HOTSHOT

by Bishop, K. M.

  After we ate, we watched some movies on television and decided that we would just lounge around the rest of the day. I was a little beat after the game and my ankle was hurting, swelled up a little again. This was to be expected after I hadn’t given it the proper rest it needed. But that was the world of professional sports; everyone was injured pretty much all the time in some way. But I didn’t complain about it much to Jamie. Complaining about things out loud did little to solve the problems, did it?

  “Wow, that looks bad,” she said as I laid an ice pack on it and wrapped it around, touching the Velcro together.

  I nodded and leaned back on the couch. I had my leg propped up on a pillow on the coffee table in front of me. My wine glass was filled to the brim right beside me. The wine was kicking in and helping with the pain a little bit. Plus I had a full belly of great Italian food, the best woman in the world by my side, and some high quality entertainment in front of me. I felt like I had it made in the shade for the moment.

  But Jamie’s brain was always working on hyperdrive. She’d always been one of those people who worried about things a lot quietly, but then if she didn’t get them off her chest then she would start worrying about them out loud and force you to join her in her world of worry. That was the plight of the neurotic writer, I guessed. It was just one of her little quirks that I found amusing.

  “It’s ok,” I said. “I’ll ice it the rest of the day and it will be fine.”

  “Doesn’t it hurt?”

  “A little bit. So, what did you think of the game?” I asked trying to change the subject.

  “The little Ricky fiasco was hysterical. That’s definitely going in the paper.”

  “You don’t think Alicia will tell you to change it? Slander and all that?”

  “I don’t think so. Everyone is talking about it. What was he thinking?”

  “It was like watching the most desperate act of a man with nothing else to lose. He allowed his anger to take all of his rationale and reasoning out of the picture. And I think Lucinda has done a real number on his head. I’ll be watching for him to try something else now. But hopefully we can get it stopped with the blackmail scheme. I would love to see the look on his face when we show him that Lucinda has been messing with the Dean. I was thinking about it earlier. But I don’t want to take too much satisfaction in it. That might come around to bite me some time, you know?”

  “Right. That can definitely be a real thing.”

  We watched the television in silence for a few more minutes. I sensed that Jamie wanted to talk to me about something, but she was not being forthright with it at all. She was indicating that she had something on her mind, but I wasn’t going to pry it out of her. When she was ready, she would talk to me. I knew that.

  We watched a movie then on the television. Then Jamie turned to me and I could see it coming in her eyes. The movie had been a romantic comedy that I found a little boring, but she seemed to enjoy. I voted that we should do an action film next.

  “What do you think about our future?” Jamie asked me.

  I turned to her and studied her eyes. I could tell the question was legitimate. She really wanted to know what I thought. I paused a moment and leaned in to get a bit more intimacy with her. “What do you mean, exactly?” I asked hoping to get some clarification. I didn’t want to assume exactly what she meant.

  “Well, you know that I love you and you love me, but I want to know exactly where you see this going.”

  I was beginning to get the picture. Was Jamie talking about marriage? That was something I definitely saw in our future down the line when we were both at more stable places in our lives, but then looking around at where I was and the life we could have right then, I knew that we were more stable than most people our age would ever hope to be. But that stability seemed false to me, because most of what I had belonged to my family. I hadn’t really stretched my wings yet to show the world what I was capable of. I was still working on that. I hoped Jamie understood.

  “I see us being together forever,” I said. “There is no question on that. Now, are you talking about marriage?”

  Jamie shrugged her shoulders and looked down. Why was she afraid to admit that to me? Was she worried that I might not approve or that it would dampen our relationship in some way?

  “Yeah, I am, “Jamie said. “When do you think that will happen with us?”

  “Are you suggesting I propose right now?” I asked. I hoped that didn’t come out more snarky than I meant it to. I was serious.

  “No,” Jamie said laughing. “Not at all. But in the near future, I thought that would be a real possibility for us. I mean, you want to get married one day, right?”

  “Of course,” I said. “I don’t have anything against marriage or anything, but I’m just surprised that you would be thinking of it at this time or in the near future. We both have a lot of things we want to accomplish first.”

  “Right,” Jamie said. “I was just thinking out loud. I sometimes think about my perfect wedding day. Do you ever do that? Wonder how it will look and be?”

  I smiled. “Not really. I’m not sure that is really my thing, to think about or plan weddings. That just sounds like something that I would leave up to you.”

  “Ok…”

  I smiled. “Of course I would help any way you wanted me to, but I have no experience with that sort of thing and I really don’t have that many ideas about it. That’s just not something I’ve ever given much thought to. But I definitely want to get married one day. I want to watch you walking towards me in some gorgeous wedding gown. And I want to see both of our families there, even my dad, and I want them to be proud of us and the fact that we are going to be united forever.”

  Jamie wiped a tear from her eye. “Wow, that was actually pretty beautiful,” she said.

