Nicebomber

by Charles, Colleen

  I need to hear from her.

  Yes, I know I told her I'd get in touch with her, so she'd have had no reason to get in touch with me before then. I know that.

  But still.

  Just in case. Because where she’s concerned, hope springs eternal.

  I still feel strange about having shared so much private stuff with her, but as I shower and brush my teeth, I try to let those feelings go. Okay, so I generally keep things to myself. More than most guys, probably. That doesn't mean people don't normally tell each other things like these, in the way of conversation. It's a getting-to-know-you ritual, that's all. I don't need to overthink it. There's no reason it would make her think I'm a neurotic whack job and completely scare her off.

  Nope. No reason at all, you complete dipshit.

  I see my concerned face in the steamed-up mirror and try to conjure up a laugh, which falls flat. Faceplants is more like it. This is ridiculous. I've never cared this much about what some chick thought of me, even the stunning, intelligent, and much-coveted the country over, Kendall Wright. Even when she expected me to fall to my knee and profess my everlasting love. I fell to my knee all right. Then flat on my face.

  I cave in to my baser needs and text Keeley, asking to meet at our usual diner for the day's Nicebombing. Then I sit on the couch, flipping through shows on Netflix and trying to pretend I'm not counting the seconds until she gets back to me. Damn, what is with me today?

  After fourteen and a half nail-biting minutes, my phone buzzes. She wants to meet in Lincoln Park, instead of at the diner. I text her back and confirm the details.

  About an hour later, I cross Lakeview Avenue near Diversey and I see her standing next to the Goethe Monument, waiting for me. I wave, walking up to her. I've always enjoyed the absurdity of this statue—a huge man, staring into the distance, naked except for an artfully-draped cape, his leg up on a boulder, a massive eagle perched on his knee for some mysterious reason. Wouldn't the talons dig in? Wouldn't he be worried about the bird shitting on him? Wouldn't there be kind of a draft, since his nether regions are basically hanging in the wind? And what the hell's he staring at, anyway?

  My mind drifts back to the kids at the hospital. Their curiosity was completely normal. So why do I still feel like a complete asshat?

  When I get to Keeley, awkwardness falls between us for several heartbeats, and it seems like we both feel it. Our circumstances are somewhat strange, so how do we do the greeting? A handshake is too formal, a hug is too suggestive, and doing nothing just... hangs there between us silently, wishing it could be something more.

  “So why the park?” I ask, trying to shoo the awkwardness away.

  She sizes me up and I stare, hoping for the light of want to ignite in her gaze. But it doesn’t. Not yet. Maybe not ever. And that thought saddens me in a way that makes me want to jump into the lake. “Because I want to ask you about something before we do this next Nicebomber thing and depending on how the rest of the conversation goes, I wouldn't want to have to worry about leaving before our food got to the table.”

  I fake a laugh, but my chest squeezes even though I don’t want to care. She stands close to me. Too close. Not close enough. “Gosh, that sure sounds ominous. What's on your mind?”

  She tugs her lower lip between her teeth. “I've heard you were on a show called The Fiancé?”

  I cock my head, confused. “Well, yeah. Of course, I was. Should I have said something about it? I guess I just assumed you already knew because, you know... everyone always seems to now, whenever they meet me. I’m kind of notorious in Chicago for that.”

  She shakes her head and some wisps of silky hair escape the confines of her trademark pony. Feeling something loosen inside my chest, I long to undo the clip and let my fingers waterfall through it. “I didn't know about it. I don't follow reality TV.”

  I shrug. “I can't blame you. It's mostly crap.”

  “But The Fiancé wasn't?” Keeley raises an eyebrow.

  I stub my toe into the grass and admire the new scuff on my Italian loafer. “No, I guess that kind of was too, philosophically speaking.”

  A hand flies to her hip as she juts it out. “Then why did you decide to be on it? Are you one of those fame whores obsessed with getting your fifteen minutes?”

