by Andrea Rose
“Did you teleport from 1954? You’re grown adults. You ask her if you can date her.”
“Of course,” I smiled. “What would you say if it were 1954?”
“A timid yes, leaning to a no.”
I knew which parent Ariana got her spark from. “Why no?”
“You’re everything parents want their daughters avoiding. You’re with another woman, for Christ’s sake. At least be subtle, Tyler.”
“That’s fake, ma’am,” I said with all sincerity. “It’s all fake…except my feelings for your daughter. That’s all I know that’s real in my crazy, effed up life and I’m sorry you don’t approve but I gotta date that girl.”
I held up a sorry hand and backed toward the car again.
“You’re not a sociopath are you?! I swear to God, if those kind eyes are lying,” Grace yelled after me. “I need to get a new career.”
“No, ma’am. I’m simply a man in love.”
“In love? With my daughter?”
“Yes.”
“You haven’t even taken her on a date.”
“I know.”
“Y’sure? She can be very blunt and cold once she warms to people.”
“That’s why I love her.”
She followed after me in her slippers across the lawn. “This is the girl who a year ago wouldn’t quit whining about her boring PR job and considered spaghetti from the can a suitable meal for an adult?”
“That’s my girl,” I said, swinging open the car door. “She moves fast when she puts her mind to something.”
“I’m so conflicted by this,” Mrs. Maldova said. “I feel inclined to tell you go for it ‘cos you’re just so darn gorgeous but her father is currently rescuing the poor thing from the last man who dated her.”
“We’ve met.”
“You have?”
“Yes, ma’am, and he was the first guy I’ve ever had the pleasure to punch in the face without being arrested after.”
The corner of her lip raised. “Tyler King.”
“She went to a safe place you said?”
“Yeah. She’s pretty good at hiding.”
“Your daughter’s at my ranch about forty minutes from here. I’ll keep her safe.”
Grace was piecing something together and said to herself, “Fallen in love with an amazing man…” into my passenger window.
She gasped and clapped her hands again. “You’re the amazing man she’s in love with.”
I stopped half-way into the car.
“Thank God. The minute she said it, I thought I’d never heard her call Braydon amazing or a man before. But I couldn’t for the life of me think of who she might’ve met since.”
“She said she loved me?”
She sniffed the lilies and nodded. “If she loves you, Tyler, then Hell, go for it. Fuck it. Life’s too short for boring and Ari’s always loved a good romance.”
“I’ll take you both out to dinner,” I yelled out the window. “As soon as your daughter quits being stubborn and lets me take her first.”
“That’s my girl. Raised her tough.”
“You did a stunning job.”
My love awaited me at the end of this highway…
Tyler to Ari. Goddammit, be at that ranch waiting for me.
46
Boom Boom Waffle House supplied me with the Wi-Fi fix the ranch couldn’t.
I found solace in my laptop, craving stimulation from some kind of work before I went completely insane. Tyler’s Superbowl final with the Lightning tomorrow meant I had to avoid browsing the internet. It’d only be flooded with stories on tomorrow’s game, about Tyler’s redemption and whatever else they have to say about they man they know nothing about.
I never got through to him how he had nothing to redeem.
The bubbles of my video chat sounded.
Yuri’s grainy face took over my entire screen.
“To what do I owe this displeasure?” I said and resized down the window.
“No need for attitude. I received an alert telling me someone was logging into La Maison’s server from an unknown IP. This early on a Saturday, only one person that would be…but I fired you, Ariana. Stop hacking into my servers.”
“I’m deleting files. I don’t know when I’ll be back to the city.”
“Why aren’t you out celebrating?”
“I don’t have the patience for riddles today, Yuri. Tell me what you need me to do.”
“Watch the news, please.”
“No, thank you. I’m keeping away from it as long as I can help it. Learning about Phoebe’s photo leak was enough horror to last a lifetime.”
I minimized Yuri’s witchy face and returned to focusing on sorting and deleting files from my desktop:
Spring Research…Delete.
Press Releases…Delete.
Tyler King…
My eyes lingered on the contents of the folder. ‘Female Relations’…’Finding Your Fire’…
“A lot has happened since you got fired.”
“Unless a lot includes you giving me back my job, then I don’t care. I have important things to do and not much time to do it. I set the lamb to cook in the EasiOven before I went out this morning. You have until its rare.”
“Clever.”
I clenched my teeth.
Tyler King…Delete.
Lastly, alone on my desktop, the password-protected file that had been my life since I was sixteen…
Ari’s 10 Year Plan
Delete from All Drives…
Are you sure you want to complete this action? This action cannot be undone.
The scrunching sound of paper into the digital abyss.
“Thank you everyone for being here so early this morning,” came a voice from the computer that would always get my attention.
“Are you trying to torture me right now?” I said to Yuri streaming me a video of Tyler. “It won’t work. I’m hanging up. You owe me severance pay. Bye, bitch.”
My hand reached for the space bar to hang up. “It’s a bittersweet day as I announce that I, Tyler King, will be stepping down as the Lightning’s offensive quarterback before tomorrow’s game and will be officially retiring from the NFL effective immediately.”