  I smiled. “Really? Well, I’m glad you enjoyed it. I just thought of it on the spot. Should we write it down and keep it somewhere? I guarantee I’m going to forget exactly what I just said one day and you are going to be super pissed about it.”

  Jamie hit me playfully in the arm. “You suck sometimes.”

  “Everybody sucks sometimes.”

  “True.”

  “So, when are you going to confront Lucinda? I’d almost like to have a front row seat to that thing.”

  “Well, you aren’t going to. I don’t want you anywhere near it. This will just be between us ladies to sort out.”

  “Ok, you do your thing.”

  “I thought I would go see her tomorrow about it. She eats lunch at the same place almost every day, usually with a group of her friends, or her cult. I’m not sure how to describe them. That is her usual routine and hangers on.”

  “Ok, that’s good. So it will be public. I was worried about that.”

  “Yeah, I want her to freak out in public and show her true colors to everybody while I catch it on film. I don’t know if that will happen or not; she is pretty crafty at holding her composure when she doesn’t want the wrong person to see how she really is.”

  “That is true.”

  I held Jamie close to me and we started the next movie. We didn’t talk much more about anything for a while. It was comfortable just enjoying the silence and the comfort of being lazy for an evening with each other. I loved times like this where we could just shut out the outside world and not have to worry too much about what was happening in our lives or what was going down tomorrow.

  As we lay there on the couch together, I did find myself thinking about our wedding day and what all it might entail. I wondered when I would pop the question and how. What type of ring would I pick out? Would I go alone or enlist the help of a friend or maybe one of my cousins? I knew nothing about jewelry.

  Or maybe we would just go together. I could ask and give her the ring that I thought would work well, and if she wanted a different ring, then we would go get her whatever she wanted. I was fine with that.

  That could even be a really fun day for the two of
us.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Jamie

  I woke up the next morning feeling pretty good about things. I was inspired to wake up early and get my workout done quickly. The hills that Chance’s uncle’s mansion was in were perfect for running and getting a strong workout in. Since I’d been working out there in the mornings, I could already sense the change in the strength in my legs and glutes. And the scenery was beautiful.

  It was nice to get the jogging in the mornings while I still could. When the winter set in within the next month or so, it would start getting too cold and too snowy for this type of activity. I was not about running in twenty degree morning temperatures, no matter how much I wanted to stay in shape. I would opt to go for a run on the treadmill in the nice home gym that was contained within the house. But for right now, while the weather permitted, I loved running outside.

  Occasionally, I would come across some coyote tracks and I would hear a pack of them howling fairly close by, depending on just how early I went for these morning jogs, but that was why I brought my trust pepper spray in case I had to defend myself. There had been stories of people being attacked by coyotes but they were few and far between. Those attacks were actually quite rare. Coyotes were more than content to leave you alone if you did the same with them.

  When I finished my jog, I took a quick shower, and then grabbed some coffee before heading to my first class. Chance was still asleep when I left. He had been tired ever since the game the other day and his ankle did not look that good. I was worried about him, but he was so stubborn that you couldn’t really get him to do anything he didn’t want to. He assured me that he knew what he was doing and that he would be fine for practice that day. He had spent all Sunday limping around the house icing his ankle and taking some over the counter pain medication to help with the discomfort, but he was not the kind of guy to complain about things. I admired that about him, really.

  I had intended to confront Lucinda on Sunday, but she actually surprised me by going out of town on some trip with a few of her girlfriends. I wasn’t going to chase her down, so I decided I’d wait until she returned.

  She was back by now, according to the info I was picking up off the microphone that was in her purse. It didn’t broadcast that far for me to hear everything, but most of the data would be loaded up on the cloud and I would download it from there. Technology had come so far. It was creepy how much information you could get from someone without them knowing about it. This kind of made me wonder if Lucinda had ever done anything like that with us. I reminded myself that we should get a bug sweeper to see if it detected anything in the house, but then again with the amount of paranoia that Chance’s uncle had about everything, he probably had something like that in place.

  But today was the day.

  After I finished my classes for the morning, I tracked Lucinda down to her favorite lunch spot. She was with the same two weird girls that I always saw hanging around her. They didn’t seem to be actual friends; it was more like the other girls worshipped her and she just savored the worship. I could never understand that weird dynamic. It didn’t make any sense to me at all, but I was not going to try to make sense of it today. I had one thing on my mind; one mission.

  Lucinda was stuffing her mouth with a burrito when I finally approached her. The other two girls looked at me as if I was a germ that was about to infect them all and send them to the hospital. They were instantly on high alert. It was hilarious.

  “Who are you?” “What do you want?”

  Both girls practically yelled at me as they stood up to defend their fearless leader. I almost laughed in their faces. This was ridiculous.

  Lucinda held her hand up and quieted them down. “It’s ok, girls,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

  I smiled and looked her squarely in the eye. “We need to talk privately. Now.”

