Tiebreaker

by P. Dangelico

  I turn the volume on high, the music blasting through the speakers. He reaches over and turns it down.

  “Still carrying a grudge, I see.”

  “The only thing I carry is an endless supply of sympathy for any woman that gets involved with you.”

  A half smile slowly creeps up his face. He turns away from me, hiding it.

  “When did you stop getting wasted?”

  His amusement drops. Discomfort takes its place. Good. I mentally beat my chest and roar at the sky. It’s about time he’s the one out-of-sorts and floundering instead of me.

  He shifts in his seat, legs widening, claiming all the space. His jeans-clad knee touches mine and presses closer. I send him a warning glare and jerk away. “How long?”

  “A long time.” His eyes return to the road ahead, fingers tapping on the dash.

  His cagey answer compels me to go at it as delicately as a battering ram. “What did you quit first, bad choices or the booze?”

  His body stiffens. He scratches his beard under his chin. “We need to talk about the properties––truth?”

  “Sure, we can try that for a change.”

  “I’ve never lied to you,” he snaps with a hard edge to his voice.

  “Where do I even begin––”

  “Not once,” he interrupts.

  “How about, I love you!” comes charging out of my mouth. I really didn’t want to go there. I really didn’t. And now that we’re there, I can’t get out of there fast enough. “I don’t want to talk about this. There’s no point. Let’s just…pretend this conversation never happened.”

  He sighs heavily. A few minutes tick by in silence, the tension building along with it. I can practically feel him rehearsing the words in his head. “I know you’re still hurt––”

  Hot blood floods my neck. “This is talking about it. This is definitely talking about it. And on a side note––get over yourself.”

  “I don’t expect you to forgive me.”

  And I don’t intend to. My ability to forgive only goes so far and it would have to extend beyond space and time to accommodate him.

  “I know what I did to you was inexcusable.”

  “Yeahhh, you’re still talking about it.”

  While I squirm in my seat, he makes eye contact and for the first time I see apprehension. He’s not as confident as he wants me to believe. He’s not as cavalier about this as I first surmised.

  “I just––” He breathes out frustration. For a moment he looks worn out, weighed down. “I wish you would stop being so mad at me.”

  The problem with getting romantically involved with your best friend is that when it all goes down the crapper you’re left with nothing. The loss is exponentially worse.

  I miss my best friend. I miss him so badly I can’t think about it without wanting to cry a river sometimes, and he took him from me. I don’t want to miss him. I hate that he still has the power to affect me. But as difficult as it is to accept, it’s also true.

  That’s what feeds the anger. That’s the reason it still burns. And unlike this pull between us, this unwanted attraction that has festered forever, anger is safe. Productive even.

  My anger has fueled me, kept me warm, and helped me win as I pictured his face on each forehand I hit at 76 miles per hour. My anger has been a constant companion. Loyal. Something he knows nothing about.

  “I’m over it, Noah.” Not really. Not at all actually. “I haven’t thought about you in years.” Completely untrue. “I should thank you actually. You did me a favor.”

  I wish that were true. I wish I felt that way. I wish. I wish. I wish.

  The soft touch of his hand on my bare knee surprises me. It’s gone before I can move away, leaving behind the imprint of it seared into my skin. I want to cover it, trap it there, but I know he’ll notice and I don’t want to give him the satisfaction.

  “That’s not what I meant––”

  My iPhone rings. Oliver’s name flashes onscreen and I can’t press the accept button fast enough.

  “Hi.”

  “I didn’t expect you to answer,” Oliver tells me, his voice a little hesitant. It trips another bout of guilt.

  I haven’t been fair to him. Despite all our problems, I need to tell him everything, to come clean about my past. Who knows? Maybe I’m not giving him enough credit and he’ll surprise me, rising to the occasion.

  “I have a lot to tell you, but I’m with my grandfather’s business partner right now.” I never told Oliver about Noah. It felt too personal. Which in and of itself says a lot about our relationship and none of it good.

