Adios Pantalones

by J. Sterling

The angel shook her head. “I only saw him clutch his chest before he fell.”

  “Has he said anything? Talked at all?”

  “No,” she said as they moved him carefully from her care. Her breathing quickened, her worry for Grant etched all over her face. She couldn’t have hidden her concern if she tried, that much I could tell. I could practically see her heart on her sleeve, bleeding for a man she didn’t even know.

  I wrenched my gaze away from her and watched as the paramedics took Grant’s vitals, spouting off directions and information to each other in a shorthand I didn’t understand but desperately wanted to. They hooked him up to contraptions I couldn’t name and strapped him onto the board. I’d never felt as helpless as I did in those moments when I wasn’t sure if he was going to live or die. His face was so pale.

  The paramedics wheeled him away and I followed behind.

  “Can I go with him?” I shouted.

  “Are you family?”

  “A friend,” I said, my racing heart pounding like a two-hundred-pound gorilla at the possibility of his refusal.

  The paramedics loaded Grant into the back of the waiting ambulance, moving fluidly in concert as I stood there helplessly waiting for a response.

  “Come on.” He waved me inside, granting me access to the back of the vehicle, and I hopped in. “Sit there.” He pointed, and I did as I was told.

  “What hospital are you taking him to?” the angel called out, and I realized I’d almost forgotten all about her.

  Almost.

  “Saint Johns,” the EMT said before the doors slammed shut, locking us in, and the ambulance took off without a chance for another word to be spoken.

  This time, however, my angel’s eyes didn’t stray from mine as the vehicle pulled away. Her focus stayed locked on me, her eyes saying things I still couldn’t understand.

  It pissed me off, but I’d concentrate on finding her later, and would figure out what I’d done to make her dislike me so much. For now, I needed to make sure Grant was going to survive and live to see another day.

  • • •

  Unable to sit still, I paced back and forth in the hospital’s waiting room while they did whatever they were doing to Grant, hoping like hell he’d pull through.

  Bits of our conversations over the past few months played in my mind as I remembered the things he’d told me about life and love, always doling out advice like he was an expert on the subject. I considered him one, to be honest.

  For me, he was a confidant of sorts, always giving me shit but encouraging me in the same breath. Grant claimed to understand my fairy-tale heart, telling me that I was born in the wrong time, surrounded by the wrong kind of women.

  My lips twitched into a smile as I remembered the first time I met him.

  After an extra-long run one morning, I found myself sitting alone at a small beachside café. Mumbling to himself, Grant sat at the table next to mine and pulled out a newspaper. He continued talking to himself under his breath, and when I glanced over my shoulder at him, he caught me.

  “Was I talking out loud again?” he’d asked, looking sheepish.

  Grinning at him, I said, “I didn’t mind.”

  “Like I’d give a shit if you did anyway.”

  His blunt words caught me off guard, and I almost choked on my water. I laughed and immediately pulled my chair over to his table, settling in.

  He raised one bushy gray eyebrow, giving me a stern look. “Did I invite you over here, son?”

  “Nope. But I don’t give a shit either,” I fired back.

  He’d laughed then, a big, hearty sound that made me smile as he smacked the table with the palm of his hand.

  “All right, smartass. You can stay.”

  Our friendship began that morning.

  I learned that both Grant and his wife, Carol, had been the youngest of all their siblings and were the only ones still living. At least, until his wife passed away a little over a year ago. Since they didn’t have any kids, he was all alone.

  Grant said life sucked without her, but every morning he kept waking up, so he guessed it wasn’t his time to go. He’d started jogging out of sheer boredom, or that’s what he always claimed. But the man was toned and wiry, built like a fucking racehorse, and that kind of thing didn’t happen overnight. Especially not at his age.

  A doctor holding a clipboard appeared in front of me, startling me out of my memories. “Are you with Grant Masterson?”

  I nodded. “Is he okay?”

