by Gabrielle G.
I pretended to be—because who wouldn’t be drunk at a bachelor party—but I would never lose control that easily. Not after having lost everything so fast.
We had no condoms, I thought she was on the pill… We made a baby. We were married and kind of exclusive. A marriage of convenience, but I still couldn’t fuck anyone else bare while with her.
“So, the bar… You never really spoke about opening a bar in all the years I’ve known you.”
I never did. After Elaine died and I lost myself in grief, not knowing what to do with myself, I couldn’t stand the idea of staying in Virginia.
I needed a breath of fresh air.
I took everything I earned, moved to New York to become one of the lost souls the city can swallow, and when I was wandering the streets with nowhere to be and nowhere to go, I saw a local business for sale. Put all my savings into it, renovated the place, and made it a bar. It was doing okay, not extraordinarily great but not failing either when Anna met Dan, and the rest is history.
Having the biggest rock band as the main clients helped the business tremendously.
“It was kind of a spur of the moment decision, but it turned out for the best,” I say like I did a hundred times before when I explained my decision to Anna, her friends, or my parents.
“You always liked to take tremendous risks, so I’m not surprised,” Mark says, nonchalantly. Right, except… I never saw opening the bar like a risk. It was more like salvation, a last attempt to live after losing everything.
“So, Tessa and Quinn. Exes?” I ask to ease my curiosity and change the subject.
Mark laughs. “You’ve lost your flair, Le Pew. Her fiancé died on a mission. Quinn was there and promised he would help. She’s a little reckless, and he’s a lot worried. They butt heads constantly.” The palms of my hands sweat instantly, hearing she likes to take risks and knowing she’s going to be my driver. Not that I need one. If I haven’t driven in five years, it’s only because I live in the city, nothing else.
“I don’t need a driver, you know, I can take an Uber like everyone else.”
“Look, I promise she’s good, and she’ll be careful. She speeds only when she’s racing or when she’s late.” The collar of my T-shirt feels a little tight around my neck, and I pull on it a couple of times to breathe easier.
“You’re okay?” Mark asks.
“Yes,” I stand, “I just need to get some rest and settle in my motel room.” I walk toward the door, unstable on my two feet, and my head throbbing with fear.
“Let me ask Tessa to drive you there.” I shake my head vehemently. By the time I’m outside his office, I feel like my life has unraveled under my feet. Putting my hand on the wall, I hold tight and try to inhale. I exhale slowly and repeat it a few times to calm myself.
Sometimes I forget Elaine didn’t die in a car accident like I told our entourage. Sometimes I believe my own lie.
Sometimes I just lose track of reality.
Closing my eyes, I do the only thing that can calm me. I imagine myself holding my son, smelling his head, kissing his tiny fingers. It calms me down, slightly.
It will be better once I FaceTime with Naomi later.
Slowly retaking control over my mind, I open my eyes to see Jackson, Mark, Tessa, and Quinn all looking at me with worry in their eyes. I blink, bury everything deep inside me, and cough.
“I might have caught something on the plane,” I try to explain, but it sounds wrong even to my own ears.
“Right,” Mark says, slapping my shoulder. “Go rest, and we’ll talk tomorrow. Tessa, drive safe.” Blue-hair looks at me as if she was trying to see into the depths of my soul. I shut everything out like I’ve done a million times and give her nothing to see. She shakes her head, sadness written all over her face.
“Let’s go,” she says, believing I would follow her. I can’t. I can’t have my life in the hands of someone who likes to speed. I can’t have her risk everything I worked so hard for. I shake my finger no and open my hand in front of her.
“I’m driving. Give me your keys!” I snap. She hesitates a second, certainly measuring the room for any argument she has in this discussion.
The answer is none.
I prefer driving than being driven by someone who might break the rules. I prefer to be in charge and be able to do something if need be. She might feel there is no way to change my mind because she drops the keys in my palm and walks past, to show me the way. I hold my breath, so as not to smell her. I close my eyes, so as not to look at her ass. I wince to prevent some unwanted images from coming to mind. I hear Quinn and Jackson saying goodbye and Mark laughing. “I told you they would get along just fine.”
I lift my middle fingers as a farewell gesture and get in the elevator with Tessa.
“If I lose the job that finally allows me to work as something other than a receptionist here because of your issues, Green-eyes, I’ll kick your ass,” Tessa says before slumping against the wall of the lift.
“And if my son loses his father because of your reckless driving, I know a few people who will kick yours, Blue-hair.”
She rolls her eyes.
I roll mine right back.
But behind our attitudes, we both smile. Maybe Mark is right after all, we’ll get along just fine, as long as I don’t smell her, look at her or touch her.
Only, at the idea of it, my dick twitches.
I close my eyes and focus on solving a mathematical problem. I mumble the same one I have repeated since I had my first erection at school in front of the class.
“If a farmer wants to plow a farm field on time, he must plow 120 hectares a day. For technical reasons, he plowed only 85 hectares a day. Hence, he had to plow 2 more days than he planned, and he still has 40 hectares left. What is the area of the farm field, and how many days did the farmer plan to work initially?” The answer is not the goal of the exercise. Controlling my erection is.
