by Max Monroe
Maybe he’s actually going to let something go. Maybe I’m going to be able to have a good time. To enjoy myself and relax and forget my troubles of the last week for the night.
“Let’s just talk about one stripper. Trixie.”
Orrr I’m a sucker.
“Sean—”
“You got arrested for her, dude. No way in hell I’m letting this go.”
“I didn’t get arrested for her,” I corrected. “A guy grabbed her. I would have stepped up for anyone.”
He rolled his eyes. “You knocked that fucking guy out. I mean out cold, son. Seems like there was something a little more than protective instincts for an innocent woman kicking in there.”
“It wasn’t like that,” I lied.
“I heard she was the only lap dance you paid for yourself,” Six chimed in.
My eyes cut to Sean, and they, of course, were murderous. He laughed.
“What the fuck, dude? Is there not some kind of bro code at a bachelor party?”
Sean gaped and swung a finger back and forth between himself and Six. “We’re married. I tell her everything.”
“Fucking functional marriage,” I grumbled.
“Hey,” Six comforted. “It’ll happen for you one day. Maybe with Trixie.”
“I love you like a little sister, Six. But yeah, now would be the perfect time for you to shut up.”
The two of them cackled, and I counted back the minutes to when I’d first ordered the whiskey and pretended I’d been smart enough to go ahead and order another.
As it was, I downed the glass I had entirely.
“Aw, come on, man,” Sean soothed. “We’re just teasing. Scan the room and have a good time. There’s plenty of talent here tonight.”
I nodded, and he and Six slipped away, her giggle lingering long after they were gone.
The room was full of beautiful women, just like they’d said.
Unfortunately, they’d been a little too on the head of the nail with their teasing, and I couldn’t seem to shake it.
Even with all of the single, attractive fish in the wedding sea, I couldn’t take my mind off a certain stripper.
Loosening my tie with a soft tug, I stepped out the back doors onto the patio and kept going until my hips met the railing.
Wind and water and the distant sounds of the party and a bustling city were the only distractions as I lost myself in my thoughts.
Thoughts of a woman whose presence I could feel right then—that very moment—even though I didn’t even know her real name.
The sound of the sliding door opening and shutting behind me made me close my eyes and sigh.
I’d made my way out onto Uncle Joe’s balcony once everyone had finished dinner and settled into a game of Texas hold’em. While the men in my life argued over Buddy’s notorious cheating tactics, I stood outside, staring off into the distance and too lost in my thoughts to pay attention to the hoots and hollers that filtered out to me from the boisterous poker game.
My dad’s hand settled onto my back, gently, like always, and I turned into the comfort of it.
“Hey!” he snapped at the sight of the cigarette hanging from my mouth. “Give me that!” he ordered without waiting for me to obey.
Quick as a flash, his hand came out and snatched it right from between my lips.
I hadn’t even lit the damn thing, but hell had I been tempted.
“Dad!” I protested, but he broke the cig in half and tossed it behind him dramatically.
“You don’t even smoke, for shit’s sake.”
I shrugged childishly and admitted the truth. “They’re Joe’s. I found them on the table.” I jerked my head at the mostly full pack on the little round café table surrounded by two chairs in the corner of my uncle’s balcony, and my dad laughed.
“You’re even worse off than I thought, huh? Out here contemplating taking up smoking just because of a little teasing from some old men?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
My dad nodded then, pursing his lips and going silent like only he could do. Anthony Simone was a ballbuster and a tough guy and a real man in all the ways society qualified. But he was a thinker too. I’m talking deep, soul-searching thoughts I could only dream of mastering most of the time.
I wasn’t sure if it was losing my mom at such a young age and being faced with raising me on his own, or if he’d always been this way, but I was damn sure it meant something life-changing and enlightening was about to come out of his mouth.
I braced for the impact by studying the blaring lights and muted sounds of a party in the distance. Just across the channel, on this side of the Hudson, a celebration was in full swing at Liberty House. I’d never been there myself, but I’d watched from this balcony more than once as people enjoyed its abundant grounds. It seemed like there was something magical in the air there tonight.
“You ever think about settling down?” my dad murmured, leaning his arms into the railing and staring into the distance with me.
Threatening tears stung in my nose as I immediately thought of my mom—the one thing I always thought about when I tried to picture the future—and gripped the railing in my fists.
If my dad noticed, he didn’t say, and I was thankful for his mercy.
Because the truth was, I knew he’d noticed. I’d heard the stories. Back in his day, Detective Anthony Simone noticed everything.
Carefully, I shook my head in the negative and focused on the tiny dots of people as they mingled and separated in the distance.
They traveled in packs for the most part, grouping themselves into pockets of two or more people and only changing the dynamic to add more.
That was the nature of the party, I guessed, but what kind of room did that leave for people like me? People who ended up on their own and struggled to relate to the rest? People who hadn’t ever found a herd they wanted to belong to?
“You know, I used to be like you when I was younger. A real headstrong pissant, really.”
“Dad!”
