For The One

by Brenna Aubrey

  "How is it not authentic?" I asked.

  "Well, look at the menu. Herbed potatoes and tomato bisque. Potatoes and tomatoes came from the New World. They were not available for European people to consume during the Middle Ages. And we won't even discuss the Pepsi."

  Adam laughed behind his hand and Mia smacked his arm without even looking at him. "I'll ask for a fork for you, William. But I won't ask for one for Adam. He eats like a Neanderthal anyway."

  "Hey," Adam replied, feigning irritation before letting a grin slip through.

  I took this opportunity to ask about something I'd been curious about. "Do you two even get a chance to go out on dates much with your busy schedules?"

  The two of them looked at each other and Mia smiled ruefully. "No, not really. We're like an old married couple already."

  "Which is why we should just set the date already," Adam said.

  She rolled her eyes. "You and your one-track mind. What difference does it make?"

  "We'll see, won't we?" he said, shooting her a mysterious look. "When I get to name that date."

  "In your dreams."

  Puzzled by their cryptic conversation, I looked to William for guidance, but he wasn't listening. He was casting a baleful eye over the arena, particularly the horses and riders who had entered to "warm up" by performing various feats. He muttered repeatedly how the knights' games and contests were inauthentic. He used that word a lot.

  We were served our meals--delicious, roasted chicken with the afore-mentioned anachronistic potatoes, and even a yummy baked apple tart for dessert.

  After we ate, the knights started their tournament games in order to please the "king" and the "princess," who sat high on a platform above the arena. William critiqued the heraldry, the weapons and especially the knights' "sham armor," saying, "If I wore armor like that to a tournament, I'd be brain dead or physically disabled in minutes."

  After the dishes were cleared, Adam and Mia sat with their heads together in their own private conversation. I shamelessly attempted to eavesdrop on them. Again I picked up the word "bet," which was followed by a furtive glance in the direction of William and me. That's when I put it together.

  "Oh. My. Goddess," I exclaimed out loud the minute the conclusion jumped into my head. "You two made a bet about us, didn't you?"

  William's head wheeled around and he looked at me. "A bet? What kind of bet?"

  They didn't even have to answer my question. I could tell by the way Adam was looking away as if I hadn't said a thing, and by the fact that Mia was turning as red as a non-medieval era tomato. I was right.

  "A bet?" Adam finally looked at me and said. "That's silly. What kind of bet would we make about you?"

  I narrowed my eyes. "Well, I'm guessing that whoever wins gets to set the wedding date...and that you're betting about William and me sleeping together."

  Adam's reserve slipped--just for a moment--but it was Mia's reaction that gave me all the information I needed. Her eyes widened and she had guilty written all over her face.

  "What?" William said, shooting out of his seat to loom over the rest of us. He glared at his cousin. "Is that why you've been giving me helpful advice? You had a motive behind it?"

  Adam held up an open hand to his cousin. "Sit down, man. We can talk about this later. The princess is about to get captured by the bad guy."

  But instead, William grabbed a plastic toy sword--I had no idea where it came from--and pointed it at his cousin. Adam's eyes widened, but he grabbed the end of the sword and shoved it away. "Hey! Point that thing someplace else."

  The tip of the play sword then returned right back in Adam's face. "Tell me the truth...what was the bet about?" William demanded of his cousin.

  Adam rolled his eyes. "I'm your ride home. Don't piss me off or I'll leave you here, stranded."

  William slapped his cousin's shoulder with the sword. Most likely it didn't hurt, but Adam stood. "Liam, calm the fuck down."

  William jabbed at him again with his faux blade. That's when I heard some kid say, "Hey, that man has my sword!"

  Adam stepped back, muttering, and Mia laughed, saying to Adam that he was getting what he deserved. William lunged at him again, and the two men promptly headed up the stairs and out the doors that led toward the lobby. Mia and I exchanged glances, grabbed our stuff and followed them out.

  "Who's betting what, here?" I asked her as we rushed up the stairs after the two combatants.

