, and with a back-up quarterback to boot.”
Now I’ve got their attention. It’s honestly sad no one else has thought of the obvious comparisons.
“We could run in-depth coverage of our second string. Give the guys on the practice squad a few shout outs. Prove to the fans that we actually do have the depth to see this thing through.”
A few murmurs of agreement go up from my co-workers, but David looks as skeptical as ever. “Miss Russo, we cannot outright lie to the fans. They will see through that in a heartbeat.”
His subtle dig hits its mark. Fans didn’t respond well to Mike’s and my staged official status. The posts went live with barely any notice. I couldn’t go through with sharing the organic one Mike created.
That was too personal. Too honest. Too real to be served up for judgment by the uninformed masses.
That’s mine to keep. Or to discard.
It’s been weeks, but I still haven’t made up my mind. Every dinner reservation we appear for, every smile when I know a smartphone is aimed our direction, every time I accept pleasure from him that I didn’t believe existed…I still don’t feel like any of it is real. In spite of his intimate confessions, even though he’s been inside my body with nothing between us…there’s something still missing.
I don’t know what that is. Maybe because he’s only my second serious relationship. How could I possibly know what true love feels like? In this, I admit I am actually naïve. I only know I’ve learned not to settle for second best.
I can’t shake off the feeling that I’m still the lesser of two evils in Mike’s life—be completely alone, or begrudgingly open himself to me to avoid that very same thing.
David dismisses the meeting after a consensus is reached to hold a holiday charity ball. We’ll all dress up on a Friday night, command the players to appear and smile for the cameras, and auction off luxury prizes for hefty donations.
In my opinion, that still doesn’t make the team accessible to the average fan who can’t afford a thousand-dollar dinner plate, but my opinion doesn’t matter. Average fans don’t believe in the team enough according to the latest data, so we’re apparently going to stick to marketing to the season ticket holders who have money to burn.
My phone rings as soon as I’m in
the hallway.
“Hey, Daddy.”
“Hi, Princess.” His tone carries the usual gruffness, but I hear the undercurrent of love most people miss. “I haven’t heard from you in a few days. Haven’t seen any new pictures online either. Is everything okay? Mitchell still being good to you?”
“Well…” I want him to trust me to be independent, but I sure could use a trusted ear, too. “I’m busy. Mike’s busy. The Wolves have secured a playoff spot, but fan engagement is down. I actually just got out of a meeting about that.”
“Is your scholarship in jeopardy?”
That’s my dad. Short, sweet, and straight to the point. You can retire the Captain from the Navy, but you can’t erase the bureaucratic efficiency from the man. I’m pretty sure that’s how he was able to raise six kids all on his own, actually.
“No.” At least not that I know of. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it home for Christmas though.”
“We’ll come to you.” His word is his bond, and his tone leaves no room for argument.
I cough out my shock. “Dad. I have a one-bedroom apartment. We can’t have Christmas at my place!”
So much for seeming successfully independent.
“We’ll make it work. What else is on your mind? I can tell you’re holding back.”
This. This is why I will jump through hoops for this man. Even from hundreds of miles away, I can’t put anything past him. He cares enough to dig deeper, even if it’s uncomfortable for him.
I sit down in my cubicle, gathering my things for the day. No one else is going to eavesdrop on my conversation when they’re all so eager to flee, too. “How did you know Mom was the one?”
He makes a humming noise that carries clear as day over the line, like I’m sitting with him in the living room, watching his expression turn serious. “This about Mitchell?”
“Yes.” There’s no point beating around the bush.
“You have doubts?”
