The Wrong Game

by Steiner, Kandi

  When the game was almost over — the Bears winning by two touchdowns and an extra point — Gemma sauntered back over to Belle and me at the bar. I felt the knot in my chest give way once she was away from that table, and my breaths came a little easier.

  Until she spoke.

  “Andy and I are going to take off,” she said to Belle, eyes glossy and a lazy, drunken smile playing on her lips. The lipstick that had painted them so beautifully before was smudged now, the edges of it bleeding onto her skin.

  “Um, you sure that’s a good idea?” Belle eyed the guys at the table.

  “Mm-hmm,” Gemma said with a giggle. “He’s going to show me his favorite way to celebrate a Bears win.”

  Belle’s eyes shot to me as a roar of anger and jealousy ripped through me like wildfire.

  “What about your plan?” I spat, grabbing two beers out of the ice bucket and slamming them on the bar in front of the guys who had just ordered. They exchanged glances, eyes wide, but I ignored them. “Thought you were hell bent on sticking to it.”

  Gemma blinked, like she was digesting what I’d said. “I am.”

  “So, this guy can get your time when it’s not a home game, when it’s not on your terms, but I can’t?”

  Gemma’s defenses went up like a visible wall, and she narrowed her eyes. “It is on my terms. You changed the rules, so why can’t I?”

  I ground my teeth together, planting my hands on the bar as I leaned toward her. “Gemma, please, don’t do this.”

  Her eyes were on her manicured fingernails as she swallowed, swaying a little. I covered that hand with my own, leaning down more until her eyes connected with mine.

  “I know you’ve been hurt.”

  Her bottom lip quivered, and I squeezed her hand in mine.

  “You hide it from everyone — from strangers, from Belle, from him,” I added, nodding to the asshole waiting for her at the table in the corner. “Probably from your family, too. And I don’t know what happened; I don’t know who hurt you.” I swallowed. “But I can see it. I can see you hurting and I promise you, from experience, running from it won’t make it go away.”

  Gemma’s eyes flicked back and forth between mine, like she was trying to see me through a fog.

  “This isn’t the answer. He isn’t the answer,” I said, pointing a finger right at the meathead. “If you let anyone take you home tonight, let it be me.”

  Gemma rolled her eyes with a scoff.

  “Not so I can touch you in any way other than to help you get into bed. Trust me when I say you’ll feel better if you just sleep it off tonight. And if you want to call him again in the morning, when you’re sober,” I added. “Then go for it. Hell, I’ll even dial the number for you.”

  Gemma tongued her cheek, ripping her hand from under mine and crossing her arms over her chest. “You’re unbelievable,” she said, then she planted her hands right in front of mine, leaning over the bar to meet me in the middle. “I’m fine, thank you, and I don’t need your permission or your blessing or whatever it is that you think you need to grant me for me to take a guy back to my place. I’m a grown-ass woman, and I’ll do what I want.” She pointed back to Andy. “He’s nice, okay? And he’s not complicated. He’s perfectly fine with what I want, and what I don’t want — unlike some people.”

  “Gemma,” I tried.

  “Gemma,” Belle echoed, pulling her best friend’s hand into hers. “Hey, you know I’m all about the one-night stands and I’m queen of no commitments, but I think I agree with Zach here.”

  Gemma’s little mouth popped open, like her friend trying to stop her from going home with a drunk neanderthal was the most offensive thing she’d ever seen. Then, she narrowed her eyes.

  “You agree with Zach,” she deadpanned. “Of course. Well, you know what? I don’t need permission from either of you.” Gemma pointed her finger at Belle and then waved it over at me. “I’m tired of being told what I want and what I don’t. No one is listening to me.”

  “I hear you,” Belle said. “And like Zach said, if you want this in the morning? I’m all about it. But I know what happened earlier,” she said, and I watched Belle curiously then.

  What had happened earlier?

  “And I know how you get when you feel out of control.”

