All Yours: A Second Chance Romance

by Ellie Bradshaw

  I know all this stuff. I just don’t think about it much. He says it’s because I’ve never had to.

  I sigh. “Yes, Eric, I know you’ll say I cannot purchase a wife.” Then I wink, my grin becoming the wicked one that I know infuriates him. “But, as my beloved grandmother used to say, ‘Can’t never could.’ So I release this restricting notion of ‘can’t’ and replace it with the belief that I,” and here I touch my hand to my chest, “Cam Simons, can accomplish anything I want, if I try hard enough.”

  His fork hasn’t moved. “To marry. Why? Marriage isn’t quite your speed.”

  I grimace. “Things change.”

  He raises his eyebrows. “Such as?”

  I sigh, moving away from the door. This is obviously going to take a moment. “Such as my father’s will. Such as my father’s general demeanor toward me, and the explicit threat that poses to my way of life.”

  “You’re saying your dad’s cutting you off if you don’t get married?”

  I consider this. His instructions had been that I produce a betrothed. Nothing about actually going through with it. I shrug. “Close enough. I have to be engaged.”

  His eyes widen. “Who is this poor girl? Or have you bothered to pick one out yet?”

  Sometimes I have to try very hard to be patient with Eric. “Of course I’ve picked one out. This is a big decision. It’s not one to address with casual window-shopping.”

  He shakes his head. “I can’t believe I’m having this conversation,” he says, almost to himself. An irritating habit he has. “Who is it? Do I know this poor woman?”

  “You’re hurting my feelings, you know that?”

  “I don’t believe you actually have feelings, Cam.”

  “Of course I do.” I blow him a kiss. “I love you, don’t I? Pain in my ass though you are.”

  “Who is she?” He seems genuinely curious.

  No sense not being honest. “Aimee.”

  “Aimee,” he repeats, as if adding some obscure punctuation to my declaration. “Aimee?” Incredulous now. And then the bastard starts laughing. A big belly laugh that doubles him over at the waist and almost causes him to upend his dinner plate. Would have served him right if he had. “Oh, Jesus, Cam, I thought you were going to woo some unarmed lass with your charm and money and loop her into some crazy fiance-slash-sex scheme.”

  “I like where your head’s going, Eric.” I grin.

  “But Aimee?” he goes on, gasping, trying to control his laughter. “Oh, man, she’s going to kick the shit out of you!”

  I feel the smile wilt on my face.

  “I wish I could be there to see this!” His face is red by now and he looks as if he might have a stroke. I’ve had about enough of his jollity at my expense.

  “Get your coat, then.” I don’t even try to keep the chill out of my voice.

  Eric looks up at me from under his eyebrows, bent behind the kitchen island and struggling for air.

  “Serious?”

  “Yes, asshole, I’m serious. If you’re going to sit there and laugh at my misfortune and the danger to my standing and lifestyle, then absolutely. Get your coat and let’s go.”

  “I mean, you’re seriously going to ask Aimee to marry you? For money?”

  I blow out an exasperated breath. “I am going to ask her to pretend to be engaged to me. For money.”

  He’s shaking his head again. “That’s wrong, man. Don’t do that to her. Find some other girl.”

  I know what he means. I’ve thought of this. About what it might mean to her. About how it might make her feel. But there is no one else. It would be easy to find someone else, sure. Money makes everything easy. But there simply is no one else.

  Not for me.

  This isn’t something I tell Eric. Next to Aimee, he’s my best friend—which basically means that now he’s my best friend—but there are things I couldn’t begin to make him understand about this situation. Probably because I don’t understand them myself. Even if I did understand, this is not the kind of thing I talk about and if I tried there just isn’t enough time to say everything that I would need to say and get the actual marriage-for-money-asking done.

  And Eric’s made me mad with his judgey, better-than-you bullshit. “This situation is what it is, man. I’m trying to make the best of it.”

