“I’m certainly not the only person who was raised by a single parent. Over the past few months, I’ve spoken to a number of NFL players who grew up with only one parent, and I’ve told them about a life-changing experience I had in Dzokoto, Zimbabwe a little over a year ago. The Aldrich Foundation has established a partnership with Habitat for Humanity and the NFL to build homes and schools to provide a better life for the children in villages like Dzokoto all over Africa. Our first trip is next month, and there’s already an AFC-NFC rivalry to see who can build the best house. I’m anxious to see if they can swing a hammer as well as they can run a ball.”
Ari’s speech veers away from the foundation to focus solely Aiden, and once again, she has the room laughing through their tears. Once she finishes her speech, Jeb steals her away to introduce her to important people. He gestures for me to follow, but I want to give her some space. With me by her side, the attention shifts from the foundation to us, and there’s been enough attention on us lately. A picture of us kissing after the Super Bowl started a media frenzy, and once that picture went viral, she and I were all anyone wanted to talk about.
After sneaking to the bar to get a drink, I watch her move about the room with a huge smile. Not the PR smile. The real one. I could watch her all day. She’s simply stunning. People light up when they meet her, and from her expression, I can tell she’s engaged. She has the gift of making the person she’s talking to feel like the most important person in the room.
Charlie sidles up beside me. “She looks good, huh? Like the old Ari.”
I’m not sure how to respond to that. Yes, Ari’s self-assured and confident again. She’s motivated and fearless. But she’s more open-minded, tolerant, and compassionate than she’s ever been. She’s more concerned with understanding another’s perspective than she is about putting them in a box. She has lived through so much since Aiden died, and those experiences have left their mark. She’s changed. More seasoned. Evolved. And all of it for the better.
“Yeah, she looks good,” I reply.
Charlie orders a Shirley Temple from the bartender. As she waits for it, she bumps me with her hip. “Soooooo?”
I should have escaped while I had the chance. Glancing around the room for another exit strategy, I play coy. “So what?” I really don’t want to talk about this. Again.
The bartender places her drink in front of her. She reaches to open her clutch, but I push her hand away then throw a ten on the bar.
She accepts her drink and pops the cherry into her mouth. “So is tonight finally the night? What was the plan? Lands End park?”
“Yes, we have plans to go to Lands End tonight at sunset, but I’m not going to do it tonight.”
With a huff, she rolls her eyes. “Why not this time? I swear, for a guy who plots out the most amazing, romantic proposals, you really suck at using them. You always have some excuse and back out at the last minute. Have you changed your mind? Do you not want to marry Ari?”
Glancing over my shoulder to make sure no one is eavesdropping, I lean toward her and speak in a hushed tone. “No, that’s not it at all. I love Ari. I’d be happy skipping the engagement and jumping right to the marriage, but every time the time comes for me to ask, I can feel it in my gut that it’s not the right time.”
Over the last two months, I’ve planned some elaborate proposals. I hired an artist to imprint a design into the sand. The design had pieces from all of the important things in our lives: football, tennis, a Heisman trophy, Madrid, Rome, Paris, and a million other things. Woven into the design were the words, “Marry Me.” We hiked the cliffs above the beach so we were high enough that she could see the message perfectly. But when we got to that part of the hike, I could tell it wasn’t the right moment, so I just kept going.
A week later, Charlie had an amazing idea based on a technique she learned in a photography class back at Stanford. If you shine lights in a certain way and take a series of pictures, you can spell out words. It took a ridiculous amount of planning, and in lieu of waiting months and months for the proper permits to set up on the city streets, I had to get a shitload of tickets from a few friendly police officers. Charlie and I spent five nights moving lights and taking pictures. When she got them home and overlaid them, it spelled out, “Will You Marry Me.”
The picture came out amazing, a real work of art and creativity. Charlie had it placed in a gallery near one of Ari’s favorite restaurants. After dinner there one night, I asked her to take a walk. But just before we reached the gallery, she got a headache, and we went home. The list of proposals that never came to fruition goes on and on.
I could propose tonight as planned. I’d put together a list of clues hidden in the labyrinth, and it would have been spectacular, but when I looked at the calendar, I knew today wasn’t the day. One year ago today, she was taken to the hospital in Sweden. She’s been completely sober for a year. She’s broken out of a major depression and truly come full circle. I know Ari will never bring it up. She doesn’t think “not being a fuck up” deserves celebration, but I’m proud of her, and I want tonight to be about her instead of us.
Charlie rubs her growing stomach. “All this delay was making me nuts, but now I figure the longer you wait, the longer I have to burn off all this baby weight before I have to get in a dress for your wedding. So take all the time you need. At the rate you’re going, this kid’ll graduate from college before you ask.”
I casually stick my finger in my mouth, then put my arm around my sister and give her a wet willie. “When the moment’s right, I’ll know. Until then, back off,” I warn as she squeals.
“We’re in public,” she scolds. “Behave yourself.” A look of exhaustion comes over her, and she looks as though she may fall.
Trying to brace her, I put my arm around her. “Are you okay? You look winded.”
