Peacock

by Nora Flite

  “Sorry,” I said with a sigh. “I’m a little stressed out.”

  “I thought you said you finished your presentation . . .”

  “Real life bullshit. Don’t worry about it, Jim.” Then I forced a reassuring smile over my lips. “Riley loves Chinese food, and I’m sure she’ll love it if you ask her out.”

  Now Jim was smiling too, wide and genuine. “Oh, that’s great. Thanks, Tazzy.”

  I touched my fingers to my eyebrow in a salute. Jim pumped his fists a little. Gathering the courage, I guess, to ask Riley out the next time he saw her. I suppose everything was coming up Riley lately. As Jim ducked back behind his cube wall and returned to his work, I let out a sour sigh.

  Dear Riley, I began typing again. You really hurt my feelings. I thought we were friends . . .

  But that didn’t feel right, either. In fact, it just made me want to cry. What had I ever done to her that had justified such treatment? What ever happened to sisterhood? At least I still had Katie. But I had still lost something. Not just Simon, but Riley, too.

  Blinking back tears, I closed down my browser and went back to my work.

  The phone calls and the texts kept coming in from Simon, and I ignored them. But that afternoon, I had a weak moment. A voicemail, from an unknown number.

  I suspected it might be him. But for some reason, I convinced myself otherwise. Maybe it was a work call. Maybe it was something important. Sitting at my desk, I hit play, and cradled my iPhone to my ear.

  “We need to talk, Tazzy,” Simon said, in a low voice. “Tamsin, please call me. I need you.”

  Then he hung up. That was it, the whole message, simple and straightforward. He needs me . . . I told myself it was just Simon’s last desperate play for my affections. I guess he was really determined to win that money—not only telling me he needed me, but calling me by my full name, too.

  But then, why keep pushing? Riley wanted me to feel fucked over... and I sure did.

  Neither of them knew it yet, though.

  I felt my heart crumple in my chest. Once I had made a vow to myself: I would never cry at work. And yet here I was, cradling my head in my arm and silently weeping. I hoped that Jim couldn’t hear.

  That night, when I went home, I became a real cliché.

  I sat on my sofa in my apartment, digging deep into a pint of Cherry Garcia, watching Serendipity, and crying my eyes out.

  Why couldn’t Simon have been the one? He’d made my body feel electric. And though I hadn’t always loved the way he talked to me, somehow he knew my deepest desires without having to ask. I wouldn’t recover from Simon so easily. His touch, his voice, his words all left me feeling vulnerable. And now I’d paid the price for that.

  I scraped the bottom of my Ben & Jerry’s carton. God, this was pitiful. I shouldn’t have let Simon make me feel this way. I should have been more. Better. Fuck, I should have been angry, not sad. But somehow I couldn’t muster the energy.

  My phone vibrated again. I grabbed it from the coffee table and clicked at my messages. Gah. It was from Simon, of course, and it wasn’t just a sexy text. It was an image. Maybe I was even more of a fool than I thought, because I hesitated only a moment before clicking.

  It was his abs. Those carved, beautiful abs, his tattoos curving around them. It looked like he’d oiled his torso just to take a cell phone pic. Not that I minded. Not that I was complaining. I wanted to lick the oil off him, to feel his stomach muscles clench under my hands as we rocked together in orgasm. I wanted . . . ugh.

  It was a lie, all of it. I knew it, and yet at the sight of him, my body and my heart just went wild. Frantically, I deleted the pic. Before I could even put my phone down, it vibrated again. Yet another fucking text.

  “That’s it!” I said, standing up and talking to no one in particular. I threw on a pair of jeans and tied my hair up into a messy ponytail, then stuffed my phone into my back pocket. It vibrated the whole time as I locked up my apartment, raced down to my car, and headed across town, right to Simon’s apartment.

  He'd pushed me to the brink and over. This had to end, and if so, I wanted to do it in person so he got the message.

  At his door, I drew in a ragged breath, trying to tell myself that I could be brave, strong, and fierce in the face of him, no matter how much desire I would inevitably feel when he appeared. I needed him to lay off me. I needed him to leave me alone.