  “I don’t feel out of control,” Gemma argued, shaking her head. “I’m in control, which is exactly why I’m leaving. Because I want to.”

  She ripped her hand from Belle’s, and with that, wavered a bit in her stance.

  “And for the record,” she said, eyes pinning me again. “You have no idea what I’m ‘running from’.” She held up air quotes sarcastically around the last two words. “Or what I’m not. So stop assuming you know what’s best for me.” She swiped her purse from where it’d hung on Belle’s barstool all night. “Stop acting like you know me at all.”

  With that, she turned on one heel and stormed across the bar, sliding her hand into Andy’s and tugging him toward the door. Meathead tossed a thumbs up behind him to the tune of a laughing, cheering table of his douchebag friends, and I growled, launching a half-empty glass across the back-end of the bar. It shattered when it hit the dish bin, and Doc threw his hands up.

  “Damn it, Zach!” He shook his head, ripping the broom from the back and tossing it to me. “Clean that shit up. And stop acting crazy, she’s just a girl.”

  Belle watched me with sad, sympathetic eyes as I caught the broom, fingers wrapping around it so tight my knuckles turned white. I met her gaze, and she looked like she wanted to hug me and like she also wanted to throw a glass, too.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, sliding off her stool and dropping cash on the bar. “I’m going to go save her from herself.”

  “Let me come.”

  Belle shook her head, holding up a hand. “Don’t. Okay? She can push me and get mad at me tonight and she’ll be over it tomorrow. But…”

  “Not so much with me, huh?”

  Belle’s eyes softened again. “I’m sorry, Zach.”

  I didn’t answer, just nodded as she made her way through the crowd to where Gemma had disappeared. It took every ounce of self-control I had left not to go after her, not to barrel through every person there until I was outside connecting my fist to Andy’s face.

  But what would be the point?

  She made it clear tonight how she feels about me.

  And it isn’t the way I thought she did.

  “Sorry, Doc,” I said when he passed by.

  He gave a sympathetic, tight-lipped smile, clapping me on the shoulder. “It’s okay. Just clean it up.”

  I forced a breath, hating the way my chest ached with the words he’d spoken as I started sweeping.

  She’s just a girl.

  I didn’t try to find Belle again, and I didn’t look to see if Gemma had already climbed into a cab outside with Andy. I just swept up the shattered glass, wondering how I’d gotten so caught up in a woman who couldn’t care less about me, wondering how a night could do such a one-eighty in such a short amount of time.

  Maybe Gemma wasn’t different at all.

  Maybe she was just like everyone else.

  And maybe, though it stung my chest like a branding iron, I needed to do just what she wanted me to.

  I needed to let her go.

  Gemma

  I made a mistake.

  I made a huge, huge mistake.

  Of course, that realization didn’t hit me until it was ten minutes past way too late.

  It didn’t occur to me that I was making bad choices when I sauntered over to that table full of guys, hell bent on proving my point to Zach that I had not gone to that bar for him. At that time, it was just a game — which I’d recently discovered that I apparently loved to play. I just wanted to tease him, to let him know who was in control when it came to whatever it was that was happening between us.

  I still had a plan. I still didn’t want to be in a relationship. And he was still wasting his time.
/>   However true all of that might have been, I made a mistake walking up to that table of guys. Even if it had been a fun night, cheering on the Bears to a victory over the Packers and throwing back tequila like it was water, I should have realized I was playing with fire.

  I’d had a dream about my ex-husband less than an hour before I’d walked into that bar, and I shouldn’t have had as much as I had to drink. I shouldn’t have drank at all. I should have just stayed home, should have let Belle come up, should have faced something — anything — instead of just avoiding.

  But that was my modus operandi, and while I’d successfully avoided the mess of my past, I’d somehow found myself in an even bigger, smellier pile of mess in my present.

  Andy grabbed my ass as I thumbed through my phone for an Uber, and my heart pounded in my chest, drowning out the tequila.

  I don’t want him touching me.