  Then I walked over to an empty booth in the corner of the restaurant to wait for her. I did not wait for a verbal response. I just told her what I needed and expected her to follow me. That’s right; I was in charge here.

  I waited a few minutes and finally, Lucinda joined me. I didn’t expect her to come right away; she had to appear to be the boss in front of her cronies.

  “What can I do for you?” Lucinda asked me.

  “I’m sure you know who I am,” I said.

  Lucinda’s eyes narrowed and then she smiled. “I do. What’s going on? Why am I wasting my time with you?”

  “Well, you have been harassing Chance for a while and it is going to come to a grinding halt. And I do mean right now.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean, but I don’t see how what I do is any of your business.”

  I pulled out my phone and set the volume on low, but loud enough for just the two of us to hear. Then I played the audio I had of her talking with Dean Andrews. And then I showed the picture of the two of them being intimate that I took.

  Her eyes were wide with shock. Then outrage spread across her face. She looked ready to kill me. It was really priceless. I knew it would be and I did wish Chance could have seen it all. That would have been the ultimate. If anyone deserved that satisfaction, it was him.

  “Shall I continue this?” I asked smugly. It felt good to have her over a barrel.

  “You little bitch,” Lucinda growled. “How dare you try to threaten me.”

  “You’ve threatened a lot of people. And you had better watch it. It would be so easy to make sure this falls into the wrong hands. And don’t think I’m the only one who has a copy of it. If anything bad happens to Chance or I then there are specific orders for this to be sent out into the world. Everyone will know about it; you will never be able to hide from it. The scandal it would make…oh what a story that would be.”

  I was grinning from ear to ear. I was so happy. This was even better than I thought it might be. The way that Lucinda’s whole world had just crumbled down around her was epic in its scope, I thought. And it was so deserving of her.

  “You won’t get away with this,” Lucinda hissed. “You have no idea who you are dealing with!”

  Her voice was raising slightly. I could tell it was taking all of her mental faculties to keep herself in check so that she didn’t flip out completely in the middle of the restaurant. This was hilarious. I loved every second of it. There had never been anything more satisfying that did not include Chance directly in my entire life.

  “No,” I growled back. “You don’t know who you are messing with.”

  Then I stood up and walked out. When I got in my car, I turned back to see Lucinda staring out the window at me with a face full of rage and hatred. She’d been defeated. There was literally nothing else for her to do. She could not stand to be beaten. I wonder if she had ever been defeated so soundly before.

  As I drove back home, I had an overwhelming sense of security and total peace within myself. This was something that had been building for so long, and now it was over. I knew it was over. I could feel it in my bones the way you could sometimes feel a sudden change in the weather after an injury, but this was still different. The way this felt was like closing the final chapter on something that you never wanted to have in your life to begin with and now that it was over you just felt the weight of those shackles unleashed from your body. It was like a prisoner who had been locked away, perhaps on some deserted island prison like in a classic Dumas novel or something, and then once he was freed he wasn’t sure he was allowed to embrace the freedom.

  But here I was, embracing that freedom. This ordeal had been mostly directed at Chance, but as I had tried to get across to Lucinda, if you messed with Chance then you definitely messed with me. And I am not someone you would ever want to have on your bad side.

  When I got home, told Chance the good news. He was glad and relieved that everything had gone down that smoothly with her. However, I did sense some hesitation on his part to enjoy this victory. I could imagine the nightmare went a bit deeper for him. At one point he’d
thought Lucinda was a sweet girl who actually cared about him. And as he told me, he had let her down gently not intending to lead her on in any way. And then she’d turned on him like some kind of rabid dog.

  I tried to be as sympathetic to him right now as I could, but I was trying to be as supportive as possible during this difficult time. Chance was so strong. He had been through a tough upbringing which he didn’t really talk too much about with me, but I had started to piece together how his absent and verbally abusive father had shaped a big part of who he was as a man. I knew that the dinner with his father had gone horribly wrong, even though he didn’t want to talk too much about it, and now he was so happy to put this chapter behind him with Lucinda. I was glad that I was able to do that for him.

  I sat down on the couch and waited for Chance to come home from practice. I had a feeling that he was going to want to celebrate this success and I already had some ideas on how it should go…

  I giggled to myself as I relaxed on the couch thinking about the wonderful things that Chance and I had in store for each other. And I found myself thinking about the marriage topic. Why did I bring that up then? It had been silly. I knew it. But I was feeling that way and I had been dying to know what Chance’s thoughts on it really were. We had not actually spoken at great length about any of it, even though it had been implied for a long time between the two of us that one day we would get married. But I didn’t know if that meant we’d run off to Vegas and just elope, or if it meant that we would plan a traditional church wedding and invite all our friends and family and do the thing I’d been dreaming about since I was a little girl.