The Goode Fight

by Seth King

  When seven fifteen finally rolls around I head downstairs and take a few swallows of white wine out of the bottle in my refrigerator. Pathetic, I know, but I need to calm my nerves a little so I won’t act like a total spaz. “Okay, Tay,” I say as I wipe my mouth, “you can do this. You are going to seduce him. You will break Stellan Goode’s resolve. Tonight.”

  Ten minutes later I walk up to the restaurant and find Stellan already leaning against the open doorway with his arms crossed, waiting for me. And sure enough, he looks dead sexy. His trim grey jeans are a nice complement to his rugged leather boots, and the muscles of his upper body are sheathed in a crisp black pea coat. The phrase “devastatingly handsome” comes to mind as my knees threaten to give out and my blood pounds in my ears and my cheeks get so hot I feel like I’m standing under an outdoor heater. His butterscotch hair is in the same messy style as before, and the stubble on his jaw is even more noticeable than it was on Wednesday. His eyes are wide as he watches me approach, and it almost looks like he’s shocked about something. Was my attempt at looking sexy a big flop? Did my hair frizz? Did I gain sixty pounds on the drive over or something?

  “Oh my God,” he whispers as I reach the sidewalk.

  “Um…what?”

  He pounds up to me, puts a hand around my waist, pulls me close in one confident swoop, and kisses me on the cheek. The feeling of his skin against mine does sinful things to my belly, and his light man-handling of me makes my vision blur. He glances down at my chest for a moment and then looks away, his expression growing darker.

  “Good to see you again, and thanks for coming tonight,” he murmurs into my ear, so soft and low I can barely hear it. “I don’t deserve it, after leaving your house so rudely the other night. And you look drop-dead beautiful, by the way.”

  Well that was unexpected, I think as a wave of desperate desire rolls over my body. He smiles at something he’d said, but since I am not in on his little joke, I say nothing – mostly because I’m in shock. This morning I didn’t know if he was ever going to talk to me again, and now he’s treating me like a queen? Can he at least wait until we get our food to start pulling all this crap and making me collapse into a pile of emotions on the floor? Or is this just automatic with him, the way awkwardness and dirty jokes just automatically flow out of me?

  “You look good, too,” I say shyly. “And thanks for the invite.”

  After another long moment of admiring me, he lets me go. “No problem. You know, I was thinking- the weather’s great, and it’s not so cold anymore. We could sit outside, if you don’t mind.”

  I look around and try to get a grip on my thoughts. The inside of the restaurant is crowded and filled with light, but there’s a small, mostly-deserted patio area outside along the sidewalk filled with tiny candlelit tables and strings of lights hanging overhead- a perfect setting in which to seduce someone. I envision what might happen later on if my plan goes successfully, making my stomach twist and turn yet again.

  “Yeah, the patio would be grawesome,” I say, and when I realize what just came out of my mouth I cringe and feel my face turn maroon.

  “What was that?” he asks with a grin.

  “Oh, um, I got a little tongue tied and combined my words. Great, awesome, it all means the same, I guess. Sorry.”

  He holds his arm out and motions for me to lead the way. “The patio sounds grawesome to me, too. After you.”

  I head for a table and feel his hand on the small of my back, leading me. I can’t believe he’s doing this in public, being so affectionate. As I revel in his touch I picture what that very hand did to me the other night and nearly moan. When we reach the patio I decide on the most isolated table I can find, but before I can sit down, he stops me and pulls out my chair.

  “Thanks,” I say as I lower into my seat, and as he sits across from me I note that no one has ever done that for me before, ever. An attractive redheaded waitress appears at our table and promptly gets all dazed and dreamy the second she spots Stellan. He’s totally oblivious, leaning back with his hands on the back of his head and his elbows in the air, focusing all his attention on me for some reason. Once again it strikes me how commanding his presence is- he’s right on the border of confident and cocky, but in the best way possible, and it seems that nobody around him can ever take their eyes off him. Once the waitress gathers enough of her bearings to actually form words, she picks up her pen and clears her throat.

  “Hi y’all, welcome, what can I get-”

  “Do you have any lamb?” Stellan asks confidently as he turns to her. “I’ve had a craving for it lately for some reason.”

  “Uh, no,” she says breathlessly as she reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, “mostly just Italian stuff.”

  “That’s fine, we’ll both have the lasagna, then, please,” he says. “And two waters.”

  “Okay then. Coming right out.”

  As the waitress flashes him a woozy grin and stumbles off, I stare at him, confused.

  “How did you know my favorite food was lasagna?”

  “I don’t know,” he shrugs, “I noticed some of it leftover in your fridge the other night when you got out the wine. It’s one of my favorites, too, actually.”

  I look away, humiliated. I probably seem like such a fatass- honestly, who just casually keeps a giant plate of their mother’s leftover lasagna in their refrigerator? I knew I shouldn’t have taken it home after my last dinner at my parents’ house. But still, I can’t deny that a weird, warm feeling is rising into my throat- I can’t believe he remembered something so insignificant about our encounter.

  “Any other creepy details you know about me?” I ask playfully.

