Rough & Ready

by Tracy Wolff

  He turns at the sound of it, spots me for the first time. And hangs his head in what I hope is shame for several long seconds. Then he takes a deep breath and heads my way.

  “I’m sorry,” are the first two words out of his mouth, but I just give him a look that warns him to shut up. If I have to listen to him make excuses right now, I’m going to lose my fucking mind…and what’s left of my very shaky cool.

  I turn around and walk to the limo, climbing in without waiting for help from him this time. He climbs in after me, silent but with a bristling energy rolling off him that is impossible to ignore. Then again, a fistfight will do that to a person.

  Several minutes pass in silence before he says, “Elara,” in that tone he’s got that’s guaranteed to dissolve panties and resistance.

  “Don’t!” I snarl. I pull out my phone, try to book an earlier flight home.

  “Please, I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened—”

  “Keep talking to me, Tanner, and I swear I’m going to get out of this car right now.” The fact that we’re stopped at a red light lends credence to my threat, which is actually more of a promise. If I have to listen to him make excuses right now, I’m going to lose my fucking mind. Walking back to the hotel might actually be reward instead of punishment.

  Tanner must believe me, because he doesn’t say another word until we get back to our room. I immediately go to the closet and begin to pack.

  “I’m sorry,” he says again, coming up behind me and putting a hand on my shoulder. A scraped-up and bleeding hand that’s still shaking a little from the adrenaline tearing through his body. “Can we talk? Please.”

  “Are you hurt?” The question is ripped out of me, because, angry as I am, I still love him and I hate the idea of him being in pain.

  “I’m fine,” he tells me. “Except for the fact that I just did that to you. I’m so sorry, Elara. I’m so, so sorry. I just lost—”

  “I know exactly what you lost,” I snap. “Do you?”

  That shuts him up, at least for a little while. He tries again when I’m in the bathroom, packing up my toiletries. “Our flight out isn’t until tomorrow night.”

  “Your flight out,” I tell him, stepping around him. “Mine leaves in two hours.”

  “Seriously? You’re leaving? Were you even going to tell me?”

  “I just did.” I put my makeup bag in my suitcase, then start picking up whatever odds and ends I can find on the dresser and nightstand.

  “Can you just stop for a second so we can talk about this?” He shoves a frustrated hand through his dreads, looks for all the world like he wants to punch something. But I guess he decides he’s done enough of that for the day because, in the end, he just stands there looking at me with those green eyes I love so much.

  “We did talk about it. Before the ceremony. I asked you to behave, you promised me you would. And then you beat the hell out of my ex in front of half the sports reporters in the country—at my Hall of Fame Induction reception! Does that just about cover it?”

  “No, actually, that doesn’t cover it. You think I don’t know he’s the one who hurt you? Who drugged you and raped you and—” He breaks off and this time I really do think he’s going to punch the wall.

  “I told you that because I wanted to explain why I’m nervous about you sleeping with me,” I tell him. “Because I didn’t want to hurt you. Not so you could use it to hurt me later.”

  “That’s the last thing I wanted to do!” He reaches for me, but I shrug him off.

  “Really? If that’s true, then I think you could have chosen a better place to beat the shit out of Jeremy than at the party celebrating me making the Hall of Fame.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so fucking sorry, Elara.”

  “You think sorry makes a difference?” I turn on him, then, the rage that’s been bubbling inside me for the last hour finally spilling out. “I asked you not to do that. I explained to you, just the other day, how important it is for me to be in control—and why. About how I’ve spent my whole life trying to find a place where I belong, how basketball was that place for me. And now you just went and took it all away because you were pissed off about something that happened four years ago.”

  “You make it sound like what he did to you was no big deal. He hurt you, Elara. He—”

  “I am very well aware of what he did, Tanner. I sure as shit don’t need you to mansplain to me how I should be feeling about being violated by that bastard. Or having to sit there listening to him speak about me today. I know exactly what I feel.”

  “That’s not what I’m—”

  “Oh, yes, it is. It’s what you always do. You think you’re taking care of me, think you’re doing what’s best for me, but what you’re actually doing is what you think is best for me. It’s not the same thing. Believe me, I know.”

  “That’s not true.” He looks stricken. “Please tell me you don’t really believe that—”

  “I believe it because it is true. Maybe you’re so used to making decisions for everyone in your life that you don’t see it, but that doesn’t make it any less true.” I close my suitcase, heft it off the bed onto the ground. “I love you, but I’m not going to do that anymore. I’m not going to live my life at the whims of one more person. And I’m sure as shit not going to spend my life cleaning up your messes.” I start to walk toward the hotel room door.

  “Elara, wait. Please—”

  “No.” Because I’m smart enough to know that if I don’t go now, I may never go. Because Tanner is good and kind and I know he has my best interests at heart. It’s still not enough, though, not if he won’t give me agency in my own life. Not if he keeps deciding that he knows what’s best for me instead of listening to what I have to say.

  “Goodbye, Tanner.” I reach up and gently cup his bruised cheek in my hand.

