by Lili Valente
Sadly, I’m not that girl. I was telling the truth that first night on the beach. I can’t be the kind of person you need, Muscle Boy, no matter how much I might want to be.
So do yourself a favor and don’t waste any regret on me. Just keep being the lovely person you are, and I know you’ll find someone wonderful, who will make you happier than I ever could. I wish you so many good things, and I hope maybe someday, after the summer love burn has peeled and faded away, we can be friends. Maybe even good friends.
You are special to me. I hope you know that.
Take care of yourself and that crazy pig. I’ll be spending the night at my brother’s house and will come by while you’re at practice tomorrow to get my things and leave your room ready to be rented to someone more suitable.
Best wishes and sincere regrets,
Diana
*
The second I’m done reading, I shut the browser and call Diana’s cell, but I’m sent immediately to voicemail.
“I got the email, but this isn’t done,” I say, voice thick with emotion. “We need to talk. Call me back as soon as you get this.”
I pace the sidewalk for a few minutes, waiting for a call I know isn’t going to come, and then whip my phone from my pocket and type out a quick text: I’m coming to your brother’s house and we’re going to talk. This doesn’t end with an email, Diana. I’m in too deep for that, and so are you.
She is. She’s falling for me as hard and fast as I’m falling for her. I understand being scared, and I’m willing to give her as much time and space as she needs to realize I’m different than the losers she dated before. I’ll back off and take baby steps toward her heart if that’s what it takes, but I’m not going to give up on her.
If I give up, the dicks of the world win. And fuck if I’m going to let that happen. At least, not without a fight.
I don’t remember getting in my car or pulling out of the parking lot. My body is on autopilot while my mind composes arguments I pray are compelling enough to keep the door to this relationship from slamming in my face.
Ironically, when I ring the doorbell at Brendan’s place twenty minutes later, my captain opens the door, pronounces, “Not now, Nowicki,” and promptly shuts it.
In my face.
He didn’t slam the damned thing, but that doesn’t make much difference. The door is still closed, and Diana is on one side while I’m stuck out here alone on the other.
“At least tell her I’m here,” I say, raising my voice to be heard through the solid wood. “I just want to talk to her.”
“She knows you’re here,” Brendan calls back. “If she wanted to talk, she would have answered the door herself.”
“Please, Brendan,” I say, not too proud to beg if that’s what it takes to get to Diana. “I don’t know what happened to upset her, but it has nothing to do with me. I’m on the right side of history, here, I promise.”
“I believe you, rookie,” Brendan says in a gentler tone. “But nothing good is going to come from talking to Diana tonight. I know my sister. When she gets like this, she needs space, a good night’s sleep, and time for the panic flames to die down. Pushing now is only going to make things worse.”
My breath rushes out as I run a clawed hand through my hair. I can’t imagine things getting worse than Diana breaking up with me over email before we’ve even officially started our relationship, but Brendan clearly has no intention of opening the door. “Can you at least tell her I came by?” I ask. “And that I’ll wait as long as I need to wait for her to be ready to hear me out?”
“I will,” Brendan says. “And don’t worry about any fallout from the team. Diana made me promise not to give you any shit about this. She seems to think you’re one of the good ones.”
“Just not good enough,” I mumble.
I turn, heading down to the street, but halfway across the wide lawn, I pause to look back, scanning the second-story windows for a sign of Diana. But all the curtains are closed, the house’s eyes closed tight, its shuttered features offering no reason to hope.
“I don’t care. I’m not giving up.” I feel silly talking to myself but bolstered by the promise all the same.
I’m not giving up. I’m going to prove to Diana that I’m not another loser to add to the list of men who have let her down. I’m the one she’s been waiting for, the one who won’t lie or cheat or steal or cause so much as a hairline fracture in her heart.
I’m here to break the curse and wake the princess with a kiss.
