by S. Ann Cole
We finally exchanged words when he called me around noon that day — in all of twenty-four hours. Even so, the conversation was stilted and sounded somewhat obligatory.
“Hey, beauts,” he greeted.
“Hey. ‘Sup?” I tried to sound chirpy, though I was far from it.
“I missed you this morning.”
“Just this morning?”
“Well, no. I’ve been missing you for the last twenty-four hours.”
“Hmm, I miss you, too.”
What ensued was something that never happened between us: awkward silence.
“So, how was reuniting with Nicole yesterday?” I broke through our quietude.
He cleared his throat. “It was … interesting. I was more than surprised to see her, actually. The last I heard, she was engaged to some wealthy political figure in Germany and was to be wedded next month.”
“So what happened?”
“Well, she claims she caught her ex-fiancé cheating on her — with a man. That he paid her off to keep quiet about it and leave the country. But I’m not sure I believe that. Nicole is just not the kind of girl that a man … whatever, it doesn’t matter,” he dismissed.
“So she moved back here?”
He cleared his throat again. What’s up with that? “Yes.”
There was a sound of knuckles against wood in the background and he told the knocker to enter, then started talking to the person without even asking me to hold. “Is this the daytime one? … No, I’m pretty sure this one will put me to sleep in a minute, get the daytime … Yes … Oh fetch a pack of Halls, too … Who? … What does she want again? … Okay, send her up in ten.” Shuffling followed, and then he was back on the line. “Beauts?”
“Do you want to be on this phone call with me right now?” I asked, annoyed.
It took him a moment to answer. “What do you mean? I called you, didn’t I?”
“Yeah. But you don’t sound like yourself. And it seems as if you’d much rather be doing anything else than discussing your ex with me, or even talking to me at all.”
“You’re right, I don’t care to be discussing my ex with you. And I may not sound like myself because I’m sleep-deprived and my throat feels sore, as if I’m catching a cold. So to answer your question in truth: no, I don’t want to be on this phone call with you right now. I’d rather be at home with you in my bed wearing one of your sexy lingerie and feeding me chicken soup.”
Oh. He knows how to make my stomach unfurl. “It’s your company, no one’s stopping you from taking the day off if you’re feeling sick. And I’ll be all too happy to play nurse.”
“Hmm, I really, really miss you, Axia. I miss you.” He paused for a few moments, as if giving his words time to soak in. But all he said was that he missed me, there was nothing in that deserving of the pause effect. Though I wasn’t sure why he emphasized the ‘you’. “However,” he continued, “I have, not one, but two momentous meetings to attend today. So my day, unfortunately, lends no such leisure. But I sure as hell will be looking forward to you being my night nurse later.” He drawled the latter. “Be sure you’re in my bed when I get home.”
Bed, he says. “Does that mean you’ll be in late tonight?”
“Maybe. I’ll let you know.” A ringing sound went off in the background. “Gotta go, beauts. Later.”
There was no night nurse playing that night, though, because Lovello had pulled another late night, and, again, hadn’t bothered to alert me. The following morning when I woke up with him wrapped around me like an ivy, I was once again leaving for work at the time his alarm began chiming. And that noon, I’d gotten a call from him that was far more stilted than the one the previous day. The same happened that night: empty promises, no Lovello at night and I’d be gone before he was awake in the morning.
Once upon a time, I would’ve been playing the crazy card. Cursing, bitching, tossing missiles, and all things chaotic. But now, I honestly didn’t feel like wearing the mask of a monkey’s ass. We were drifting apart, and I was allowing it.
Why was I the one who always had to fight for our relationship? If he didn’t want this between us, then I wouldn’t force it. So, after the fourth night of having dinner alone, I stopped going by his house after work and went to my own instead. He’d know where to find me if he wanted me. No way on earth was I going to assume the role of a boring housewife for a man who didn’t think alerting me that he’d be in late was requisite.
