by Fields, MJ
“Absolutely not,” I chuckle lightly, giving her a guilty, crooked smile.
Her lips draw into a tight, closed-lip smile, she folds my collar over the tie and straightens it in the center of my neck. It’s still a little constricting, but I don’t dare adjust it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s perfect.
“You got a car, right?” Her eyebrows raise just before she glances to my bike, then down to her skirt. It’s the first time I notice her feet, and the silver toe ring that shimmers from a diamond stud through the woven straps of her shoes. I like the way they crisscross and lace up her leg.
“I was thinking you could drive it again to get us there?” I wait for the brief second it takes for her to realize I’m kidding, and then I manage to catch her fist in my palm before it nails my arm.
“Yes, Liv. I got a car. It’s parked out front,” I say, holding my arm out like a proper escort.
She glowers at me for teasing her, but slips her arm through mine, and I press her palm down flat against my bicep. We’re running a few minutes late, but I don’t give a shit. There is nothing I plan on hurrying right now, even walking a beautiful girl through a dirt alley in ninety-four degrees.
When we get to the sedan I rented for the night, I open her door and help her gather the skirt of her dress, noticing the small bag clutched around her wrist almost like a bracelet. It looks old, the outside covered with pearl-colored beads, some of them a little yellowed from time. She follows the trail of my eyes to it and turns it in her hand, pulling the strap from her wrist.
“I don’t have a lot of purses, so I stole this one from my mom. She used to let me hold it when I was little,” she says, shrugging and looking at the bag as she runs her thumb over the beads. “It made me feel grown-up back then.”
I smile and wait for her to look up at me.
“It suits you,” I say, somehow knowing that the small purse is one of those good things she’s holding onto. A sad smile hits her cheeks, and she mouths thanks.
I round the car and lay my jacket in the back seat, then climb in next to her. This is the second time I’ve had something big like this happen. The first was when Omar’s people requested a sit-down to set something up. I let Angela and Leo do the talking for me, which was probably wise. But this—someone like Fuel wanting to tie themselves to me, to consider my brand worthy of theirs—this is big, and it’s something I have to take the reins on.
I’m nervous.
My hand pauses on the gearshift, my elbow on the center console, and I glance up to catch my reflection in the rearview mirror as I exhale methodically, like I do before a fight. Liv’s hand is soft; it glides over my own, and I open my palm so she can hold my hand completely, squeezing it while I breathe just one more time.
“You’ve got this,” she says. I lay my head sideways on the seat back to look her in the eyes. They steady me somehow, and my heart slows with the rise of my chest. The rise of hers.
“Can’t we just stay here,” I breathe out. I almost mean it.
Her blink is slow, and she shakes her head in tiny movements.
I look down and exhale one more time before moving my eyes back to the roadway, a little less nervous than before. I turn on the car and drive us to the most expensive dinner I will ever have.
The valet takes the car as soon as we pull up, and all too quickly Liv and I are inside and being led to a table by the windows, overlooking the city’s sports district. Angela requested this table, I’m sure of it. She once told me that part of selling yourself is selling where you’re from. I’m not really from anywhere, but I guess I’m from Phoenix now. The glitz of the billboards, rush of people, and thump of bars and restaurants lining the arena and stadium make this look bigtime. And this makes me look bigtime.
“Let me guess…you must be Memphis?” Paul Wolseley is short, but he’s made up for height with muscle. His jacket and shirt are both rolled up at his elbows, and his arms are red from the loss of circulation. He’s just as uncomfortable in a suit as I am. Maybe that’s the reason he’s led off with such a flat joke that I can tell Liv is having a hard time faking laughter for.
“Nah, man. I just handle the books. This here is Memphis,” I say, pointing with my thumb to Liv at my side. This time her laugh is genuine. She knows I’m only making fun of him.
Paul pauses for a second and draws in his brow, but then it fades away as he laughs with us.
“Ahhhh I get it. Funny guy,” he says.