“Let x be the number of days in the initial plan. Therefore, the whole field is 120⋅x hectares. The farmer had to work for x+2 days, and he plowed 85(x+2) hectares, leaving 40 hectares unplowed. So, we have the equation:
120x=85(x+2)+ 40
35x=210
which gives x=6
So the farmer planned to have the work done in 6 days, and the area of the farm field is 120⋅6= 720, therefore 720 hectares.” Tessa says.
Our eyes meet.
She smiles.
I grunt.
She shrugs.
Her flowery scent takes over my senses.
And I fail to get my erection down.
Chapter Six
TESSA
Oliver is gawking at me, and I’m not sure why.
The tension in the cab of the elevator is palpable.
Maybe he didn’t like the fact that I answered his math problem so fast?
But really this is middle school level. I had the impression he was smart, but maybe he isn’t. And why was he reciting a math problem in the elevator? I look at him while he closes his eyes and breathes heavily.
He’s pissed.
Well, welcome to the club. I’m pissed he wants to drive.
He doesn’t trust me and he doesn’t even know me. He’s put off with me for an unknown reason, and of course, my fucked-up brain would love to prove him wrong. But there is something else. Something I can’t totally pinpoint but is at the forefront of my mind. He opens his eyes quickly, and I fall into his gaze.
Even his glasses can’t protect me against the pull I feel when I look at him.
“You like math?” he groans between his teeth.
The way he says it is sensual, and I almost feel something waking up.
Almost. I kill it right away.
“I do,” I nod. As I’ve dealt with this kind of reaction all my life, I don’t really care anymore. Lots of men are afraid of smart women. If I hid my brain when I was younger—mostly because I was worried not to be appreciated for who I was— I’ve stopped after passing the peak of my
thirties.
After a few years of being an engineer in the car industry and hearing more than enough crude jokes, derogatory comments, competition snippets, and flirting attempts closer to harassment than romance, than I've ever heard over the years, I stopped holding back. The best response was to show them they were dumber than I was, and their ideas were crap. Telling them, I would go to HR and file a complaint was also an excellent way to keep the assholes away. Explaining they could be the same kind of assholes harassing their daughters, worked on the smart ones. For the others, I had a SEAL as a boyfriend. One look at King, and they shat their pants and let me be.
I hated having to call him for help, but sometimes I had no other solution.
I needed the insect repellant to be stronger than my words, and his muscles worked every time.
“That’s cool,” Oliver smiles. It brightens his serious face and even reaches his eyes. It’s not the reaction I was expecting from him.
I get lost in him and forget who and where I am, blinded by his contentment. This man is unsettling. Unsettling for my heart and my vagina. I need to keep him at arm’s length to retain the vow I made to myself after King’s death.
No other man.
I can’t live my life fast and free if a man tries to anchor me down. I can’t love and lose again. We wouldn’t have battery-operated toys if we needed men around anyway.
“If you say so,” I snap.
“Well, I’ve always found women with brains more attractive than women with breasts,” he says with a confident smug on his face. I roll my eyes while my heart thumps a little faster.
“Look, Oliver. You’re handsome, and you clearly know it. But as I told you already, this job is too important for me to fuck it up. Falling into your bed isn’t an option. I don’t sleep around. I’m not interested in anything with men anymore, and I’m certainly not interested in you. So, keep your charms to yourself and let me be.”
I hate how I sound.
So guarded, hard, and unattainable.
Sometimes I miss who I used to be before King died.
I was the nice girl next door.
Career-oriented boss babe, you shouldn’t fuck with, but still, the nice girl who will give you a hand when you needed and bring donuts on Fridays.
Everyone loved hanging out with us, and we had an open-door policy for our friends. And when King was away, I surrounded myself with girlfriends almost every night.
Now, I can’t stand being with people more than once every two weeks, and I’m disaffected.
If I don’t regret to have known a love like I had with King, I sure don’t want to love ever again. All I want to do is enjoy whatever can give me the high I need to go on with my life.
The sweet girl next door died when she saw the brutality of life and the cruelty of some people.
That’s the way life works. Always teaching you a valuable lesson when you need it the most.
“Noted,” he says with a smirk. “Just don’t flaunt that brain of yours like others flaunt their tits, and we’ll be fine.” The doors open, and he strolls away, his jeans hugging the little hips he has and falling perfectly on an ass I’m trying to ignore.
I hurry after him, remembering his luggage is in Jackson’s rental. As payback for him not trusting me to drive him around, I decided to have a little fun with him.
“Wait a second,” I say loudly. “You don’t have a bag?” He stops in his tracks.
“Shit,” he whispers. “It’s in Jackson’s car.”
“Which one is it?” I ask, looking at the cars surrounding us in the underground parking and trying to hide my amusement. I’m not a very good actress, or so I was told. He jerks his chin toward a black SUV parked nearby. I stroll toward it and walk around, observing it.
“What are you doing?” I turn my head in his direction and shrug. He blinks rapidly while observing me. I have no idea, but I won’t tell him.
