by Tracey Ward
“Because you didn’t say it.”
Daddy sighs. “Is this what they’re teaching you there at that agency? Sass?”
I chuckle, spinning in my chair until the cord ties me up tight. “No, Daddy, I learned that from you when I was five.”
“My girl,” he agrees proudly.
I put my foot against the filing cabinet under my desk to bring myself to a sudden stop. “I’m doing it,” I tell him seriously. “Just like you said. I’m taking care of school and I’m working. This job is in the industry. I talk to athletes and coaches all day. I’m doing what you told me to.”
“I know you are.”
“So…”
“So what, Mila?”
Daddy doesn’t like being led. Daddy likes direct. But I’m nervous because what I want to ask is too important. The idea of losing it is too real.
“So, are you still going to sell the team?” I force out anxiously.
Daddy exhales hard. It’s not a sigh or a snort. More like a bull about to charge. “It’s been days, child. I’m not discussing this again already.”
“Okay. Fine. Just remember, I’m doing what you told me to.”
“I know that.”
“Good.”
“I have to go,” he says briskly. “Anders just walked in. He looks excited.”
“He probably saw a squirrel outside his window,” I say with overblown excitement. “Anders loves squirrels.”
“No. We got the okay to send steel to Argentina for a bridge build.”
“Or it’s Argentina calling, yeah. Of course.”
“Be good,” he reminds me ominously.
“I’ll try,” I promise him hopefully.
Daddy hangs up. He leaves me alone in the silence with my thoughts; never a safe place for me to be. I’ve barely replaced the receiver and I’m already thinking of all the things I want to do. The places I’d rather be than here in this office alone. But I like Sloane. I like Hollis and Berny, and I love my Kodiaks, and I know very clearly that bailing is not an option. This is what people do. This is what responsibility is. Being an adult is working a job, paying bills, and buying things you need like toothpaste and pork roasts. Being a child is running off to Antigua because the model you’re casually fucking has a runway show that weekend. I’m not saying I ever did that, I’m just saying that’d be childish.
Also, I totally did that.
I grab the candy jar off the counter and rifle through it the way Berny did earlier. It’s a bunch of crap. All I can find is bland, hard shit, the kind of stuff your grandma has at the bottom of her cross-stitched purse; the one with the still life on the front and the big bamboo loops for handles. Regular people’s grandma’s, not mine. Mine carries a fifteen thousand dollar Hermes bag that she paid Candice Bergen to paint a picture of her dog on, because that’s what regular people do. That’s ordinary.
I don’t know how or why people expect me to be normal when all I’ve ever known is extravagance. I am exactly as they made me, and they made me absolutely, certifiably insane.
“Butterscotch it is,” I mutter as my fingertips brush the buttery, golden wrapper.
My phone buzzes aggressively on the desk next to me. I frown at it before pulling my prize from the jar. It’s an unlisted number. It could be anyone. It’s probably no one. It’s definitely not Tyus, so I need to calm the fuck down. Breathe in. Breathe out. Answer evenly. It’s no big deal.
“Hello?”
“Mila. Are you alone?”
Fuck, it’s him! my mind screams. My heart is in my throat, my stomach clenching hard as the rock candy in my hand. Be cool, bitch!
“Who is this?” I ask casually.
Tyus chuckles. The sound rumbles in my ears and between my thighs. “That’s cute. New phone, right?”
“Technically, I never had your number so that line wouldn’t work, would it?”
“You don’t have my number now.”
“It wouldn’t be hard to find it, if I wanted to.”
“I’ll give it to you if you ask nicely.”
The tone of his voice does not match his words. He’s not saying what he’s saying. He’s saying he’ll give it to me if I ask nicely.
“Nah, you can keep it,” I tell him flippantly, because I’m not a nice girl and I never will be. “I’m good.”
“Just in this for the meal, aren’t you?”
“I’m poor now. I have to depend on my feminine wiles to get me by.”