“Don’t deny it, Lan. You don’t even have any close girlfriends.” He laughed. “Though, I guess maybe I have myself to blame for that.”
I turned to face him and pulled the blowing end of my ponytail out of my face. “What do you mean?”
He sighed and glanced at the table before pulling a chair over and gesturing for me to sit, and then doing the same for himself.
I glanced back to the party as he settled, studying the clusters of people once more. This time, however, I noticed the lone spot that’d been there all along. A man, completely indistinguishable in any way, stood with his back to the building and his eyes to the Hudson and the impressive city behind it. I wasn’t sure how I hadn’t noticed him before, a lone wolf amid the herds, but he’d been there all along.
“You know I tried to get you some girlfriends,” my dad started, pulling my attention away from the wolf and back to him. He’d settled into his chair and crossed his legs, so I did the same. “When you were young. That’s why I put you in gymnastics in the first place. Just for the gaggle of girls always running around.”
I laughed at my dad’s use of the word gaggle, and he smiled a self-deprecating smile.
“But even then, you were all about the sport. Focused. Driven. Too goddamn serious for most of ’em.”
I smiled softly as his face turned fond.
“I knew you were different after that, and I didn’t try again.” He shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe I should have kept trying. I stopped trying for myself, but I should have kept trying for you.”
I shook my head and reached out for his hand. “I’m happy, Dad. I know it might not seem like it sometimes, but I’m happy the way I am. And you are too. I don’t know how you were when you were younger, but you’re pretty great now. The best, really.”
The epiphany overwhelmed me as I sat there trying to convince my dad of the truth.
To convince him and myself that he didn’t need to count m
e out.
Maybe it wasn’t the right time just then, and maybe it wouldn’t be for the next five years, but I was still in this fight. I was still in this life.
I glanced to the man at Liberty House once more, and it all clicked into place. Two lone strangers, passing in the night, we’d both have someone beside us one day.
The time just wasn’t now.
“One day, I’ll find the rest of my pack. I’m just a lone wolf for now.”
One day, both that man in the distant shadows and I would find someone who fit.
“You know, Lan,” my dad said with a laugh, startling my attention away from the man once more and making my chest squeeze with just the look of his smile. “I haven’t got a goddamn clue what you’re talking about.”
I smiled then, too. “I know, Dad. But I do.”
He nodded and stood up from his chair without another word. He’d come, he’d asked, and somewhere in the nonsense of his conversation with me, he’d found what he was looking for.
And somewhere in the distant night of a waterfront Saturday night at Uncle Joe’s condo, I’d found what I was looking for too.
When I looked back again, the man was gone, but so were all my doubts.
Everything that was meant to happen in my life would work out in the end.
My biceps burned as I curled the two-hundred-and-fifty-pound bar for the tenth time. This was my third set of reps, and to say I’d practically shredded my muscles at this point would be an understatement.
“You working through some rage today or something, Mitchell?” Quinn asked as he wiped the sweat from his face with his towel. We’d all been working hard this off-season, but I was pushing it a little more than the others.
Today especially.
Truthfully, I’d been grinding hard ever since my run-in with Trixie, but after almost a full two weeks without seeing her, my adrenaline and the need to burn it off was at an all-time high. I didn’t want to get into the whys.
Reluctant or not, the whys found me.
Everywhere I looked, every thought I had, every moment I’d spent looking at happy couple after happy couple nearly a week ago at Quinn’s wedding, she’d been the one I’d seen.
Her sharp black hair. Her mysterious, innocent eyes. The petite but muscular build of her body.
All of it swirled and taunted me, challenging me to comprehend my overly aggressive initial reaction to her, and when that didn’t work, daring me to find a way to let her go.
It was like she haunted me—we’re talking full-on Ghostbusters demanding and séance inspiring—and the only way to exorcise her was to work twice—no, three times—as hard at being the very best tight end in the country.
At least, I hoped that would work.
Workouts, press junkets, goddamn personal errands for our director of marketing Georgia Brooks. Whatever kind of excuse I could find to be at the stadium lately, I’d found it.
Being that busy had to work. Right?
“Just trying to push myself,” I copped out, letting the bar slam to the mat halfway through my twelfth curl.
Quinn and Sean were two of my closest friends, and they were the best option for a sounding board I would find in a hundred-mile radius. With my family out of state and few friends or acquaintances outside of the team, my options other than the two of them were practically nonexistent.
And yet…something about talking to them about all this—about her—didn’t feel right. Maybe it was because it didn’t even make sense to me.
How do you explain something you don’t understand to someone else?
“Yeah, well, you’ve pushed enough. Save some of your testosterone for another day,” Sean chimed in, whipping my sore arm with a towel as he walked by.
I shot him the finger and stretched my tired arms as best I could before plopping down on the chest-press bench to take a quick rest before setting it up.
Male instinct and ego took over and filled the void left by the depletion of my energy. Peacocking came almost as naturally to a man as asking questions did to a woman.
Or so I’ve heard. I was pretty sure if my mom ever found out my dad had said that about her, I’d be digging a hole in the backyard to dispose of his body—at her command.
