by Holly Hart
Hitting the bars was last thing I wanted to do right now only moments after making the decision to cut the most captivating man I'd ever met out of my life. I did my best to shake Tim off.
"Seriously, Tim," I groaned, "I'm not in the mood. Rain check?"
He pasted a puppy dog expression of disappointment onto his face. "Oh, come on… You're not going to turn down a face like this, are you?"
"Hey," I grinned, "it's my achievement we're supposed to be celebrating – shouldn't I get to make the rules?"
"Oh, don't try and claim all the credit for yourself." He grinned wickedly. "This is a team effort. So it stands to reason I get a at least a fifty percent say in things, doesn't it?"
"Oh?" I smiled dubiously. "How’s that?" Tim's infectious enthusiasm was beginning to rub off on me, and I was already feeling – if not recovered, then at least slightly less grumpy.
"Well, the way I see it," he chuckled, "the only way you get on the television at all is if I'm holding the camera. That's reason one."
"Okay." I grinned, climbing up into the truck. "It's pretty weak, but I'll give you that one."
Tim put the keys in the ignition and fired up the engine. "Perfect," he said, and – like the perfect gentleman he was, he didn't even reference the fact that he'd already crumbled my resistance. Though, on an evening like this, the truth was it would have been crazy not to go for a drink!
"So… Did you have another reason?" I asked, intrigued.
"Oh, please," he laughed, "I could come up with them for days."
"Hit me then." It had only been a couple of hours, but if Tim could keep my spirits up like this, I thought, then Alex might be easier to get over than I'd first imagined. After all, it stood to reason that since I'd decided to cut Alex out my life to focus on my career, then maintaining a comfortable working relationship with my colleagues was probably the most important way of getting over our brief, red-hot fling.
"Two—" Tim said, briefly taking a hand off the steering wheel and lifting up two fingers. "I do all the editing. Sure, you're the talent – but without me, the audience only sees your worst side."
I appropriated one of Tim's phrases. "Oh, please! I don't have a bad side…"
He just stared at me in response. "Okay, okay," I chuckled, "you got me there, too."
Tim put his foot down on the gas and sped up, changing lanes to get to the exit. "You want me to keep going? Because I can… Believe me, girl, I can do this all day."
"I believe you." I laughed. "And please – stop. You’ve already got me in the truck, don't you? Where are we going, anyway?" I asked, leaning forward against my seatbelt to check out the neighborhood.
"You'll love it." Tim grinned. "It’s a little underground bar off Las Ramblas."
"Tim," I said with dismay, turning to face him, "look at me – do I look like an edgy Spanish teenager? My partying days are long behind me."
He shot me a disbelieving stare. "At your age? Kid – you're barely out of college. Hell, by the time I was your age I'd already had my first divorce! What are you spouting this nonsense for?"
I flushed. "Alright, alright – I just don't want to be partying until dawn, that's all."
"What are you talking about?" he asked, sounding confused.
"You said we were going to an underground bar!" I exclaimed, baffled by his incomprehension.
He clapped me on the shoulder and ceased laughing. I was almost inclined to grab the steering wheel and help control the truck! "No, you idiot," he groaned, holding his stomach in pain. "I meant an underground bar – with emphasis on the word underground!"
"Oh…" I said, feeling foolish. "Actually under the ground, you mean?"
"I'll take underground for two hundred." Tim laughed mockingly. "Come on, we're nearly there." He pulled into a side street and parked the truck.
"Where is it?"
He took his time replying, striding down a side street and taking two lefts and a right before piping back up. "Ta dah!" He pranced, pointing at a non-descript metal door set into a sandstone building.
I looked at it dubiously, wrinkling my nose. "I dunno, looks pretty edgy to me."
He clapped me on the shoulder again. "Oh, come on," he grinned, "don't be a scaredy-cat – live a little."
"Scaredy-cat!" I exclaimed, mildly insulted. Tim's little bout of needling did the job he'd intended it to do, though, and I pushed open the door with an exasperated sigh. "Come on then, have it your way."