  She heaved a sigh. "I knew it was a bad idea. It just started out as a joke. But Adam was positive he was going to win."

  "And the stakes?"

  "You were right. Winner names the wedding date. Adam said that William was going to--in his words--'score' with you. And I said no, that William isn't just into something casual."

  "Well, thanks a lot for calling me 'something casual.' I think I'm on Adam's side with this."

  "I'm sorry, Jenna. I didn't mean it as an insult, but--you know how you are every bit as much as I do. The whole relationship thing is only temporary for you."

  "So? And it's not a positive thing that Wil could finally lose it?"

  "It means more than that to him."

  "He's a guy. I guarantee that it doesn't mean more than that." Even though I knew otherwise, I still said it. Mostly because I hoped it.

  We pushed through the doors and instantly heard the sound of hard plastic whacking against hard plastic. Apparently, Adam had grabbed a sword of his own and was fending off William's blows.

  "Dude. Stop the Inigo Montoya act before I really have to hurt you," Adam said in time with William's aggressive thwacks against his blade. A couple of times, Adam failed to block William's onslaught and caught the flat of a "blade" across his thigh or shoulder.

  "How dare you!" William said between clenched teeth.

  "It was a joke. Shit. Fuck--that hurt, Liam. Goddamn it!" And then Adam began beating William back in earnest.

  Mia stepped forward before I could say anything. Not that I was going to. I was completely bewildered by these two well-built grown men going at each other with all of their strength--with plastic swords, no less.

  "Hold up!" Mia said, but they completely ignored her. I was stunned, mostly because both of them adored her so I'd figured her word was the law. But they weren't listening, shoving each other and whacking each other by turns.

  People at the bar and the nearby gift shops had come out to watch, and at the periphery of my vision, I saw a uniformed security guard headed their way.

  "Guys, you're about to get arrested--" I began.

  "Take this outside!" Mia yelled even louder than before. That they listened to.

  "Did they even pay for those swords?" I asked as we pushed out of the glass doors and into the parking lot.

  "I threw a bill at the guy when I grabbed the sword," Adam said between gritted teeth as he glared at his cousin. "And asked them to take a new one to the kid Liam swiped his from."

  William shook his head, muttering. I fell into step beside him, looking at him closely. He was tense from head to toe. I caught Mia's eye and we placed ourselves in between the two men, who were still winded and glaring at each other.

  "Are we going to be able to go home in the same car?" Mia asked the two of them. "Because I don't want to get caught between four hundred pounds of male bonehead going at it in the back of a limo."

  "You two should really save all that pent-up energy for your practice tomorrow," I said, suppressing laughter at the thought of "Plastic Swords, Part 2" playing out in the martial arts studio. "You could wail on each other with real weapons then. And if things go your way, William, you'll injure him so badly that he won't be able to set a date for the wedding even if he were to win the bet."

  "Why are you even making a bet to determine something as important as your wedding date, anyway?" William huffed. "This isn't the first time the two of you have behaved so childishly. You should let me set the date."

  Mia's mouth dropped open.

  "Well, that
was kind of the idea," Adam cracked, and Mia elbowed him in the rib cage.

  Awkward.

  We rode home in silence. Mia finally got the nerve to say something before we got to my house. "I'm sorry, you guys. We didn't mean to make things weird for the two of you."

  William and I glanced at each other. "It's not weird for us," he said.

  Mia's brows rose. "Oh...well..."

  He continued. "It's weird for the two of you, however. Adam wants to get married this year. He told me so. You want to wait until you're done with medical school. Even if he is being a dickhead, I agree with him."

  Adam scowled. "Dickhead?"

  I tried to hold back the laugh bubbling up in my throat as Mia stared at William, wide-eyed. The two of them had just gotten served and they knew it.

  "Let's just leave it at that, okay?" I said before it could escalate again. "Maybe we should drop Wil off first."

  "I think I'll be able to control these two for ten minutes," Mia said. "Especially since they get to beat on each other for real tomorrow."

  Neither Adam nor William looked at each other, and thankfully my stop was first. As soon as we arrived, I beat it out of that limo like a bat out of awkward hell.

