Paz and I had already started drifting apart by the time I left the hospital, so when Eli and I left the city, that was more or less the end for us. There have been a few scattered phone calls, but our conversations never last very long.
We pass the halfway point in the quarter mile drag and the Agera is holding position, its front bumper only a matter of inches farther back than mine.
“Come on, Pandora,” I urge the roaring monster beneath me as I try to push the gas pedal through the floor.
I know Eli’s somewhere down there at the finish, just waiting for me to bring this thing home, but the Agera keeps inching up on me until we’re dead even.
The wedding’s going to be a pretty small affair, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I may have overcome my general shyness, but the thought of standing up in front of a hundred people I haven’t seen in years and likely won’t see again makes me throw up a little in my mouth.
My dad offered to go online and be ordained a minister so he could do the honors of marrying us, but I’d rather have him walk me down the aisle. Also, my dad has a tendency to cry at weddings…profusely.
I just manage to retake the lead when I have to shift gears. I don’t lose much, but it’s enough for the Agera to pull out in front again.
This is bad. Oh, this is so very, very bad.
The Agera crosses the line, beating me by what can’t be more than a tenth of a car length, but that’s not going to matter. I lost.
I can’t believe I lost.
“Oh, Pandora,” I say as I take my foot off the gas and run my fingers over the steering wheel.
I love this car. I love this car so much, in fact, that I put my foot back on the gas a second. Sadly, as I just learned the hard way, the Agera can obviously catch me, so I give it up and take my foot off of the throttle.
By the time I get back to the finish line, I’m just trying to focus on keeping my eyes dry. But as I get out and Eli rushes over, throwing his arms around me, I can’t help it anymore.
It’s embarrassing, I know, but I’ve dreamed of owning a Porsche since I was a little girl. I’ve only had it for a year and now after some stupid quarter mile drag race, it’s gone.
Those thoughts help quite a bit as the other driver pulls up and gets out of his car to find me sobbing in my fiancé’s arms.
“Kate,” Eli says quietly, “he’s waiting for you.”
I sniff loudly and wipe my eyes, saying, “Here are the keys. The pink slip’s on the seat.”
As soon as the word “seat” has left my lips, I break down into another fit of sobbing. This continues until the guy tells me to “forget about it,” gets back in his Koenigsegg, and drives off into the night.
I can’t keep a straight face for a second longer.
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but if you’ve developed the ability to cry at will, you’ve got an edge in just about every situation.
Looking up at Eli, I wipe my eyes, saying, “Thank God, I was worried I was actually going to lose it that time.”
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BEAUTIFUL TRAGEDY
By Alycia Taylor
Copyright 2016. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER ONE
Molly
I stepped into the crowded auditorium and looked around. There were way too many people here. Looking for Megan and Jake would be like searching for two fish in the ocean. The place was wall-to-wall college kids. There must be three hundred people stuffed into this room designed for about half that many. I had to wonder what the fire marshal would think of this.
I did a cursory glance, because I had told Megan I would meet them here. What I really wanted to do was turn around and go out the same door I came in. I’m not prone to claustrophobia, and I’m not an introvert, but there are two things which I am absolutely not interested in. One is a room full of loud music and loud people, and the other is having a boyfriend. Yet here I am. One of the perils of friendship, I’d have to assume, was that you found yourself doing things that didn’t please you, in order to please your friends. It wasn’t quite peer pressure but along the same lines. The irony in that was that they thought by forcing you to do these things you didn’t like to do, they were somehow enriching your life. It was a vicious cycle, but Megan had been my best friend since kindergarten, so I would find a place against the wall and endure it for a while. Then afterwards I would meet the man that Megan had dubbed, “The hottest guy on campus”. Megan would be pleased, and I could go home with my conscience unscathed.
I found a space big enough to back myself into and stood between a tall white boy with unfortunate skin and body odor, and a girl that I could only assume must suffer from dwarfism. Although she was quite a bit better looking than Danny DeVito standing next to her, she definitely must have made him feel lofty.
