"He did not need much pushing. Ma chere, it was not a good match."
Anger threatened to force words from my lips, especially at her use of the word "match." I wanted to tell her that he was mathematically my exact match, according to San Diego's best matchmaker. It didn't make any sense to me on paper either, but the huge silly goaltender for the South Bay Sharks was the only man I wanted. And maybe believing I'd lost him had made me realize it.
"You will feel better tomorrow," my mother said, holding her fingers up to the light and inspecting her cuticles.
"Maman," I said, forcing my voice to steady. "This isn't for you to decide. It isn't your business. And if you do not promise to stay out of my love life, I will drive you to the airport right now."
She looked stricken and stared at me with sad eyes. "You are making the same mistakes I did," she said. She watched me a long minute, and then the calm mask she wore began to crack. Her lips trembled and little lines appeared around her eyes as her shoulders rounded forward and she reached for my hand.
"Magalie," she said, her voice a strained whisper now. "You don't know what it is like to believe someone loves you, only to have them leave. To trust someone with all your heart, to carry his child—and to have him walk away." A single tear tracked through the powder on her cheek. "I loved your father. With everything inside me I loved him." She shook her head and pulled herself up straighter. "And I told myself I'd never give anyone else the power to hurt me like he did. I don’t want that for you. To know that kind of pain."
"Maman," I whispered. I'd heard the story, she'd told me how he'd left as soon as he found out about me, how her parents had pushed her away as well, but she'd never allowed me to see the pain it had caused her.
"I love him still," she whispered, dropping her eyes. And then she looked up, a glint of steel in her gaze. "Somewhere in the back of my heart, I do. And that is a weakness. If I can teach you anything, it will be not to give anyone that power over you. Can't you see that a match made with the intellect is superior to one made with the heart? Our hearts are blind, they are ignorant. We make mistakes, we fall in love and we are devastated and made less. Do not trust your heart, Magalie. Never."
A laugh rolled out of me, but it held no humor. It was an incredulous noise. "You can't really believe that. That love is so worthless?"
"Take Emile and me. Emile and I both understand the reasons behind our union." She sniffed, and I sensed something more, something she wasn't saying. "We have agreed." There was something else going on, something she wasn’t telling me.
I shook my head. "But Maman, love is something everyone wants."
"It is a weapon," she said simply.
"I don't want to believe that," I told her. "I don't want to be that cynical, Maman. Love, I think, is a gift. It is a treasure. It is something I want more than anything else in the world, and something I will seek and protect if I'm ever lucky enough to discover it." I believed I had discovered it, actually, but I wasn’t about to debate that with her now.
Maman dropped her dark eyes to her lap and stared at her hands a long moment. "I wanted to protect you from that. To teach you what I learned in the very hardest way."
I shook my head and took her hand, a dawning understanding making me realize what had been beneath each one of my mother’s horrible acts. She had been trying to protect me. In a really awful impossible way. "I don't think you can."
Because I was already in love. And I needed to tell him, even if in the end my heart would end up as broken and dark as my mother's.
Chapter 74
Flowery Fucking Feelings
Trace
I got home after leaving Shelter Island to find Fuerte and Erica on the couch, and I suspected they were waiting for me, ready to console me after the loss. They just didn't know the magnitude of my real loss today.
"Hey," Erica called as I stepped through the door.
Fuerte shot a hand up, and I felt his eyes on me as I stalked to the kitchen and pulled a beer from the refrigerator.
I didn't want to talk to them, didn't want to talk about the game, or about Magalie, or about anything. But I didn't want to be alone either.
Mostly I wanted to morph into a block of stone and make it impossible to feel all these fucking feelings. I'd spent a lifetime not feeling things, and in a few short weeks, Magalie had managed to unpack all those dark shoved-away and carefully taped-up boxes, and parade all my neglected little feelings out to run around. Now I couldn't stuff them back into their boxes. I hated her for it, for making me feel things, and I hated myself for being unable to stop.
There was a part of me that thought there was a chance I might actually cry.
I slumped into the armchair next to the couch.
"What's this? You don't want to sit on my lap today?" Fuerte teased.
"Fuck you." My sense of humor had been tackled, beaten and tied up by all these other flowery fucking feelings.
"Nice," Erica said, her voice sharp. But then she leaned forward and made me look at her. "Hey," she said, her voice softer now. "Nothing's for sure. We don't know anything about playoffs yet."
We had a week off while the league counted points and announced the brackets for playoffs. Simple math would determine the entrants, but thanks to my ineptitude, we were tied for seventh with Anaheim. They had to lose for us to make playoffs, and they didn't play until Sunday.
"Oh, thanks for the information," I told her, unable to manage my anger. "So glad you're keeping track."
Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. "You don't have to be an asshole."
Except I kind of did. Game of Thrones was paused on the television that covered the far wall and I pointed at it and nodded. Caveman for "turn on the fucking show so I don't have to talk."
"Look, Johnson," Fuerte said, picking up the remote. "The loss today wasn't your fault. Hammer and Isley were busy picking fucking daisies down there or something. The goal should never have been open in the first place."