Boiling hot coffee spilled onto my lap.
“I’m be passing the torch over to the far more capable Josh Hale, who I know will do you proud. He’s got the same heart, dedication and focus a young me did. This man here is the best QB for the job tomorrow. A true leader knows when it’s time to call it a day. That time has come for me.”
My eyes were glued to his first press conference I’d played no part in organizing.
Tyler sat at a table with Gavin, Wes and Josh beside him.
Coach Wes dabbed tears from his eyes.
Gavin looked sweatier than ever.
“I’d much prefer to step back gracefully from the spotlight to focus on new priorities. Miss Kite’s recent invasion of privacy is in no way the cause for my resignation. I pray the public can respect our privacy at this delicate time.
Many of you have followed my journey from the beginning. You see my heart hasn’t been in this a while. I had a fire in my younger days, a hunger to achieve greatness, to have a championship under my belt and a team proud to call me their leader.
I’m looking ahead, today, to a place where I want to settle down, sober up, have some kids, get married, coach a minor league team of my own, who knows? What I do know is I can’t let the temptations of this sport jeopardize that road any longer.”
“Mr. King! Mr. King!” Reporters yelled as a tired Tyler stacked his papers.
“I’d like to express my sincerest, heartfelt gratitude to my fans, my brothers on the team who battled at my side all these years, the coaches, Wes for putting up most with my bullshit…” Tyler pat Coach Brown’s back passionately.
The reporters gave the men a moment when Tyler wept the second Wes couldn’t hold his sobbing any longer.
“I love you, brother,” T
yler said, eyes red and vein protruding from his temple. My own eyes burned.
“You’ll always be my number one champion, son,” Wes blubbered. “Thank you.”
They hugged it out. I pressed a knuckle to my eyes.
A composed Tyler leaned back into the mic. “To my support system, my three girls who kept me in line and showed me the light…” Tyler looked square into the camera. “I love you and I deserve none of you.”
I counted who three girls might be—Chrissy, Phoebe…Me? I tore in two.
“That’s it from me. Thank you a final time for the love and support through the years. The Lightning will always be my team. You guys gave me something to live for, everything that lead me to this very moment. Any further questions can be directed at these three gentleman. Excuse me. I have a cellphone to return.”
My jaw dislocated to the sticky floor.
I yelped when Tyler’s face froze and Yuri spun the camera back to fanning her face.
“How’s that for a fucking gesture, you hopeless romantic? Yet there you are doing clerical services for a company you don’t even work for.”
“I need…fix…flung….”
“Were those even words?” Yuri lifted a sharp brow at me. “Ariana, you’re fired. Log off and find your ex-client, for fucks’ sake. Let that sad boy ask you on a fucking date.”
“I—I can fix this for you,” I said, readjusting my posture. “Contract me out for two weeks. I can make him retract his statement…maybe. I’m already brainstorming ideas for turning this Phoebe dilemma into something positive—”
“Fix this? Tyler planned this whole media circus so you could be together. He’d be hurt to hear you say such a thing.”
“Why this? Why right before the Superbowl?”
“Do you love him, Ariana?”
“Yes,” I said. “But so what? He ran back to that woman the minute I told him to leave me alone.”
“What woman?”
“The call girl.”
“He never slept with those women, Ariana. His dick stopped working, did he not tell you that? We had a good laugh together about it the other night playing some stupid game on Phoebe’s request. So, the question again is do you love him?”
“Yes…I do. But he…”
“Ariana. Do you love him?”
“Yes! I love him! So sue me, Yuri! Literally sue me!” Waiters turned to look.
“I like hearing when I’m right. Fuck off and find that boy so I don’t have to represent him another bloody second. You two will do fine on your own.”
“Why should I trust you, Yuri?”
“Quit being a twit. You felt more a daughter to me than my biological one. Why would I sue you?”
I’d never seen Yuri’s face soften like that before.
I bit at my nails. Listening to her open up felt like an opportunity not be missed but I needed to find Tyler. He never knew I left the city which means he’d been on his way to my apartment.
I stole up my box of documents and stumbled toward the door with my laptop balanced on my arm and a waffle dangling from my mouth.
I had a plan:
Run home, shower then race to the city to my apartment where he’d be and apologize for being such a stubborn, narrow-sighted shit.
“I don’t feel much,” Yuri said on screen when I pushed on out the glass door. “But the minute KK told me I’m your role model those years ago, it took everything not to burst into tears in front of the poor girl.”
“You were my role model,” I said. “You’re not your daughter’s role model, Yuri?” I jammed everything into the trunk of Dad’s car.
Yuri hissed her new assistant out the room and I knelt down to watch the screen.
“That rep whom I fired those years ago, whom I denied knowing and took to caught…She was my, uh, my daughter, Ariana.”
I squinted. “Yuri.”
“Elizabeth, her name was—Lizzy. Our priorities get clouded on floors this high. I chose to protect my precious firm before my baby girl, hired a whole new staff because of her and I’m forever living in punishment for it.”
I never knew reptiles cried until I saw Yuri well up before my eyes.