  ***

  "And the lady behind the woman in the striped dress?"

  William sat beside me again on the now infamous couch. I sat facing him with a large coffee table book open in my lap, propped so that he couldn't see the painting I was looking at. I hadn't mentioned the name or anything else about it, just the page number of the random book I'd pulled off his shelf.

  His head was propped back against the wall, his eyes closed. "The one in the black, with the bonnet?"

  "Uh, yeah, her."

  His eyes squeezed tighter. "It's harder to do this with two-dimensional scenes, but...let's see. She has her hand on the shoulder of the woman in front of her. She's wearing a black gown, and her bonnet has blue and orange flowers. Around her neck she's wearing a black choker with a coral cameo pendant."

  Holy crap, this was almost eerie. His recollection was both accurate and detailed. My eyes skimmed over the entire painting--Dance at the Moulin de la Galette by Auguste Renoir--a canvas that depicted hundreds of people in an outdoor dance hall gathering on a Sunday afternoon in Paris. The light and colors of the painting were exquisite.

  "Did you want to know anything else? I can tell you about the dancing couples behind them if you want. Or the crowd further back."

  I gently closed the book. "No, that's okay. I'm sufficiently intimidated."

  He opened his eyes and looked at me. "Intimidated? Why? Because I have a good memory?" He shrugged. Good, ha! "It's nothing special. I still freak out in crowds."

  "Not true. You did really well at the movie theater today."

  "I had to take breaks," he said, referring to the multiple times he'd left the movie to take breathers.

  "But the breaks were less and less frequent as the movie went on. I'm proud of your progress." He didn't reply so I nudged him. "I mean it, Wil. You're pushing yourself. You're doing great. There's no need to downplay all your wonderful accomplishments because you have a few hang-ups. We all do."

  His brown eyes fixed on me, taking in my hair, my lips, my chin. "You have hang-ups? I thought you were perfect."

  Heat flushed my cheeks. "Stop it. You know I'm not."

  His dark brows creased, and he reached up to trace my cheek and my jaw with his thumb. "I don't know that. I see...a strong woman who is pure and good, and is determined to help others. Not just beautiful on the outside, but on the inside, too."

  I licked my lips as my throat tightened. "Stop. You're embarrassing me."

  He appeared truly puzzled. "You and I are the only ones here. What are you embarrassed about? The truth is not embarrassing, Jenna."

  I placed the book on the floor at our feet. He promptly bent, scooped it up and replaced it in the exact spot where I'd removed it twenty minutes before.

  "Why do you not like to hear positive things about yourself?" he said as he sank down beside me, closer this time.

  I shrugged.

  "Is that why you don't want to stay? Because you don't think you're good enough to deserve permanence?"

  "Wil," I warned with a sigh. He was like a dog with a bone, unable or unwilling to let this go.

  "Tell me, Jenna. I honestly want to understand."

  I shook my head. "I don't think I can help you understand. It's just...my fate, I guess? My gut instinct that tells me this is what I need to do."

  He thought about that for a moment, then reached up and ran his fingers through my hair. "Can your fate ever change? If you found someone...even if it's someone who's not your soulmate..." His voice shook with emotion and then died out.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. "I don't have all the answers. I just know what I know...and it's not running away. I promise you..." I said the words, but my heart wasn't in them today. I just wanted him to hold me. I wanted us to enjoy being in each other's company. "I've learned the hard way that things are not permanent. That everything is temporary."

  "They do end up being temporary if you move on before they can become permanent," he said. "It's a self-fulfilling prophecy."

  "I can't expect you to understand."

  "Maybe you should give me the chance to."

  I leaned away from him, settling against the back of the couch, and his hand fell from my hair back into his lap. "You pretty much know it all...until I was five, I lived in a completely different country that got the shit bombed out of it. My sister and I were sent away. My papa made all kinds of promises, but they never happened. I never saw him again. The end."

  William was watching me intently now. He shifted so that he was fully facing me. "He couldn't have known he was going to die."