It didn’t seem to bother him that we hadn’t really seen each other in over ninety-six hours. His dutiful afternoon calls would say one thing, but then his actions didn’t go in accord. Our conversations had become so succinct and tepid that I began entertaining Zane’s calls and text messages. At least I knew that his “I miss you’s” were true.
Zane was the evil that I should’ve stuck with. He couldn’t have hurt me again because I knew what he was capable of and, consequently, I’d know how much trust and emotion to invest in him. Most grandly, nothing beat the fact that I would be the ex that he would dump someone else for. Just like Nicole was the ex that I was being dumped for.
XXII
“Strike two, Axia!” Cody shouted. “I told you, this guy’s the best back in Austin.”
“Shut the hell up, Cody,” I huffed through labored breathing, sweat beading on my forehead. “I haven’t completely lost yet. Got one more round to go. One more chance to prove that I can get at least one in.”
“Dream on, cutie,” roared my contender from across the table in his heavy country accent.
It was a typical Friday at the gym: lively, noisy, sweaty and packed. Free of classes, the guys and I were downstairs in the boxing room, enjoying our free time. Bets were being cast on an arm-wrestling match between me and a mountain of a man from Texas, Cody’s cousin. His head was spit-shine — tempting enough to make you want to spit in your palm and slap it — and his big-boned body was clothed in tattoos from the neck down. Quite intimidating, and I should be, because I was yet to conquer him. He’d been kicking me to the curb all week, and my determined ego just wouldn’t give up. Besides, it was good practice.
Cody refereed the third round, and I tried like hell to conquer my contender’s hand, exerting all my physical strength. Oh yeah, I was giving him a fight. But just as I was halfway down with his hand, thinking that this game was mine, he brought my hand right back over and slammed it down.
“Goddammit!” I yelled.
The room erupted into loud chattering as wads of green bills tossed around, to each man his earnings. Almost everyone was grinning with their winnings, because very few had placed bets on me since Wednesday. The man was damn well exceptional. With more practice, I wasn’t far from becoming as good.
“Next time you come to San Francisco, Country Boy, I’ll be ready for you.”
He roared in rumbling laughter and rounded the table to wrap a heavy arm around my shoulders. “Don’t sweat it, cutie. You’re pretty darn impressive. Never had a gal brave enough to challenge me. An’ I mean challenge. I like ya. We’d make a strong team, eh?”
Cody knocked his cousin’s hand from around my shoulders. “Back the hell up, cos. There’s nothing here for you.”
“And ya think there’s somethin’ here for ya?” his cousin retorted.
Cody gave me one of his nervous smiles. “I have my hopes. One day. I’m patient. One day.”
If Cody and I hadn’t grown to be such good buddies, I probably would’ve bitched at him. But these days, I just ignored his helpless flirts.
For humor, I smacked Cody’s chest and whispered sultrily, “One day, Muscle Boy. One. Day.”
The room burst into whistles and chuckles as Cody grinned down at me. His smile suddenly faded and his expression changed to one that was serious and determined. For a moment, I thought he was about to do something stupid like kiss me. My fist automatically doubled, ready to meet his face if the idiot dared try. But then I heard Tish’s voice straining over the noise in the room. I swiveled my h
ead towards the door and caught sight of her beckoning me. And standing next to her, arms folded across his chest, face red as blood, was Lovello.
What the hell was he doing here? It’d been over a week, since I stopped going to his house, that I’d seen the guy. He’d never even bothered to ask why I stopped. He never asked because he didn’t care. In fact, his phone calls had reduced from noon each day to noon every other day — which I mostly ignored and answered Zane’s instead. Who would’ve thought the guy even remembered where my gym was located?
Thing is, I’d been hurt and heartbroken before, so I knew exactly how to wall off pain the minute it begins seeping through me. When I’d realized that he was subtly dumping me for Nicole, I’d already broken up with him in my mind — a precautionary step. So there wasn’t much heat surrounding my heart at the moment, just shards of ice, keeping it chilled.