  I briefly glance over at Noah. His face is unreadable, save for the hard line of his jaw. “Can I call you when I get home?”

  We pull into a dusty parking lot where a number of people work diligently, setting up tents and whatnot for the fair. Noah parks, shuts off the engine, and without a word, gets out of the truck.

  There’s a beat of silence before Oliver answers, “Later then.”

  * * *

  Dumping the phone on the bench, I watch Noah talking to two employees. I let him get a rise out of me again. I can’t keep letting him do that. We’re going to be working side by side for some time. The last thing I need is for him to believe there are unresolved feelings between us. Which there aren’t…mostly. Some, maybe.

  With that in mind, I endeavor to buckle down. I breathe in calm, I breathe out the past. Control is mine. I will not be taunted into committing murder by a bad man with a clever tongue and soulful eyes.

  Next to a hayfield that stretches for miles, the lot is crowded, bustling with people and delivery trucks. Carneys setting up the rides. Livestock handlers building round pens.

  As I walk up to our tent, two employees from the bar nod their hellos. Noah doesn’t bother acknowledging me. He’s too busy opening the legs of a collapsible table which seems to be giving him trouble.

  “How can I help?”

  “Stay out of the way,” he grunts.

  The two guys securing the ropes that keep the tent upright give me apologetic smiles and I shrug in return.

  “How long has Rowdy’s been taking part in the fair?” I try again.

  “Years,” he volleys back. He has yet to make eye contact. Meanwhile, I am the very picture of control. Nothing is evicting me from my temple of calm.

  “You guys can go. I’ll get the rest,” he tells the employees. And they do.

  “What do we serve?”

  I move closer to where he’s working, close enough to accidentally brush the side of his jeans as I push one of the opened tables with a hip to straighten it. His head snaps up and a glare comes with it.

  “What happened to Mr. Cheerful Chatty Guy I had to endure back in the truck?”

  “We serve baby back ribs,” he says, ignoring my jab. “Burgers and barbecue chicken wings with some side dishes. That’s what we serve.”

  “Yummy.” This earns me a near disembowelment with his laser beam eyes. “Whoa.” I hold up a hand. “Let me stop you right there, bud. I’ve seen you in the reindeer underwear your mom got you for Christmas and I know Prancer was your favorite. So save the nasty looks for someone who doesn’t have that image burned into her brain.”

  He blinks and goes back to fighting with the table. Except now I get the added bonus of listening to him mutter under his breath.

  “We should talk about the business.” He ignores me so I continue. “We need to come to some agreement––get that settled as quickly as possible.”

  “Why? So you can run back to your boyfriend?” His voice is the crack of a whip, lashing. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he sounds jealous.

  “Ummbasically, yes.”

  He shoves the second table to the ground and faces me, shoulders squared. He’s so obviously looking for a fight that I glance around, checking to see if we have an audience. Thankfully, we don’t.

  “You think you can learn the new software, how we do inventory, get to know the employee
s, and look through the books in a few days?” he nearly shouts. “You’re kidding yourself. It’ll take weeks and even that’s wishful thinking.”

  Control is starting to get a liiiittle slippery.

  “Gee whiz, Undercover Boss. I don’t know but I’m gonna give it a shot.” I look around again and find more than a few people watching us now. “And dial down the noise, will you.”

  “This is a joke to you?” For the record, he did not lower his voice.

  “Hey––I didn’t ask for any of this. I’m just trying to make the best of the situation. Unlike someone, mainly you, who insists on making it more difficult.”

  “If you can’t hack it, all you have to do is say the word,” he goes on, talking over me. “I’ll make excuses to Tim for you, tell him you fulfilled your duties to the will and you can disappear for another ten years.”

  Mayday, mayday. Control is not mine. I repeat, control is not mine.

  “Disappear? Disappear!”