We walked down a set of cobbled stone stairs under a masonry tunnel lit only by candles and flame wick lanterns. I took a startled, impressed breath.
"I told you," Tim said with a self-satisfied grin on his face, "it's cool – right?"
"How did you even find this place?" I asked, baffled. It was quite literally in the middle of nowhere, as far as I could tell.
"Oh, trust me," Tim grinned, "I've drunk in every little watering hole this city has to offer. This one's right up there with the best, though."
We got to the bottom of the stairs and Tim pushed open a small, five-foot tall wooden door, which he had to crouch to walk through. Even I had to bend down a bit. "What, is this place built for midgets?" I grumbled, my eyes fixed firmly on the floor.
When I stood up, Tim was staring at me with a pleased grin plastered on his face. I couldn't blame him – he had every right to. The bar was breathtaking.
"Glad you came?" he asked.
"Oh, pipe down." I grinned. "Here, let's grab this table. What do you want to drink – it's on me."
"No, I was kidding about the team thing. I'll get this one."
I didn't fight him. "Oh, go on then," I joked. "I'll have a glass of Rioja, if you don't mind."
"Perfect," he said, wandering over to the bar. I reflexively pulled my iPhone out of my purse and checked it, half-hoping to see a text from Alex waiting for me.
Pull yourself together, Diana.
What was wrong with me – if my brain had already decided he was no good for me, or at least no good right now, then why was it sending me these contradictory emotions? Either way, it was pointless – deep underground as we were, I didn't have a single bar of signal.
Do it now – pull off the band-aid.
I composed a text message with trembling fingers, occasionally forced to stop and correct misspelled word. "Alex. I had a great time the other night, but I'm not in the right place in my life to commit to anything serious. I hope you find who you are looking for. Sorry."
It felt like a cheap way to end an affair that had burst into flames so vigorously, and as my finger hovered over the glowing green send icon, I couldn't bring myself to press it. Not yet, anyway. And regardless, I thought, I didn't have signal, so the question was moot. I resolved to make my mind up once I was done with the evening. The thing was, I wasn't sure whether I'd be able to resist Alex's charms if I saw him face-to-face.
"Put that away." Tim grinned, setting two clinking glasses of red wine down on the rough-hewn raised wooden table. "What's so important that you can't take a few moments to enjoy yourself?"
I tossed my phone back into my purse. "Sorry – you're right," I mumbled guiltily. "I'll put it away."
"I was just kidding, Di." Tim grinned, shooting me a surprised look. "If it was something important, then shoot."
"No, no," I replied with an air of false sincerity, "it's nothing."
"Well, that's a lie," he said with an intrigued grin, taking a sip of wine. "Go on, dish the dirt – it's clearly something."
I squirmed awkwardly on my stool under Tim's curious, intense gaze. My mind began to flirt with the thought that perhaps Tim hadn't asked me here entirely innocently. What if he actually saw this as a date? I mean, it wasn't that he was a bad looking guy, per se – in fact, Tim was quite a handsome man, but he was older than me, for a start, and just not my type. And anyway, I was hung up on another guy entirely…
"It's a guy, isn't it?" he pounced. "I knew it!"
The look of glee on Tim's face had me thoroughly
confused. If he was trying to hit on me, would he really be so happy that my mind was occupied by another guy? It didn't seem likely.
"Tim…" I stammered, "I'm not sure whether we should be talking about this, should we?"
He cocked his head, looked confused, then a broad grin spread across his face. "You…" he gasped, before throwing his head back and laughing outrageously, drawing a few curious looks from the other drinkers. "You didn't think that I was hitting on you, did you?"
My face flushed red with embarrassment, giving him the only answer he needed.
"You did, didn't you?" He grinned. "Sorry – I can see how that would have been awkward," he said, doing his best to master the look of delight on his face.
"I…"
"Shit, Di, you're a pretty girl, and all," he said, pretending to check me out, "but you're not exactly my type, you know?"
I began to wish a hole would open up in front of us and swallow me up, just to give me an out. "What is, then?"