  I pounded my fist wildly against the door.

  “SIMON!” I shouted. “OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!”

  The door swung open. There he was, wearing a pair of black silk pajama bottoms, his inked chest bare. His expression was sweet and perplexed and maybe a little bit pleasantly surprised too, at the sight of me. He had no fucking idea. I gathered up my strength inside me, ready to shout at him.

  That’s when I heard a soft padding sound against his wood floors, then a gentle woof. An adorable brown Labrador poked his face past Simon’s legs.

  “A dog?” I sputtered in disbelief, my rage tempered by surprise.

  I love dogs.

  Simon laughed. “Yeah, who did you think that was in my profile pictures? Tazzy, meet Hershey, the other woman in my life. Hersh, this is Tazzy.”

  The dog obediently sat at Simon’s feet and offered me a paw. Dumbfounded, I knelt in front of both of them and shook it. But she was eager. She launched forward and covered me in slobbering kisses. I couldn’t help but laugh, my heart thawing, just a little.

  “I thought that was a lie. Just part of your act.”

  “My act?” Simon asked, his brow furrowing.

  “You didn’t have a dog at your apartment the first night I was here!” I said, gesturing past him to the pristine, posh loft space. It didn’t look like any place for a dog! I hadn’t even seen a dog dish. Simon shrugged.

  “She was staying at my mom’s. She’s been going through a bad break-up, and I thought she could use the company.” He knelt down and gave the dog’s ears an enthusiastic scratch. Hershey basked in the glow, rolling over to show Simon her belly. I watched the two of them with sourness in my heart, because I knew, all too well, how that damned dog felt.

  “A bad break-up . . .” I said, a question in my voice. I didn’t want to think of Simon as someone with a mother, a life outside this apartment and our tryst. I wanted to hate him. But it was hard to hate the man who stood in front of me, enthusiastically patting a goofy puppy.

  “I’m a child of divorce, too,” he said, a grim smile touching his lips. “My mom’s kind of a wreck a lot of the time.”

  “Like me?” I asked weakly, remembering all the things he’d said about me that night on the beach. I wondered if they were true, if the man standing in front of me was sincere. But he looked up at me, light in his dark eyes.

  “No, nothing like you, Tazzy. That’s what impressed me so much about you.”

  Shit. I felt my resolve crumble.

  “Simon,” I said, the sorrow weighing me down as I stood. “Can I come in? We need to talk.”

  He looked worried at my tone of voice. But he stood and nodded solemnly.

  “Sure,” he said. “Come on, Tazzy. Hershey, you too.”

  Simon sat me down in one of the overstuffed armchairs and offered me a beer. But my head was already swimming. I didn’t need it to be muddled with alcohol.

  “Mind if I have one then?” Simon asked me as he lingered by the fridge. I shook my head. As he drank down his IPA, it was hard not to look at his muscles, carved out of rock and nearly as polished, as he cast back his head and took a long swig of the beer.

  I think he knew I was watching him. I looked away. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he had an audience.

  “You said you wanted to talk,” he told me, and I half expected him to sound like a jerk about it, but he didn’t. “So talk.”

  “I can’t believe you,” I said, my eyes burning. “Strutting around like you’re beyond reproach.”

  I glanced up. Simon’s expression was grim. He came a
nd sat at the other end of the sofa, Hershey arranging herself in a puddle at his feet.

  “I never pretended to be a good guy,” he said. The corner of his mouth quirked up. “And if I remember correctly, you liked that about me.”

  I edged as far away from him as I could. “It’s one thing to talk dirty—”

  “Talk dirty,” said Simon. “Fuck dirty. Spank you like the dirty girl you are.”

  Ugh. I didn’t want to flirt now. And I didn’t want to fuck now, either, no matter what the lower half of me thought about Simon’s words. So I let anger spur me on instead: I stood up from the sofa, my hands balled into fists, and finally said what I’d been waiting to say.

  “Look, Simon, I know about your little scheme with Riley—”

  “Riley?” he asked, his mouth dropping open. He was feigning confusion. I could tell. I’m sure that inside, he was cracking up at my expense, too. “Your friend at the mall?”