I think maybe Paul Wolseley is a douchebag, but I’m going to hold out judgment…at least through dinner.
“I’m Cadence,” says the woman to his left, reaching across the table to take Liv’s hand. Cadence looks to be about Liv’s age. Paul, on the other hand, is fifty-four. I know he is, for a fact, because before this dinner, I researched him.
“Nice to meet you,” Liv says, shaking Cadence’s hand a lot harder than the woman probably anticipated.
We all take our seats and Paul ushers over a waiter who lists off a bunch of different things, none of them steak, and before I can open my mouth, the Fuel CEO places all of our orders. I’m almost dizzy by the speed at which it all happens. What’s worse—I’m pretty sure he ordered fish. I fucking hate fish.
“It’s the tilapia with jalapeño glaze…it’s to die for, I swear. Best thing on the menu,” Paul says, leaning in as if he’s telling us all a secret.
Before I can open my mouth, I feel Liv’s leg brush against mine.
“Memphis is actually on a pretty strict training program, and his diet needs to include red meat tonight…” Liv smiles with gritted teeth and hunches up her shoulders in a gesture of apology for stepping all over Paul’s order.
“Oh…uh…sure. Duh, I mean,” Paul says, laughing loudly and getting the attention from the dozen or so tables around us. “I’ll get the guy. Hey…”
He waves his hand catching our waiter across the room, and before Paul can talk to pick out something else, Liv steps in for me and orders the strip steak, and one for her, too. Paul looks a little offended when she changes her order.
“She always gets the same thing when we go out so I can have half. It’s a sacrifice she makes,” I say, winking at her.
It seems to satisfy Paul, and it earns another obnoxiously loud laugh from him that might haunt me in my sleep.
There’s a brief awkward silence after the waiter leaves, So far, this dinner has me leaning toward a hard no for linking myself in any way with this man. His company’s name is on the center of every ring I’ve ever fought in, though, so I owe it to myself to see what I can stomach.
“So Liv…” he begins, leaning on the table with his elbows, twisting the gold watch around his wrist to let his hands breathe. Everything this man wears is so tight.
“Mmm,” Liv reacts, her tiny purse in her lap and her thumbs obsessively running over the beads.
“Archie Valentine’s daughter…that must have been some life, huh?”
Everyone is looking at Liv, and that’s the only reason Cadence and Paul don’t notice the sharp breath I take through my nose and the heavy fall of my eyelids as he starts things off by entering into really messy territory. I want to rescue her from this.
“I tell you what, it’s something, training there…at that gym. Leo’s pretty intense.” I try to steer the conversation, but Paul has tunnel vision. Part of it is her beauty, and I know it is. Paul is the kind of guy who wants the greener grass on the other side. He has a date—a young, beautiful date. But I brought Archie Valentine’s daughter, and she’s the most beautiful thing in the room. And he wants her. Her attention, at the very least.
Her undivided attention.
“Did you get to see a lot of his fights? I mean, I’m not sure how young they let you go in. I heard the Atlantic City years were bloody, but your dad was this godlike fighter and he just wouldn’t go down.” Paul pauses, waiting for a reaction from Liv, and I notice her leg starting to bounce under the table.
“I didn’t really see the fights. I wa
s busy going to school, and I never traveled with them when they would go.” She keeps her answer simple, leaving out the gruesome things I’m pretty sure she did see there in the gym.
“Huh, too bad. That was history, you know,” Paul says, glancing to me and gesturing to Liv. “That’s some girl right there—boxing royalty. Ha, I bet the kids at school never fought you, did they?”
He laughs a little less loudly this time, and Liv plays along.
“No, I was pretty much left alone,” she says. Paul is hearing what he wants to hear from her, but I hear the undertone in what she’s saying. She’s not really lying—she was pretty much left alone. And I know her well enough to see the sadness cast in her eyes in that response.