  I sigh. This really, really doesn't seem to be going my way, and based on her demeanor, I'm starting to get the feeling I won't be seeing her anymore. And that thought hurts far more than I want it to. Sudden vertigo suspends space and time, and a wave of nausea bubbles up from the new dimension unfolding before my eyes. “A lot of magazines and websites asked me that, after it happened. If you've already found out this much about me, I'm surprised you wouldn't have just read the answer there.”

  Her voice trembles like my words matter to her. “I didn't look anything up about it. I wanted to hear it from you.”

  Figuring out what to say feels like reading tea leaves in a monsoon. “Mostly, I did it because I was bored. I wanted to be known as more than just the son of the guy who invented the Cupbrella.”

  Keeley frowns, her forehead crinkling up so much it tempts me to reach out and smooth the creases with my fingertip. But instead, I let my hand fall to my side. “Your dad invented the Cupbrella? Those things don't even work.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it. Anyway, it turned out I wasn't really good at anything. I don't have any talents or skills, I dropped out of my master’s program... I never cared about much, and I never needed money. But I wanted my name out there. And being on that show, well, I didn't have to do anything except stand there, project this rich, charming bad boy image—which I pretty much always did anyway—and I could be famous. People would tune in each week to see me. They'd listen to the things I said. They'd care. And what difference did it make whether I won or lost? Either way it shook out, I wasn't planning to marry some stranger. The whole premise was silly. The producers control everything, even the emotions.”

  “Sure, but what about the rest of it? The thing that happened at the end?” she demands. “You were leading that woman on, and you weren’t honest about your intentions, or lack thereof!”

  “That was all the producers. When they let me be a contestant, they basically wrote this whole character they wanted me to play. Like a really exaggerated version of myself.” For a split-second, my mind flashes on the picture of the big bad wolf from Little Red Riding Hood, and it seems frighteningly apt. “They wanted me to be more than just some bad boy... they made me to be that season’s full-on villain to boost ratings. They wanted all the female viewers to hate me but want me at the same time. They made sure I made it to the end of the competition, and then they forced me to do the big 'I’m an asshat' reveal and make Kendall cry on camera. And as for love? I've never been in a long-term relationship in my life. The whole thing was made up just to shake things up because the network thought the format was getting too predictable. They thought the audience was getting bored with all those predictable tropes, with the same basic types of guys lining up for the cameras year after year. They were worried that if each season ended with a Happily Ever After, viewers would stop tuning in and watch Dancing With the Stars or something instead.”

  My heart bounces around in my chest as she regards me. “Okay. That makes sense. But once you saw how things were going, why didn't you just back out of it? Why be the show’s puppet?”

  “I wanted to, believe me. I was pissed, I yelled at them in the meeting, I stormed out. It would have been a major breach of my contract, but I was totally ready to do it, even if they sued me. I didn't even care that we were so close to the end of the season. As far as I was concerned, I could just vanish and let one of the rest of those guys make it to the end.” I shake my head, remembering it like it was yesterday and a wave of uncomfortable emotion flows through me. “But it's not like you just rip up a piece of paper and you're done. I would have owed them millions for screwing up their season.”

  She glances over my head, looking through me
. “I thought you were rich.”

  I close my eyes, rubbing my temples. “My father's rich. Everything's in his name. It all belongs to him. And still, I went to him, and I begged him to back me on this decision and buy me out of the contract. I told him what a rotten thing they wanted me to do to someone on television, and how it would be bad publicity for him, for the company, our family.”

  She hisses in a ragged breath. “What did he say?”

  “He told me to suck it up.” As my voice trembles, I try to steady it. “He said I never finished anything in my life, and he wouldn't pay for me to quit on one more thing I started, no matter the possible outcome. He said if I wanted to be famous so badly just for being myself, well, congratulations, because I was going to get exactly that. He...” My breath catches in my throat. “He told me he didn't care about the damage to his reputation or the company's. He said all he cared about was how deeply ashamed I'd made him. Again. And then he told me to get out of his sight. So I had to go crawling back to the producers and tell them I'd do what they wanted. For months, women spit at me in the street, Keeley!”