  “He made it through surgery without any issues. We need to keep him here for the next few days for observation, and to make sure no infection sets in. But barring any complications, he should be able to go home Friday.”

  “That’s great. Can I see him?”

  “He’s still in recovery, but I can have someone give you a call when he wakes up.”

  “Really? That would be amazing. Thank you.” I jotted down my name and number on a pad of paper. “He doesn’t have any family, so I really would appreciate that call.”

  The doctor nodded and took my note before walking away.

  My mind flashed briefly to the angel from earlier, and I wondered if she’d be making an appearance at the hospital to check on Grant. My gut instinct told me that she definitely would, and I was tempted to camp out in the lobby until she showed up.

  I quickly decided against it. If I was going to run into her “accidentally on purpose,” then I wanted to be prepared for it. I wanted to catch her off guard by being completely on mine.

  In the meantime, I called an Uber to come pick me up and take me to get my car. I’d already run enough for one day.

  Stupid Ryan Fisher

  Sofia

  The old man from this morning consumed my thoughts. I found myself thinking about him when I should have been focused on work. But one second my thoughts were on Grant, and the next, they were centered on Ryan Fisher.

  Why did he have to be so good-looking? Even wearing workout clothes, Ryan still looked like a tanned god in running shoes.

  The worst part was that he knew it. Ryan Fisher was completely aware of the effect he had on women, and I knew he assumed I’d be like all the rest of them the moment he jogged to my side. I refused to swoon at the attention he decided to toss my way, no matter how much my traitorous body had wanted me to.

  I wasn’t like the other women who frequented his bar. At least, that’s what I tried to convince myself. I hadn’t lied when I told him that I’d only been to his bar once. It was Sarin, my coworker and friend, who had insisted we go there, claiming that Sam’s Bar had the best drinks and the hottest bartenders. Even the men in our group agreed, not about the hot-bartender part, but about the drinks. Not to mention the fact that we all worked for one of the social-media companies the bar featured on their wall, so it felt like going there was mixing business with pleasure.

  I knew all about Sam’s, couldn’t have avoided the knowledge if I tried, but I’d never been there. I didn’t usually go out, even though my coworkers asked all the time, and urging me to join them at their standing happy-hour Thursday date together. Being a single mom hadn’t really afforded me the luxury of an active social life. Unless you counted Disney-channel movies with my eight-year-old as dates, which I totally did.

  The second Sarin and I walked through the doors of the bar, I felt like I was in another world. The place was filled with so much life. All the patrons seemed genuinely happy and upbeat, chatting loudly and snapping pictures along the social-media wall that the youngest Fisher brother had dreamed up. It had been an odd thing to notice, all the smiles on people’s faces, but it was hard to ignore the atmosphere of the place when it surrounded you and sucked you in.

  And then I saw Ryan, with those ridiculously beautiful blue eyes and sandy-brown hair, and a part of me melted inside. I hadn’t been attracted like that to a guy in what seemed like a thousand years.

  When our eyes met, Ryan smiled at me and the rest of the bar disappeared. He had a way of ma
king you feel like you were the only person in the room. He’d asked me my name that night, just like I told him. The only problem was that he asked every girl her name before committing it to memory—only for the night, apparently—and then proceeded to talk sweetly, dropping your name now and then to make you feel special.

  And like a fool, I’d fallen for it . . . hook, line, and sinker. For all of about two minutes, until I noticed the way he interacted with every girl at the bar.

  I hadn’t been special.

  I hadn’t been anything.

  I’d been a customer, a paying customer, and that was all.

  Ryan had a job to do, and he did it well. I couldn’t begrudge him that, so I think my annoyance stemmed more from the fact that not only had I stupidly thought he was genuinely flirting with me, but that I had actually wanted him to.

  I had wanted Ryan Fisher, bar owner and custom drink-maker, to be into me. Even if it was purely ego based, I’d still wanted it.

