Bears of Burden: WYATT

by Candace Ayers

  The blonde pinched his ass and the reporters all laughed. She was posing for them like they cared about her. Like she was an actress or a model instead of a groupie. Was he sure she wasn't? It looked at her again and tried to remember where he'd met her. A bar. It was always a bar. The flashes continued, blinding him for a full minute before he blinked enough to regain his sight. Vultures. All of them. It occurred to Logan that maybe the blonde was a vulture too, and he eyed her suspiciously as she swiveled her hips.

  He wondered what Mia was doing now. If she was happy. He hated the idea of going back to Oakville for Rachel's wedding, but if he had to, maybe he could at least look her up. He was sure she'd be gone. Harvard law was a far cry from Oakville, Wisconsin, why would she have returned? But still... her parents were probably still there. Maybe he could find them at least. Get an address.

  Why torture yourself?

  He had left Oakville, but it had been Mia who'd left him. He should just leave well enough alone.

  The cameras flashed again, too close to his face this time, and his eyes started to tear up. What were the taking pictures for anyways? They acted like he was doing something really juicy—like robbing a bank or breaking a world record. The season hadn't even started yet. He was just walking into a restaurant with a girl he barely knew. What was so interesting about that? Would they still want pictures if it was he and Mia walking into the restaurant, or did the blonde hold some strange charm he couldn't see?

  The flashes must be getting to his head. Why was he still thinking about Mia right now? It had been three years. He couldn't still be pining for her. He shook his head and opened the door to the restaurant. The blonde—Vicki! Her name was Vicki!—put her hand on his back as she ushered him inside, swinging her head back for one last look at the photographers. Her lips were too red, he decided. He longed for the soft pink petals that had belonged to Mia.

  What's wrong with me? Stop it now. There's no point in thinking about her.

  It was definitely Rachel's wedding that was doing this to him. And the idea of going back to Oakville after all this time. At least he'd be going back rich. His parents had insisted on staying there, but then he'd insisted on buying them the nicest house in town, far away from the gutter they used to live in when he was growing up. Hell, maybe the town would even throw him a parade.

  After dinner, Logan dropped Vicki at her apartment. Two other girls, pretty in an overdone, trampy sort of way, tried to help draw him inside. There was a time, right after Mia had dumped him, that he would gladly have accepted their invitation. Now he fought them off and headed back to his empty mansion. It was filled with priceless artwork his manager had insisted he buy because it was somehow good for his image. Except of course, there was no one but him to enjoy it or even look at it. Rachel and her fiancé Erik were hardly ever over here. She was too busy modeling, and he was too busy being absorbed by Hollywood. Rachel had told him she was keeping her house in San Francisco but moving down to Hollywood after the wedding. He wasn't sure what the point of it was. Why keep two houses when they're both going to be empty?

  Disgusted with the strange and irritating melancholy he'd stirred within himself, he grabbed a suitcase from his closet and started to pack for Rachel's wedding. At least Rachel would be stuck in Oakville with him. There, he wouldn't be alone.

  Chapter 3

  Mia looked in the mirror for the third time, unable to believe she was doing this. Her natural blonde highlights were pulled up high on her head, piled into a sort of upside down ponytail that left soft golden waves falling around her face. Her dress was what she liked to call "new old," meaning it was new to her. She'd run to Goodwill after her morning shift and found it stacked in with the pinks and purples. It had spaghettis straps and soft pink cotton with magenta flowers printed all over. It looked very summery and she smiled, thinking that despite the slight yellow stains under the arms, and the tiny rip near the bottom hem, she looked pretty good. And it was only five dollars. Rachel would probably not even notice the small imperfections.

  "You look pretty Mommy," Emma said from behind her. Mia turned and smiled. Sometimes Emma said something that made the last three years all worthwhile.

  "I'm sorry I'm going out sweetie," she said, really meaning it. She hardly ever got any time with Emma these days. Work was constantly nagging at her. "I'm off tonight though, so I'll be home after dinner and we'll play dress up."