I had only started classes here at the university a few weeks before. Megan and I had always planned to go together, but circumstance wasn’t on my side when she started over the summer. She went on without me with my promise to soon follow. Luckily, one of the girls in the freshman dorm over the summer had gotten a bad case of something venereal (that was the going rumor anyways) and she’d had to go home before the fall semester began. Luckily for us, I mean. For her…not so much. Anyway, it freed up a bed in the dorm and Megan’s roommate agreed to take it so I could have hers and room with Megan. I thanked the other girl profusely, and because I was so grateful to her I also suggested she steam clean the mattress…just in case.
While Megan had been attending the university without me, she’d met Jake. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think Jake is a good looking guy, but when Megan first called and told me about him, I was picturing Brad Pitt in Troy. Instead, I’d have to go with Michael C. Hall from Dexter. He was still a good looking guy…but the son of a Goddess? Unlikely. He had reddish blonde hair and an athletic body and his personality more than made up for not having Brad Pitt’s face. He was good to my best friend, and Megan pronounced to me before I ever met him that he was her “soul mate”. Even if I hadn’t liked him, who was I to come between two souls that were meant to be?
Megan was anxious for me to make new friends here, but mostly she was anxious to set me up with this guy, Brock. She thought it would be great fun if we dated guys who were not only best friends but also roommates. I did tell her that I didn’t want a boyfriend, but when that hadn’t worked after three or four tries, I’d gone after his name.
I mean, who names their kid Brock anyways? Okay, I’m judging again. After all…who is a girl with a name like Molly to judge? But Brock? Really? It made him sound like one of those fake wrestlers in the WWE if you asked me, and I told Megan so. She had only laughed at me and said that I wouldn’t care what his name was once I met him. She said I would forget my own name when he looked at me with those bright blue eyes. So I had to aim lower…I went for the music.
“He’s a musician,” I had told her.
“So?” she said.
“So? So he’s probably either a dark and depressed type, or an ego-maniac. Either way, no thank you.”
“You’re just making up excuses,” she had accused me. I would have been offended, had she been wrong. Of course I was making excuses. I didn’t want a boyfriend.
Megan said that his voice was beautiful and he could play a guitar better than some of the classic rock guys that I liked to listen to. I told her that would have to remain to be seen, but the one thing I was sure of was that I would not be going out with this Brock. Then she got down and dirty about it and said, “Please just meet him, Moll’s. I know you’ll love him. Just say hello…for me.”
It was a dirty ploy and I shouldn’t have let her get away with it. But here I am, I had agreed to meet him today…and to be polite
, but that’s it. I’ve told Megan more than a dozen times that a boyfriend, one month into my freshman year and less than two months after a long stint in the hospital, would complicate my life way too much. I like things in my life to remain constant I guess. I drink my coffee black, take my pills at the same time every day, and I call my grandmother on the same day every week. Megan says that sometimes she thinks I was born thirty-five. I don’t think so. I don’t think you have to be older to just not be good with change.
Besides all that change stuff too, I was finally free. I love my grandma, and she rocks for taking me in when I was just a kid and my mom bailed on me, but she’s a hoverer (if that’s a word?). I finally feel like at long last I can breathe. I don’t have my sweet granny looking at me like I might crumble into ash at any moment, or doctors poking and prodding me, or nurses waking me up every hour…I’m finally free. I don’t want to muck that up by getting involved with some…musician.
The volume of the first band was loud, but the screeching of the guitar at this very moment might well be the reason I’ll never hear my own future children say my name. It had to be ten or maybe twenty decibels above an eardrum-friendly level. Being so far back from the stage, I can’t really make out the guy’s face whose playing it. He was also singing, and his voice may have been really nice, if the guitar wasn’t aching to drown it out.
