by Alexa Martin
Yeah, sure, my appliances don’t match yet, but give me a couple of years. It’s going to be fab.
I don’t have to say anything to Sadie as we walk in. This is a practiced routine of ours. We are so good at it, in fact, that if navigating the kitchen were an Olympic sport, we’d get the gold every time.
She grabs two wineglasses with different-colored stems, even though I drink red wine like a grown-up and she drinks juice like a boozy toddler. I hand her bottle over to her and tuck mine under my arm as I pull the wine opener I glued a magnet to off the fridge and swing the door shut.
Once we both have full glasses, not that quarter-of-a-glass crap some people pull, we move to my living room and plop down on Maya’s worn-to-perfection charcoal sectional.
“So . . . ,” Sadie draws out, staring at me over the edge of her wineglass. “You ready to talk?”
I take a large gulp of my Malbec. “No.” I need a minute for this to kick in before I spill the beans.
“Then I’ll start.” She puts her wineglass on one of the coasters Ace made me for Christmas three years ago and tucks her legs underneath her. “TK Moore. Starting wide receiver and known party boy of the Denver Mustangs.”
Shit.
I should’ve started.
“Sad—” I start, but stop when Sadie does a superaggressive zipper motion in front of my mouth.
“No.” She points in my face, the redness coloring her face again. “I gave you tons of chances to tell me and you didn’t. So I went looking in other places and now you get to hear what I found out.”
I settle back and swallow another mouthful of wine.
“So . . . TK. Football and parties.” She picks up where she left off. “Two things you avoid like the plague. And not only does he party . . . he parties. The only reason all those Mustang players were at Emerald Monday night is because Rochelle partied with him over the weekend and promised him all sorts of shit if they came to us.”
Oh my god.
I might get sick.
Rochelle? Out of everybody in the entire state of Colorado, TK and I have her in common?
Disgusting.
Rochelle has hated me since my first day at the Emerald Cabaret. I’m not sure why, I just know she does. And if she has her eyes set on TK—which, let’s be honest, who wouldn’t?—and saw him talking to me? I’m more screwed than I ever dreamed.
And considering I already dreamt I was pretty screwed . . . this is really bad.
Every word coming out of Sadie’s pink-painted lips twists my insides tighter and causes the throbbing in my head to become so extreme I’m willing to do anything to make her stop talking.
“TK is Ace’s dad!” I blurt out the secret I’ve been keeping since my parents sent me packing.
“What?” she screeches, leaping off my couch like a jackrabbit. “You said you didn’t know who Ace’s dad is!”
She repeats the lie I told her.
“I lied.” I put my glass on the coaster next to hers and hug a yellow throw pillow next to me. “TK is Ace’s dad. He was the only person I’d ever slept with up until a couple of years after Ace was born.”
“Are you insane?” she asks, but seeing as I’m not quite sure, I don’t answer. “Your baby daddy is one of the highest-paid guys on the Mustangs and you’re dropping drinks to sleazy dudes in decent suits to pay your fucking bills? And then . . . he has the audacity to show up . . . after doing whatever he did with Rochelle and cause a scene at your job. And then, after all of that, you agreed to go out with him? I repeat . . .” She stops pacing, drags her hands through her long, wavy locks, and pulls them out so she looks like she stuck her finger in a light socket. “Are you insane!” She screams the words, but I don’t flinch, and in my reaction, she finds her answer. “You never told him,” she whispers.
“I couldn’t.”
“Poppy . . . what . . . why?” She picks up her wineglass and chugs what’s left, like this subject is mentally draining for her. “How could you not tell him?”
“I tried.”
She plops on the couch beside me and doesn’t say a word. She just purses her lips and aims her judgmental side-eye my way.
“I mean, I did tell him . . . initially.” I sit up straight, on the defensive even though she’s silent. “I sent him a text message saying I was pregnant. He didn’t respond so I took the bus all the way to his bougie-ass neighborhood, trekked my way past all the rude old people who looked at me like you’re looking at me now, and when I got there, his mom told me TK didn’t want a baby. She said he had a future to protect and it didn’t include being a teen father. Then she handed me a check for five hundred dollars to get an abortion.” I shrug, trying to downplay the exact moment my soul was crushed.
“What a bitch.” Sadie says the understatement of the century.
“That’s not even the end of it.” I pull the pillow closer, probably misshaping it for the rest of time. “I called him when I left, hoping to talk to him, hear his words. And a girl answered his phone. I was sixteen and pregnant and he already had another girl answering his phone. I didn’t call him again. I sent him a text saying I’d get the abortion, but when I got to the clinic, I panicked and ran. I just never told him I changed my mind.”
This is the first and last time I’ve told this story. I hate how weak it makes me look. How pathetic. Being a strong single mom is one thing. Being a broken, stupid girl, pregnant by a guy who she loved but didn’t love her back, is another.
“We need refills.” She points to my glass with a little bit left. “Drink.”
I do what she says, mainly because I was going to do it already but also because that’s Sadie for you. Always prepared for a glitter bombing, but not so much for ten years’ worth of mental baggage.