  “Don’t play dumb with me. I saw your IMs.”

  Now the shock was real. The color drained from his face. He was on his feet in a flash, dislodging Hershey, who circled his ankles as he stepped close.

  “Tazzy, you don’t understand—”

  “I understand perfectly! You wanted to get some easy cash. Thought it couldn’t hurt to get in my pants in the process, huh? I can’t believe you thought I’d fall for it. I can’t believe you thought I’d fall in love with you.”

  I spat the last word out like it tasted rancid on my tongue. Simon flinched. He reached out to grab my wrist, but I wrenched my hand away.

  “Tazzy, please, listen to me . . .” I didn’t want to hear it. I knew that there was nothing he could say to make this better. He’d broken it. He’d broken us. I felt the anger start to drain away, replaced by a fresh flood of sadness.

  “I don’t want to listen to you, Simon. I need you to listen to me. What you and Riley did hurt, and hurt bad. But you haven’t broken me. I’m going to move on and be strong, and I’m not going to let you turn me into a bitter old crone.”

  “Tazzy, you could never be that—“

  “God, shut up,” I snapped at him. He was going to tell me I was beautiful or perfect, try to rope me in again. And I couldn’t let him. It would hurt too much, too deeply.

  But then I remembered what my dad had said.

  You just have to do your best and never stop believing that there’s good in people.

  Hadn’t my dad faced much worse than this? The divorce had devastated him, for decades. And even he had been able to pick himself up and move on.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said, sniffling. “Even if I loved you, even if you broke my heart, I’ll be able to find love again. I just have to believe it. I just—”

  That’s when Simon swept me up in his arms and smothered my tear-dusted mouth with a kiss so frantic I thought I’d never come up for air. My stomach somersaulted. My heart raced. I felt the brush of Simon’s soft skin against mine, his strong arms bolstering my back. When he pulled away, my eyes were open wide enough that I could count the flecks of gold buried in his black eyes. Swallowing, I pushed him away.

  “What are you doing?” I gasped in disbelief.

  “Tazzy,” he said, “I love you, too.”

  15

  My heart somersaulted inside of me. Before that moment, it had been planted firmly in my chest. Now it was flopping somewhere on the floor like a dead fish. As if I hadn’t heard him the first time, Simon held me tighter and said it again, more forcefully.

  “I love you, Tazzy. I love you. You were never meant to read those things. I told Riley that the bet was off, but she didn’t listen to me. Please, I love you.”

  If mean, gruff, pushy Simon was a mind fuck, this new one had completely bulldozed me. My thoughts crashed into each other, forming a tangled web of confusion. His profession of love didn’t answer anything in me. It only raised a thousand more questions.

  “I need to sit down,” I said.

  “Of course,” Simon agreed. He loosened his hold, and let me settle in on the sofa. But it didn’t help as much as I’d hoped.

  “And maybe that beer too . . .” I said slowly. Simon went over to the kitchen and got me one, then sat down beside me, his knees knocking mine.

  “Here,” he said, and handed it to me. I drank slowly, then gave my head a shake.

  “This is crazy,” I said. “What the hell, Simon?”

  “I didn’t expect it either,” he said. “But it's true. I love you, fully and truly.”

  He put his hand on my knee. I didn’t mind it’s warm, steady pressure there. But I still didn’t trust him. Couldn’t. No matter how well he’d kissed me, or how many times he’d declared his love. I was terrified to let him in again.

  “Start from the beginning,” I prompted. Simon let out a soft laugh.

  “Okay, that’s fair. I was born in Muncie, Indiana in 1987.” His eyes glimmered as he spoke. He was teasing me.

  “Let’s have some history that’s a little more recent. Start with that harpy Riley. Start with the bet.” I pried his fingers off my knee, trying to ignore how reluctant I felt to do it. “Then we can move on to swapping our tragic life stories.”

  Simon nodded. He exhaled hard, took a swig of his beer. “Okay, so Riley. She messaged me on Perfect Click two weeks ago.”

  “She wanted to ask you on a date?” I said, hardly believing it. Because Riley didn’t date. She was practically a nun. But Simon shook his head.