“Does that mean you’re gonna be nice to me over dinner?”
“Oh, fuck no,” I laugh, leaning back in my seat. “I’m going to make you wish you’d never met me.”
“Then I’m gonna cancel our reservation and take you to a food cart outside the courthouse. You just saved me a hundred dollars.”
“Jokes on you. I love street meat.”
He laughs, full and strong and sexy in a way that doesn’t mean to be but that just makes it worse. It makes me want him more because he’s not even trying, and here I am working my ass off to get him on the hook.
“What are you doin’ right now?” he asks, a smile in his voice so clear I can almost picture it.
I bang my fingers loudly on the keyboard. “I’m working.”
“You sound busy.”
“Soooooo busy.”
“You alone?” he repeats.
“Yeah. Everyone is gone.”
“Damn,” he mutters, sounding disappointed.
“What?”
“I was in the neighborhood. I almost came down there to see how you’re doing but I was worried Sloane or one of them would think that’s weird. If I’d known you were alone…”
My mind meanders over all of the possibilities his silence is handing me. My fingers swirl absently inside the tight coil of the office phone cord, remembering the way it felt to touch him when he pulled me up into his lap and kissed me with abandon. It’s wrong, but I wish he wasn’t so strong. I wish he didn’t have the reserve to stop us at that kiss. Or to pull away in the aisle at Target. I would have gladly gone into any of the bathrooms and dropped to my knees for him if he’d asked me to.
But he didn’t because that’s not him and it’s not me, not anymore. Not when I can help it. I have to keep reminding myself of that, like it’s weird. Like I’m trying to deal with the fact that the sky is no longer up, it’s down, and I’m walking on clouds while trees dangle overhead, green and leafy. It’s raining pinecones and pollen. The sun shines underfoot and it’s snowing flower petals in the spring.
That’s what Tyus Anthony is to me – upside-down and inside-out.
“What are we doing?” I ask on impulse, unable to stop myself.
Tyus is quiet. Surprised. Or maybe he’s thinking. Or running. He might be running, because he was playing and now I’m serious and I’m asking serious questions, and guys don’t stick around when it’s not a game anymore. They get busy and lose your number. They forget to call when they said they would and they text when they said they’d call and all the text says is ‘u up?’, like that’s all you need to see to send you running over to their place to spread your legs for them, then you get some bullshit about how they have to get up early and you gotta go.
It’s why I’m never this girl – the needy girl. The serious girl. I’m the fun one. I’m the girl who doesn’t text you back. I’m the bitch who says she’s going to the bathroom after sex but really I’m getting dressed in the hall and leaving without saying goodbye. Oh, and I stole your dog ‘cause she’s hella cut and she likes me better anyway. Bye, boy.
“I don’t know,” Tyus finally answers honestly.
I nod to myself, my fingers getting tangled tightly in the phone cord. The tips go white, the blood unable to reach them. “Yeah, me either.”
“It’s dangerous, whatever it is.”
“You could lose your job.”
“You could lose your team.”
“Is that why we like it? Because it’s dangerous?”
“Nah,” he replies quie
tly. “It’s probably part of it, but it’s not all of it.”
“What’s the rest of it?”
“You. Your eyes. That laugh you got.”
I smile. “What about my laugh?”
“It’s messy. I like it.”
I laugh without meaning to. “How is it messy?”
“It’s wild,” he chuckles. “It’s good.”
“You like wild?”
“I like you, Mila. Now quit asking me questions and answer me one.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Do you wanna walk away from this?”
I can’t answer right away. I’m good on the fly, my banter on point, but not with this. Not with him. That question sticks to my brain like glue and it won’t let go. I have to peel it away carefully or it will hurt, and when I do that, when I take it seriously, it sobers me to the core.
An adult would walk away. An adult would be responsible and say, ‘Yes. I need to get away from you because you’re trouble. You’re like the joint I keep in my pocket, challenging myself to be close to my compulsions without ever acting on them. I’m not strong enough to be near you without touching you and taunting you to touch me. My hand is in the fire with you and I have to pull away or we’re both going to get burned.’