She nabs the glass out of my hand and hightails it to my kitchen and returns with bottles instead of glasses.
“Sades, I can’t get drunk before he gets here,” I protest . . . but still take the bottle from her hand.
“I know. But this is a lot, I might need to take your bottle after I finish mine.”
“So I guess I’m doing my own makeup?” I ask.
“You’re a big girl. You should’ve thought about this before you dropped a nuclear bomb on me.” She waves the bottle around like a magic wand. “You know I don’t have the coping abilities to deal with this.”
Touché. I did meet her in a club. I bet a therapist would have a field day with us.
We sit on my couch in silence, both lost in our thoughts, a dangerous place.
Sadie speaks first. “Did you really think he wouldn’t want to know?”
“I don’t know.” I want to say yes, continue the lie I’ve worked so hard to convince myself of. “TK was fun. Everyone knew it. Hell, from the look of things and what Rochelle told you, he still is. He told me his decision and I didn’t think it was fair to force mine on him.”
“But you didn’t even give him a chance to step up.” She raises her voice a bit. “You didn’t give Ace a chance to know him.”
I know who she’s getting mad at.
And I know it’s not me.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t have to close my eyes and count to ten before I respond to her.
“I am not your mom, Sadie.” My tone is gentle but firm enough that she snaps out of whatever flashback she was stuck in. “I was a sixteen-year-old girl. He didn’t want a baby and my parents kicked me out of the house without so much as a farewell. I did the best I could with what I had. And Ace is happy. He’s spent the last nine years of his life rooted in love and stability, something I couldn’t have guaranteed for him if TK was in our lives.”
“I’m sorry.” She puts the bottle on the table and grabs my hand. “You know I think Ace is the shit and you’re the best mom ever. But now TK knows you’re here. Are you going to tell him?”
I t
ake my free hand and grab my bottle of wine. “I have no idea.”
Then I finish the bottle.
Six
“Damn, Poppy, it must be said, you wear your work uniform well, but nothing can compare to those jeans,” TK tells me as I walk toward him after I knock down all the bowling pins . . . again.
About an hour after the wine had magically vanished, TK texted me and told me to dress casual and to wear socks—a wardrobe request I found odd until I realized my feet would be in rented shoes. Punch Bowl Social is a restaurant/club/arcade/bowling alley I’ve wanted to try for years but never did on account of its being always packed and my having a nine-year-old.
It’s packed again tonight. However, when you’re TK Moore, they figure shit out.
I wish I wasn’t impressed . . . but I hate waiting and it was really freaking impressive.
“Oh no.” I shake my head, the laughter coming often and easily. “Don’t try and throw my game by complimenting me, and also, don’t be that guy.”
“What guy?” He raises his eyebrows and looks more adorable than a man with long hair and a beard should be able to. “What did I do?”
“The creepy guy.” I tug his beard, unable to keep my hands off it. “Who needs to shave and watches girls’ butts from behind his overgrown facial hair.”
He doesn’t pull away and I don’t let him go, so I’m able to see the glint in his eyes up close. “I lost track of how many times you just insulted me.”
The little touches started as soon as I sat my butt down in his blacked-out Range Rover. His fingers would graze my thigh after he changed the radio station. I’d grab his arm when he said something that made me laugh . . . which was all the time.
This is our second game of bowling and I’m kicking his butt. It’s almost unnerving how well this is going. I thought it’d be awkward, like at the Emerald Cabaret. But it turns out, when I’m dressed in regular clothes and we aren’t hanging out in a parking lot, things are just as easy as they used to be.
“Oh my god!” A shrill voice from over my shoulder causes me to jump and let go of his beard. I don’t have to turn around to see who the intruder is because she shoulders her way in between me and TK before I even have a chance to move. “TK Moore! You are seriously the only reason I watch football. Well”—she flips her long, clearly dyed blonde hair over her shoulder and it slaps me in the face—“your pants are.”
I start choking. Whether it’s from a stranger’s hair getting in my mouth or her desperate pickup line, I’m not sure. What I am sure of is it being enough to pull TK’s annoyed face from hers to mine.
“You all right there, Sparks?”
I shake my head. “There’s hairspray in my mouth and I don’t own hairspray.” I cringe and resist wiping my tongue with my fingers, considering they were just inside bowling ball holes.
I start to have a mini meltdown. I jump up and down, shaking my hands and head, whining with my tongue hanging out of my mouth. The perp is standing in front of me, not even acknowledging my presence, but lucky for me, TK turns around and grabs his glass of water, a stack of napkins, and comes to me.
He puts a hand to the back of my head. A hand, I should note, so large he palms the entire backside of my head, wild curls and all. I not only feel but see him shaking with laughter as he brings a napkin up to my mouth and wipes my tongue. I try to narrow my eyes in his direction, but I can’t. Because I’m laughing too.
“Here.” He hands me the glass of water after my tongue has been wiped clean. “Have a sip.”
I take the glass, but I don’t have a sip.
No.
I gulp every last drop down and then go get my Shirley Temple off the table and finish it too.
Dramatic?
Maybe.
But her hair was in my mouth!