  I don’t want him to come home with me.

  I want Zach.

  That last thought hit me like a truck, and I shook it off, blaming the alcohol. I was just emotional after blowing up at him. Belle I could apologize to, but he would be a different story.

  Maybe I should go apologize to him now…

  That thought stunned me, and my thumb hovered over where I needed to tap to officially order us our ride.

  “I can’t wait to get you home,” Andy said, nuzzling into my neck.

  I pushed him off, stumbling back toward the bar. “Change of plans.”

  “Wait, where are you going?”

  “I need to talk to someone.”

  I was almost to the door when Belle bounded out of it, colliding with me as we spun in a tornado of hair and slinging purses.

  “Whoa, whoa,” she said, catching me by the arms and holding me upright.

  Her eyes turned to slits when Andy tried to steal me from her grasp.

  “I’ve got her,” she said to him.

  “We were just leaving.”

  “And now, we’re leaving,” Belle said, pointing between the two of us. “As in, me and her, and not you.”

  Andy scoffed, looking to me for back up.

  “She’s right,” I slurred, shaking my head. “I don’t want to leave with you.”

  “That’s not what you said literally five minutes ago,” he breathed like a dragon.

  “She changed her mind.” Belle puffed up her chest, shielding me behind her. “Now, scram.”

  Andy rolled his eyes, and I swore I heard him mutter something about me being a cock tease as he ripped open the door to the bar and flew back inside. I closed my eyes, but they shot open again once I remembered what mission I’d been on.

  “I have to go talk to Zach,” I slurred.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” Belle said, catching me by the waist and spinning me away from the door again. “Look, I ordered us an Uber, we’re going home, you’re going to bed, and then you can figure the rest out in the morning. Okay?”

  “But—”

  “You’re drunk, Gemma,” Belle said. “And, you had a shit night. Sleep it off, and you can call him in the morning with whatever it is you need to say. Deal?”

  I could barely register her words, so I just nodded, and she pulled me into her on a long breath. She held me until the moment the car came, and then we piled in, and the ride home was just as blurry as the night had been.

  Belle got me inside and tucked into my bed, but as soon as she was gone, I stumbled to my bathroom and fell to my knees on the tile in front of my toilet. The entire room spun as I stared at that porcelain, the water just waiting to catch whatever I needed to throw at it, but nothing came.

  I closed my eyes, twisting until my back was against the toilet as I let out a sigh. My feet flopped out in front of me, and I sank down, running my hands back through my hair that had fallen out of my ponytail.

  I was a mess.

  The tequila swam in my bloodstream as I sat there, and I didn’t know how much time passed before I crawled out of the bathroom, locking my front door before I swiped my phone off the kitchen counter. The screen blurred as I typed, fingers moving in slow motion like they were under water as I texted Zach.

  - Ha, guess I win, huh? Told you you were wrong about me being at the bar to see you. -

  I sent the text with an emoji, one winking and sticking its tongue out. But when nothing came through from Zach in response, I sighed, typing out another.

  - I’m sorry. -

  I let eleven minutes pass, staring at my screen like I could will him to text me if I held my eyes open long enough. I shouldn’t have texted him. If Belle was there, she wouldn’t have let me. She was right. I needed to sober up, to apologize to him the way he deserved.

  But the tequila was swirling in my stomach and my head, making me want to text him again, and I threw my phone across the room onto my couch before I gave in to temptation.

  I needed sleep.

  I couldn’t solve anything tonight, and truthfully, I didn’t know how to make sense of anything, anyway. When I left the bar, I was gloating, satisfied with proving my point. I was angry at Zach. I wanted him to leave me the hell alone.

  But when the car had driven me and Belle across town, I couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said.

  I don’t know what happened, I don’t know who hurt you. But I can see it. I can see you hurting and I promise you, from experience, running from it won’t make it go away.

  It seemed the more I tried to push him away, the more Zach tried to get me to let him in. I just couldn’t figure out why.