"Twice," I bit out, knowing full well that the second goal was completely on me.
He stared at me a long minute like he might give me that same crap everyone else did, about taking a team to win or lose. But Fuerte finally pressed play on the remote and I felt a tiny bit of the tension release from my shoulders as Tyrion Lannister delivered some of the best-written lines in television.
That guy, man. He might have been small, but Tyrion was my hero. He was abandoned by everyone who should have loved him. He had nothing going for him except his brain. And he still got the ladies and managed to win the battles.
I drank two more beers and began to feel like I was unspooling a bit. Turning up the volume on the show made it almost impossible for my mind to churn around the day's second big loss, and for a few hours I managed to pretend I wasn't going to have to think about Magalie, about her mother, about the way my heart had shriveled into a dark little lump of shit in my chest.
But then someone rang the doorbell, and Erica went to get it as every cell in my body spun right back up, eager like fucking puppies. One second later, I heard Magalie's soft voice filtering between the sounds of battle coming from the television. And whatever was left of my heart thumped inside me, twisting painfully and clenching until I thought I might actually die.
"He's here. He's moping," Erica said, and I could hear her voice coming closer as they walked into the living room, approaching behind me. I didn't turn around. I wouldn't survive a look at Magalie's face.
Could I pretend to have fallen asleep?
No, Erica would just wake me up.
Maybe I could pretend like I'd died. But I wasn't that good at holding my breath.
It was too late to run.
Fuck.
I sighed and sat up, putting my empty beer bottle on the table in front of me. I wasn't going to be able to get out of this.
I stood, still not facing her, and muttered, "Outside." Then I turned and walked to the door that opened onto the sprawling patio that faced
the beach and stepped out, holding the door open so Magalie could follow.
She did, and a moment later I had to look at her.
She stood facing me, the patio lights lacing shining fingers through her curly hair, her cheeks lit with color. "Hi," she whispered, and the way she was looking at me made me want to kneel in front of her, bury my head against her and beg her to never leave me. Her eyes were huge and beautiful, and I could feel the questions they held as she scanned my face.
But I didn't do that. I’d already decided this was over. Investing myself in her, in whatever this was, had tanked my soccer career. I needed to defend the goal. Playoffs. The team. My career. My fucking heart. I sat down heavily in one of the patio chairs instead. "Hi."
"You left suddenly," she said.
"Your mother thought it would be best."
She sighed. "I'm so sorry about my mother. I've talked to her. She won't interfere again."
"No," I said, and it came out like a bark. "It's not . . . it doesn't matter."
Magalie's eyebrows pulled together and her mouth condensed into a line.
I pushed down my desire to reach for her, to soothe her hurt feelings. I went on. "She's right. She could see things clearly from the outside, and I think we were just in the middle of whatever this was. And so we were confused. But she's right. This," I motioned between us. "This was all pretend anyway. And that's good because it would never work. Never in a million years." The words shot out of me in a rush.
"What?" Magalie began to shake her head. "No, Trace. I came here because I realized something when Maman was trying to explain herself. She was trying to tell me that love is dangerous, that it isn't something I should want. But I told her," she ducked her head, took a deep breath and then met my eyes again. "It's already too late. I am falling in love with you."
A spike of something impaled me, but I was too spun up to know whether it was happiness at her words, or fear that she’d said them, or acknowledgement that I felt the same way. "No," I said, cutting her off. "No, you're not."
"Trace, I—"
"I'm just going to stop you there." My heart clenched as I chose my next words, as if it was trying to stop me from saying them, stop me from spewing lies. "I love one thing—soccer. And having you around, pretending to be whatever we've been pretending to be . . . well, you saw the game today. You saw what it did to me. It's a distraction, and I can't have that. Playoffs were on the line, and I was out there like some kind of lovesick puppy, more focused on you than on the fucking ball, and . . ." I shook my head, deciding the only way to save everything I understood about myself—soccer and my career and my identity—was to push her as far away as I could.
I stood up, hating myself for the words I was about to say. "I don't feel the same way, and having you around is messing with my focus. So this needs to be over. Now."
She stood and stepped close to me, that earthy warm scent threatening to break down my resolve, to change my mind. My fingers itched to touch her, to feel the softness of her hair, her skin. "Trace," she whispered, and I saw tears standing in her eyes.
Fuck, if she cried, I'd lose it. "No," I said simply. "I just don't have time for you. For whatever the hell this is."
"But you said . . . I thought . . ." One of the tears slipped over the edge of her bottom eyelid and slid down her cheek, tracing a line next to her slim upturned nose. "I think you're lying to me."
I sucked in a breath, on the verge of losing it and admitting I loved her too. But I couldn’t. "I'm not."
"I think you're afraid."
"Hey, pretending to be engaged was your idea. I was just going along with it. And now it's time to stop."
"That's not what this is about," she said, pulling herself up taller, which brought her about to my sternum. "This has become something more. You're just afraid to admit it."