I squinted, and I could make out a mass of black hair and lots of tattoos. Uh oh, this had to be the infamous Brock. Megan had told me that he had black, shoulder-length hair, blue eyes and lots of tattoos on his arms that were quite nice in their own right. Okay, she had been right about a few things. He did have nice arms. The V-neck T-shirt that he wore fit snugly, and his chest looked good as well. His hair was black and he did have tattoos. I was still squinting, but at an Adonis I couldn’t see. Maybe he was a much less Latin Enrique Iglesias, but still god-like? At this distance I’d have to beg to differ.
The rest of the women in the auditorium might argue with me. They all seemed to be dying to touch him, held back only by the invisible wall of campus security. I watched him as he was coming to the end of the song. He threw back his head and as he hit a high note, he brushed a few sweaty strands of the shiny black hair out of his eyes. I was shocked to note then, even at this distance, that Megan was right about one more thing; he did have the prettiest blue eyes that I had ever seen. I had to wonder if he was wearing contacts, that’s how blue they were. As I looked at him and pondered it, he brought his song to an end and the audience jumped to their feet, all but blocking my view of him, and I’m sure severely impeding that of the dwarf to my right.
I toughed it out to the end…two bands later. I was rather proud of myself too, having fought off the urge to leave several times. As the flood of college bodies began to ebb towards the exit doors, I made my escape. I texted Megan when I got to the courtyard and told her where I was.
“Hey!” she said when she finally found me. “Where have you been?”
“I got stuck in the back,” I told her. “Hi Jake.”
“Hey Molly. Did you get to see Brock’s set, at least?”
“Was that the guy with all the tattoos?” I asked, knowing full well that it was. Imagine my surprise when Jake’s answer came from the guy with all the tattoos who was now standing behind me. He should add “Native American Tracking” to his resume. I hadn’t even known he was there.
“That’s the guy,” he said, in answer to my question. His voice startled me, and I spun around too quickly. It made me dizzy and I almost lost my balance and fell on my clumsy butt. Thanks to cat-like reflexes on the guy’s part however, I was left standing. Albeit, standing with his hand on my arm, feeling like an idiot and a pervert at the same time. I felt like an idiot for nearly tripping over my own feet, and a pervert because I was enjoying the feel of this stranger’s hand on my arm. I’m not sure now how long I looked into those intense blue eyes before telling myself he had been holding onto me way too long. I took a small step backwards to detach myself and said, “Thank you.” It was my brilliant way of flirting. Most girls can’t pull it off.
“Brock, this is my friend Molly,” Megan said. “Molly—Brock.”
“Hi Molly,” he said with a grin. I wasn’t sure that I liked that grin. Not that it wasn’t the stuff that would make a girl’s clothes melt right off and fall onto the floor, but there was something else there too that I couldn’t put my finger on. I had to wonder what he was thinking about all of this “setting up” business. Was he grinning as he thought about ripping Jake’s head off later for subjecting him to this? Or, was he grinning because he thought that I was cute? I’m not sure why I care…No, that’s not right, I really don’t care. I don’t want to be set up…I don’t need a boyfriend right now. They only get in the way. I swallowed the rest of the embarrassment that was left in my throat and said, “Hi Brock.” Again…It’s my way with words that get them. It’s a gift, really.
“Let’s go eat,” Megan said, “I’m starving.”
I wasn’t really hungry, having made myself one of my special protein shakes before leaving the dorm room, but I had come this far in my quest to please my friend. I would have to assume that another hour or so at a food booth wouldn’t kill me.
Jake led the way, and one didn’t need the powers of perception to know that we would end up at the taco stand. Megan may be Jake’s soulmate, but if someone asked me about his one true love, I’d have to say it was Mexican food.
Smoothly, and not a bit obviously, Jake said, “Brock, why don’t you and Molly find us a table. Megan and I will grab the tacos.”
Brock looked at me and all I could think to do was shrug. So he started walking away from the counter and towards an empty cement picnic table in the courtyard. We sat down…on opposite sides of the table. Far be it from either of us to exhibit any of the social skills we had learned from the fourth grade on.