That’s what I should say. That’s what I need to say, but it’s not what I want. And I have a very hard time denying myself what I really want in life.
“No,” I tell him firmly. “I don’t want to walk away.”
“Me either,” he admits. He sounds sorry but also relieved. “But let’s take it easy, alright? We’ll take it slow. Tonight is just dinner. Just friends.”
“Asking me to come to you was intentional, wasn’t it? You wanted me to drive an hour away from L.A. where everyone knows us and would spot us to come out here to bum-fuck-nowhere so we can eat in a dark corner of a small restaurant and hope to hell that no one recognizes either of us.”
“You saying it’s a bad plan?”
“I’m saying it’s elaborate.”
“If you can’t handle it, you can go.”
“I can handle it,” I lie lightly. “I can handle anything in the world.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TYUS
November 12th
Vanalden Estates
Tarzana, CA
“Did you talk to him?” Tia asks me briskly.
I nod at my reflection in the window, my phone held loosely to my ear. The lights over the pool are burning bright in the backyard but inside I have them down low. It’s a habit at this point. I don’t have a headache but when I do, I can’t handle bright light so this is my default setting. “Yeah. I talked to him.”
“And what’d he say?”
“He said I’m playing tomorrow.”
“And he decides that?”
“He’s the coach, Sis,” I remind her patiently. “Yeah. He decides that.”
“I know who the man is, Tyus. I’m asking if he’s qualified to make that decision.”
“He’s not a doctor.”
“But is he talking to the doctors. No, forget that,” she amends quickly. “Are you talking to a doctor?”
I close my eyes, leaning my forehead against the cool glass. “I have.”
“But not recently?”
“Just the other day. I went in for a check up. Nothing’s changed. And besides, I’ve been on the bench all season.” Gently, I bang my head against the window. “Can’t get a concussion on the bench.”
“But what happens if you get another one?”
“I’ll—”
“Not if,” she corrects herself hotly. “When you get another one.”
“You gotta stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Punctuating shit.”
“I’m not ‘punctuating shit’.”
“Oh, you’re not?” I ask sarcastically. “Are you sure?”
Tia snickers. “You sound stupid.”
“You sound like mom when you do that.”
“I do?”
“Just like her.” I stand up straight with a sigh. “It’s weird but it’s nice.”
“I can’t believe you remember how she talked,” she says sadly.
“Yeah, well, I haven’t forgotten everything. Not yet.”
“Tell me the truth.”
“About what?”
She tsks irritably in the back of her throat. “About your head, Ty. What’s the truth? You okay to play?”
The truth is a tricky thing. They say it’ll set you free, but more often than not, it’ll lock you up. In prison or retirement, and both sound like hell to me.
“I think so,” I tell her, because that’s my take on the situation. I think I’m fine to finish the season, and what happens after that is up for fate to decide. If another team wants to pick me up when my time with the Kodiaks is done, I’ll consider it. If no one comes calling, I’ll deal with that too. But for now, I’m solid. I’m good to go and no one, no one, is going to stop me from seeing it through to the Super Bowl this year. Not Tia or Coach Allen or a scrub like Josh Ramsey. “The only way to know for sure is to try.”
Tia’s quiet for a long time. That’s another thing Mom liked to do – draw out silence to draw you out with it. It didn’t work on me as a kid and it’s definitely not working on me now that I’m a man.
“Okay,” she relents grudgingly. “But if things get worse, you’re gonna quit. That’s the end of it, you hear me?”
“I hear you.”
“You don’t, but I’m watching you, Tyus. I’ll talk to Coach Allen myself if I think I have to.”
“I hear you, Tia,” I promise her. “I’m listening. I’ll take care of me. Don’t worry about that.”
“You’re my brother. I’m always gonna worry about you.”