Breathing heavy, she puts her hands on my chest. “I will be in a second. Just let me catch my breath. This baby’s trying to kill me, I swear.” She moves her hands to balance herself. Her brows furrow as her hands start to clench.
She doesn’t look good. I think something’s seriously wrong. Craning my neck, I look around for Spencer when—
Fuck!
“Purple nurple,” Charlie whispers in my ear. “Paybacks are a bitch!”
An older gentleman at the bar clears his throat. As I rub my nipples to ease the pain, I catch his hard stare of disapproval. Shit, I probably need to start acting like a grown-up.
I hold my hand out to my sister. “Truce?”
She glares at me with disbelief. “That word isn’t in your vocabulary.”
Looking over my shoulder, I glance around to see if anyone else is condemning me for my childish antics. “Today it is. It has to be before I get in trouble. If Ari catches us, we’re dead.”
Apprehensively, she shakes my hand. “Truce. But if you break this truce, you owe me five weekends of babysitting.”
“Deal.” I hold my arm out for her. “Shall we mingle?”
She takes my arm. “Fine. But let’s find Spencer and drag him with us. I hate when I walk around with you and people think I’m your wife. It’s so disgusting.”
“Now that everyone knows I’m with Ari, I’m sure that won’t happen.”
She holds up her left hand. “Until you put a ring on it, your relationship is nothing but tabloid fodder. You want people to stop thinking you’re married to your sister? Marry someone else. Problem solved.”
For once, I’m thankful when a fan walks up and asks for an autograph. My sister is like a dog with a bone. I think she wants me to marry Ari as much as I do, but I’m not going to ask Ari just because the pressure is on. It has to be perfect.
A month later
“Have you finished packing?” Ari calls to me from her home office. Well, my home office that she’s taken over. Since it means she’s here almost every night, she’ll hear no complaints from me. She’s here, but for the last month, we’ve been ships passing in the night. She�
�s been working nonstop on the foundation, and I’ve been catching up on sponsor obligations and a number of other business deals I’ve shoved to the back burner for far too long. Even though we don’t get to spend too much time together, just having her here makes me happy.
Looking up from the stock reports Spencer sent over, I glance at the empty suitcase on the floor. “Almost,” I holler back.
We’re leaving in the morning for two weeks in Africa. Ari’s been packed for a week. I’m not even sure I have clean laundry.
This trip has had Ari crazed. There are so many moving parts to bringing a construction team to Africa: permits, customs, transportation, supplies, finding enough food to feed an army. Coordinating the travel plans for thirty-five NFL players and their families was a huge feat by itself, let alone organizing what to do with them when they get there. Some show on the DIY network is coming to film the whole thing for a special.
Ariko and his foundation have helped tremendously, but even with all the support, Ari feels as though she may have taken on too much too soon. I’ve gone over the checklists with her three times—she has everything under control. She’s even organized a team of doctors and interns from UCSF Medical to come with us to provide vaccines and medical care to the villagers. Not only will this project go off without a hitch, but she’s going to change lives. We were even careful to book this in the dry season. Zero percent chance of flood.
Knowing I can wait to start packing until I hear her come up the stairs, I return to the stock reports.
“Chase,” she yells again. “You called the security company, right?”
Ever since her meeting with Jaime, she’s become more security conscious than I’ve ever seen her. She still wakes up from nightmares of Jaime coming after us, even though Dr. Ingram informed us that she sent a report to the LA DOC that would quash any attempt for clemency. I think it’ll just take time. Until then, we have extra locks on all the doors, installed security cameras all over the place, and she brought over Aiden’s gun collection.
“Called them this morning,” I holler.
“And you put the things in the safe I asked you to? If I can’t put them in your safe, I need to drive to Daddy’s tonight and put them there. I’m not comfortable just leaving them out.”
Looking at the jewelry boxes on the dresser, I realize it’s time to get up. “Sure did!”
Shoving the reports back in the folder, I pry myself off the bed and collect the boxes to put in the safe. After punching in the code, I open the door and see the black box I’ve been carrying around everywhere for months. It’s really amazing I haven’t lost it yet.
I can’t think about that right now. All proposal thoughts are on the back burner until after the trip. Proposing now would be foolish since she’d think I was trying to squeeze it in before our trip. There’s a chance Henrik may be in Dzokoto, and I know she’s worried about me seeing him. But Henrik and I are fine. We’ve actually spoken quite a few times over the last year. I can tell he’s not over Ari, but I don’t think he’s a threat. He respects me, and he respects our relationship, so if he’s there, it’ll be fine. I know Ari’s a tough girl to get over. I tried for years, and I couldn’t do it. I feel for the guy.
I play Tetris with all the boxes, trying to make them fit.
I’ve gotten almost all of them in when Ari screams, “Chase Patrick Brennan, what the hell did you do?”
Middle names are never a good sign.
What did I do? What did I do? Since her stress level has been on maximum overdrive for the last week, the slightest things have been setting her off. I rack my brain, trying to think of any stupid things I’ve done today. Yes, I drank straight from the orange juice container, but she was in the shower, so she couldn’t know that. Then again, I put the container back in the fridge with only a few sips left. That might warrant nuclear detonation.
