Hate to Love You

by Isabelle Richards

  As I turn the corner toward the lobby, I hear a shouting match erupt. Spencer yelling at Chase, Chase yelling at Spencer to stay out of it. Yeah, it is definitely time to go.

  I walk straight to the valet and take a familiar route out of there. After driving for an hour, I come upon an old haunt. Based on how my evening went, it seems appropriate that I stop in. The parking lot is packed, but I manage to find a space in the back. I walk into the bar, and all eyes turn toward me. A gentleman stands up from his stool so that I can sit at the bar.

  The bartender places a coaster in front of me. “Princess, I never thought I’d see you around these parts again.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  June 3, 2013

  Prudendale, CA

  Arianna

  “Goddamn it! Son of a bitch! This is supposed to be a high performance vehicle. Why the hell won’t it perform?” I scream at my Bentley.

  I’m stranded in the middle of nowhere, and it’ll be a minimum of five hours before they can send someone out to me. Thank God there’s a bar. A scary-looking biker bar, but a bar nonetheless. After the morning I’ve had, I’m ready for a drink. The place is dead though. Besides the relatively hot bartender, it’s just me.

  I set myself up at one of the stools and say, “This is how this is going to go, Sam.”

  “The name is Ace,” he says with a panty-dropping grin. I bet this guy rarely goes home alone.

  I slap my purse down on the bar. “Even better. This is how this is going to go, Ace. I’m going to sit here and drink. Every time my glass is empty, hit me with a new one. Got it?”

  He winks. “Sure thing, sweetheart. Whatcha drinkin’?”

  “Johnny Walker, neat. The bluer the better.”

  “I’ve got a bottle of Blue. It ain’t cheap though, especially for the kind of drinking you’re talking about,” he says condescendingly.

  I throw down my black card and watch his obnoxious smirk disappear.

  “Coming right up,” he says, pouring my drink. “We don’t get too many chicks who look like you in these parts. Want to tell me how you ended up in my bar, princess?”

  That makes me laugh. Here I am dressed to the nines in an Oscar de la Renta cocktail dress and Louboutin peep-toes, sitting in a biker bar in the middle of nowhere between Monterey and San Francisco. “You mean all your customers don’t look like me?”

  “No, ma’am.” He chuckles. “We tend to see more leather and Levis here than frilly dresses.”

  “I’m having some car trouble and waiting for a tow truck.”

  After putting it on a napkin, he slides my drink in front of me. “What kind of trouble? I can probably help you, maybe get you on the road faster,” he offers.

  “That’s sweet, Ace, but to be honest, I was driving too fast. I had to swerve to miss a car and ended up running off the road. Blew out three tires and smashed in the front end in the process.”

  He nods but doesn’t comment. My cell phone rings. I can tell by the ringtone that I don’t want to answer it. I do, however, want to drink. I shoot my first drink.

  I push the empty glass back to him. “Hit me again, Ace.” Over the next twenty minutes, my phone keeps ringing, and I keep drinking.

  Using a soft towel, he polishes glass after glass. “Listen here, princess. This place is going to fill up pretty soon. You sure you can handle yourself in a place like this? This ain’t no wine bar.” Ace seems genuinely concerned.

  “Aw, Ace, you’re sweet. I promise I can handle myself. Plus, I give it about an hour before someone figures out who I am. No one will bother me. Not that way anyway.”

  He looks at me as though he’s trying to figure it out. “Who are you?”

  I shoot down my drink. “As far as you’re concerned, I’m a girl who needs a drink. Hit me.”

  “Wanna tell me what you’re running from?” he asks while pouring my next drink.

  I raise an eyebrow and glare at him. “Who says I’m running from anything?”

  “You practically killed yourself driving like a bat outta hell. Your phone hasn’t stopped ringing, and we both know that there are probably a million people you could call to come help you faster than it’ll take for that wrecker to get here. Instead, you’re sitting at my bar looking for the bottom of a bottle. Doesn’t take a genius to figure it out.”