I grabbed my towel from Cody’s hand and wiped the sweat from my face as I walked at my own leisurely pace towards the door. Because Tish was the one who called me, Tish was the one whom I directed my attention to. “What’s the prob?”
Tish stared at me, confused. Of course I knew she came to get me because of Lovello, but I refused to acknowledge him. “Um, well, your boyfri —”
“His name’s Lovello, Tish,” I cut her off. No longer my boyfriend.
Before Tish could answer, Lovello grabbed my arm and pulled me off, taking large, firm steps as he made his way up to my office. Given our situation, I should’ve been kneeing him in the balls for grabbing me like that. But, as it was a Friday, the gym was peopled and I, as the boss, wouldn’t be displaying much professionalism by creating a scene. So I allowed the angry hand to lead me up to my office.
Lovello slammed the door with a loud bang when we entered the office. I shrugged my arm from his grasp and walked, most causally, over to the fridge to fetch a Gatorade.
“‘His name’s Lovello’?” he hissed out.
I turned to face him as I uncorked the bottle. “Isn’t that your name?”
“What’s wrong with the word boyfriend? Is there something you don’t want someone here to know? Perhaps that prick whose lips were inches away from yours?”
“Oh, wow. Boyfriend? I had no idea we were still in a relationship,” I said coolly.
“What the hell’s wrong with you, Axia?!” he barked at me, his hands fisting at his side.
Sauntering over to my desk, I plopped down in my chair and tossed my legs over one handle. “Does it look like something’s wrong with me? I’m chirpy, dude.”
Lovello’s face was tight with tension, his eyes sulfurous, his nostrils flaring. Good. “Is this what you do all day? Flirt with your staff while you’re virtually naked?”
I glanced down at my tiny black gym shorts and black tube top. My impeccably raised abs were glistening from a thin sheet of sweat, and I leisurely trailed a finger down the deep seam that separated my packs as I answered, “It’s a gym. Everyone’s sweating. The less clothes, the better. And you don’t expect to be the only boss who’s allowed to flirt with their staff, do you?”
I could almost hear his teeth grinding from where I was. “Put some goddamn clothes on, Axia. You didn’t see how those guys were staring at your ass!”
Swiveling my chair back and forth, I depleted my Gatorade with an exaggerated ‘ah’ sound. “Again, Nelson, it’s a gym. Everyone stares at everyone’s ass.”
Lovello raked a hand through his hair, bristling with tension in the middle of my office and firing bullets at me with his eyes. He was casually dressed in dark jeans and a black hoodie, which made me wonder if he’d been to work at all. His hair had a damp look to it as if he’d recently showered. He was all irresistible-male-and-divine-scrumptiousness as usual. He was also extremely pissed. But I didn’t give a shit. What was he even doing here anyway? “You wanna tell me what wind blew you to this side of town, Nelson? Hurry. There’s a party downstairs that I’m missing out on.”
“Uh…” He eyed me uncertainly, as if vacillating whether he should say what he was about to say or not. “Nicole and I are going out for lunch … and I came to find out if you wanted to come, too.”
It would have been better if this asshole hadn’t shown up here at all, because where there had been shards of ice chilling my heart, now there were huge chunks of hail.
Was he serious? Was he purposely trying to hurt me? Who was I? The best friend third-wheeling the reunited couple? Not since age twenty-one when my father had given me my own gun had I thought about shooting someone. Yeah, I would shoot the fucker right there in the groin area that housed his oh-so-cocky cock.
Alas, I didn’t have my gun here, so I just played the insouciant card. “And where’s Nicole?”
“Out in the car.”
Could bet she was stretching out those long legs in the passenger side of his Bugatti with a smirk on her face. Where would he fit me? On the roof? “Well, that’s thoughtful of you. Thought I was hungry?”
“No, I —”
“I’m well fed, Nelson,” I sliced, then got up from my chair and brushed past him towards the door. “Enjoy your lunch.” I hope you and the bitch choke to death.
Before I could make it through the door, Lovello grabbed me, reeling me into him and pressing me up against his hard body as if his life depended on it. His passive eyes bored helplessly into mine as he whispered, “I don’t know what to do, Axia.”
