Ladies Man

by Katy Evans

I nod happily.

  I watch him walk the redhead back down the beach, noticing the woman is annoyed.

  It feels like forever until he comes back. Our eyes hold in silence. He hands me a bottle of water he seems to have fetched from his villa, and I appreciate him not saying anything about my drunkenness. I appreciate him knowing I’m not too proud of my current situation. I sit in a chaise, and he sits down next to me, and I take a sip, then stare at my feet and all the specks of sands that got into my sandals.

  I’m so selfish, I realize. I’m so selfish to ask him to stay when he clearly had something better to do. Someone else to do. “I just sometimes want to be with you. I’m sorry,” I blurt out.

  “Hey,” he laughs. “Don’t apologize. I like it best when I’m with you. Come here. Have some more water. It will help with tomorrow’s headache.” He unscrews the water bottle for me to drink, but I decline.

  “No. No. I just…I thought you were mad at me.”

  “I’m not mad.”

  “Distant. I don’t like it. I couldn’t…” I wave my hands and shake my head. “I couldn’t breathe right when I felt you were being distant.”

  “You couldn’t breathe right?” he asks roughly. “Woman, I thought I was hit by a bulldozer.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Regina.” He laughs again gruffly, then glares out at the sea before he turns back to me. “I know every delineation of your curves by memory. I know your every smile, every tiny shade in your eyes. I know when you’re happy and when you’re sad and when you’re feeling sexy. I see you with that guy and you’re none of that, you’re none of that with him and it frustrates the shit out of me.”

  “I’m trying, Tahoe!”

  “You shouldn’t have to try. It’s either there or it isn’t.” He takes my hand and laces his fingers through mine, fire streaks through my whole body. “It’s there or it isn’t.” He eases his hand away, and I’m drunk enough that I’m not thinking right. But I still say, “Don’t sleep with her tonight. Are you going to sleep with her tonight, Tahoe?”

  “Yes, Regina, I’m going to sleep with her tonight.”

  I want to scream, Why? What does she have that I don’t? What do they all have that I don’t?

  Instead I stand up and shove him. Hard. He doesn’t budge.

  He slowly comes to his feet and watches me with a puzzled frown, and when I’m tired of lifting my arms and pushing the unmovable mass that is Tahoe, I sigh. Too weak, I let him carry me inside and tuck me into bed.

  HUNG OVER

  I wake up certain that I dreamed the night before, uncertain of what really happened and what didn’t. Whether Tahoe kissed my cheek or my chin or my nose before he finally went to his villa. And whether it was, in fact, sex noises I heard coming through the thin walls. Or if my mind is confusing the noises for the sounds of Trent stumbling back from the club about the same time the sun rose.

  The hangover beats heavy in my brain as I shove all my things into my suitcase and hurry to make it to the airport. Trent needed to work, so last night was our last night hanging out with everybody. Our flight leaves early today. Everyone is still snoozing by the time Trent and I call a cab to take us to the airport.

  We fly back to Chicago with the kind of silence that comes after a very intense weekend, and although he declares this weekend was his best trip ever, I can’t summon the enthusiasm to say the same.

  “Did you change something?” Trent asks me after hours of silence and the plane begins to descend.

  “Hmm?” I ask as I stare out the window, eager for a glimpse of Chicago below.

  “Did you do something to your face?”

  I lift my head and blink, then touch my fingers to my face. “I’m hung over. I didn’t have time to…I’m just wearing less makeup.” I stare at him thoughtfully. “You don’t like it?”

  He shrugs. “You look different.”

  “Different good or different bad?” I’m frowning now.

  “Just different.”

  I turn back to the window, fishing my sunglasses out of my bag and slipping them on to keep the glare of the sun out of my eyes.

  Although being hung over isn’t the best time to make decisions, I know that the man I want to be with wouldn’t have asked another guy to take me back home—drunk—because he wanted to stay and have some more fun on his own. I know that the guy I want will like my hair flat and/or curly and my face with any color I choose to put on it. I know that Trent genuinely likes me but I also know that the guy I want is not flying back in this airplane with me.