"What, my type?" Tim said, still smiling broadly.
"Yeah. Wipe that grin off your face, will you?" I begged. "I'm embarrassed enough as it is…"
"Sure," he agreed, resting his chin in his palm.
"Tim, I can see you biting your lip – that's not exactly what I was looking for…"
"If you knew my type, you'd know why I find this so… well, ridiculous." He grinned. I stared at him, daring him to spit it out. "Okay, okay," he continued, raising his palms in supplication, "I'll spill. But keep this between us, okay?"
"Why," I grinned wickedly, "what's your secret?"
"Promise?"
"Fine," I said, sticking out my hand. "Pinky promise."
We linked little fingers in a childlike display of trust, and both fell apart laughing. "Okay, I believe you now," Tim said, "here's the thing…"
I was expecting him to look at me and say that he didn't like blondes, or he was into girls with tattoos and piercings in all the wrong places. I certainly wasn't expecting the next words to come out of his mouth.
"I like big chicks," he said with a faraway look, "real big chicks. And no offence, lady," he grinned, "but look at you – how the hell am I going to bounce off you in bed? I like a little meat on my bones, you know?"
I took a very big swig from my wine glass. "Jesus, Tim…"
"What?" He grinned. "You asked."
He had a point. Still, I couldn't help but feel a little… passed over. "You really don't think I could be good in bed?" I blurted out, a little bit outraged. "You don't know what you're missing…"
Tim raised an eyebrow. "Oh, you're hitting on me now, are you?"
I reached over and punched him. "Don't be ridiculous," I hissed, beginning to feel the wine lugubriously making its way through my bloodstream. "I'm just saying, you don't know what you're missing out on!"
"I think," Tim said, raising his own glass to his lips, "we got a little bit sidetracked. Tell me about this guy you're so hung up on…"
Embarrassing as our conversation had been up to this point, I seriously didn't know which topic I wanted to talk about less. The only good thing about listening to Tim wax lyrical about his interesting sex life was the fact that, for a brief time at least, images of him bouncing off an eager lover had replaced my mind's constant fixation on what to do about Alex.
"There's nothing to tell," I said grimly. "I'm done with it."
The expression on Tim's face changed immediately to one of solace. "Something happen?"
My head was roiling. I needed to talk about it with someone, but I didn't know whether Tim was the right guy. After all, friend or not, he was still in the same business as Frank and Ken. How would he feel about me dating a soccer player?
"No, seriously – nothing. I'm ending it, anyway, even if there was."
"Oh, come on," he crowed, slapping his thigh, "you can't just say that. I told you what was going on in my life—"
"Oh yeah, like I wanted to know about that…" I interrupted, sticking out my tongue with a teasing smile.
"Fair's fair," Tim said firmly. "An eye for an eye and all that."
"Hey," I protested, "I never agreed to this." He fixed me with a probing stare, and I quailed underneath it. "Fine… It's nothing major, anyway. I've just decided that this isn't the right time in my life me to be getting distracted with a relationship."
Tim's jaw dropped. "Not the right time…" He groaned. "What on earth are you talking about?"
"I'm busy," I said defensively, "and I'm trying to make it in my career. Where do you think I'm going to find time to have a hot affair?"
"Trust me, kid," Tim said, taking a deep restorative swig from his wineglass as though trying to wash away my naïveté," when I say things don't get less complicated. Hell, do you think there's some magical moment in your thirties when you are not focused on your career?"
"I guess not," I said quietly.
"You're damn right!" Tim said forcefully. "I don't want you to think I'm being mean, so tell me if I'm putting my nose in somewhere doesn't belong, ‘kay?"
I threw my head back in frustration. He was – in fact, I couldn't think of a way he could possibly be any nosier, but at the same time, what he said had the ring of truth about it. "No," I groaned, "it's fine, I guess. Christ, can't you just let me make my own mistakes?"
Tim turned in his chair and looked me in the eye, all trace of humor entirely evaporated. "I've been there," he said quietly, "more times than you know. I'm just a cameraman, I know – but you do this job, you fly around the world, covering these sports teams, just think about how much time you really end up spending at home."