  I fold my cocktail napkin into horribly bad origami. “Last night, I thought I had my life figured out,” I say. “I had a plan, a good one. Today, I found out that my plan was the lying, cheating bastard I always knew he was. I had to get out of there. Never make plans, Ace. He’ll fuck you over every time and twice on Sunday.”

  He points at my cell. “That him blowing up your phone?”

  “Nope. He’s occupied.”

  He taps the bar. “Sounds like the man is a fool. Hang here with me. I’ll keep you company till your ride gets here,” he says with a smile. “Just drink some water. Don’t want you passing out on me.”

  Ace keeps my glass full and regales me with crazy bar stories that distract me. The bar starts to fill up an hour later. I’ve traveled the world and seen just about everything, but there’s nothing like a biker bar. Fascinating people watching, that’s for sure.

  Two hours in, the jukebox gets stuck on Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler. I’ve never been a big fan of the song, but after two hours of it playing nonstop and about six more glasses of Johnny, I’m convinced that Kenny Rogers is a genius and this song is the solution to all of my problems. I pull out my phone and ignore all the calls and texts. In my drunken haze, I decide to listen to Kenny’s wise words and give Chase a call.

  “You sure you want to do that, princess?” Ace asks while I dial. “Drunk dials rarely work out well.”

  I tip back the last of my drink. “This one is long overdue.” I dial his number and the call goes straight to voice mail. “Okay, Chase, I give up. I got your message loud and clear this morning. We’re over. Yesterday meant nothing to you. The last four years have meant nothing to you. I get it now. Sometimes in life, you have to know when to hold ‘em. Know when to fold ‘em. Know when to walk away, and know when to run. You know what? I missed all the signs, but I see them now. It’s time to walk away. No, actually, it’s time to run. I fold. I’m done with this game we keep playing. We’re over. And I don’t mean over until the next time we’re together and we can’t keep our hands off each other. We are over over. We make much better enemies than lovers, and we both know it. From this point forward, we never need to see each other again.”

  “Oh, princess,” Ace says, shaking his head when I hang up. “Quoting Kenny? That’s rough.”

  “He was supposed to be my happily ever after. But I caught him kissing some skank.”

  Ace cringes and pours me another drink, and I shoot it back.

  “Not just any skank. Nope. This classy girl spent the night texting naked selfies to him begging him to come back to bed. If he hadn’t left his phone in my room, I probably never would have found out. I’ve been such a fool. Like the man says. Got to know when to walk away.”

  From there on out, the night gets blurry. I haven’t eaten since yesterday, and I’ve drank more tonight than I have my whole life combined. Ace tells me funny stories from his time as a roadie with the Stones and I’m trying my best to keep from falling over. The next thing I know, Charlie’s there.

  I lean in to hug her but lose my balance. She catches me before I take both of us down. “Charlie! What are you doing in my biker bar?”

  “Oh, Ari, I could ask you the same thing,” she says with a smile.

  I gesture to the bar, smacking her in the chin as I move my arm. “Come meet Ace. He’s great.”

  “Oh, I’ve met Ace. He’s the one who gave me directions to find you.”

  I look at Ace. “Traitor.”

  He laughs. “Princess, after listening to that phone call, I knew it was time for you to go home. So the next time your phone rang, I answered for you. You’re not going to find answers in my bar, that’s f
or sure.”

  “Charlie,” I say as I put my hand on her shoulder. “I take it back. Ace sucks.”

  She brushes the hair out of my face. “You want to tell me what this is all about?” she asks. “Why did you bail on my wedding brunch?”

  “I had to get out of there. I couldn’t do it anymore. All the lies. I can’t count how many broken promises. All the pretending. I just couldn’t do it anymore. He kissed her! Right there in front of me. The skanky selfie taker was all over him like a rash. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s got a rash festering. That girl looked like a walking STD.”

  “Whoa there! Slow down. Who are we talking about, Ari? Who kissed whom? I’m totally lost here, babe,” Charlie says.

  “Ladies, I think we should go,” Spencer interrupts.

  I let go of Charlie and throw myself at him. “Spencer! What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be on your honeymoon.”