  “It’s what you do,” he adds, finally lowering his voice. His gaze falls on the dusty palms of his hands.

  I am speechless with indignation, my temple of calm reduced to a pile of rubble. “Are you implying I disappeared after what you did to me?”

  He looks away, his expression only halfway remorseful.

  “Wow. You have some nerve. There’s not enough time for me to address how ridiculous that remark is and I won’t be here that long. But since we’re on the topic of your vile behavior…” His hard eyes fly back to me. “Sleeping with your employee is bad for business. We could get sued for sexual harassment, lose the liquor license, and God knows what else. You haven’t changed one bit. You’re still acting recklessly and expecting other people to deal with the consequences of your bad judgement.”

  Jaw stiff, eyes flaring, he roughly brushes off his hands on his jeans.

  Slap. Slap. Slap.

  If he keeps it up, his jeans are going to disintegrate. And although the females in the area would surely like that, I’m not in the mood to defend his worthless honor.

  “Are you seriously calling me out––” Slap. “––when you’ve been sleeping with your employee––” Slap. “––for years?” Slap.

  “No that’s––that’s…” I pause, temporarily confused while I workout how to refute his claim. “Oliver isn’t…” I mean, technically he is. I pay him as my trainer. Even though I don’t employ him, I pay for his services.

  Still, not the same. Oliver would never sue me for sexual harassment. Would he? I’m not in a position of power. Am I?

  A smug little smile curls Noah’s lips. “That’s right, babe. Step off your high horse and take a good look at yourself before you go accusin’ me of something you’ve been guilty of for years.”

  “It’s not the same thing!”

  At this point everyone in the county is watching us. All I can do is hope no one is recording it. Otherwise, Katya is going to have a stroke.

  “You’re right,” he bites out. “I don’t have millions to lose, endorsement deals. An entire career at stake.”

  This argument is not going how I thought it would go. “My boyfriend is not going to sue me for sexual harassment.”

  “You don’t know that. Feelings change. Relationships end––even when two people are meant for each other. Even between soulmates.”

  That one word is a kick to the chest. The air leaves me all at once. He can’t possibly think that about us. Not after everything that’s happened, and certainly not now.

  There was a time I would’ve called us soul mates. There was also a time I expected him to come to his senses, come looking for me, and make amends. And then years turned into a decade and I put aside the childish notion of soul mates and happily-ever-afters. I grew up. I moved on––or something like it.

  “He wants to marry me.”

  Noah’s eyes go from blazing to bleak in seconds. His posture loses all of its rigidity. As if I let the air out of him. I definitely burst whatever bubble he was working on.

  “I don’t get you…I really don’t,” I mumble. Some, tiny particle of me hates to see him upset. Like a tiny, tiny portion.

  He’s behaving like this is some big disappointment to him. It’s etched in the hard lines of his face, in the lips pressed together tightly, the scowl. He looks off into the distance, his jaw pulsing from the effort it takes him to keep his mouth shut.

  We stand there idle for what seems like forever, with the sun beating down on the tent without mercy and the heat rising off the gravel burning my bare ankles. As the silence drags on, I start to fiddle nervously with the end of the cord fastening the Rowdy’s banner across the tent, waiting for him to say something, anything.

  “Are you?” He looks lost, almost in a daze as he speaks. “Going to marry him.”

  Each second that I don’t answer feels like an eternity. “I don’t know,” I finally admit.

  Should I marry Oliver? Probably. We’ve never had a screaming match in the middle of a dusty parking lot. Or any public place for that matter. He’s never caused me so much pain I stopped eating for two weeks and had to be rushed to the hospital with an irregular heartbeat. But he’s also never made me feel like I was the only person on the planet when he looks at me and he’s sure as hell never called me his soul mate either.

  Eyes cast down, he nods absently. “I gotta get back.”