"Not a lot," I agreed, looking back on how many different Spanish cities I'd already visited, just in the past couple of months. In truth, this whole posting had already taken me thousands of miles away from home at the drop of a hat. Barcelona – the city, at least – was already starting to feel like home, but I couldn't replace the friends and family I'd left behind so quickly.
"I don't want to tell you how to live your life," Tim said. I reflected with amusement that he might not want to tell me, but he was definitely happy to do it anyway. "But, take it from me – there's no point in running away from relationships at your age. You've got plenty of time to make mistakes – just don't make not making them yours…"
I leaned back against the brickwork. "You're probably right," I sighed. "But that sure as hell doesn't make things any easier." That was an understatement – having steeled myself to do the unpleasant, my mind was now practically unhinged.
Tim stood up. "Nope. But whoever said life was easy?"
"Where are you going?"
"Whoa, can't a guy take a leak?"
I flushed. "Oh, right."
Tim walked off with a swagger, and I fished my phone off the table. Annoying as he was, he was right – were Ken and Frank really going to throw enough doubt into my mind to stop me from dating who I wanted? What kind of girl would I be if I was so willing to bend to other people's visions of how I should act?
Not one I'd want to get to know, at any rate. I stared at the drafted message for a couple of seconds, then, while grabbing my wine glass with my left hand, tapped my thumb on the screen to delete it.
Message sent.
I almost spat the wine across the room.
"Everything okay, kid?" Tim said, returning from the bathroom and shooting me with a curious stare. "You've gone all white…"
I stared at him wild eyed, swallowing slowly to regain control over my panicked body. My heart was beating twice as fast as normal, and I felt as though I might almost pass out. It had only been a few minutes ago that I'd been prepared to pull the trigger on our relationship, but now I'd talked myself – or Tim had at any rate – back into it, hook line and sinker.
"I'm fine," I croaked.
"You sure don't look it. Hey, do you mind if we cut this short? You're not looking too good, and I've got a big date," he said, chuckling at his own pun.
"Fine," I mumbled once again. "I'll ju
st finish this wine. I need a few moments to myself, anyway."
"You sure?" he said, looking a bit concerned.
I nodded firmly. "I'm sure."
Tim clapped his hand on my shoulder and turned to leave. "Oh," he said, looking back at me over his shoulder, "I meant to tell you – you've got an interview lined up. Day after tomorrow."
I shook my head, trying to clear the fog. "Who—" I said, stumbling, "who with?"
He was almost at the steps by the time he replied, calling back down the tunnel. "Alex Rodriguez."
17
Alex
"Alex. I had a great time the other night, but I'm not in the right place in my life to commit to anything serious. I hope you find who you are looking for. Sorry."
The message flashed up on my phone screen – so unexpected I had to blink twice before processing it. A wave of inchoate grief flooded through my brain, as if I were grieving for the loss of a loved one, and I raised a finger, beckoning the waitress over. As for the phone, I flipped it over and set it down to rest on its face. I couldn't bear seeing that Dear John text for another second. Hell, I couldn't believe she'd broken up with me by text in the first place!
Were we really dating, though?
"Another beer," I grunted. "No – wait," I said as she nodded and turned to leave, "something stronger."
The tired, aproned waitress shot me an unimpressed glance – the kind that said: Buddy, I've got work to do. "Wine?" she ventured.
The suggestion brought back memories of sharing bottles of red wine with Diana in the villa's back garden, and much as I'd have liked to knock back a couple of jugs of a strong, coarse local vintage to drink away the imprint of the pretty blonde-framed face that seemed burned into my retinas, I couldn't face it. "Forget about it, just the beer," I sighed.
"You got it."
I looked back at my phone. I wasn't going to beg Diana to change her mind – and even if I was, I sure as hell wasn't going to do it via text. But I wanted to know why she'd suddenly thrown away everything we'd shared. I picked up the phone and began to compose a text, struggling to find the magic words that might be able to put things right.