I could pretend as if I didn’t hear her and hope she calms down or gets distracted by something else. That’s not a bad approach. With the way her phone’s been ringing nonstop, it won’t take long before someone calls.
“Chase!”
Damn. Every time I get her into bed, someone calls, killing the mood, but now, now, the one time I need a lifeline, the damn thing is silent? I shove in the rest of the boxes, but the ring box won’t fit. I stick it in my pocket to sort out after I figure out what Ari’s fired up about.
I find her in the kitchen, staring at the dishwasher in horror. “Did you rearrange the dishwasher after I loaded it?”
Crap. With how stressed she is, that was really a bonehead move on my part. I hadn’t even thought about it when I was doing it. It’s just a habit at this point. Her way is ass-backward. She doesn’t rinse enough, and she wants everything broken up by size. And silverware with the handles down. Who does that? Handles up! Always handles up. But even though it’s like nails on a chalkboard to me, with how stressed she is right now, I should have just left it alone.
“Yeah?” I reply. “It’s so much faster to put away this way.”
Slapping her hand on the counter, she gapes at me. “It is not!”
“Is so.” She’s furious, but I’m doing my best to say cool and matter-of-fact, which is only pissing her off more.
“Is not!”
I cross my arms. “Ari, the way you unload takes twice as long. The way I do it, I can empty the whole thing in less than five minutes.”
She reaches into the drawer by the door to the backyard and pulls out a stopwatch. “Prove it. We have been having this same fight since we were eight and your mom started assigning chores. So prove it once and for all. Loser has to conform to the winner’s method from here on out.”
“We’re really doing this now? With everything you have going on, we need to settle the dishwasher issue now?”
She puts her hands on her hips. “Damn right we do. What? Are you chicken?” She plays with the buttons on the stopwatch, taunting me.
She’s stressed and looking for an outlet. I’d say we should go for a run, but it’s pouring outside. The last thing she needs is to slip and reinjure her newly healed knee. Sex would do the trick, but with the mood she’s in, we have to fight first.
Shaking my head, I roll up my sleeves. “Fine, Aldrich, if you want to throw down, you know I won’t back away from a challenge. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
She starts the stopwatch, and I unload. Then she reloads it her way, and she goes. I hold the stopwatch out to her after clicking the stop button.
“Uh-oh. Someone lost,” I jeer.
She stares at the stopwatch in disbelief. “No. That’s not possible.”
“It’s possible, blondie. Read it and weep.”
Seething, she glowers at me with murderous vehemence. If she didn’t need me in Africa, she might actually try to maim me right now. And she’d enjoy every second of it. She points at the dishwasher. “You need a new dishwasher. If your stupid rack wasn’t designed this stupid way, my way would be faster. Why didn’t you get the dishwasher we picked out for my condo? My rack is better!”
“You know I love your rack, but sorry, sweetheart, I win. You lose. For now until the end of time, we’re loading the dishwasher my way. I can give you a tutorial if the methodology is too complex for you to understand. Maybe a flow chart? Diagrams?” With mock sympathy all over my face, I put my hand on her shoulder. “I know you never graduated from high school. Maybe the dishwasher is just too complicated for you.”
“Oh, you’re going to pay for that, Brennan.”
The high school thing gets her every time. I think she might actually kill me this time. I dart across the kitchen to get a head start. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice her go the other way, toward the garage. Curious about what she’s up to, I sneak back through the kitchen. She comes around the corner with two automatic NERF guns strapped to her back, two more in her pants, and two in her hands.
“Handles down, jackass,” she shouts as she rapid fires darts at me.
Needing some
thing to fight back with, I belly crawl to the kitchen and search for ammunition. The best I can come up with are the giant marshmallows we bought for the trip so we can introduce the kids to s’mores. Looks like we’ll be stopping at the store on the way to the airport. Armed with six bags, I go on the attack.
We chase each other around the house—of course keeping track of who has more direct hits. She may have more darts than I have marshmallows, but I can throw a marshmallow faster and with better accuracy than she can shoot a NERF gun.
I’m up thirty-eight to thirty-two when I run out of marshmallows, which sparks another age-old fight about whether or not recycled ammunition counts. When her cartridges are empty, she drops the guns and pulls a NERF bow and arrow set from behind her back.
With her chest heaving, she points an arrow at me. “Surrender.”
Sweat trickles through the dirt smeared across her forehead, she has huge hunk of marshmallow stuck in her hair, and blood runs down her arm from when she clipped the glass table diving to avoid getting hit. She’s a mess, yet I’ve never seen her look more beautiful. It says a lot about our relationship that I think she’s beautiful when I know she’s planning to take me out. But that’s us. That’s how we work, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Suddenly, I burst out laughing. I try to rein it in because this is not the time to be laughing, but I can’t help it. The laughter keeps coming. The more I try to stop, the worse it gets. I’m laughing so hard my abs hurt and it’s hard to stand, so I sit and lean against the wall.
Love To Hate You Page 50