  Tahoe and I would never work, but that doesn’t mean that Trent deserves a lukewarm relationship like this either.

  I also…want more.

  So when we get to my apartment, I tell Trent the truth.

  That I am utterly and completely confused.

  That I want us to work, but that I need some time to think.

  We have a big but short Talk—and we decide to take a break for a month or two, to see if we’re really what each other wants.

  “Take all the time you need, Gina,” he says confidently, squeezing my hand as he stands at my apartment door. “But I will still call. I’m wooing you so there are no more doubts in your mind.”

  MAY

  Aside from packing boxes nonstop when I return from spring break, I continue working overtime. I’ll be moving into another apartment for a year, but I’ve still got my eye on buying one for myself. So I spend all my time either working or looking for apartments and also trying to forget all the memories of Tahoe that keep coming back to me from spring break.

  Trent has continued calling, and sometimes I agree to see him—on friendly terms and with definitely no hand holding, no kissing, and no sex.

  I think he understands that I need to think things through and he’s mostly giving me space, which I appreciate.

  One Thursday during our usual cocktail night, I tell Rachel and Wynn in confidence that Trent and I are taking a break and are thinking things through.

  “Good for you, Gina,” Rachel says.

  I’m actually surprised by how unsurprised they both are.

  “We don’t want to see you get hurt again and you need to be sure you’re with THE guy,” Wynn insists.

  “Thanks.” I sip my drink, suddenly wondering if, like them, there is even “THE” guy for me out there. “Just please don’t say anything yet, we may actually end up working things out.”

  * * *

  Wynn, Emmett and I are clubbing one night and I’m trying to get my mind off work when I spot Tahoe in the club and a prick shoots right through the center of my chest. I haven’t seen him for a while. He hasn’t texted me to invite me to another practice game, and although I know lacrosse is already in season right now, I’ve wondered if there’s another reason he hasn’t invited me. Maybe he simply doesn’t want me to go and watch him anymore. Not after spring break.

  Whatever the reason, I’m breathless when I see him winding through the crowd toward me as my group and I try to locate our reserved table.

  “Hey, Regina.”

  Tahoe’s lips curl tenderly as he looks at me.

  “Hey, T-Rex.”

  “I could’ve used some of my lucky charm the other day at practice.” His voice lowers as he steps over, a hand in his pocket, the other one covered by a black jacket draped around his forearm. He’s ludicrously sexy. His smile as deadly as the tip of a knife poking into my breast.

  “Send me an invite and I’ll do my best.”

  He pulls his hand out of his pocket and squeezes my elbow and looks at me with a rueful smile I don’t quite understand.

  It seems only a few seconds after we stare at each other that he notices Emmett and Wynn, and I notice Callan and the blonde who might be either Callan or Tahoe’s date. It feels like I’m coming back to Earth and I can almost hear the regret in Tahoe’s voice when he greets my friends.

  Callan calls for Tahoe.

  The things I’m feeling from seeing Tahoe again are to
o overwhelming to suppress.

  “Would you like to sit with us, Regina?”

  My startled brown eyes fly up to find a pair of Nordic blues staring back. I feel like there’s no air inside the room when he’s in it, an unbelievable mix of sophistication and primalness.

  I suck in a calming breath, but he’s still big and manly and beautiful and smelling delicious and with that mouth.

  As his eyes keep staring into mine, there’s a crack in the shields, and I see an incredible force and power simmering underneath. I suppress a shiver. Breathless, I give him a slight shake of my head. He smiles a sad, rueful smile, and says, “Come over if you change your mind. ’Bye, Regina,” and just like that, he walks away.

  A dozen women catch up with him.

  * * *

  It isn’t until I have breakfast with the girls the next day that Rachel mentions the cast.

  “What cast?”

  “He was wearing a cast at the club this weekend, didn’t you see?” Wynn says.

  “He broke his wrist in practice,” Rachel says as she bites into her croissant.