  “Elara, please.”

  Tears bloom in his eyes and they hit me like a punch in the gut. Because I can feel my resolve weakening, feel myself melting, I drop my hand. Pull away. “Good luck. I really do wish you all the best.”

  And then I grab my purse and my suitcase and I walk out the door.

  Despite everything that’s happened today—and everything that happened to me nearly four years ago—it’s still the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

  Chapter 25

  Tanner

  “Dude, what are you doing? You’re going to kill yourself!” Shawn tells me, grabbing on to the bar and helping me set it back in its rest. He double-checks the weight—four hundred pounds—and demands, “How many reps did you do?”

  “Not enough.” Since he’s still got his hand on the bar, I push off the bench and head over to the weighted bag hanging in the corner. Throw a bunch of punches and try to ignore the hole in my gut that’s been there since Elara walked out of that hotel room in Knoxville six days ago.

  Shawn watches me silently for several minutes, but when I split open my knuckles, he once again tries to step in.

  “Okay, that’s it. Sit down.”

  I ignore him, keep pounding at the bag. After days of emotional agony, the physical pain feels good. Gives me something to focus on besides the fact that I feel like I’m being ripped apart.

  “I’m serious, man.” He gets in my face, positions himself between me and the bag. “Sit. The Fuck. Down.”

  I try to shoulder him out of the way. “You don’t want to take me on right now.”

  “Try me.” He crosses his arms over his chest, narrows his eyes.

  And fuck it. Just fuck it.

  I walk away.

  My head may be completely screwed up right now, but that doesn’t mean I’m stupid enough to start a fight with one of my best friends. Especially when the debacle in Tennessee is still spreading like wildfire on the internet. Someone posted that shit on YouTube and it�
�s already got tens of millions of views. Or at least that’s what my agent tells me as he berates me for putting a bunch of my endorsements at risk.

  Shawn follows me. “Come on, Green. Will you at least talk to me?”

  “Nothing to talk about.” Since he won’t let me lift and won’t let me punch, I pick up a rope. Start to jump. “I fucked up. Elara won’t talk to me. The world thinks I’m an ass. Pretty much sums it up, don’t you think?”

  “From what I can tell, most of the world thinks you’re pretty kick ass. Lots of people think Knox needed his ass handed to him long before you did it—and that’s before they find out what he did to Elara.”

  “They’re not going to find that out.”

  “I thought that was the plan? Expose his shit to the world so he couldn’t hurt anyone else?” Shawn leans against the wall, waits for me to tire myself out. He’s got a long fucking wait.

  “Yeah, well, I can’t do that without hurting Elara and I’ve learned my fucking lesson when it comes to that.”

  “Have you?”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “It means you’re still doing the same old shit, doing what you think is best for her instead of listening to what is actually best for her. Or thinking about what’s best for you.”

  “I am listening to her. She said it was over and I’m trying to respect her wishes. You think that’s easy for me?”

  “I do, actually.”

  I stop jumping to glare at him. “What the fuck?”

  “You fucked up. She called you on it. Now you’re pouting instead of trying to fix it.”

  “She broke up with me because she needs to be in control of her own life. And after what happened to her, I get that. I’m trying to respect that.”

  “No, you’re feeling sorry for yourself. There’s a big difference.”

  For a second I can imagine myself plowing a fist into his face and that, more than anything, convinces me that I need to get my shit together. I’ve never been the type to go around punching people, and here I am about to start my second fight of the week.

  “What the hell am I supposed to do, man? I ruined the most important day of her life, turned her into media fodder and Knox and me into punch lines of the week on the comedy circuit. How do I come back from that?”

  “What is it you told me when I fucked up with Sage? Go buy the girl some flowers and earrings and tell her you’re sorry.”

  “Flowers and earrings aren’t going to fix this.”

  “So what will?”

  I shake my head, the sick feeling in my stomach getting worse. “I’m not sure anything will.”

  “Maybe not.” He puts a hand on my shoulder, squeezes. “But you won’t know until you try.”

  “Whatever I try isn’t going to be good enough.”

  “You don’t know that. You’re only human. Elara knows that, even if you don’t.”

  “Wow. You really believe in twisting the knife, don’t you.”

  He sighs, runs a hand over his face. “I’m not trying to twist the knife, man. But you take on the problems of everyone around you. You fix problems and people. It’s what you’ve always done, which is one of the best things about having you for a friend. But you never cut yourself any slack and that’s not okay.”

  “I started a fight at her Hall of Fame reception. Not sure there’s any slack to cut there, dude.”

  He winces. “Admittedly, when you screw up—which is rare—you do it spectacularly.”

  I laugh, but not because what he says is funny. “That’s one way of putting it.”

  “It’s the right way to put it, even if it doesn’t feel like that right now. You’ve got to forgive yourself, Tanner, so that you can go to her and explain what happened so that she can forgive you, too.”

  “What if she can’t?”