  His eyebrows beetle together. “It’s selfish. You’re being selfish.” He smiles ruefully. “Like most days, but this time you’re really going to hurt someone.” He puts his fork down. “So, a word. You’ve been my friend a long time, but so has she. We all go way back. I won’t beat around the bush with you. If you hurt Aimee,” his gray eyes bore into mine and for just a moment I think I feel some of the trepidation that all the guys that have gone into the ring with Eric must have felt. He raises one hand, a big hand accustomed to grabbing and holding and punching, looks at it. Looks at me. “I love you, dude, but if you hurt her, I’m going to be tempted to beat the brakes off your rich punk ass.”

  Everything goes red for a moment and I do want to hurt someone. Him. Of course I wouldn’t be able to in a hundred years. I tell myself that’s because he’s my friend, and not because he could make good on his promise without even having to be fully awake. My jaw clenches until I think my very expensive teeth might crack. My hands ball into fists. I force one open and turn the knob. “Fuck you, man.”

  The door slams shut behind me.

  At least the rain has stopped.

  I stalk to the Mercedes, fuming, dodging puddles and muttering to myself. By the time I’m calm again I’m already pulling out of the parking lot.

  There’s a funny thing that happens when you have something truly important to do. The things that piss you off sort of fade into unimportance. My anger at Eric slowly loses its grip and I can concentrate on what I have to do.

  There Were Several Buts

  Thirteen Months Earlier

  Cam

  Most people in college are in it for the job at the end. And so they spend the springtime applying and interviewing for internships they can do over the summers to get experience for the real job they’ll try to get at the end of school.

  Most people.

  I suppose I could have done that. After all, my father owned the biggest natural gas company in the state of Oklahoma. He wanted me to come to work to get experience in the company he planned for me to take over when he retired. And there was plenty of experience to be had there. It would have been good for me. Provided a lot of opportunity for growth.

  So I went to Europe that summer.

  I’ve kissed a ton of girls. It’s exciting. It’s fun. It’s a promise of things to come and filled with a wonderful tension that I love. But it’s never something I’ve hesitated to do. Kissing Aimee was terrifying. I had never, ever felt that level of uncertainty before doing anything. If you don’t care about much, rejection really isn’t much of a bother. But leaning in to kiss Aimee, my heart was in my throat. I knew, more clearly than I had ever known anything, that something I cared about was on the line. That there was a real possibility that what I was doing was going to fuck up one of the most important things in my life.

  Which, of course, it did, but I didn’t know that in that moment.

  In that moment it was clear to me that my forever-friendship with Aimee was the foundation of something so amazing I couldn’t even wrap my mind around it. I wasn’t even able to register it completely in my conscious mind. It was just something I knew I had to do and so I did it.

  And the whole time, my heart was in my chest and I felt, momentarily, that I might die. It was an unfamiliar feeling.

  When she kissed me back, I knew everything was going to be okay. Better than okay.

  And so I almost didn’t go to Europe. I was a hair’s-breadth from canceling the tickets and going to Chicago with her, where she was going to do her internship. But…

  Well, there were several buts.

  But: maybe it was just a kiss. I knew it meant something to me, it meant a
universe of things to me, but maybe for Aimee it wasn’t as profound a thing. Maybe she was just tired. Maybe I pushed things to a place she wasn’t comfortable.

  But: it’s not like we slept together. After we kissed we stood there for a moment, getting our breath back, looking at each other. I remember her lips were slightly parted and her breasts rose and fell maybe a bit harder than normal. But that could have been the lighting. And then she said, “I have an early exam tomorrow. I have to get some sleep.” She didn’t break eye contact, just said it matter-of-factly, the way she said everything. So we got in the car and I drove her to her apartment. Neither of us said anything. She grabbed her backpack and turned to me. I opened my mouth to say something—who knows what nonsense would have come out of my face in that moment—and she opened hers to say something at the same time so, for once, I shut up. But she didn’t say anything, just kept looking into my eyes. I don’t know exactly what passed between us. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but it was uncertain. Change. That was what moved from her eyes to mine. Something had changed.

  “Good night,” she said, and opened the door.