  “Nope,” he says, his eyes flashing. “Not any that I’m willing to admit, at least. I can’t give away all my secrets just yet.”

  He smiles, once again humored by something I am not aware of.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing. I’m just glad that I’m here. With you. It’s like…I don’t know, I almost feel like I’ve known you for a long time or something. This just seems…easy.”

  Our eyes lock, and for a moment it’s like we’re the only two people in the world. This table is our little bubble, and nothing else exists or matters. But then a group passes by on the sidewalk on the other side of the short white fence and I snap out of it.

  “Same here, to be totally honest,” I say bashfully. “But can I ask you why it took you so long to text me, if you’re so glad you’re here and all?”

  His face turns serious. “Because I decided I was finished.”

  “Finished with what?”

  Our eyes meet again and that weird connection passes through us- but this time, it leaves fear in its wake instead of butterflies.

  “With running from what I really wanted,” he finally says. “I’m done staying away from you, Taylor Haney.”

  My whole body goes numb and I get the sensation that I have suddenly fallen a hundred feet. The waitress returns with two waters, delicately placing Stellan’s in front of him before slamming mine down as an afterthought.

  “Can I get y’all anything else to drink?” she asks him, fluttering her lashes. “Wine, maybe?”

  “Sure. We’ll have two glasses of your best merlot, please.”

  She smiles at Stellan, throws me a bitchy look, and then disappears. As I watch her leave I notice that I’ve been getting carded less and less frequently lately, which is extremely concerning, but I try not to dwell on it.

  “So,” Stellan says after a moment, “you’re probably wondering why I asked you here tonight.”

  “Um, yeah, I guess,” I say, trying not to sound too curious.

  “Well,” he begins, “first of all, I was just thinking: since we kind of did things backwards- you know, um, doing other things before we got to know each other- I thought we should fix that. I want to get to know you, Taylor.”

  “Oh, well, there’s not much to know,” I tell him with another involunt
ary blush. “I’ve got a pretty boring life.”

  “I doubt that. What’s your major?”

  “English.”

  “So you want to go to law school?”

  I look away. “Something like that. What about you?”

  “Creative writing,” he answers. “Great minds think alike.”

  “Really?” I ask, already well aware of his writing hobby from my Google stalking session, but obviously I am unable to tell him that for fear of sounding like a total psycho. “You seemed more like the athletic type.”

  “My father thinks so too,” he says, his expression darkening, “which is why he always forced me to play sports growing up instead of doing what I really liked.”

  “So you don’t like sports?”

  “No, no, I do,” he says, “and I still go to the gym a lot and play the occasional pickup baseball game and stuff for fun, I just like artistic stuff more. I’m a writer, always have been. I just wasn’t allowed to follow it. Until now.” His eyes get a far-off glow to them. “You know, growing up, I was always really jealous of the kids whose parents let them be in the art and writing clubs and stuff. After school I’d sit in the courtyard putting on my cleats getting ready for football or baseball practice, and I’d see them walk by with their notebooks and easels on their way to their meetings, and absolutely hate my life. ‘Young men that look like you aren’t supposed to write,’ my dad would tell me. ‘And especially not romance.’ Well guess what, Dad, I’m me, and I’m a writer, and if you don’t like it because of your archaic little ideas about what humans should be, you can go fuck yourself.”

  “That’s…terrible,” I tell him, surprised by the sudden intensity of our conversation. “Why did he make you do all that? Why did he care what you did with your free time?”

  He sighs. “Because the sons of college football stars turned businessmen don’t become writers, they become college football stars turned businessmen, I guess. That’s pretty much been the story of my life, my dad writing my destiny for me. Up until a few years ago, at least.”

  He shares a dark smile with himself, privy to some private inside joke I do not understand.

  “I know what you mean, sort of,” I say, choosing to ignore the smile. “My mom is trying to write my story for me right now, and that story ends with me being married and employed within the next six months.”

  He laughs, and the sound of it makes me so flustered, I do that little nervous tic where I push back the bangs I’m trying to grow out. For some reason, he leans forward and widens his eyes with concern.

  “Hey, how’d you get that scar?”

  I reach up instinctively to hide the ancient gash on my forehead, my heart pounding in my chest. I take a deep breath and tell myself I’m overreacting: Stellan has no way of knowing what happened, and so I gulp and then tell the same lie I’ve told for years. “The thing about helping your mom bake your little brother a birthday cake is that you need sugar, and the thing about going to your neighbor Mrs. Combs’ house to ask for sugar is that you need to be careful that you don’t trip and fall face-first onto her brick front steps in the process.”

  “Ouch,” he cringes, but something about his eyes tells me I haven’t fully convinced him. “I’ve never even-”

  Suddenly his phone lights up with a text from someone named Marisa. As jealousy flickers in my brain he quickly reaches for the phone and fumbles for a bit before turning off the screen and slipping it into his pocket. I look away and tell myself I’m being dumb- Stellan looks like a Nautica model, of course he’s being pursued by other girls, and always will be. She’s probably one of the eighty million Facebook girls vying for his attention. If I’m going to hang out with him, I’m just going to have to learn to deal with all that.

  “Sorry about that,” he tells me. “Anyway, tell me more about your family.”