"It doesn't matter," I told her, bending down slightly to meet her eyes. "Don't you see that? Even if it was something more, something real, I can't have it. We can't have it. It's fucking up my game, and if I screw up my game, I screw up my career. You don't understand. This is all I have." I waved my arms around me, indicating my life. "This is literally all I have."
She took one of my hands. "You have me."
"No," I said, pulling my hand free as my stomach clenched. "You need to leave." I turned away from her so she couldn't see the way my face was beginning to crumple, the way my heart was trying to revolt inside me.
"Trace, don't do this," she whispered.
"Please go," I said, not facing her.
She stood there for a long minute, and then I heard the outside patio gate unlock as she let herself out. I heard her soft footfalls on the path leading back to the street at the back of the house. I listened to Magalie leave and then I sat down in one of the chairs facing the beach and tried to figure out how I could continue living if my heart was missing. Because when she'd left, she had taken the blackened useless thing with her.
Chapter 75
Turns Out Soccer Sucks
Magalie
My mother was right.
The pain of Trace's rejection was like nothing I'd ever felt, like nothing I could have imagined. My mother had successfully prevented me from becoming involved with anyone while I’d lived at home, and I almost wished she had been here to prevent this. And if I had a child, I would certainly do everything in my power to prevent him or her from ever having to feel this kind of pain. They say you don't know how much you care about something until it's gone. And that's never been more accurate for me than now. I'd only just acknowledged to myself the depth of my feelings for Trace Johnson. And then he'd told me to go.
How could I argue with him if he was convinced he didn't have room in his life for his career and for me? How could I convince him that I wasn't a bad luck charm, that I wasn't to blame for the loss his team had suffered?
I couldn't. Because I believed it might be true. Maybe he was distracted, maybe that was why he'd played poorly.
And I couldn't expect him to choose me over the game he loved, over the thing he believed was the only solid accomplishment in his life.
So I left when he asked me to. I got back in my car and drove myself home to a quiet rental apartment in a country as far from my home as I could imagine. I let myself in and pulled the soft silence of my adopted home around me like a blanket, marveling at how the depth of my solitude suddenly felt smothering and dark instead of bright and full of possibilities. If I'd ruined soccer for Trace, maybe he'd ruined America for me.
I allowed myself to cry that night, tears of confusion, anger and sadness relieving some of the pressure caused by my swollen heart.
But when I woke the following morning, I'd decided that maybe my mother had known best all along.
Maybe love wasn't worth this pain. My mind understood her point. I just needed my heart to accept it.
There were things I wanted to accomplish in my life, things I needed to do. I needed to focus—just as Trace had said he did, and the distraction of my broken heart, of my longing thoughts, did not help. Though I would be happy to be alone for the time being, I decided that Maman was smarter than I'd given her credit for. If and when I decided to marry, I'd make an arrangement. I'd marry someone in a mutually beneficial agreement that might be practical, and potentially financial, but would not be romantic.
I never wanted to feel this way again.
Henri began working just down the road from me the following week, and Maman had found a small coffee shop and collection of galleries where she enjoyed spending her time sitting and reading. She asked if she might just stay a while too, and since Henri had no objections, I didn't either. We had come to some kind of truce now that Trace was gone.
In some ways it would be nice having them here. A little bit of home so nearby.
I went in to work after a few more days off to help Adam with bottling. We didn't have bottling facilities in house because they were very costly. But another company rented bottling trucks that hous
ed all the equipment needed, and it made the entire operation easier.
"You probably don't care," he told me as we worked, the noise of the line ringing in the background as he spoke, "but the Sharks made the playoffs."
A little flare of happiness for Trace burst inside me before the weight of everything else tamped it out. "I'm sure they're pleased," I said.
"I'm sure they are," he said. "The first game's next weekend in Seattle."
I nodded my head, unsure what I was to do with this information. I wished I didn't care, wished I could really close off everything that had just happened with the swift click of a door shutting. But it wasn't that easy.
I couldn't allow myself to dig through the remnants of my feelings for Trace, for love in general. I didn't want to discover any living flesh among the wreckage, or find out that my belief in love hadn't been extinguished altogether. I wouldn't survive going through any of this again.
I buried myself in work. For two weeks, I supervised bottling, transposed our blending notes to a program we were using to manage all the winery operations, and organized shipments for the wine club and local merchants. I attended tasting events around town, showcasing Chateau Le Sec wines and selling them into some of the bigger stores. Adam and I completed our blend for the competition, and I entered it on our behalf, wishing I felt as invested in the results now as I had when I’d first arrived and agreed to enter with Adam.
On Sunday nights, I had dinner with Henri and Maman, and both of them seemed to sense that bringing up any of what had happened when they'd first arrived might be unwise. We didn't talk about Trace, and we didn't mention soccer. I had returned the ring to the store with directions to the merchant to return the money to Trace's card, and I assumed that had all worked out.
As we sat on the couch one Sunday after dinner, Maman switched on the television, and I saw Trace for the first time since he'd sent me away.
Mr. Match: The Boxed Set Page 38