  I couldn’t leave it like that, so I said the first dumbass thing that came into my head. “Do you want me to come up?”

  She looked back at me and half smiled and I knew that everything was okay. “Not right now.”

  And I let myself smile for the first time in what seemed like hours, even though it had only been minutes ago we were joking in the parking lot. “Okay.” I waited a beat. “How about now?”

  Aimee laughed. I’ve always loved hearing her laugh, but this time it was like the sky opening up and a beam of solid daylight streaking through to light up just the inside of my car.

  “Good night, Cam.” And she was out the door and up those devil-stairs to her apartment.

  “To be continued, Aimee Strauss!”

  And the next night, after her exam, and after her nap, when I tried to kiss her again, she put a finger to my lips. “Wait.”

  Which made me unsure all over again.

  And then there was a crazy flurry of activity, she was packing, that awful girl Marie was in Aimee’s apartment all the time giving me side-eye, Eric was there being lame and supportive and giving Marie the side-eye, and there was just no chance to be alone with her.

  And then she was on her way to Chicago. Her mother drove her to the airport.

  A final “but”.

  But: six months before I had convinced Eric (more like, cajoled, bullied, nagged Eric) to come with me on a backpacking trip to Europe. Of course I had no intention of backpacking anywhere, and he knew that. So really, it was a trip to Europe, and I didn’t want to go by myself. You never know who’s going to try to get you alone and feel you up when you don’t speak the language. So I needed my other best friend, the one with knockout power and a sensible restraining hand for moments when, say, I wanted to try absinthe. And since I had leveraged so hard to get Eric to agree to go, I had to go, even if there was somewhere else I would rather be. It’s not like I could tell him what had happened.

  And for that matter, did Aimee even want me with her?

  So I didn’t follow her to Chicago. I didn’t do an internship at my father’s company (as if!). I stuck with my original plan and went to Europe.

  While I was there, I wrote Aimee a letter. And then, because I didn’t have her address in Chicago, I had to text her to get it so I could send the letter. I wasn’t sure how long mail took to get across the Atlantic Ocean, but I had some idea that my letter would be crammed in the hold of a whaling ship and spend six months floating to New York, where regular USPS would get it and accidentally send it to Alaska. So I spent approximately half my father’s fortune (or maybe a little less) at FedEx (yes, they have those in Milan) to have it sent…faster than a whaling ship.

  And I called a florist in Chicago and sent her a single, white rose.

  That Kind Of Bar

  Aimee

  Most days I can convince myself that if people knew what the people around them were going through, we would all be a little nicer to each other. A little more understanding. A little less likely to—

  “Hey, Toots, you put too much sour cream on my fuckin’ cheese fries!”

  —act like this asshole. He has a pinched little face, bleached hair that he’s gelled into a shape that resembles the prow of a Viking long boat, and biceps that strain the limits of a t-shirt a size too small for him. His two friends laugh as if he’s just told the joke of the year, partially because they’re drunk, and partially because their biceps are not as dangerously developed. Earlier in the evening he introduced himself as Corey, and the other two as his “brothers”. They don’t look related, but in this bar “brother” can mean all kinds of things. Members of the same motorcycle club. Members of the same military unit. Guys who want to fit in with bikers and military guys. Frat guys. I can’t remember their names—to me they’re just Goatee Guy and Beard Man. The only reason I can remember Corey’s name is he has been running his mouth non-stop for the past three hours.

  In moments like these I begin to lose my hard-won faith in humanity.

  Smile as much as possible. Right.

  I reach for Corey’s plate. “I can take this back to the kitchen and let them fix it.”

  But Corey hangs onto the plate. “Nah,” he says, a smile worming onto his wet lips. He tears a hunk of the mess—fries, greasy cheddar, bacon, sour cream—from the mass on the plate and shoves it in his mouth. Chews noisily. “It’s all good. I just want you to know why you’re not going to be getting a tip tonight.”

  I sigh. Of course. “Okay, then.” I turn to leave.