  Once again he looks at me like he’s absolutely fascinated by me, and like whatever I’m about to say will be the most interesting thing in the world. At first I thought Stellan focusing his attention on me was like getting hit by a train, but now I know it’s like getting hit by a train and then being run over by a cruise ship. How could he be so focused on someone so boring? I’ve never been made to feel so special. It’s a little strange to have a guy be wondering about trivial little details about my life that have nothing to do with advancing a hookup agenda- wonderful, sure, but strange at the same time.

  “There’s nothing exciting to tell,” I lie. “Dad owns a tiny little company that sells insurance to shrimping boats, and Mom is his secretary.”

  “Shrimping boat insurance?” he asks. “That’s a pretty strange job for a land-locked town like Durham.”

  “He works mostly in the Outer Banks,” I explain, “but he has an office here. We’re the most boring family in the world, basically.”

  “I doubt that. Any siblings besides the little brother you just mentioned?”

  I try to hide the shudder that runs from my feet up to the gash in my forehead. I must get him away from that subject as quickly as possible.

  “Nope, just my brother. He…still lives at home. Anything else you’d like to know?”

  “Yeah. Hobbies?”

  “Hmm.” I contemplate continuing trying to act like the sexy, Cool Girl version of myself- the Cara version- and impressing him by saying something like “yoga” or “charity work” or whatever, or just abandoning that whole plan and letting my guard down and being the real me. I don’t want to sound like a fat lazy weirdo, but Stellan already knows about my lasagna obsession, so I shrug and decide to just give up.

  “I’d say my main hobbies are attempting to jog, going to Krispy Kreme, and avoiding reality.”

  “Funny, jogging and eating donuts don’t really seem like they can coexist,” he laughs.

  The haughty waitress arrives with the wine, and I gulp some and then take a deep breath.

  “Oh, trust me,” I say, surprised at my own boldness, “you’d be shocked at the qualities that can coexist in one human at the same time. Like, Christianity and sensuality, for example.”

  Stellan goes silent instantly. For a second he looks terrified for some weird reason, but the knowing smirk that soon comes to his eyes makes the butterflies in my stomach exit stage right and become replaced by a warmth that licks at my inner thighs, making my cheeks flush in the dim light.

  “Let’s just get back to the questioning,” he says darkly, obviously trying to change the subject. I shake my head, figuring I can use the opportunity to get behind his mask and maybe find out more about his mysterious lack of Internet presence.

  “No, it’s your turn to be in the hot seat,” I tell him. “What about your parents?”

  He stares down at his plate. Oh, shit- what did I say wrong?

  “I kind of don’t have parents,” he finally tells me.

  “Oh…oh my God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to…I didn’t know you were a…”

  “Oh, no, I didn’t mean that, I’m not an orphan or anything,” he says quickly, “not at all, sorry. I just meant that my parents didn’t really raise me. My dad was never around, and my mom was always off at tennis or brunch or charity events or whatnot. I consider my nanny more of my parent than anyone. She’s the one who really raised me.”

  A warm, affectionate look comes over him as he mentions his nanny. As I listen to him, I have to hold my hand in place to keep from reaching out and stroking his arm. How shitty that must’ve been for him.

  “I’m so sorry. That’s awful.”

  “It’s fine,” he says as he snaps out of it and looks back up at me. He rubs his chin with his wrist, making me notice his watch. It’s a Rolex Submariner, I can tell because my dad has the same one. I spot a few letters engraved onto the metal on the side of it, and I silently file them away for future analysis.

  Suddenly the waitress appears with our lasagna, drops my plate down in front of me with a thud after she gingerly places Stellan’s before him, and leaves. How is he so oblivious to
all this?

  “Passable,” he muses after he takes a bite. “Not as good as mine.”

  “You cook?” I ask, and he just shrugs. Wow, I think- a guy who looks like an Abercrombie model and cooks? I have got to lock this kid down.

  “Not many things,” he says, “but what I do, I do well.”

  “Ah. I like to bake,” I tell him. “Brownies, cookies, cupcakes, whatever. Usually with the intention of giving what I make to my friend Cara or my family, but I normally end up eating everything on accident before it can even make it out of my house.”

  “I make a mean confetti cake,” he smiles. “And I’m learning how to do Key Lime Pie, my favorite. You should make me something some time, and we can compare our skills. Have a little bake-off.”

  “Sure,” I tell him as my thoughts get dirty. Maybe if it involves licking icing off your body afterward.

  I take a long sip of wine to calm myself.

  “And another thing,” I say to silence my evermore-filthy inner monologue, my eyes settling on his cross necklace. “I’d like to know about your…lifestyle. Your religion, or whatever.”

  For some reason he fidgets, which seems pretty out of character for cool, self-possessed Stellan.

  “Yeah? What about it?

  “Well, are your parents religious, too?”

  “Yes, actually. Episcopalian. But they don’t really practice.”

  “So you’re also Episcopalian?” I ask. He taps his finger on the tablecloth. “I’m…um, non-denominational right now.”

  Why is he getting so nervous? If he was really a Christian, wouldn’t he be loud and proud about it, like most religious people?