  Emma's face lit up. "Princess?" she asked. Mia's smile faltered. "I haven't gotten the princess dress yet sweetie," Emma's face fell. "But soon, okay? It's still there, it's just waiting for Mommy to get paid next week." Fifty dollars was more than she'd paid for food this week. It would be worth it though to see Emma get something she wanted for once, instead of being told they couldn't afford it.

  Mia kissed Emma goodbye and walked to the restaurant, looking for Rachel. Maybe I'm early. Better yet, maybe I'm late and they're already gone. Then she heard a voice peal through the air.

  "Miaaaa! Aaahhh!" A woman with ultra-blonde curls and a skin tight dress ran up to her in six inch stilettos. "I can't believe it's you! It's been so long."

  Mia shrank back slightly from this woman who only barely resembled the Rachel she'd grown up with. This Rachel was rich. She had clearly traveled the world. Mia had never left Oakville. "It's, er, nice to see you Rachel."

  Rachel pulled her into a hug and Mia thought she could smell California on her. "Mia, this is my fiancé, Erik." Rachel shoved Erik towards her. Mia recognized him from some of his movies, but decided not to mention that or the two Razzies he'd won last year.

  "Hi Erik," Mia said, extending her hand. "Nice to meet you.

  He was tall and tan and wearing sunglasses that drooped far down his nose. He gave Mia a once over then pushed his glasses back up. "It's almost fall. Should you still be wearing a summer dress?" he asked.

  Mia's cheeks burned crimson, from anger as much as from embarrassment. Rachel laughed off his comment and shuffled Mia into a chair. Erik started playing with his cell phone.

  "So tell me," Rachel said. "How are you? Where do you practice now? Do you have your own law firm?" She turned to Erik, who wasn't listening, and said, "Mia got a full scholarship to Harvard you know. She wanted to be a lawyer so she could change the world." She turned back to Mia, beaming at her, proud of accomplishments Mia had never achieved.

  "Er... I'm fine," Mia mumbled. "All good."

  Rachel's expression clouded. "All good?" Her eyes began searching Mia's face. They stopped at the stains on Mia's dress, the ones she'd missed in her initial excitement, and the bags under Mia's eyes. "It looks like you haven't slept in a while," she said.

  "Oh well, yeah," Mia coughed and grabbed for some water. "You know how it is."

  Rachel was watching her with a strange expression that made Mia uncomfortable. "How come you didn't stay in touch?" she asked, hurt showing on her face.

  "Oh." Mia wished she hadn't come. She should've stayed home with Emma. "I just... you know."

  "No," Rachel said. "I don't know."

  Mia started to feel heat rise in her chest. She had to get out of here before she said something stupid. "Look, I have to work later, so I should probably—"

  "Work?" Mia squealed. Erik looked up from his phone, then immediately decided his phone was more interesting and looked back down. "Where's your office? You don't work here in Oakville, do you?"

  Mia kicked herself for not being more careful. "Er, well, temporarily. You know."

  Rachel stared at her with wide eyes. Finally, after an eternity, Rachel slid a gold embossed wedding invitation across the table. It had ultra-fancy lettering that looked impossible to read, and something that looked like a small diamond glued to the center of the invitation, between Rachel and Erik's names. Rachel saw Mia looking with wonder at the invitation. "It's real," she said happily. "The diamond, that is. Just wanted something a little different."

  Mia sat in shocked silence. A real diamond? This single wedding invitation probably
cost more than she made in a month. Rachel saw her staring and finally caught on. "It's just a diamond sliver. Hardly worth anything. More for show." There was a long silence as they listened to the bleeps on Erik's phone as he played some sort of game, completely oblivious to his surroundings. "You don't have to be in the wedding, but I really wish you'd be there. At least come to rehearsal dinner." Rachel's request sincere and should have been simple for Mia to consent to, but it was just the opposite.

  "I should go," Mia said. She hadn't ordered anything to eat or drink except water. She hadn't even been there long enough to place an order, but it was still too long. She told Rachel she'd see what she could do, then ran from the restaurant before Rachel could ask any more questions.