“You should be worried about my nephew. How the fuck do you have him playing soccer like some Eastern European asshole?”
She laughs, shifting the phone on her ear. Probably to check to see if he’s listening. “He wanted to play. Am I supposed to say no to him getting involved in sports? The boy doesn’t have any friends.”
“He’s not gonna make ‘em playing football’s gay cousin.”
“I talked him up to soccer.”
“From what? Field hockey?”
The buzzer at my gate goes off loudly across the room.
“Water polo,” Tia tells me tragically.
I chuckle, shaking my head. “Fuck, I can’t deal with is. I gotta go. Company’s here.”
“Colt isn’t company, baby. He’s family.”
“Why do you assume it’s Colt.”
“ ‘Cause you’re like Eli. You’re sweet but you’re prickly. You don’t have any more friends than he does.”
“I have friends,” I snap, feeling offended.
Tia’s not impressed. “Say hi to Colt for me.”
“Whatever. I love you, T.”
“Love you, T.”
I hang up the phone just as I press the call button on my wall. “Hello?”
“It’s me,” Mila replies, her voice crackling over the intercom. It feels like sparks in my blood. They burn slow and low, but one gust of air, one quick breath, and they’ll explode.
I unlock the gate to let her in. Before I head downstairs, I check myself in the mirror one last time. I have a closet jammed full of clothes, but it was still hard to choose what to wear tonight. I don’t want to look like I’m trying too hard but I also don’t want to look like none of this matters. It’s a decision I could have used Tia’s help with but if I told her I was going on a date, she’d turn into Matlock looking to solve the mystery. I’d never be able to keep Mila a secret from her and Tia wouldn’t keep Mila a secret from anyone. The old neighborhood in Texarkana would have her name, social, and blood type by the end of the date.
In the end, I went simple. Black slacks, white kicks, and a gray, ultra-soft CK V neck. The shirt was a deliberate choice. It hangs off my body in a way that makes m
y chest look larger than it is and the material is like butter. Once you touch it, you want to keep touching it, and I want Mila wantin’ me in every way possible because that’s the way I feel about her. Like I have to touch her, again and again and again.
I make it downstairs to the door as she’s parking her car. It’s a sleek silver Tesla Roadster that purrs almost silently into the spot next to my Maybach. Mila kills the quiet, electric engine and climbs out, one high heeled foot at a time. Her legs are bare all the way up to the middle of her thighs where a black dress hugs her like a second skin up to her neck. The sleeves are long, black lace that hook over her middle fingers in a V across the back of her hands. The only jewelry she’s wearing is a pair of large diamond earrings that I have no doubt are the real thing. Her hair is braided and pinned like a crown on her head to show them off. I didn’t tell her where we’re going but she’s dressed for just about anything, her look effortless and classic, and I think that’s the mark of a model. When she walked into her closet tonight, she knew exactly what she was doing.
“You look incredible,” I admit admiringly.
She smiles, free and fresh, her face almost completely clear of makeup. “So do you.”
“Are you ready to go?”
“You’re not going to show me your house?”
“No.” I reach back to close the door, hitting the digital lock.
“Why not?” she laughs.
“Because you look incredible, Mila,” I remind her. I come to stand in front of her, careful to keep my distance. “And we’re just friends tonight, right?”
“Right.”
“You could kiss me hello,” she suggests with an innocent air. “My friends and I all kiss hello.”
“Mine don’t.”
“That’s boring. You’re boring, Tyus.” She shakes her head with a wicked grin. “Don’t be boring.”
Her grin is infectious. I smile before leaning in to kiss her quickly. I don’t mean it to be anything more than a brush of my lips against hers, but Mila has other plans. She captures my face in her hands and pulls me to her, opening her lips to overtake mine. She’s in control of the kiss, of me, and I don’t know when it happens, but my hands are on her hips and her tongue is inside my mouth. She feels small but strong in my arms and I can’t resist. I slide my hands around to cup her ass, making her moan. Making me hard.