  What’s more, I couldn’t figure out why part of me wanted to give in.

  I knew what happened when I did, when I believed a man who told me he cared about me. I knew the kind of heartbreak that came from being betrayed, from being lied to. And yet, I was still a slave to my emotions.

  I liked him.

  I shook my head as soon as the thought hit me, digging the heels of my hands into my eyes. “Ugh, you’re drunk, Gemma. Go to bed.”

  Speaking the words out loud seemed to make them true, and I took my own advice, peeling off my clothes and climbing under my sheets again with my head still spinning.

  I didn’t like Zach. I didn’t want to date him or anyone. There was a reason I agreed to Belle’s idea, to her plan for using my season tickets — because it was safe. It would be football, and fun, and making new friends without the possibility of having my heart — what was left of it, anyway — shattered again.

  And the bonus was having a little human contact, something I’d been missing, and something I could get without falling in love.

  Why did he have to be the one guy who wasn’t okay with banging me and leaving me alone? Any other man would have jumped for joy at the arrangement. But not Zach Bowen.

  I sighed, wincing against the headache that was already starting to pound through. Maybe it was residual from the one I’d had earlier, or maybe it was the tequila punishing me before I’d even had the chance to sleep. Regardless, I forced a calming breath and rolled onto my stomach, stretching out and focusing on what I could control.

  I can call him in the morning.

  I can apologize.

  I can explain that I was having a bad day, and that I didn’t mean to upset him.

  I’d messed up, but I could fix it.

  In the morning.

  When I was sober.

  Gemma

  I did not feel better in the morning.

  In fact, I did not feel better in the afternoon or the evening, either. It was the first time I’d called out of work in years.

  Luckily, I had a very forgiving, and very understanding boss — one who had witnessed the train wreck that was my life the night before.

  “How ya feeling over there, sport?”

  I groaned, putting Belle on speaker phone and dropping my phone on the bed before pulling the covers up over my shoulders. “Why are you yelling at me?”

  “I’m practically whispering. Are you still feeling that bad?”


  “Like I was beaten and thrown in a dumpster.”

  Belle clicked her tongue. “Well, tequila will do that.”

  “How is work? I’m sorry I didn’t make it in.”

  “Well, seeing as how it’s seven pm, work is over.”

  My eyes popped open, and I rolled, squinting at the decorative clock hanging on the opposite end of my room. “Oh, my God. It’s seven?”

  “You’re still in bed, aren’t you?”

  I didn’t answer, and Belle chuckled.

  “Work was fine. You’re the best assistant in this world and while I’m willing to admit that I’m insanely happy I don’t have to do this without you every day, I am proud to report that I made it through just fine on my own.”

  I smiled. Belle was one of the most sought-after interior designers in the city, offering everything from consulting and design to full furnishing and decorating. Since I’d never really wanted anything other than to have a family, I’d happily taken her up on her offer to be her assistant once her business started booming.

  After all, making plans, lists, keeping things organized? It was like getting paid to do what I loved to do, anyway.

  Besides, Carlo was the money maker in our family. He didn’t want me to have to worry about working, especially once we started talking about kids.

  My stomach twisted at that thought. I had cried so many nights during our marriage, wondering why it was taking so long for us to get pregnant. Now, I didn’t know if I was more devastated that I didn’t have a piece of him to keep here with me, a child of his to raise, or if it was a blessing in disguise.

  “I’m very proud of you,” I said through a yawn.

  “Wish I could say the same right now, bestie.” Belle sighed. “Talk to me. How are you feeling?”

  I pushed myself to sit up in bed, groaning as my muscles ached in protest. “Like a kite in a hurricane.” I sighed, picking at my nail polish. “I was actually okay with this plan, you know? I had it all figured out. And then my practice round turned out to be a big pain in my ass and threw everything out of whack. Now, I don’t have control of anything. I mean, the next home game is Sunday. I haven’t even found someone to go with.”