Now to find a way to convince the princess to quit pushing me away so I can prove it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Diana
Hiding in my brother’s guest room, I cry myself into a fitful sleep and dream I’m speeding down a crowded highway…
I’m frantic and afraid, desperate to get away from the people who are chasing me. I can’t see them yet, but I know they’re gunning down the road behind me in a Hummer with spikes on the wheels and rocket launchers on the roof and that they fully intend to carve me into tiny pieces as soon as they run me off the road.
But of course, the rest of the jerks in front of me are driving like assholes, and one particular beat-up white pickup truck refuses to get out of the left lane and let me pass. He keeps puttering along next to the red car beside him, while I pound on my horn, shout for him to “please get the fuck over!” and wish I had superpowers so I could teleport the truck into the ditch before it’s too late.
Finally, after what feels like hours of bad-driver torture, the yahoo finally steers into the right lane, and I put the gas pedal to the floor, speeding around him as my heart hiccups in my chest and my brain threatens to have a relief stroke.
Thank God, I’m finally free!
Free and on the move again, fleeing danger faster with every passing second as the road in front of me opens up, revealing miles of clear, uncluttered highway.
I’ve just started to believe that escape is certain when a slim blonde sprints out of the tall grass to my left and into the path of oncoming traffic.
I gasp in horror and pull my foot from the gas, but before I can hit the brakes, I slam into the woman. I scream as a sickening thud shakes the car and a subsequent rumble-tumble sound rattles over my head as the body rolls across the roof and bounces off the trunk and down to the pavement behind me.
Bile rushes up my throat and tears flood my eyes as I skid to a stop on the side of the road, knowing that this is it—the moment my life changes forever. I will never be the innocent, relatively carefree woman I was before. From now until the day I die, I will be a murderer, a monster who mowed down another human being because I was so busy running I let myself drive way too fast.
If I’d been going the speed limit, I still might have hit her, but I would have had time to pump the brakes, and there would have been at least a chance of survival.
But now…
I fall out of the car and stagger toward the back, bracing myself on the sun-warmed metal. There’s no doubt in my mind that the woman I hit is dead. The only question is how bad it’s going to be.
Somehow, the highway is now empty in both directions, all the other cars vanished out of respect for this moment, this murder, this loss that could have been avoided if I were a different person.
If I were less afraid. If I were the type to turn and face my demons instead of racing as fast as I can away from them.
I’m so deep in dread that my internal organs feel like they’re turning to poisonous slime, and then I see her face. My heart stops, my throat closes, and my eyes go so wide it feels like they’re trying to rip holes in my skin.
Because the woman lying dead and broken on the road is me.
*
I bolt awake in Brendan’s guest room, fist pressed to my chest where my heart is pounding on my sternum like a coked-up wrecking ball.
I pull in deep breaths that shudder out through trembling lips, promising myself it was just a dream. But I can’t get the image of my
own face, glassy-eyed, battered and bloody, out of my head or the taste of terror out of my mouth.
I reach for my phone, needing to hear someone’s voice, even if it’s only on an answering machine. I expect to get Amanda’s voicemail, but much to my surprise, the woman herself answers.
“Good morning,” she says cheerfully. “Were your ears burning?”
“Wh-what?” I stammer, tongue slipping out to dampen my nightmare-dry lips.
“Your future sister-in-law called me this morning,” Amanda says. “She said that you were in desperate need of an old friend. Lucky for you, I’ve got the rest of the week and the weekend off, and I’m only twenty minutes outside of Portland.”
I blink against the tears that spring suddenly to my eyes. “You’re coming to cheer me up?”
“I’m coming to talk sense into you. Unicorn dicks don’t come along every day, sweet cheeks. You need to quit freaking out and get back on that stallion.”
“You don’t understand.” I shake my head as I smash a fist into one aching temple. “Sam is an asshole, too. There’s no hope. I’m hopeless. There was hope, but now there is none. At all. Ever.”