  I soon learned that I wasn’t the only one. The majority of the women at the bar hoped Ryan would choose them that night. I’d overheard more than one girl talking about his sexual prowess and the things he liked to do in the bedroom, many claiming they were back at the bar for seconds. Even when I tried to block out the conversations, they swirled around me, never ceasing or lacking in sordid detail. It was almost a little embarrassing, to be honest, and I wondered if Ryan relished in that kind of attention, or if it made him uncomfortable.

  I never got the chance to ask because my cell phone rang after I’d been there for about an hour. My son, Matson, had developed a sudden fever, so my night was cut short. My coworkers groaned but understood as I left some cash on the bar and hurried out into the still warm air. There was only one person in the world I’d drop anything for, and it was my son. Nothing and no one came before him.

  Being a mom changed you. It had changed every single thing about me. Like a bad after-school special, I found out I was pregnant my senior year of high school. I’d been on the pill, but apparently I could now count myself in the unlucky two percent of women the pill didn’t work for. My boyfriend of two years, Derek, bailed the second I told him. He’d already been accepted at one of the Ivy League colleges back east, and a baby wasn’t in his plans.

  Apparently, I hadn’t been in his plans either, but I didn’t know that at the time. I’d always thought we would stay together once he left for college, but Derek told me that day that he never planned to date me long distance. He said that college was a time for playing the field, not being locked down. Then he begged me to get an abortion, even offered to pay for it, saying that this could singlehandedly ruin his reputation.

  I’d told him I’d think about it, just to get him to back off, but I hadn’t meant it. I was keeping this baby whether he wanted me to or not.

  One afternoon, Derek’s father, Damian Huntington, showed up at school and approached me as I headed to my car. After introducing himself, he told me he knew that I was pregnant and also asked me not to have the baby. He claimed I was ruining both of our lives, and that I would thank them in the future if I got rid of it—his words, not mine. He foolishly assumed that I insisted on having the baby to keep Derek in my life, but it hadn’t been about Derek at all.

  I stood firm in my decision, telling him that they didn’t need to be involved, and that I’d forget they ever existed. I never spoke to them again, not to Derek or his parents. None of them tried to reach out, not even after Matson was born. So about a year and a half later, I blocked all the Huntington family on every one of my social-media accounts. The last thing I wanted was them stalking me and seeing pictures of the child none of them had wanted me to have.

  After her initial disappointment at my situation, my mom flipped her lid at the things Derek and his father had said to me. On some level, I believe she felt betrayed by them in the same way that I had. We’d done a lot of things with Derek’s parents in the two years that he and I had dated, and I think Derek’s family’s reaction to the news surprised her.

  Mom begged me to let her confront them.

  I begged her to let it go.

  My mom had a bit of a Latina temper that I loved because she was fiercely loyal and protective, but I knew her efforts would only make the situation worse. I promised both my parents that we would all be better off without the Huntingtons complicating our lives, and after a while, they begrudgingly agreed.

  Even though my parents had initially been sad for me, wishing that I wasn’t pregnant so young, their concerns faded away the second Matson arrived. It was no longer about how hard my life would be, and whether I was making the right decision. At that point, it became all about Matson and the joy he brought into our lives, a joy we hadn’t realized we needed. An unexpected baby did that to a family sometimes, brought you light in the darkness.

  I was fortunate that my mom worked from home, so she volunteered to watch Matson while I worked during the day part time and went to school at night. My parents wanted me to have a bright future, and they knew I needed their help to make it possible.

  It took me longer than most people my age, but I finally got my bachelor’s degree in online communications and ended up scoring a job at one of the biggest social-media companies in the world. I was the executive assistant to the vice president of development, and I loved my job.

  Matson and I moved out of my parents’ house a couple of years ago when a family friend decided to move overseas but hadn’t wanted to sell their small three-bedroom bungalow in Santa Monica. They gave me an amazing deal on rent, claiming that I was helping them out more than they were helping me, and Matson and I had lived there ever since. I woke up each morning beyond grateful for my life, which most people might have found crazy, considering.