  He lifts me and sets me back on my bar stool and motions to Ace for the check. “My bride wouldn’t leave until we found you. So now that we’ve found you, can we please get out of here? Charlie, if we get out here soon, we might catch the last flight to LAX so we can catch the flight to Fiji tomorrow morning.” He signs my credit card slip and tries to usher us out of the bar.

  I stop to hug each new biker friend I made, putting Spencer even more on edge. When we make it to their Mercedes, Charlie gets in the backseat with me.

  “You need to spill, Arianna. Tell me what’s going on,” she says. “It must be major, because you don’t bail on me and you don’t drink. You would never crash your car. So what the hell?”

  I struggle to click my seatbelt into place. “I just broke up with your brother.”

  She helps me out, showing me I was trying to put it in the wrong place. “Say that again? It sounded like you said you broke up with my brother.”

  “Yup. We’re through. For good this time. He’s a sexting, cheating pig and I’m not taking him back.”

  “This time?” she asks. “Arianna, what the fuck are you talking about?”

  She isn’t going to like this. “For the past few years, Chase and I have been in a relationship, sort of.”

  “What? How have neither of you told me? When did this start?”

  Even as drunk as I am, the look of betrayal on her face stings. “Your senior year in high school.”

  Johnny Walker is a smooth son of a bitch. He makes all the secrets flow out of me. I know I’m breaking her heart by telling her we’ve been lying and betraying her trust for years, but I can’t keep this secret any longer. The weight of it is smothering me. The deception, the pain. All of it crashes down around me in a sea of bourbon.

  I tell her about New York and losing my virginity, all the breakups and make ups. “I can’t explain it. I’ve spent so much of my life hating his guts, then in those moments when he held me on Mom’s anniversary, it was like I knew that was where I belonged.”

  “How? You’ve been traveling the world. You were never home.” Her eyebrows furrow as though she’s trying to work out a complicated math problem. She looks more confused than angry. For the moment, anyway.

  “We talked on the phone every night. I’d make trips back home as often as I could. Sometimes I’d let people know I was home. Other times, we just hid away in my condo. When it wasn’t football season, he would fly to see me play. We lied to everyone.” God, it feels good to talk about it. I’ve missed my best friend throughout my whole relationship. I’ve needed her, been completely lost without her. “We did not deal with the distance well though. And when we broke, we broke ugly.”

  “Oh, I can only imagine. I know how the two of you fight. I can’t imagine how bad it got when there were real feelings involved.”

  “That’s why we didn’t want to bring you into it. We never wanted you to feel stuck in the middle. We would get so childish, do things to intentionally hurt one another. There’s no way you wouldn’t have become broken right along with us.”

  Between the hum of the car and the booze, sleep takes me. There’s so much more to tell her, but not tonight.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chase

  Waking up to this sensory overload, I have a hard time convincing myself to open my eyes. I ache everywhere and the sour smell of booze sweat fills the room. If I can smell myself, I must be positively rank. A leg brushes against mine and a soft hand creeps across my chest. Jenna. Not ready to face her, I feign sleep for a little longer.

  My memory of last night is a blurry haze, none of it pleasant. I didn’t want to go to that fucking party. Pebble Beach has become my own personal hell, and I’d hoped to never return. I have a theory that this place is cursed. I know three other guys who were the best man in weddings here, and each left with a broken heart. Nothing quite to the extent of what happened between Ari and me, but that’s not surprising. That woman doesn’t do anything halfway. If she’s going to crush a man, she’s going to do it in epic proportions.

  So I’d wanted nothing to do with the party, but I’ve been on everyone’s shit list lately, so I couldn’t ditch it. Things started looking up when I heard Arianna would be stuck in France. Then I orchestrated a spa weekend for Jenna, so I thought I was free to have a decent time.