“We’ll see about that,” Amanda says. “Get up and get dressed. I’m taking you to brunch. The cheer-upping and sense-talking will commence as soon as we’re fed. I need eggs and coffee to be in top persuasive form.”
“I can’t. I have to get my things from Tanner’s place while he’s at practice.”
“No, you don’t,” Laura says from the other side of my closed bedroom door. “I called Tanner and told him you won’t be able to come get your things until this weekend. You need to go have girl-bonding time with someone you trust.”
I scowl at the door, but after my nightmare, I can’t seem to get worked up about little things like being spied on or lovingly bullied. “And to think I thought you were a sweet, classy, shy sort of person when we first met, Laura. Which further proves I’m a poor judge of character.”
Laura laughs. “It does not. I’m all those things. Sometimes. And sometimes I’m nosy and feel compelled to stick my oar in when someone I love is making a mistake. I would have given you the ‘Running Away is a Bad Idea’ lecture myself, but you think I’m too grossly in love to be objective about romance.”
“Which is why I’m perfect,” Amanda says, clearly able to hear Laura on her end of the phone. “My love life is a disaster, and I’m still coming to tell you not to run. So get dressed and prepare to receive my testimony. Be there soon.”
Amanda hangs up, Laura offers to bring me coffee, and I realize how little I have to complain about. I might have gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to men, but the friends in my life are really top notch.
When Amanda arrives, we head directly to Crepe Amusette and snag seats in the garden, where the flowers are still damp with dew and the golden morning sunlight gently infers that anything is possible.
“I’ve Googled your unicorn man, interrogated your brother, and gotten the inside scoop from Laura, who’s worked with Tanner since he joined the team,” Amanda says. “All signs point to him being a lovely, genuine person. And there is no reason he should have to pay for Sam being a creep, especially since I never liked Sam in the first place.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “What? You said he was great!”
“I said that because you thought he was great, and I didn’t want to disagree since your relationship with him was halfway functional.”
“Great.” I slug down my espresso, knowing today will require massive amounts of caffeine to keep me upright. “So you’re admitting I am the worst at relationships.”
“No, I’m admitting you’ve had bad luck up to this point. But so what? That’s no reason to shut down any possibility for future relationship-based happiness.” Amanda crosses her arms with a disgusted expression. “I mean, seriously, Dee. When did you have your ovaries taken out? Because last time I checked, you were one of the strongest, bravest people I knew.”
My forehead wrinkles. “I don’t know. Maybe they were stolen by an organ harvester while I was sleeping. One morning they just weren’t there anymore. One morning I woke up and realized I’m trucking hard toward thirty and I still feel like an imposter pretending to be a grownup, who is no closer to knowing how to make love work than I was at eighteen.”
Amanda’s deep brown eyes go soft at the center. “And who ever said we had to have it all figured out by thirty? Growing up takes as long as it takes, and hopefully it never stops. You don’t want to be one of those smug, pompous, stickin-the-mud people who think they’ve got life all figured out, anyway, do you?”
I shake my head, running a finger through the sugar I spilled on the table. “No, but I don’t want to be a train wreck, either. And I don’t want another bad ending. Especially not with Tanner. He seems so wonderful. It would kill me if he turned out to be another rat.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” Amanda says firmly. “No one ever died from losing at the game of love.”
“What about Romeo and Juliet?”
“Fictional, and they were children. That was teenage obsession, not love,” Amanda says. “In real life, it’s not breakups that bring us down, it’s the stories we tell ourselves while the breakup is happening. Stories about how broken and strange and unlovable we are.” She leans in, propping her arms on the table. “But those stories aren’t true, Dee. All of us deserve to be loved. Especially lovely little weirdos like you.”
My eyes fill with tears, but before I can start sobbing, the waiter brings the food, and Amanda calls a time out to concentrate on fueling the body before we fuel our spirits with a girls’ day out like no other.