We sat there silently, until Megan and Jake returned with the ridiculously over-sized tray of tacos. Even Brock looked amused. Jake and Megan took one look at us and said, almost in unison, “This isn’t going to work.”
“What’s that?” Brock asked. I suspected that he knew, as did I, that the soulmates would have to share the same side of the table and he was just messing with them. I was amused and decided to play along.
“Yeah, Jake,” I said, “What’s not going to work? Your attempt to poison us, or clog our arteries and push us into an untimely death in our forties from high-cholesterol?”
Jake was looking at me, confused. Sometimes, when Megan called him her teddy bear…I wondered if it was because his head was full of fluff.
“Um, no,” he said. “I want to sit by Megan.”
Brock grinned again, but he didn’t say anything. He just pushed himself up to his feet, flexing those well-defined biceps as he pressed against the table, and came over to sit next to me. Poor guy, he must be really good friends with Jake. I could see how the other girls looked at him as they passed our table, and then at me like I was the interloper. I’m sure he’d rather be out flirting with a cheerleader…or six, rather than sitting here with me.
Jake began passing out the tacos then, and when I said that I would pass he said, “Oh come on Moll’s you can eat at least one, can’t you?”
I imagined myself saying, “Why yes Jake, I can eat at least one and only feel slightly nauseated. Two for full blown stomach pain and three please for a night of worshipping the porcelain God that lives in my bathroom.”
But instead, I smiled sweetly and picking the one that looked the least offensive to my stomach lining I said, “Okay, one is fine, thanks.” As I picked at the taco, I noticed that Brock was watching me. He had that amused look on his face again and when I looked up at him as if to say, “What?” he grinned and said, “Not a fan of the taco?”
I looked at my plate. The poor taco laying on it looked as if it had been left torn and bloody in the aftermath of a terrible accident. I smiled and simply said, “It’s fine. I’m just
on kind of a strict diet and tacos aren’t generally included in the menu.”
He looked me over then, and I have to say that although it made me a little uncomfortable, it also gave me a bit of a cheap thrill. Again I was tempted to say, “What?”, but before I did he said, “Well, it seems to be working for you.”
Smooth guy this Brock. He’s probably been operating women like heavy machinery since he was still in diapers. Lucky for me, I don’t fall for that sort of thing. Never mind that my stomach was doing somersaults, which I could rationally blame on the tacos. I simply replied, “Thank you.” Now who’s smooth?
“Jake, will you get us something to drink?” Megan asked him. Jake sighed as he was about to bite into his second taco, but like the dutiful and whipped boyfriend he was, he put it down and said, “Sure Meggs. Come with me Brock?” Brock still looked amused. Maybe he was wearing vibrating underwear or something that kept him so tickled. I’d ask him, but I think it may be too soon in our “not a relationship”.
“So?” Megan said, as soon as they were gone.
“So what?” I asked. I knew what she was talking about, but hey, a girl has to have a little fun.
“What do you think of Brock?” she asked me. I glanced over at him near the drink booth. I acted like I hadn’t really thought about it up to this point. Megan hates it when I do that, so it’s fun.
“He seems…nice,” I told her finally.
“Nice?” she said, obviously unhappy with my choice of adjectives. “I introduce you to the hottest guy on campus and all you can say is that he seems nice?”
I rolled my eyes. “Megan, what would you like me to say? He’s my soulmate?”
Megan stuck out her bottom lip. I hated when she did that and she knew it. That was, I’m sure why it was so fun for her. “You’re making fun of me now,” she said.
“Oh, stop it,” I told her. “I am not.”
Maybe I was…but just a little. “I have just told you so many times that I’m not looking for a boyfriend. I don’t understand why you are so intent on setting me up.”
Shifting Gears: The Complete Series (Sports Bad Boy Romance) Page 25