“Memphis, check this out…I remember this one radio interview he did, when he was talking about how he had a daughter, and he made this threat to any guy who ever dated her that they’d have to go through him. Imagine now, huh? Did you have to fight him to bring her as your date?” Paul’s question lingers for a few awkward seconds while Liv’s attention is turned to the waiter pouring a glass of water. She begins the drink the moment he’s done.
“I would never fight Archie Valentine,” I answer, not knowing any other way to respond to this line. First of all, the man can barely leave the bed, let alone the house. And second, I’m not so sure defending his daughter’s honor is a priority.
“I bet it was awesome growing up with him, huh? I bet you got just about anything you wanted, and then you had this dad you could show off at school who looked like frickin’ superman, haha.” Paul’s obnoxious laugh is like a punctuation for everything out of his mouth.
Liv swallows her water so hard I hear the gulp. She lifts the napkin from her place setting and covers her mouth to cough, then pulls her lips in tight and raises her eyebrows.
“He was an amazing dad. You pretty much nailed it,” she says, and I slip my hand to her shaking thigh to settle her.
“You must have some great stories. Go on…give me one time where it was cool having Archie as your dad,” Paul requests.
His enthusiasm is ridiculous, as is his obsession with Liv’s dad. But there are a lot of people like him out there. Archie was the last of his kind in many ways—this huge personality in the ring and on the air before fights. His face was so recognizable with the hard-cut jaw and muted blue eyes; his build was thick and impossible to knock down. He was heavyweight in every sense of the word.
“Paul, I was curious about how you got your start with Fuel?” I try one more time to redirect this, but Liv’s already given in to sacrifice. Before Paul has a chance to take my side trail, she begins to dazzle him with exactly what he wants to hear.
“I remember once when he was coming back from a fight on the East Coast, and I was at school. We had a nanny, and she was taking care of me while they were gone. Anyhow, I was sitting on the steps waiting for the nanny to show up with my lunch, because I’d forgotten it that day, and there were these mean boys who were teasing me about not having lunch and all of those dumb things kids do to make other kids feel bad and whatnot. Anyhow, I blinked, and all of a sudden my dad pulls up in this huge truck that he just bought after winning the fight in Atlantic City. He rushes to me, picking me up and swinging me at the steps, telling me he’s taking me out of school for the rest of the day and we’re going out for pizza…”
Paul is riveted. I feel sick. Liv is lying.
“You know those boys totally wanted to go, but I whispered in his ear that they had been mean to me,” she says.
“Oh my god, what did he do?” Cadence pipes in, now invested too.
Liv smiles with tight lips and leans back in her chair, her leg no longer bobbing. She’s either given over to the lie, or she’s so pissed she’s actually crossed over to calm.
“Nothing,” she says.
“Nothing?” Paul can’t believe it. None of it is true anyhow, so she may as well make this story go the way she wants.
“Exactly,” she says. “He picked me up and carried me into the office, signed me out, and then drove me away in his big-ass truck.”
Both Paul and Cadence are mesmerized, eyes wide in wonder and slight smiles pasted on their lips.
“‘Some people just aren’t worth fighting,’ my dad said.” Liv finishes her tale just as a basket of bread is delivered, and she reaches in and takes the largest piece, breaking off a bite and putting it in her mouth because she is done talking now.
“Amazing,” Paul says. “Just…isn’t that amazing?” He brushes his date’s arm with the back of his hand to make sure she’s as amazed as he is. She seems to be.
We spend the rest of dinner hearing about Paul and his rise to the top of the sporting-goods empire, but every now and then, he slips in more questions about Liv’s dad. She keeps the answers vague for the most part, and by the end of dinner, I can tell that the lies have drained her. I want her to give them all back, to never have told them. I want to reverse even more and say no to this dinner. And I want to make that lie she told true—because I think deep down that’s what she always wished for—and I hate like hell that it never happened for her.
It never happened for me either, but at least I never had the world’s imagined reality to live up to. Not having a dad in my life means nobody is ever going to ask for glory days stories about my blissful childhood.