  “What?”

  His comment about needing his lucky charm at practice finally makes sense. I’m a little bit angry with myself because, had I not been too excited and unexpectedly affected by seeing him again, maybe I’d have had enough working brain cells to notice?

  I excuse myself from the table, step outside the restaurant to the sidewalk, and call him. Whatever went on that weekend in Florida, I’m sure he understands that I was drunk and not thinking clearly. He still called me his lucky charm even though I doubt that I am one for anyone.

  “Is that why you haven’t invited me to one of your games?” I ask when he answers, shocked.

  “So you’ve missed me,” he says. He sounds deeply satisfied.

  “No. Yes. I mean… Are you injured?”

  “Yeah, I fucked up in practice,” he rumbles ruefully. I can hear the frustration in his voice. “Haven’t played.”

  “God, Tahoe. I want to know these things, we’re friends. You were at the hospital for me, I want to be there for you.”

  “I’m fine, Regina.” He laces his voice with a bit of uncharacteristic tenderness, and then he sounds amused. “I could’ve definitely used spooning though.”

  I laugh. Then I check the time. In mere seconds, I calculate how much time I would spend baking a pecan pie and come to a decision. “I’m coming over tonight,” I say, and hang up.

  I hardly notice the silence at the table when I return to the girls, or how they’re sharing questioning looks between themselves until I glance up from my plate.

  “What?” I ask.

  Wynn says, “I didn’t say anything.”

  Rachel just looks at me with that concerned look of wanting to tell something to your best friend but don’t know how to do it without riling her up. So I decide there’s no point in discussing anything, and I bring the topic back to Rachel’s upcoming ultrasound and whether or not she and Saint will finally learn the sex of their baby.

  I ride the elevator up to Tahoe’s floor a little after 8 p.m. I’m dressed casually in jeans and a sweater I bought with my special employee discount. It’s emerald green and warm enough that I didn’t need a jacket.

  I’m more nervous than I expected to be, my heart pounding as I step off the elevator. I’ve been here before, first with Rachel and Saint, then when I dropped by unexpectedly, but I’m not used to his apartment. The place is so immense and bold, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it. Wood floors, leather furniture, stone-covered walls with Expressionist and Impressionist paintings scattered all over. Every painting on his wall is old. The frames are old, gold and carved. They contrast greatly with the modern furniture, creating a very complex, manly, elegant look.

  The most impressive piece is the Van Gogh above the fireplace mantel. Van Gogh, a man so lonely and tortured and passionate, he chopped off his ear for love. He worked his whole life without selling a painting, save for one. I don’t have much appreciation for art, but I’ve gone to exhibitions with Rachel and the only painter I’ve truly gotten, and will never forget the story of, is Van Gogh.

  And sitting with a pile of papers strewn all around him is Tahoe. I knew that he expected me, but it’s always still a surprise to see him alone, no floozie clinging to his shoulders, no woman draped over him.

  He looks so good like that, all male, solitary. It somehow fits him. He was reading something in one hand and his injured arm is spread along the back of the couch, casually lazy, the lights above shining on his blond mane.

  I feel like I haven’t seen him in years.

  Except for last night at the club, I haven’t seen him since I got drunk and punched him.

  Ohmygod, I’m such a lousy drunk!

  “I brought you something.”

  I extend the pie as some sort of olive branch.

  His eyes shine as he takes me in with a sweep of his gaze and smiles at me. “Wow. Food.” He slowly comes to his feet, then reaches out with his good hand and rumples my hair.

  I feel…warm.

  But my eyes wander down his chest and the length of his arm, to the thick white cast around his wrist. I don’t like seeing him with a cast. I can’t imagine what it means to him to miss his games and practice sessions.

  “Just don’t eat the aluminum, okay?” I stick my tongue out at him and set the pie on the coffee table next to his pile of papers.

  He lounges back down with that lazy grace of his and watches me with a peculiar frown, one that almost seems to wonder why I’m still standing. “Aren’t you going to stay and feed it to me?” he teases.