  “So a lot of people still give you grief about it,” she says. “I know how seriously some people take these shows. When Pinky's daughter told me about what you'd done, she made it sound like you'd driven to her house and plowed through her front picture window.”

  Her voice sounds soft and kind, and I realize there's no suspicion or anger in her eyes—only concern. I'm not used to people looking at me like that. This woman has me all twisted up inside.

  “Sometimes people still recognize me when I'm out,” I admit. “Not as much as they used to. Attention spans are pretty short these days, and reality TV's always got some new villain for people to boo and throw tomatoes at. It was pretty intolerable for a good long while, though. I still don't go out that much... I used to go to dance clubs, art galleries, parties. I used to love those things.”

  A pause. Then the moment unfurls into something else. Something more. “I'm sorry those things were ruined for you. I know what it’s like to lose the things you care about.”

  A sliver of anticipation threads through me that I’ll be forgiven for the sins of the past. “Hey, like we keep saying, it's not about me, right? I'm not the victim here. I'm the asshole who signed up and did the deed, so I get to reap what I sow on this one. The one who deserves sympathy is Kendall.” I pause. “Well, maybe not so much, since she got a book deal out of it and she's co-hosting a morning talk show now. I guess I am a little bit the victim, when you come right down to it. Nothing good came out of that show for me.”

  Keeley laughs and I allow the delicious sound to flow over me, using it as a salve to my heart. “I'll let you have that one. And thank you for answering my questions honestly. I really appreciate it.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “How do you know I was being honest? You trust the word of some reality show douche who deliberately broke a woman's heart because some producers told him to?”

  She cocks her head, then nods. “Yeah. I do, actually. Now let's check out today's Nicebomber options. The sooner we get this done, the sooner you can go on Kendall’s show and talk about your whole big redemption arc. Talk about a burn.”

  I let a chuckle escape, and she joins in. A breeze rises around us, carrying a leaf higher and higher.

  I know how that leaf feels.

  Chapter Eleven

  Keeley

  We both peer at the screen on his phone, our heads almost touching. When he cocks his to the side, his ear actually lightly brushes my temple, tickling me. It sends a tingle down my spine, leaving me confused. Why doesn’t he lean in and finish what he started that day at the hospital? I blink away the possible connection building between us, shoving it to the back of the junk drawer of emotions I’ll never explore.

  I guess listening to his explanation—and his feelings behind it—has made him seem more vulnerable to me, especially after hearing about his childhood and how his aloof father railroaded Shane into doing this Nicebomber thing. Even if he's done some bad stuff in his life, it seems like he genuinely wants to turn things around for himself. How many people can honestly claim that?

  “So,” he begins, chewing his lower lip. “The first option is for me to volunteer at a nursing home.”

  I check the nervous expression on his face and chuckle. “That one's not exactly blowing your skirt up, though, huh? Too much like a hospital?”

  He nods. “Those places scare the hell out of me. Way too much like hospitals, and we know how that one went.”

  Well, I have to admire his honesty, at least. “That's not surprising. They're scary places. They're overcrowded and under-resourced, and as a result, they end up being desperate and dehumanizing places. That's why they need as much assistance from volunteers as possible. And the people there may seem off-putting because they have dementia and other health problems, but they're completely harmless. There's nothing at all for you to be frightened of because I would be there with you. I specialize in those types of patients.”

  Despite my assurances, I still notice the shiver that runs through him. I reach out and smooth my fingers over his forearm. “Okay. I mean, logically, sure, I know that. It's just...” He sighs, then shrugs, clearly frustrated with himself. “I don't know. I don't know how to articulate it. It just fills me with dread, and when I think about what it would take for me to actually do it, I'm not sure I've got it in me. That's a shitty thing to admit. And I know I was afraid of the hospital and I pushed myself and got over it, but this feels different.”