Cute, he was caught in a love triangle and didn’t know who to choose. Like the rolling dark clouds over the top of the mountains, I’d seen this coming. And that’s why I’d taken precaution in guarding my heart and getting him out of my system — well, not really, but still — before it got to this part. Smart girl, Axia. Smart girl.
“The situation is not as difficult as it seems, Nelson,” I soothed, slowly pulling from his embrace. “I’ve saved you the trouble and have already made the decision. You’re free. There’s no bondage. There never was. Because I was never yours. And you were never mine.”
Lovello frowned deeply, his brows knitting together. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you can go on your lunch date with a clear conscience. The eenie meenie miney moe part doesn’t have to be played. I’ve already pulled myself out of the game.”
“What? Clear conscience?” he asked, rubbing hard on his forehead as if trying to wish away a headache.
“Okay, since you’re playing obtuse, let me be a bit more lucid,” I drew out slowly. “You no longer have to worry about what to do, wondering if anyone will be left heartbroken. Because you are no longer here.“ I placed my palm flat over my heart. “None of you is left here, Love. Everything has been decimated. Nothing. Zilch. Cipher. Nada.”
The idiot didn’t seem to realize that he’d made his choice just by coming here to ask me if I wanted to tag along with him and his ex. Had to say I was disillusioned. All this time I’d held this man in such high esteem as one of the wisest persons I’d ever come across. Turns out he wasn’t so wise after all. King Solomon was right, the wise man and the fool are not much different. They both suffer the same fate.
Lovello’s face paled, his eyes bleak and slightly widened, looking as if he’d just seen an apparition. His voice was barely audible when he spoke. “I knew it. You don’t love me … anymore.”
“No. I don’t,” I lied. It was wrong, but I had to protect myself.
He blinked once, twice, three times, and then his eyes wintered. “Is it that scum downstairs? Because I swear to you, Axia, I will break him. I’ll break his fucking neck!!”
I found his gaze and held it. “I know I’ve given you reasons not to trust me or my word, but this one thing is true: when I love, I love hard, so cheating is never in my cards. I’d rather leave someone before I cheat on them. I leave games like that to pros like you.”
With that, I walked away from him. Not daring to look back and not daring to cry.
Trudy was flabbergasted when I phoned her and suggested we go clubbing that Friday night. I wasn’
t a party-goer and she knew it. Fitness and challenges were where I sought my entertainment. Clubbing and outing were a once-in–every-three-months thing for me. Of course, she leaped at the opportunity, because she knew that occasions like this with me were seldom.
She’d scowled at me, however, when I went to pick her up with Tish in the back of the jeep. On purpose, I’d excluded the tidbit that Tish would be clubbing with us, too. So, yeah, I was surreptitiously playing matchmaking in the process — or, re-matchmaking, to say.
Though Trudy didn’t want to admit it, she still loved Tish. She’d broken up with all her, ahem, women, and hadn’t been seeing anyone for over a month — a tad monastic for someone as nomadically lickerish as her. My eyes, also, were not purblind to the longing stares she stole at Tish when she thought no one was looking. But even so, she treated Tish as if she had some contagious disease that she didn’t want to catch.
The secretive small smile that tugged at her lips when she climbed into the jeep didn’t go unnoticed, though. Of course the reformed slut was glad to see Tish, yet she feigned otherwise and gave the silent treatment when Tish greeted her with a polite “Good evening, Trudy” from the back of the jeep.
Because I hadn’t chosen an exact spot to party when I’d impetuously decided I wanted to go clubbing, I ended up being outvoted by Tish and Trudy to party at ‘Stilettos, Poles & Holes’, a posh gentlemen’s club.
“This is what I get for partying with lesbians. Damn strip clubs!” I joked with Trudy as we filed into a V.I.P. booth while Rhianna’s Please Don’t Stop the Music blasted through the speakers of the club.
A petite, bronze-skinned waitress came in to take our drink orders.