  “What?”

  He holds his arm upward and glances at his cast. “It’s difficult to eat with a retired right hand,” he says.

  “I’m not feeding you pie.” I scowl, but lower myself down next to him anyway. I nudge him for being shameless enough to ask. “You’re spoiled. Who spoiled you? Your first? Lisa?”

  “Not really.”

  “You loved her?”

  “I worshipped her.” He glances at me with his most somber expression, the one that makes his face look extra chiseled. “Do you love Trent?” he asks.

  He looks so intently at me you’d think that discovering my answer is his reason for living.

  “I don’t know, I mean it takes a while to love someone like that. I really like him. I want to love him.” I’m tempted to tell him that Trent and I are on a break, but I don’t want him to ask any questions, so I don’t.

  “Does he love you?”

  “How am I supposed to know?”

  “You know because he tells you that he does.”

  “He hasn’t told me.” I turn my face away and glance at the Van Gogh over the limestone mantel. “What are the words worth, anyway? Paul told me a million times, until he added don’t before the L word.”

  His voice flattens with displeasure. “But we’re not going to talk or even think about that motherfucker anymore. He’s…fish food.”

  I laugh. “Oh, Tahoe.” I sigh and drop my head back and stare at his ceiling as he does the same. “Were you unfaithful to her?”

  There’s a frown in his voice, and a bit of a scoff too. “Yeah, Regina, ’cause that’s what you do to a woman you worship.”

  Neither of us lift our heads as we continue staring at the ceiling—a beautiful ceiling with thick wood beams. “Tahoe, come on. You can’t keep it in your pants, you have too much testosterone.”

  “I keep it in my pants with you.”

  The comment makes me too aware of what he has in his pants. And I sense him turn his head to look at my profile.

  I swallow. “Because I have a boyfriend, and we’re friends, and there’s Rachel and Saint.”

  I turn my gaze to his, and he eyes me. He’s so close that I can see the light blue flecks inside the darker color of his eyes. “I don’t think you love Davis,” he says.

  “Why?”

  “You wouldn’t have kissed me like yo
u did on New Year’s.”

  “We were both drunk.”

  He laughs. “I wasn’t that drunk.”

  I sit up and scowl. “You weren’t?”

  He sits up too, and shakes his head.

  The sudden mix of honesty and raw hunger in his eyes hits me somewhere in my chest, and I feel suddenly vulnerable.

  “I’m going to get some water. Do you want some?”

  I don’t wait for a reply. I don’t know where exactly the kitchen is, but I don’t really care. I need to get away.

  I walk around, trying to locate it. I navigate my way through the apartment until I find the kitchen. I find a water glass after looking through all twenty cabinets.

  I’m unsettled.

  Just knowing I’m here, the place where he sleeps, works, showers. Just knowing he is close to me right now… here, in this decadent guy cave, does some serious things to me.

  I shudder and return to my water.

  I grab the glass and head to the faucet to fill it, then start taking a long gulp when I see a dark figure to my left.

  I was so lost in thought and I’m so startled, I hear glass shatter, a dark rumbling voice telling me not to move, and the beat of my heart.

  “God, T-Rex—!” I start.

  “My fault,” he interjects, eyeing me cautiously. “I shouldn’t have snuck up on you.”

  I want to say that it was my fault until I realize I did nothing wrong, so instead I laugh and say, “Yeah. It was.”

  He looks at me and smiles. “Go get a fresh shirt from my closet, I’ll clean this up.”

  I hesitate only a second before deciding I don’t want to stay soaked and therefore I head out of the kitchen, down the hall in search of his bedroom.

  I pause at the threshold and peer inside, taking in the massive bed and modern decor. It’s dark outside, only the lights of the city illuminating the room, and the moon casting a gray-blue light on Tahoe’s bed.

  Unwillingly I picture him lying there—lying there beautiful and naked—and I instantly chide my brain for coming up with the image in the first place, especially when I have never imagined Trent like that.