  Before I realize what I'm doing, my hand folds over his in an attempt to comfort him. I've never been big on touching or being touched by anyone other than friends and family—it's why I tried so hard to warn him off the whole hug-a-stranger thing earlier—so what is this strange compulsion I’m feeling to soothe this man?

  I suppose I consider him my friend now. Maybe I even hope that friendship could develop into something more. But he doesn’t look at me like he wants me as a woman, no matter how much I wish that were true.

  In this moment, he just seems that desperate and lonely in his fear. Maybe there's a look in his eyes that reminds me of a drowning man flailing for a rope.

  But since when am I throwing a safety line to someone with the power to destroy me?

  “You don't owe me an apology, Shane,” I tell him quietly. “I know you want to change and grow, and I'm right here to help you with that. Everyone has their line, their limit, for whatever reasons... some valid, and some just because. But either way, it doesn't delegitimize your feelings. So hey, if you can't handle it, you can't handle it. There's no shame in that. We can find another way for you to help someone. The only thing limiting good deeds is the depth of your imagination.”

  His expression softens, and he breathes a heavy sigh of relief. “Thank you. I was worried that if I said something, you'd do your whole drill sergeant routine like when we went to the hospital and I'd have no choice.”

  I laugh and shake my head. “Well, maybe I pushed you so hard because you hadn't convinced me yet that you truly wanted to help people. I guess I figured you were just a wuss, trying to wriggle out of anything even remotely uncomfortable. But what can I say? You've impressed me.”

  “Glad I've won you over,” he smirks. “Okay, the second option is to donate at least a hundred bucks to a local food bank.”

  I notice his frown. “Don't tell me that one's too much of a challenge for you.”

  Shane shakes his head. “The opposite, really. There's not much of a 'wow' factor in that one, is there? Anyone could do it. Well, anyone with a hundred bucks to spare. And after these last few catastrophes, I figure I should try to swing for the fences a bit more if I'm going to get my dad off my back.”

  Is that the only reason you're not choosing the easy way out, Shane? Or is all of this altruism really starting to grow on you? I hope it’s the latter.

  “That leaves option three.” I look at the screen and wince. “Um, yike
s. On the other hand, maybe we should re-examine the second one. You could choose to increase your donation?”

  He shakes his head again, his eyes lighting up this time. “No, no, this is definitely the one! This is perfect! We need to do this one, absolutely! In fact, I’m actually looking forward to it.”

  I rear back in my chair. “'Babysit for free?' Seriously? After the thing at the hospital, you honestly believe this is a good idea? What if the kids ask you about the meaning of life?”

  “As long as they don’t ask me how babies are made, I’m good. I screwed up with kids last time, so why not show that it was just a fluke and that I can get kids on my side? I'll surprise everyone and look like I have a plan.”

  Ugh. Maybe the whole doing good is its own reward portion of this journey is still something we need to work on a little. Well, baby steps, I guess. Whatever his choice, I’ll support it.

  “How sure are you?” I ask.

  He snorts. “How hard can it be to watch a couple of kids for a few hours? They love to play, don’t they?”

  I suppress a snicker. He's clueless, sure, but I don't want to get in the way of his enthusiasm or make him feel like no one believes in him. Encouragement is crucial, or he could end up losing interest in the whole thing and going back to the relative safety and comfort of being a self-obsessed prick.

  And then I’d have to go back to disliking him. And that settles in my heart, squeezing it.

  “Well, if you're sure,” I concede. “But it's not as easy as that. I mean, it's not like you can just go on Craigslist or something and offer your child-care services for free to a complete stranger.”

  He raises an eyebrow, perplexed. “Why not? I don’t know any kids personally.”

  I can't help it—this time, I burst out laughing. Oh, Shane. Your cluelessness can be oddly adorable.

  “Because that would be, like, the shadiest thing ever in the history of the internet!” I blurt out. “Just picture it! What would that ad even look like? 'I'm a random single dude who loves kids, and I'll look after yours free of charge? I solemnly swear not to molest them or anything while you're gone, cross my heart?' You don't even have any references, for Pete’s sake!”