“My testosterone is abundant. I can use it today and tomorrow, and I can even use it next fucking week.”
Sean rolled his eyes at my posturing. The conversations we found ourselves in sometimes were some of the most absurd I’d engaged in. But somehow, in the group of us, it just worked.
“I plan to save mine,” Quinn quipped. “The honeymoon is officially in two days, and if it goes like I’m imagining, I’m going to need excess.”
I laughed. “Why’d you wait a week to leave? I thought the honeymoon thing usually happened, like, the day after the wedding.”
Quinn dropped his free weights to the ground beside his bench and shrugged. “It just worked better with our schedule. Cat was so busy stressing over making all of the wedding stuff go right, she needed a minute to gather herself before we left.”
I laughed again, harder this time. “She needed a vacation before your vacation? Shit, dude. No wonder I haven’t found anyone yet. Women are crazy.”
Sean nodded, but his smile was goofy and completely indulgent. He obviously didn’t mind the madness at all. “Just wait until it’s a pregnant woman. Then they get really crazy.”
“And what would you know about that?” Quinn scoffed.
Sean’s face was actually beaming. He was the happiest I’d ever seen him, and it hit me all at once. No wonder the fucker couldn’t wipe the shit-eating grin off his face to save his life.
“Holy shit, Sean! Is Six pregnant?”
Sean nodded. “She’s due in late January.”
“Fuck, man!” I boomed. It didn’t take much coaxing to get me excited for him. The man literally looked like he had everything he’d ever wanted in the whole world. “Congratulations!”
“Damn, Sean, when you finally bite the relationship bullet, you don’t waste any fucking time, do you?” Quinn asked before pulling him into a tight hug.
The mating pheromones were strong in two-thirds of the room this morning, and my single life was feeling lonelier than ever.
Nothing like a newlywed and a dad-to-be to really give you some perspective on how few relationship milestones you had going on in your own life.
The last time I’d felt this distinctly alone had been the night of Quinn’s wedding. Standing out on that patio, staring into the distance while the party carried on around me, I’d longed. For something out there. For someone out there.
Half of me wondered if that was why I’d had such a hard time letting go of Trixie.
We spent the next ten minutes backslapping and spitballing, and the workout kind of wound down on its own. Neither of them was focused on the weights anymore, and I couldn’t blame them. They had some major shit going down in their lives, and celebration of the occasions deserved a little hemming and hawing.
Still, my place in the powwow faded as they moved on to commiseration and comparing, and I excused myself to the locker room without much commotion.
Honeymoons and babies.
Both required a woman.
A key ingredient I didn’t have.
After a quick shower and towel-off, I made my way back over to my locker and sat down on the bench to scroll through my new phone.
Repair hadn’t really been an option after Lucky’s last incident, and you’d be surprised how many things in life require your phone.
I was out a thousand dollars for the replacement, but at least I had a connection to my life again.
I told myself I just wanted to check in on social media, see how much of a reaction the Instagram post about my old phone had gotten. But somehow, I found myself on Google looking up the fucking phone number for Skins.
Obviously, she wouldn’t be at work this early, but that little detail couldn’t stop my compulsion.
Before I had the c
hance to overthink it, I clicked the number and dialed, the ringing in my ear a harsh dose of reality.
Am I really calling the fucking strip club—for a second time—to check in on a stripper I met one time?
I might be losing my mind.
I was poised to hang up when the ringing stopped and a husky man answered.
“Skins,” he greeted. I closed my eyes and shook my head at myself.
What I didn’t do was hang up.
“Yeah, um, hi. I was just calling to find out if Trixie was working tonight.”
Wow, Cam. You are an idiot.
“Yeah, she’ll be here. Come on down and check her out,” the guy said easily, like this was the kind of call they got all the time.
And fuck, maybe they did. I wasn’t in the habit of calling a fucking strip club to check on who was working, but I guessed other people might do it all the time.
Jesus. Who am I?
Not knowing what to say, I just hung up. I wouldn’t say it was my most courageous moment of manhood, but I didn’t think how you handled a call to the strip club was really the kind of occasion to be splitting hairs.
“Ugh,” I groaned to myself, slamming the phone in the bag and standing up to dig my clothes from the pile I’d tossed into my locker.
The sound of a throat clearing startled me into turning around.
Across the room, a young—had to be early twenties—tall guy I didn’t recognize with a five-o’clock shadow jerked up his chin.
“Hey,” I said cautiously. “Can I help you?”
The locker rooms weren’t exactly open-access, and I didn’t know who the fuck this guy was. If he turned out to be someone important, I’d roll out the red carpet retroactively, but for now, he got the Cam who didn’t give a fuck.
“Cam Mitchell, right?” he asked.
I jerked up my chin but didn’t soften my jaw as I questioned, “Are you lost?”
“Oh,” he muttered through a chuckle. “Thought maybe you knew who I was. Leo Landry. New cornerback this year. I just thought I’d check out the locker room while I was here.”
Ah, so this is the guy Mr. L was talking about.
“Oh, okay. I’ve heard the name before.”