  I hate taking Jenna to family events. She gets so jealous of my relationship with my family, and I sometimes feel as though she’s trying to pull me away from them. She’s so needy and throws a tantrum if she isn’t constantly the center of my attention. Are all girls like that? I don’t have a reasonable basis of comparison. Ari and I were always on the DL, but she never needed a chaperone. She walks into a room, and everyone is drawn to her. I’d be lucky to catch her attention long enough for our eyes to meet, let alone have her cling to me all night.

  Eventually, Jenna and I’ll have to sort this shit out. My family is too important to me, and we go to all sorts of events. She needs to learn to be more social. She’s a self-proclaimed socialite, for Christ’s sake. She should be able to attend a party without a babysitter.

  I knew I would be in a foul mood for this particular party, so I didn’t want Jenna anywhere near the place. She knows nothing about Ari and me, and I have no intention of telling her. I wanted the weekend to myself, and I’d thought I had it all worked out. What’s that they say about best laid plans?

  I got to the party early and caught up with some old friends of the family. I was actually having a better time than I’d expected to have until she walked in. My drink slipped right out of my hand as I watched her cross the room. I’ve seen Arianna in every possible light, and I can’t remember her ever looking so sexy. Her dress highlighted every fantastic curve and showed off those legs that just won’t quit. If I thought she still gave a shit about me, I’d swear she got that dress just to knock me on my ass. But she’s with the douchenozzle, so I’m sure she didn’t give me a second thought.

  Once she walked through the door, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I couldn’t carry on a conversation. All I could think about was her. The smile she was flashing everyone was fake, and I couldn’t stop wondering why. Why did she have the mask on? From the pictures of her in South Africa, they look happy together. I’ve watched all the telecasts she was on, and she’s by far the best tennis commentator out there. She should be happy, but I can see she’s not. What had her crying at the stadium last month?

  I found myself in the corner at the bar, eyes locked on her. If I’d stopped pounding drinks long enough to think about it, I would have realized I was acting like a psycho stalker. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. I shouldn’t have cared. She’d left me when things were finally good between us. She gave up.

  I wish I never gave her a second thought, but like it or not, we have a connection. I understand her better than anyone on the planet, other than Charlie. Watching how her smile didn’t reach her eyes, hearing her fake laugh, seeing her sadness killed me. Feeling something because of her, kills me even more.

  I’m not sur
e when or why Jenna showed up. I’m sure she told me, but I’d lost the ability to comprehend five or six drinks earlier. I know we ended up in my room, but the rest is a hazy mess.

  Her hand runs over my stomach. “Time to wake up, sleepy head. I think there’s a brunch we’re supposed to go to.”

  Because going to the brunch worked out so well for me last time. I think brunch is Latin for “the beginning of the end.”

  She kisses my neck and brushes her fingers up and down my thigh. “I’m sure they won’t notice if we’re a little late.”

  That gets me up. “Nope. We should get down there.” I jump out of bed and walk to the bathroom. “I’ll hop in the shower.” I’m careful to lock the door. I turn on the shower and jump in before it heats up. The cold water is the wake-up call I need.

  What is wrong with me? I have a beautiful girl in my bed who is throwing herself at me, and do I fuck her senseless? No. My dick didn’t even twitch. I ran from her and jumped in the shower. And I fucking locked the door to make sure she couldn’t come in. I bang my head against the cold tile. When did everything get so fucked up?

  A few months ago, everything made sense. Things with Jenna weren’t perfect, but they were functional, predictable. I knew exactly what I was getting. She’d never disappear for two years after leaving me a voicemail message. Jenna is the smart choice. I know that, but I keep pushing her away.

  Instead of thinking about the girl who loves me, my thoughts keep drifting to a chick who would rather eat dirt than speak to me. When she first left, I saw her everywhere I went. Everything reminded me of her. Eventually the rage I felt over the way she left helped me move on. Now that she’s back, everything is off kilter.

  I don’t want to think about her. I don’t want her in my dreams. I don’t want to be in the same room with her, because when I am, I can’t stop looking at her. I don’t want her anywhere near me because I hate her for what she did to us, but I can’t break this connection that draws me to her. I know she’s toxic, pure poison for my soul, so why can’t I stop thinking about her?