  Chapter Ten

  Maren

  There were plenty of growing pains along the way to becoming more than friends. And yet they were easily overshadowed by profound acts of kindness, moments where Noah became the boy I put on a pedestal. When I watched him in real time become the person I imagined him to be. Those are the ones permanently written in Sharpie marker across my heart. They haven’t faded, or lost their significance over the years. No matter how much I cursed him. No matter how many tears I shed.

  I was a late bloomer. And in that period before the late bloom, around my thirteenth birthday, I was not cute and dainty like Annabelle. I tended to be on the stout side, and even that’s putting it kindly. Couple the beefy thighs with the braces and my hair cut short which I couldn’t keep long because I washed my hair a lot due to my active lifestyle and let’s just say I wasn’t winning any beauty contests.

  It didn’t matter. I wasn’t interested in beauty contests. I was interested in sports. It wouldn’t have even crossed my mind to care what I looked like.

  I was leaning against the locker of one of the other girls on my tennis team, waiting for her to go to practice, when a boy I’d never spoken to––mostly because he was either sneering or scowling at me––walked up.

  Towering over me, he stared with hard, opaque eyes. As nervous as I was, our mothers knew each other so I took a chance. “Hi,” I said, smiling.

  His scowl deepened. He obviously did not like my metallic smile, and he liked me saying hi even less. “You’re leaning against my locker.”

  This boy intimidated me and I didn’t want to give him any reason to pick on me the way he picked on some of the other kids in our grade. I tried to move out of his way as quickly as possible but before I could take a step, he boxed me in.

  “Sorry, I didn’t know that one was yours. I’m waiting for Fiona,” I said, talking fast.

  He was silent for a while, his mouth twisting in a strange smile. Then he stepped aside and said, “Beat it, dyke.”

  I didn’t have to be asked twice. I went straight to practice without Fiona. I couldn’t shake this nagging suspicion though. I had no idea what dyke meant and it bothered me.

  There was only one person I trusted enough to ask, one person I could say anything without the risk of embarrassment of sounding foolish. So after dinner I knocked on his bedroom window and luckily found him home. Noah was sixteen at the time and Mr. Popularity was already dating someone. He was rarely home, with the exception of school nights.

  We were in the midst of a very intense game of Super Smash Bros. when I dropped the bomb.

  “What does d
yke mean?”

  He paused the game and turned to look at me, expression cautiously curious. For a while he just stared, studying me, searching my face for something.

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Tommy Ahern.”

  He hummed and looked away, lost in whatever he was mulling over in his head. “I never liked that little fucker. His brother’s an asshole too.” His attention shot back to me. “What did he say?”

  “I was standing near his locker and he said, ‘Beat it, dyke.’”

  All I got was more silence. More of his unblinking, thoughtful stare.

  “Well?”

  “It means beautiful,” he bluntly stated, his eyes holding mine for a meaning laden moment before moving on.

  It surprised me. Like I said, all Tommy Ahern had ever done was give me nasty looks. But Noah’s word was Bible, and if he said it meant beautiful then I believed it.

  “Like…pretty?” I couldn’t keep the confusion off my face. The creepy smile Tommy had given me had left a bad impression.

  “Yeah. And don’t let anybody tell you you’re not.”

  This claim was even more baffling. I didn’t think Noah thought of me like that. I figured, at the most, I was the coolest girl he knew. I’d heard rumors from the older girls on the tennis team that he was dating Crystal Roy, the prettiest girl in school. So I knew what his idea of pretty was and it wasn’t braces and short hair.

  “Why?”

  “’Cause I said so.” When I didn’t answer, he said, “Okay?”

  “Okay.” We went right back to playing the video game.

  After that, Tommy Ahern didn’t intimidate me much anymore. I mean, he thought I was beautiful. Except he would always walk in the opposite direction whenever he saw me in school. That one was a head scratcher.

  A few months later my mother and I ran into Tommy Ahern’s mother at the grocery store and I mentioned to her that Tommy thought I was beautiful. I told her what he’d called me.