  “No, she wanted to hire me.”

  “You’re an actor,” I said, squinting at him. Well, that made sense. How many marketing directors looked like this? Still, it was a pretty nice apartment for an actor. But Simon shook his head.

  “No, what I told you was true. I’m a marketing director. But her subject line intrigued me. Handsome face needed to break a heart. She said that you and I were a near perfect match according to your company’s algorithm, and she wanted to use that to her advantage in the bet. I thought, why not? I figured I’ve broken a few hearts in my day. Why not get paid for it?”

  “A few hearts?” I prompted, a little bit of disgust seeping into my voice. Simon raked his fingers through his dark hair.

  “Never with cruel intentions. I just never—forget it. Riley told me you had quite the dating past yourself.”

  “There’s no crime in that,” I snipped, remembering Riley’s nasty IMs. Simon laughed.

  “Of course there isn’t. I figured this was just a chance for some easy money, and then I’d be done with it. And that first night seemed like it was going well enough.”

  My lips pushed together, going white.

  “But then . . .” He hesitated, drinking down that last long swig of his beer.

  “Spit it out,” I urged him. He put the empty bottle on the coffee table and stared at it, as if it could somehow help him. He sighed.

  “I knew something was different about you that first morning. I woke up early and I just . . . couldn’t stop looking at you. You’re fucking gorgeous, Tazzy. And not like other women. You just seemed to glow in those black sheets like some kind of crazy supernatural.” I had the feeling that Simon was not usually the type of guy to be at a loss for words. But he trailed off again, searching for the right thing to say.

  “Angel,” he concluded at last, his dark eyes flashing onto me and not letting go.

  I stared for a long minute. I’d been called “angel” dozens of times in my life by dozens of guys. It had rung hollow before, every single time. But Simon—Simon who had called me erotic names, Simon who had fucked me in the hopes of fucking me over in this bet—Simon’s words rang true. He looked so earnest when he said it, and when I laughed, he winced, like the sound had burrowed into his heart.

  “Fine, laugh,” he said, a little bitterly. “I thought it was ridiculous too at first. But I’ve never watched the sun come up over someone’s shoulders and thought for a second that it might have been the light from her freaking halo.”

  “I knew you were watching me,�
�� I told him.

  He rocked side to side, uncomfortable. “I figured, but you couldn't read my mind. I was relying on that. Kept me safe.”

  “Safe, from what?”

  “From you.” At the end of the sofa, Simon leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. His smile held no humor. “If you got a hint of how I really felt, you'd use it. Hold it over me. Trap me.”

  My mouth fell open. “That—no.” But was he so wrong?

  Hanging his head, he shook his shoulders with his low chuckle. “You like a challenge. At work or at home. You were so alive when we worked on that presentation together. And I know I challenge you, too. You know it.”

  Simon was right. Even now, I wanted to fight him, fight back, deny my feelings for him no matter how deeply I felt them. The truth was that since the moment we’d met, I’d had to fight to prove myself. And there was something incredibly validating in knowing that I drove him wild, too, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. We were on the same page, all right.

  “And then what happened?” I asked.

  Simon shrugged. “I told myself it didn’t matter. You were just a mark, a goal to get through. Or that was what I tried to convince myself of.”

  I was hanging on his every word.

  “But you were something else, Tazzy,” he said. “I could tell that you were used to running the show.”

  “I was,” I said firmly. “Until you came along.”

  “It scared you, didn’t it?”

  I bit my lip. I didn’t want to admit it, but yeah, Simon had scared the shit out of me at first. But even now, I didn’t want to say so. To agree would be to open my heart even more to him, and my resolve was already softening.

  But instead, Simon just sighed. “It scared me too. I couldn’t get you out of my head. Couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t just let you go. Even after I told Riley I was out of the bet, I wanted to see you again. Your smile. Your body. Tazzy, I couldn’t forget about you. I just hope—”

  “What, Simon?” I asked, and it ended up sounding more urgent than I had intended. Because I wanted to hear what Simon hoped for. I wanted to know all about him. His messy childhood. His parents. His world. My heart was unfolding for him, and I couldn’t even stop it. All I could do was watch.