  My breath shivered. "He could have come with us. Then he wouldn't have died in that shitty, pointless war. Instead, he told me I had to be brave. 'Go to America,' he said. 'You'll be safe and we'll all be together again soon.' He was a liar." Sudden emotion rose up and choked me. I covered my face, not just to hide the tears from William, but to hide my utter shame at what I'd said. I didn't mean that, Papa. Forgive me.

  I felt the weight of William's arms around my shoulders. I leaned against him, tears streaming quietly down my cheeks. With him this close, I felt the same sense of safety that I'd felt the night of my Disneyland firework freak-out. His solidness was comforting. Soon, I was telling him things I hadn't told anyone else...ever.

  "And then we came here to live. We moved around in those days, stayed a year or two at a distant relative's home, had our own apartment for a while. Then we lived with family friends after we lost that place when the rent went up. And, as I told you, I met Brock and fell in love when I was a teen." I sniffed.

  "Mama wanted me to go back--'come home, it's time,' she'd said. But I couldn't because it wasn't home. I'm no more Bosnian now than I am German or Canadian. Brock was here, and Mama was so mad that I'd give up the chance to live with my own family. But I was so dumb and young and in love that nothing else mattered. So I hurt my Mama and stayed here instead. Brock and I were going to be together. I was counting on that until..." My voice faded as emotions seized me once again.

  "Until he died."

  "Yes. People seem to do that around me." That darkness rose up, and it was blinding.

  "What, do you think you're cursed or something?"

  I took a deep breath and let it out in a shivery hiss. "I should have been the one driving him home that night. That was the plan. We'd gone to a party and there was drinking. But I was tired. We argued and I told him I was going home to sleep. I was sober. I could have driven him. Instead, he got a ride home later with a friend who'd been drinking too much. I...I wasn't there for him."

  He shook his head. "That's not logical to blame yourself for something that you could not have predicted. No one can know the future."

  "But I know my future. It's change. Always change. Once anything starts to become per
manent, I get nervous...itchy." I stifled a sob and sniffed back my tears like a toddler. They clogged my throat just as quickly. "I lived with Brock's family for a while after he died. I was depressed, but somehow I finished high school. I didn't want to leave to go to college, until his mom said I must. That it would be the best thing for me to get on with my life. So I did...but moving on meant moving again." I sighed heavily. "There's a legend in my family. Baba--that's what we called my grandma--used to say we had Gypsy roots. The Roma are wanderers. They have no home, and sometimes I feel this connection to that part of myself. Like I was never meant to be pinned down in one spot. That these things in my life happened to teach me that."

  He scoffed. "It's easier to move on and forget the past when things are painful. Or at least try to forget it."

  I looked at him, wondering about that strange and accurate insight, so rare from him. Did he speak from experience? "So you still think I'm running away?"

  "I think that sometimes a person can believe something about themselves so much that it becomes the truth."

  My eyes narrowed at him. "Like being unworthy. A person can believe himself unworthy."

  William blinked. "I guess you're right."

  "Maybe we're more alike than you think." My mouth quirked into a semblance of a smile. "Despite the fact that I'm neurotypical."

  "I don't hold that against you," he said with a sly smile.

  In spite of the tears, I laughed. "Thank goodness."

  He softly stroked my hair. "Maybe permanence is what scares you."

  I shrugged. "Maybe." But if so, why did I feel empty inside? I was definitely lacking the usual excitement I felt just before moving on.

  "I want you to stay, Jenna. I want you to be with me."

  I raised a brow and looked up into his face. "You mean like, sex and stuff?"

  "More than just that. We could...have a relationship."

  I smiled. "My relationships don't last long, either. Doug was three months. That's about average." I looked away, disconcerted by the way William seemed to be studying my face without looking at my eyes.

  "Are you always the one doing the breaking up?"

  I thought about it for a moment, running through a quick inventory of past boyfriends. In every case, I had been the one to call things off. My jaw dropped. "Wow..."

  "What?"

  "I have been the one to break things off every time."