  Chapter 4

  Logan arrived at his house in a limo sent by the city to meet him at the airport. There wasn't a parade exactly, but it was close enough. A line of people he didn't know streamed into his parents' house, waving at him as the limo parked in the curved driveway. He got out and a cheer went up. He waved back to everyone and saw his parents standing near the garage, smiling. He gave them each a hug then followed them inside.

  The house was the same as when he'd bought it for them. Dark mahogany cabinets and floors ran throughout, creating the effect of living in a museum. Except that his mom had personalized the museum with a dozen cat figurines and roomfuls of football memorabilia, mostly from Logan's school days before he was drafted. They'd saved every photo, every newspaper clipping, every game ball Logan had ever earned.

  It was nice seeing his parents, but it was strange seeing so many faces he didn't recognize. He poked his head out the window for another look and someone pulled at his hair, trying to get a souvenir. Out of the crowd who cooed and pawed at him, he saw his sister. "Rachel," he called. She waved and ran towards him. A few heads turned towards her, after all, she wasn't exactly a nobody. Her face graced the cover of countless magazines and billboards these days.

  He still didn't understand her desire to get married back in Oakville. They could have easily flown their parents out to San Francisco or Los Angeles for the wedding. He supposed Rachel wanted to show off a little. Wanted her old friends and neighbors to see how well she'd done for herself. He didn't really blame her. It might be wrong of him, but he'd sorta liked seeing the jealous looks on men's faces when he'd shown up in a limo, and despite his weariness of nameless women, he appreciated the way all his hometown girls swooned at his arrival.

  Rachel grabbed his arm and steered him into the backyard.

  "See all the lights?" she asked. "We're gonna have those Chinese lanterns hanging everywhere in different colors."

  "Like a disco?" he teased. She pinched his arm but didn't let him break her stride. The backyard was huge and she started walking him through it, giving him details he didn't really care about, but was contented listening to if it made her happy.

  "And then I've had a stage built for the band. And the waiters are all going to be wearing imported Gloriosas in their lapels." She snuck a glance to see if he was appropriately impressed with her flower selection, but he had already started to tune her out. Expensive flowers weren't exactly front and foremost on the minds of football players.

  "I don't suppose Mia is going to be here?" he asked.

  Rachel shrugged her shoulders and sighed. "Who knows. I met up with her the other day but something wasn't right with her."

  "What do you mean?" He'd never told Rachel about his relationship with Mia. It had been something private only the two of them had shared. That was one of the reasons he still treasured Mia's memory. He didn't have many private moments these days.

  "Oh I don't know," Rachel said, surveying the yard. "Her dress... she just... I don't know," she shrugged again, exasperated. "She just doesn't look like a lawyer."

  Logan felt his brow furrow and was glad there were no reporters in the yard to capture the moment. "Maybe she's not. I mean, law school can take a while. And it's hard, right? Maybe she's taking a break."

  "Maybe... I don't think she even has a car. I can't imagine where she must be living. It's not with her parents."

  "Wait a second," he stopped walking and turned to her. "You don't mean that she's living here again. In Oakville."

  Mia shrugged and Logan wished she'd stopped doing that. "I'm not really sure. I tried talking to her yesterday at lunch but couldn't get one honest answer from her."

  Logan couldn't believe Mia was in town, let alone the possibility that she was living here. He felt his old protectiveness returning, wanting to defend whatever choices she'd made. It was infuriating. He wished he could just stay bitter and resentful, rather than think of her with rainbows and lollipops. That wasn't a real image, that was just a fantasy he'd built up over time.

  Rachel continue leading Logan around the yard, pointing out stuff he didn't care about and some of which he didn't even understand. He followed her around like a zombie. When she pointed out something called, "The Gold of Kinabalu," he kept looking around for a treasure chest until he finally picked up on the fact she was still talking about flowers.