And it really is like no other. We spend the entire day shopping, eating, and wandering around the city like we used to do when we were in college, but this time we talk like grownups. We share things we’ve never shared and confess things we’ve never confessed, and Amanda opens up about Wonderdick in a way that makes me wish I’d been even more caustic in my criticism of the creep.
“Can I strangle him for you?” I ask, covering her hand with mine. We’re two margaritas into happy hour at Bozo Sombrero, a favorite Mexican restaurant decorated in a delightfully disturbing mixture of clown statues and Mexican folk art. “Seriously. He needs to stop breathing.”
Amanda purses her lips and exhales, blowing her thick bangs out of her eyes. “No, you can’t strangle him. He’s not worth going to jail for, and he has children to support so…”
I shake my head, still having a hard time wrapping my mind around this “secret family” reveal. “So he’s been married this entire time? With two kids? And there was never any clue?”
“Not until the phone call in May,” Amanda says with a stiff shrug. “He’d always traveled a lot for work, so I didn’t think anything of it until I got a call from his wife. He screwed up and left the wrong cell phone plugged in to charge at his house in Sedona. She found it and called to give me the 411. Apparently, he’s done this before with a girl in L.A. But they ended up having a kid before he broke the news that he was married to someone else, so I guess I should consider myself lucky things never went that far.”
I squeeze her margarita-chilled fingers. “I’m so sorry, Mandy. He’s the worst. He’s not even Wonderdick anymore. He’s Stupid Ass-faced Hairy-Ball-Sack-Gargler Dick.”
“That’s a good one. Wordy, but good.” She laughs, flipping her hand over to return the friendly squeeze. “But I’m not giving up, Dee. As soon as I get the sad out of my system, I’m getting back out there. There are wonderful men in the world, and if I keep my eyes open, I’m going to find one.”
“Hell yes, you are,” I agree. “And you don’t even have to keep your eyes open. Just keep wearing shirts like that one, and the boobs will do the work for you.”
She rolls her eyes. “You overestimate the power of cleavage.”
“I do not. The bartender trips over his feet every time you so much as glance his way. And the guys with the faux-hawks ha
ve been drooling into their chip basket since we sat down.”
“What’s up with that I wonder?” She casts a glance over her shoulder to where two otherwise attractive guys have done their best to uglify themselves with faux-hawks, neon green and yellow T-shirts, and obnoxiously patterned pants.
“It’s 80s night at the club across the street,” the overly attentive bartender offers, materializing from nowhere with two fresh margaritas. “And these are from the suits near the window.” He leans closer as he wipes a damp spot near our chip basket. “But between us, I wouldn’t give them the time of day. One of them just slipped off his wedding ring and the other never tips.”
“Monsters,” Amanda says with a gasp, making the bartender grin. “Thank you for the warning, but we’re having a girl date, so we’re safe.”
“You should check out 80s night, then.” He nods toward the glass windows behind us. “Ladies get in free until ten.”
“Oh, I haven’t been dancing in years,” Amanda demurs, fluttering her lashes at Cute Bartender. With his nut-brown skin and thickly-lashed brown eyes, he’s the kind of adorable that could help a girl forget about her Wonderdick of an ex for a night, no doubt about that.
But when I softly suggest that I could get lost so Amanda can pick up a rebound guy, she shakes her head firmly. “No. Tonight is about convincing you that the angels are going to win.”
I arch a brow. “Excuse me?”
“We’re all born with our angels and demons already inside of us,” Amanda says, pointing her skinny black straw at my chest. “From day one, they’re fighting a war for the fate of our souls. If you give up hope and dump this guy you’re crazy about because you’re scared of something that hasn’t happened yet—and might never happen—then the devils are going to win a big battle, baby. And then they’re going to get cocky and start gunning for even more territory, bigger wins, until one morning you’ll wake up and not recognize your own reflection in the mirror.”
My lips turn down hard at the edges. “That’s a terrible story.”