  “Earth to Sofia.”

  A hand waved in front of my face, and it was only then that I realized I’d been completely lost in thought.

  “Sarin, hi. Sorry, what were you saying?”

  She rolled her brown eyes as she brushed her jet-black hair behind one ear. Sarin was Indian, and had the most beautiful features. Her eyes carried a depth most people never recognized, and she had the softest skin I’d ever laid eyes on.

  “Who were you thinking about? I hope he was hot.”

  It was my turn to roll my eyes. “If you consider a seventy-something-year-old man hot, then sure.”

  “Didn’t realize you liked them so much older, Sof. Is that why you’re still single? Want to go play bingo at the senior center later?”

  “Asshole,” I muttered. “What do you want?”

  “I need you to come with me. I have to pick up a shit-ton of cupcakes for the office, and I told them I needed your help.”

  Sarin was an assistant as well, but she worked for the president of the company. He had three assistants in total, two in the office and one at his home. Sarin was the second-in-command at the office, which meant she could walk away from her desk for extended periods of time, unlike Jeanine, the first assistant.

  “Okay. Let me tell Martin first,” I said.

  “Your boss already knows. Come on,” she said, impatient.

  “Let me at least tell him I’m leaving,” I insisted. I never left my desk unattended without telling him first. The thought of Martin shouting at me from his office and not getting a response almost made me laugh out loud. It was unthinkable.

  Sarin urged me to hurry. I had no idea what the rush was all about, but was grateful for the distraction. I needed to stop thinking about Ryan.

  I’d already called the hospital the moment I arrived at the office and asked about visiting hours. They wouldn’t give me any information about Grant’s condition over the phone, no matter how hard I begged, so I had no idea if he’d pulled through or not.

  I could have called the bar and asked Ryan if the old man was okay, but I planned to avoid him at all costs. The last thing I needed in my life was a man-whoring bartender who took home a different woman every night. That wasn’t the kind of exa
mple I wanted to set for Matson, and it wasn’t the kind of man I wanted in my life.

  No, I’d find out if Grant pulled through on my own, by going to the hospital the minute I got off work.

  Fighting over Angels

  Ryan

  I walked into the bar and sent our day-shift bartender home after settling in.

  “Still in a pissy mood?” Frank asked when he spotted me.

  “No, it’s about my buddy Grant. You remember him, right?”

  Frank nodded. “The old guy? Comes in here sometimes to give you shit?”

  “Yeah.” I grinned, thinking about the few times Grant had graced us with his presence. He gave each of us Fisher boys crap, but always me the most. “He had some sort of heart issue. He’s in the hospital.”

  “Shit, is he okay? How’d you find out?”

  “I saw him on the beach this morning.” I shook my head to rid myself of the mental image of him lying there unconscious. “I went with him to the hospital. They said he made it through surgery, but I really want to see him.”

  “Go,” Frank said. “I can handle this.”

  I shook my head. “He’s not awake. They’re going to call me as soon as he is,” I said as I rinsed out a glass and set it on the rack to air dry.

  Frank came over to stand next to me. “He doesn’t have any family, right?”

  “No. Just him.”

  “He’ll be okay,” Frank said. “He’s a tough old bastard.”

  I was thankful for his optimism but couldn’t shake the antsy feeling that had been dogging me, and I knew it wasn’t only because of Grant. The angel had me bugging out. I’d never so blatantly been hated by a woman before, and I wasn’t exactly sure how to handle it. Not that I hadn’t ever pissed off a female in the past, but I’d always known what I’d done to deserve it. When it came to this particular woman, I had no fucking clue, and it was ruining my ability to think about anything else.

  “What else is eating at you?” Frank narrowed his green eyes on me, eyes that looked just like our mother’s.

  I sucked in a long breath, wondering if I should tell him or not. I figured I had nothing to lose except my pride, and that was a lost cause when it came to my older brother. If there was an opportunity to tease me, he took it.