  Rachel stopped to chat with a group of girls she'd gone to high school with who'd somehow broken through the crowd and made their way inside. Logan searched their faces, wondering if maybe Mia might show up with one of them, but no such luck. As Rachel chatted though, she asked about Mia.

  "Oh she works at Smart Mart. Ain't you kept in touch?"

  Logan did a double take. "Did you say Smart Mart?"

  She nodded. "Yeah, been workin' there for months."

  "Years," another girl correct.

  The first girl rolled her eyes. "Years, months, whatsa difference when you're in Oakville?"

  The girl didn't realize it, but she'd just nailed the problem with Oakville down to a stroke. Time stopped here. It was just another reminder of how glad he'd been to get when he did. He wondered what on Earth could have dragged Mia back here after Harvard and the east coast. Maybe her parents were sick. But couldn't she have gotten a better job than Smart Mart?

  He excused himself from the party, determined to find Mia and figure out what the hell was going on.

  Chapter 5

  It was another midnight shift. That is, it started around nine, and ended at five in the morning. Mia stood at an empty register. This was her punishment for turning down Mr. Rayner yet again. She was stuck on register her entire shift. She didn't even know why Smart Mart was open twenty-four hours. Hardly anyone ever came in after nine or ten. Small towns went to be early.

  She stood there and played with her shoe. She tried to think of new, inventive ways to make it feel comfortable on her foot, instead of like itchy cardboard stuck together with tape. She stood on her tiptoes, leaned back on her heels, then looked around before daring to pull her foot out for a moment of sweet freedom. Mr. Rayner was watching her across the store, but he couldn't see her toes wiggling in her socks. She smiled at him. He scowled and walked in the opposite direction.

  Hours passed. At least, it felt like hours, but when she looked at the clock it was only one. She'd rang up exactly three people since eleven. Strangely, they were all buying kitchen appliances. She looked at her register and set a brochure on the old train depot down on it, hoping that if Mr. Rayner saw her it would look like she was reading some interesting piece of work material, then let her eyes flutter shut.

  They couldn't have been closed very long. The sounds of the store never faded from her ears.

  "Hey." A deep voice shot out of the darkness, hitting her like a hammer.

  Her eyelids snapped open and her head jerked to attention. She wasn't sure, but she thought she must've fallen asleep standing up. Is that even possible? But there was no other explanation for the voice she'd heard.

  "Sorry," she said to her customer, brushing a stray strand of hair behind her ears. "I was just..." When she looked up into Logan's eyes, she thought she was dreaming.

  Crap. Wake up! Wake up before Mr. Rayner catches you!

 
When the image before her refused to fade, she slowly came to the realization that she was already awake. That was even worse. That meant that Logan Knight was standing in front of her, looking like he'd just stepped out of the pages of GQ, while she was stuck behind a register in her beige Smart Mart shirt and an old pair of jeans.

  "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you," he said, smiling.

  How was she supposed to respond to that smile? "Hi," she finally said. Keep it short and sweet. Or at least short.

  "How are you?" he asked. It was a perfectly normal question but it came out sounding stilted. The awkwardness of the situation was so thick it almost made the air around them unbreathable. "Do you work here?" he asked, then immediately regretted the question when Mia scrunched her face and tapped her name tag. "Right. Duh." He tried his smile again but Mia was looking for Mr. Rayner and missed it. She thought if she could say her boss was wandering the aisles it would be a good excuse to get rid of Logan. But there was no Mr. Rayner when she actually needed him.

  She gave in a little, deciding it was better to talk to him than stand there like a statue. "I'm fine," she lied. "I guess I don't have to ask how you are."

  He shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe my life isn't what you read in the papers."

  His eyes were just as mesmerizing as she remembered. Blue and perfect. It felt like he was hypnotizing her withthem. "Well..." she said, softening just a little. "So how are you really then?"

  "Fine," he lied.

  They stood opposite each other, nodding their heads, so many things to say yet neither of them having the courage to say them. Mia wanted to know what the hell Logan was doing here. He must be in town for Rachel's wedding, but why would he even step foot in Smart Mart?