  “Then she can’t.” He doesn’t pussyfoot around, just lays it straight on the line. “But wouldn’t you rather know you tried than that you just gave up on the woman of your dreams? The woman you love so much it makes you stupid? What have you got to lose?”

  “I don’t want to hurt her anymore.”

  “You’ve already hurt her. I can guarantee she’s still hurting, right now. But maybe you can fix that. This isn’t ten years ago, man, and Elara isn’t Allison. Remember that.”

  I start to argue some more, start to tell him all the reasons he’s wrong. But Shawn just shakes his head and walks away before I can say anything. And I’m stuck alone in the weight room, with nothing but my thoughts—and my regrets—for company.

  * * *

  —

  Six hours later and I’m still thinking about what Shawn said to me, still trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do to get Elara to talk to me. I called her twice when we first got back from Knoxville, left her long, rambling voicemails trying to explain what happened.

  She never got back to me…and I decided it was better to let her go, better not to hurt her anymore.

  I still can’t believe I fucked up like that, still can’t believe I let Knox bait me that way. I knew what he was doing while it was happening and I tried to walk away, tried to keep my fucking cool. But when he said that fucking an unconscious woman was more fun than fucking Elara, I lost my fucking shit. Because who the hell is proud of doing something like that? Who the hell walks around bragging about drugging a woman into unconsciousness and then raping her?

  Oh, he didn’t admit it, but he knew exactly what he was doing when he said it—his way of checking to see if I knew what he’d done. His way of telling me that there was nothing I could do about it even if I did know.

  The little fucking bitch. He’s lucky I let him keep his fucking teeth—and lucky I didn’t chop his fucking dick off so he couldn’t ever hurt another woman the way he hurt mine.

  The last has panic swamping me. Because I do think of Elara as mine—and I’m pretty sure I always will. We weren’t together long, haven’t even known each other a month yet. But that doesn’t mean anything. Not when everything inside me says that she’s the one. That she fits me in a way that even Allison never did.

  It’s the first time I’ve thought of Allison in almost two weeks and that knowledge has me sinking into the nearest chair. So much about who I am now is about what happened to her all those years ago. Or, more important, about what didn’t happen. About how I failed to save her.

  I never talk about that time, barely let myself think about it. And yet I use it as an excuse in every relationship I have, use it as a yardstick for how I treat every woman I’ve ever been with since.

  From the beginning, Elara’s been trying to convince me that she doesn’t need me to take care of her, trying to convince me that she can take care of herself. I told her I got it, but the truth is, I didn’t. The truth is I let her tell me about the darkest, most powerless moments in her own life—about what shaped her into who she is—but I never told her about mine.

  I never gave her the chance to understand that the way I treat her isn’t a control thing, not like it was with Jeremy or her parents. I just expected her to understand even though I’m not sure I even understood myself.

  So maybe I’m not the one who can fix this. Maybe the key is to give Elara the control. To give her the knowledge and let her decide if she wants to fix it or not.

  Chapter 26

  Elara

  “Hey, Elara, there’s a delivery for you. Needs your signature.” Vivi sticks her head into my office, a wary look on her face that has me wondering just how awful I’ve been this week when even she is walking on eggshells around me.

  I make an effort to smile, but from the way her eyes widen, I must not be doing a very good job of it. Then again, I haven’t had much to smile about lately. Between the constant press attention after the debacle that was the Hall of Fame reception, the snide comments from my mot
her about what do I expect when dating a football player (she says the last in the same tone she would use for serial killers), and the kids demanding to know where Tanner is, it’s been one hell of a week.

  The fact that my heart breaks a little more every day only makes the whole situation worse.

  It’s crazy how much I miss him, when he was only a part of my life for a couple of weeks. Crazy how he’s the first thing I think of when I wake up in the morning and the last thing I think about before I go to bed. Crazy that I think about picking up the phone and calling him a hundred times a day.

  I don’t, though. I can’t. Not when he doesn’t get me, even after I opened up and told him why I am the way I am. Why I need what I need from him.

  It’s not the fight, though, that I’m still furious about it. It’s that I’m afraid this is going to keep happening for the rest of our life.

  Now isn’t the time to be dwelling on that, though, not when Vivi is standing in my doorway waiting for some kind of response that isn’t a blank stare.

  Forcing my brain to focus on work—and to think of something besides Tanner for once—I push up from my chair and head toward the door so I can take whatever it is from her. “It’s probably the new art supplies,” I tell her. “Some of them are flammable and—”

  I freeze, my brain going into overload when Vivi steps back…and Tanner steps forward.

  I expect flowers or candy or, I don’t know, the entire Staples Center…but instead his hands are empty as he stands in front of me. But his face—and his eyes—are anything but.

  I stare at him for several long seconds without saying anything and he stares back, also without a word. Somewhere in the background I’m aware of the door closing behind Vivi and am vaguely grateful to her for giving us some privacy. I don’t like to cry at the best of times. I sure as hell don’t like to cry in front of people at the worse. Something tells me today, and this visit, are definitely going to be examples of the latter.