  And feel Corey’s fingers on the back of my leg, tracing up my thigh almost to my ass.

  I spin around. “Hey—”

  He’s smiling, all potato-speckled teeth and squinting eyes. “You could try being nicer,” he says. “I’m a nice guy,” he looks around at his friends for confirmation and they nod dutifully, facial hair swaying. “I’m nice to nice people. And nice people get tips, you know what I’m sayin’?”

  Yeah, I know what he’s sayin’. He’s sayin’ the world owes him because he’s special, and he doesn’t have to give a rat’s ass about anybody else. He’s sayin’ that he can talk whatever shit he wants, touch anybody any way he wants, regardless of whether they want him to, because something—do we even have to define it?—makes him better. Makes him more. A red hot feeling wells up in me, a bubbling turmoil that threatens to plume out of my mouth. I suddenly think of Cam, my own personal cocky asshole (But is he really yours anymore, Aimee? Didn’t you say that ship has sailed?). About how Cam would never talk to someone this way because, deep down, he really does recognize that everyone is important, that everyone deserves to be treated with some kind of respectful acknowledgment of their humanity.

  Except maybe for Corey here. Cam wouldn’t hesitate to put him in his place, and would be disappointed if I don’t. But I need this job. So instead of giving this drunk asshole the dressing-down he deserves I grit my teeth. Before either of us says anything, the short-order bell rings and I turn away from Corey and his buddies and return to the kitchen to pick up the next order.

  Cam

  My Mercedes does not belong in this parking lot. It’s all gravel and weeds and broken-down trucks and the polished chrome of Harley Davidsons. There’s one fading yellow light on a telephone pole that illuminates maybe half the lot, and a dozen motorcycles take up all the space under it. Two guys are standing beside the lowered tailgate of a Ford pickup that might be as old as they are. One is fat, wearing overalls and a trucker’s hat and a huge red beard. The other is a skinny guy with acne scars and tattoos that run from the fingertips of both hands up his arms, where they seem to have overcrowded his shoulders and bled onto his neck. They both turn to stare at me as I pull into the lot.

  I park a few stalls down from them in the dark part of the lot. The lock chirps behind me as I start to walk inside. As I pass the two rednecks, the
skinny one says, “Nice tie, faggot.”

  I wish, now, that Eric had come with me. Because it’s handy to have a semi-pro MMA fighter as backup, especially in a place like O’Donnelly’s. Nice guy, Eric. But dangerous as a leopard. Plus, he’s normally good at talking me out of doing stupid shit like driving the skinny punk’s teeth down his tattooed throat.

  But tonight I’ll just have to talk myself out of it. And so I have a fast conversation in my head, reminding myself that what is at stake is more than my simple, reactionary desire to beat up someone who disrespected me; there is more to protect than my ego (Aimee taught me how to think these thoughts, and I don’t know if I can forgive her for it). There is a whole future to worry about.

  I look at my Mercedes. Look back at Tat-Neck. Back at the Mercedes. I really like that car. So instead of passing them by, I turn and walk up to Trucker Hat and Tat-Neck. The skinny guy’s eyes squint up when he sees me turn his way, but then they widen a little bit when I get close enough that, even in the dark, he realizes that he has to stare uncomfortably high to look me in the face. I watch for a moment as he visibly closes his jaws tight around a bubble of fear.

  “What the fuck do you—”

  I reach into my pocket and suddenly both he and Trucker Hat are backing up, hands out in front of them, saying, “Hey, man…”

  Because this is that kind of bar.

  But instead of a gun I pull out a handful of green. Wave it in front of them. They look confused for a moment, and then curious.

  “I won’t be in there too long.” I nod to the Mercedes. “I’ll give you two hundred if it looks the same when I come out as it does right now. A hundred now,” I peel five twenties off the stack, “and the other hundred when I come back. That work for you?”

  Trucker Hat still looks a bit confused. He is obviously not the brains of this operation. Tat-Neck says, “Fuck yeah man!” and reaches out to take the money. I pull my hand back.