“Ugh.” She groans. “It’s not like I don’t wash my hair.”
“Why are you still here?” I ask, narrowing my eyes at the Barbie wannabe.
I don’t intimidate her in the least, though; she just rolls her eyes and hands me her phone, the camera app open.
“Take a picture of me and TK.” She takes a step back and—showing way too many teeth—wraps her arms around his waist, dropping her makeup-covered face onto his light gray tee.
I don’t want to do it.
And I can feel it building from the depths of my soul.
I’m gonna lose my mind.
I mic-drop her phone and make my way into her personal space. “Look here, you stu—” I start, but don’t finish because TK has managed to pry the skank off him and is now pulling me away.
“We’re going to eat now,” he says over his shoulder. “Have a good night, ma’am.”
If I wasn’t so pissed we had to leave the bowling game I was winning, I would’ve laughed at her crestfallen face at being called “ma’am.”
I don’t laugh.
But I do scrunch my nose and stick my tongue out at her.
Whatever. We can’t always be winners.
I shake my wrist free of TK’s grip when I lose sight of the witch and move beside him.
“Do they have any tables ready?” I ask, putting the previous situation behind me. “It looks really busy.”
“I slipped the hostess a hundred when we walked in to keep a table open for us.”
“Damn, Moore.” I let out a long whistle. “Who you trying to impress?”
I laugh, bumping my hip into his. I remember asking him the same question on our first date when he came to my front door dressed in a suit jacket . . . to go to the movies.
He stops walking and turns to me, looking me dead in my eyes, and says, “You.”
It takes my breath away. How can he pack so much meaning into three letters?
Ace.
The thought of him forces me to break eye contact.
“Come on.” I tug on his hand. “I’m starving and I want to see the TK Moore work his magic.”
“I’ll show you my magic later,” he whispers into my ear before his teeth graze it, sending shivers down my spine.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
I almost just came in the middle of the restaurant.
I’m still standing in the same spot when I hear my name. “Poppy! You coming?” TK yells a few feet away from me and I don’t miss the way he smirks over his choice of words.
“Ass.” I roll my eyes.
“Later,” he says.
I shake my head and stop talking. I bet he’ll have an answer for anything I say.
He wraps his arm around my shoulder, pulling me into his side and kissing the top of my head. I’m not a huge PDA fan, but something about the sweetness of his gesture makes my heart clench inside my chest.
Ace.
I close my eyes, trying to force him out of my mind for just one night. I’ll tell TK, I reassure myself. Just not tonight.
The hostess shows us to our table. It’s tucked into what might be the only quiet corner in the entire place. I say thank you, followed by TK, who I see slide another bill into her palm. I try to ignore it, but a part of me who has zero business getting mad does. I’ve been struggling for years and he just threw away two hundred dollars so he didn’t have to wait his turn.
“So,” I say, when he slides into his side of the booth, unaware of my hidden resentment. “What’re you gonna get?”
“Meatloaf,” he answers, not even looking at the menu. “Always the meatloaf.”
I stop myself right before I blurt out that meatloaf is Ace’s favorite meal too.
“I make a great meatloaf,” I offer instead. “It was my aunt Maya’s recipe. It’s the best.”
“You’ll have to make it for me one day.” He taps my leg under the table with his foot, which reminds me of something, and I grab on to it like a dog with a bone to get off the subject of his coming to my h
ouse.
“Crap! We left our shoes!” I start to move out of the booth to go get them. I was wearing the Tory Burch flats I’d been pining over for years that Ace (well, Sadie) bought me for my birthday.
“It’s fine.” He motions for me to sit. “I told them before we sat down, they said they’d bring them to us.”
Shoe delivery.
Another Mustang perk, I guess.
“Oh,” is my lame response. “Thanks.”
“Not a problem.” He smiles, those green eyes so much like Ace’s drilling a hole through my heart. “You have to get a punch.”
“’Kay.” I flip over the menu to look at the options even though I’m not sure it’s the best idea considering I’m already down a bottle of wine tonight. But clearly, I’m not the ambassador of good decisions. “They all look good,” I tell him at the same time the waitress approaches.
“Can I start you with something to drink?” she asks, looking at me instead of TK, and I want to kiss her for it. I was starting to think I’d become invisible standing next to him.
I don’t kiss her, or answer her for that matter, because TK orders for me.
“We’ll have one of each punch,” he says.
Eyes wide, I whip my head in his direction and a stray curl slaps me in the face.
“Do you know what you want to eat yet?” he asks, either oblivious or ignoring my look of shock. “Or do you need a couple of minutes?”
“Um, I’ll have the burger, medium-well, please.” I hand her my menu.
“And I’ll have the meatloaf,” TK orders when she turns back to him.
“Three punches?” I whisper yell after she walks away. “Are you trying to get me drunk?”
“Maybe.” His lips curl up under his mustache. “How else am I going to get you to do karaoke?”
“Oh no!” I laugh at the thought of my ever doing karaoke. “I’ll have to be blackout drunk for you to ever get me on a stage!”
“Then I’ll have to order more,” he says.