“Have you ever tried making it up to her?” I asked.
The Wi-Fi signal dropped off and I ran back toward the Waffle House. “Yuri?”
Yuri glitched then came back into view. “She passed away last year, actually. Excuse me.” She tufted five Kleenex from her tissue box and blew her nose. “An illness she’d grown up with. It wasn’t so shocking as it were a wake up call that came too late for me.
“I’m…so sorry.” My fingers touched the bottom of the screen. “Yuri, why did you…?”
“Life happens until it doesn’t, that’s all we know. My daughter died happy and surrounded by love once she cut me from her life. The task lies on you now to choose the path I was too scared to and choose love like Lizzy did. Always follow love, Ariana. A family tree leads to much higher ground than the corporate ladder. Took me a lifetime to realize I’d made the wrong choice and I’ll be damned if I let you make the same one.”
I glanced back and forth between the screen and Dad’s car.
Yuri sighed.
“Go, Ariana. I’ve said all I needed to say. Just know you’ll be sharing everything you have on Gavin’s case with me…as a parting gift.”
I froze.
“Ariana, you owe me.”
I shook my head. “Yuri, I’ve spent months on that thing. This could make me a lot of money, a story this huge. I can’t just give it up to you.”
“I never said give it up. I said share…so that I can sell the story to the people who’ll pay you better money to give it up.”
I paused, leg half-lunged in the direction of the car.
“I’m bored, Ariana. Leave. Now.”
The screen went blank.
I raced into the car and revved the engine. I hadn’t even noticed the time. I needed to get back to New York.
47
I blitzed through the ranch’s front door, tossed the keys on the hook and rammed the groceries I’d bought earlier into the refrigerator.
What do you wear on the night you’re declaring your love for Tyler King? Something sexy? Cute? Sentimental?
The sweater I’d borrowed from Tyler’s drawers flew off over my head, my jeans landed on the lights and I skid along the marble floor in my socks toward the shower.
And It Stoned Me faded in around the numerous house speakers.
A familiar, welcomed voice started singing along with it back in the kitchen.
“And it sto-oned me…” he crooned.
Tyler King, well-dressed in a too-small button-up shirt with flying cats all over it, sat in the breakfast nook.
I looked down at my soft body—Yoga bra, beige panties and a calf-high pair of tube socks—and brushed down my fly-aways.
“I had some time to kill before you’d get here,” he said, waggling a tiny remote control. “Figured I’d find out how to use the Bluetooth setting in the house.”
I mouthed things.
“You’re freakin’ out, Maldova,” he teased, his finger falling a box of chocolate pretzels atop the table.
“You don’t look so calm yourself, Mr. King,” My hands went to my hips and I worked whatever look I had going on.
“You in a hurry to be somewhere?”
I blew my bangs from my eyes. “How did you know I’d be here?”
“Your mother told me you’d gone to a safe place for a few days this morning.”
“Y—you met Mom?”
“Was told I’d find you there after the press conference. Might I say she’s almost as gorgeous as you are. Almost.”
I tapped my foot on the linoleum.
“A box of pretzels and sucking up to my mother?” I said and crumpled my nose. “That’s the apology I get after all you put me through at the courthouse, for going back to Brommer House.”
“Courthouse?” Tyler’s aloofness disappeared. His
face twisted in worry and he stood to defend himself. “Babe, that was days ago. Juniper’s not…I never fucked her. Ever.”
“I haven’t forgotten about it.”
“Where have you been? A lot has gone down these past few days. Everything.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“D—Did you see the press conference, at least?”
“Press conference?” I feigned ignorance. “What fucking press conference? Look, Tyler. Forget it. I’ll be out your hair. Sorry I’m here. Good luck for your game tomorrow.”
Dude had it coming the amount of times he’d left me in knots.
“Ariana, have you not watched TV at all?”
“No. You have a thousand remote controls.”
“Let me explain. Phoebe self-leaked a pic of her with some chick…” he said and gauged my response. “…I’m Yuri’s client now…Gavin’s been arrested…I quit my professional football career this morning…”
“Why?” I asked.
“So I could ask if you’ll go out on that date with me yet. People put a lot on the line for this answer so I hope you choose wisely.”
He smiled but I stayed stoic.
“Hm.”
“What’s hm mean? That a yes?”
“Is it a good restaurant.”
He didn’t find me funny.
“Oh, it’s good,” he said. “It’s also in Australia. We can leave tomorrow night.”
Uh…wa…ga…Speechless…
“I only do grand gestures when it comes to you, sweetheart. You said you missed your friend. Let’s go see her.”
“I can’t. Tyler…I…”
“What’s holding you back anymore? Did you not hear me? I quit football. You lost your career for us, I thought I’d meet you half way and lose mine too.”
“I can’t go to Australia.”
“Ari, baby, maybe if you watch the press conference, you’ll get the full effect of what I mean,” he said, reaching for a TV remote. “We can be together now…No strings attached…It’s weird you’re not…you’re not more excited.” He took my hand to pull me towards the living room.
“Hey,” I grabbed his face. “Relax, King. The reason I can’t go is because my passport expired.”