“Well, we need to open that car for you to get your bag.” I sound so innocent. If he knew me a little, he would see through me.
“I’m not breaking into a car just for my bag, Jackson can drop it off later.” He says while his hands pat down his legs. I smile at him but stay quiet. Looking at the car as if I’m ready to destroy the window to get his bag from the back seat when, in fact, I have the key in the pocket of my jeans. I come closer to the window and study it with the pretense to break it.
“Really, Tessa, it can wait.” He seemed a little panicked, and I’m kind of enjoying it. After the little episode I saw upstairs, I certainly shouldn’t push it, but what is life if you don’t live on the edge and always play it safe. I want to show him nothing terrible is going to happen and that it’s okay to let go a little. And maybe it’s not my place, but if I have to work near him for the next two weeks, he’s going to need a sense of humor.
“You have my keys. Can you get the doorstop and the wooden wedge from my trunk? I saw a video on YouTube on how to break into a car, and I always wanted to try.” I suppress the laugh starting in the back of my throat.
“Fucking no, Tessa. I know how to hijack a car, and we’re not doing that shit to a friend for my bag. That’s a no.” He’s pulling at his hair and a bead of sweat beads on his forehead. Having only just met the guy, I decide to pull the plug faster than I would with any of my friends. It’s a pity because I would have had a perfect time busting his balls a little longer.
“Okay, I’ll use the key Jackson gave me then.” I laugh. But Oliver doesn’t.
I open the car and retrieve his bag from the seat before walking toward him. He’s pacing nervously and breathing heavily, ready to lose his shit.
“Are you always so… “
“Awesome?” I interrupt, knowing that’s not where he’s going. He shakes his head.
“Not what I was going to say.”
“Look,” I smile still delighted by my little prank, “we only live once. Don’t be so uptight.” I know he’s not uptight per se, but if he prefers to behave like he doesn’t understand why I act the way I do, I’ll ignore why he seems to be close to a panic attack as well.
That’s the thing with people who’ve lost a loved one.
We recognize the pain of the other, but it doesn’t mean we acknowledge it.
We enable each other in our bullshit, hiding behind understanding when we should be the best at kicking each other’s ass and telling one another to heal fast and continue to live.
As to prove me right, he rolls his eyes and huffs in what is supposed to be anger but sounds more like relief.
“Which car is yours?” He asks, abruptly avoiding my eyes. I don’t let him deter my mood.
“That one.” I point to the only thing I didn’t sell when I traveled the world. My precious BMW SUV, my baby. He’d better be a good driver or I will ride his ass. I hand him his bag and let him make his way to the car with his dark mood and issues following him. I don’t point out that he could have thanked me or say anything about his attitude. If with a little joke, he’s ready to bite harder than a Pitbull, it’s better to disengage right away.
“I need to get back upstairs and give the key back to Jackson. I’ll be five minutes.” Oliver still doesn’t acknowledge me and gets into my car. I know he has lost someone, but he’s rude, and he’s everything I’m not. In less than an hour, he has tried to flirt with me, decided he didn’t trust me, and believed I could be the kind to break into a friend’s car. The only reason I have a doorstopper and a wooden wedge in my truck is because I need to repair the ones that broke at home. Who does he think I am?
“Asshole,” I stomp around and get in the elevator to bring the keys upstairs.
Once in the office, I’m glad to see the guys are in a meeting and too busy to talk to me. Jackson sees me and nods toward the next door to Natalie’s office. I knock and start a non-interesting chit chat with her, avoiding the subject of grief like every other time I see her. All this in record time to be sure Green-eyes doesn’t get into a fit because I took too long.
He seems a little temperamental.
Or maybe the persona he crafted over the years is cracking being surrounded by someone from his past. I know the feeling. I felt the same when I came back and couldn’t be the Tessa I was when I was across the world. Reality comes crashing into you when you see the faces of people who knew the one you lost, who think they share your pain, who believe they know what you are going or went through. I could give him some slack and maybe some guidance.
I’ll start by apologizing and ask him to start over.
Stepping into the parking lot, I’m full of good intentions. But clearly, he wasn’t.
Because I kept looking at where I parked, and the car isn’t there. I don’t even have to look around to see if he parked somewhere else because in place of my baby is the doorstopper and wooden wedge I bought and a handwritten note.
I read it several times to be sure I comprehend what he did. But there is no doubt reading his words.
“Tessa,
Hoping this would help you find your way home.
Thank you for the ride.
See you later,
Oliver.”
Motherfucker!
Chapter Seven
OLIVER
Tapping the freaking pen against the desk is not helping me relax.
I’m getting on my own nerves, but I can’t stop it. Same with my bouncing leg. The void inside of me is taking over.
There was nothing to check on this morning at the motel.
Nothing to reassure me that everything will be fine today, and after calling Naomi three times last night, I couldn’t call her first thing when I woke up. She would have killed me. But how much do I regret my decision now?
Every decision.
Not FaceTiming her to watch Aito sleep.
Coming here.
Stealing Blue-hair’s car. No, I’m not regretting that.