After nearly two hours of bullshit, Paul is drunk and tired, and he’s also ready to offer me a deal that I don’t deserve. I manage to get him and Cadence into a cab without any more business talk, though, and I beg the valet to rush our car out so I can get Liv out of here.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmur as she stands at the curb waiting with me, her hands fists, one clutched around her tiny bag, both of them at her sides, arms stiff like a soldier.
Liv’s eyes are lost to some other dimension, her face void of emotion. She’s staring into nothingness in that way that makes colors and lights blur together, and she doesn’t snap out of it until the car rolls up right in front of us.
I open her door and shut it for her after she gets in, tipping the valet and rushing to my side because I just don’t want to leave her alone. I begin speaking the moment I close the door.
“Liv, really…I’m so sorry. I should have left when he…”
“It’s fine,” she cuts in.
That word—fine. It is never fine. It’s always anything but fine.
“No, it isn’t. That guy was obnoxious,” I say.
“He was.” Her response is clipped.
“I don’t need to take this deal. I was already uneasy with it anyhow, and there is going to be something better for me down the road, and…”
“Memphis,” she says, her eyes still ahead…lost. “You have no idea how many times I’ve had to pretend that life in the Valentine house is amazing for people. I’ve done it for fans. I’ve done it for the media. I had to do it for my mom when I was little because I thought if she was happy, then I would be happy. When I say it’s fine, I swear I mean it. It’s fine.”
I let her words sit there for the few minutes it takes to drive; the quiet in the car hangs thick as we wait through two stoplights on our way back home. I can’t just let this be it though—I can’t let her do that for me ever again. I promised her I am not her family, that I’m nothing like Archie, Leo or her mom, and if I go on with this story she’s put out there—that her life was amazing and that she is fine—then I’m breaking that promise, because it’s exactly the thing they would do.
I pull the car into Leo’s small driveway, and I kill the lights and engine so all that’s left is dark and silence.
“No, Liv. I mean it,” I say.
She sighs.
“You aren’t fine. That…was not fine. And I don’t need a sponsorship deal from that obsessed fan man. He’ll want to have dinner again someday, and next time he’ll want you to tell him more stories, and you’ll feel like you have to because of money, and frankly Liv, I’ve been fine with very little so far.”
Her head rolls to the side and her eyes meet mine. A gaze that begins as blank fills as her brow pinches, making that sad wrinkle on her forehead.
“Next time,” she whispers.
I shake my head and shrug, not sure what her argument is. She swallows and slowly licks her lips as her mouth parts and a tiny breath escapes.
“You said next time, as if I would be there with you, as if there is an us that goes into tomorrow, next week, next—”
“Liv,” I stop her rambling. We sit like this, my head turned to face hers, inches of actual space between us, but somehow it feels like a mile because there’s no way for me to easily pull her into my arms in this goddamned car.
“I said next time because that’s the only way I see things for you and me. I don’t know what you are, what we are—I don’t think we’re supposed to put a word on whatever this is. But it is something. I close my eyes at night when you’re there and I don’t think. I just sleep, like the calmest fucking sleep of my life, and when I wake up and you’re gone, I feel…”
I draw my lips in tight and shake my head, the feeling scratching at the inside of my chest—just like it has the last few mornings.
“Liv, I feel so goddamned alone when you aren’t there, and it’s weird because I have never felt alone once in my entire life. I was born that way—alone. And then I met you, and…” I breathe out a laugh and roll my head back against the seat, looking up at the car’s ceiling before closing my eyes to remember.
“You walked into your uncle’s kitchen, all pissed and surprised and funny, and it was like…yeah…I know this girl. Something inside me knows her, like her world gets my world, and we’re the only two that get any of this crazy shit. I can tell you my worst, and you don’t even blink. And you tell me yours, and all I want to do is make it better. I don’t think anyone else will fit you like I do, Liv. And I don’t care how punch-drunk that makes me sound, it’s the truth. I know it because I don’t think anyone else will fit me either.”