Tiebreaker

by P. Dangelico

  He sighs deeply. “’Bout seven years.”

  “You haven’t been with a woman in seven years…in any way?” I repeat out loud, more for my sake, to confirm I’m not hearing things because…seven years…come on, let’s be honest, for a guy it might as well equal a century. “That’s like…a lot of days.”

  Tipping his head back, he aims a burst of sad laughter at the ceiling. “I know. I tried to move on after you left. I won’t lie…I tried.”

  “Crystal?” I croak. I’m dangling on a high wire with no parachute, my heart racing.

  Don’tsayyesdon’tsayyesdon’tsayyes.

  “No,” he replies, the word sharp and decisive. “Nobody you know.”

  The tension in my chest dissolves and I take a much-needed deep breath. My gaze drops to the ink over his heart, the ink that spells my name. It’s still a shock to see it there. In the privacy of my mind I go cavewoman, beating my chest and roaring at the sky.

  I know it shouldn’t matter. I’ve been in a relationship for most of the time he’s been celibate. And yet, had it been Crystal I am not too proud to admit that it would have driven a stake through my heart.

  “And?”

  “It felt wrong.”

  My throat gets strangely warm. The feeling spreads to my chest. It bleeds into a double dose of satisfaction, which slowly morphs into elation. I grin so broadly it almost breaks my face in two.

  The brush of my hand up and down his abs makes them contract. He shivers. “Let’s stop wasting time then.”

  He watches me grab his shaft, stroke the head with my thumb, and lead him between my legs. Exhaling harshly, he flexes his hips while I hook one, then the other leg around his waist. And as he sinks into me, taking his time with sweet tenderness, it drives tears from my eyes.

  Awe and wonder stare down at me as he moves in and out in slow, deep pumps. Noah has always been a physical person, in command of his body down to the smallest movements. It’s no wonder he was such an amazing athlete. Except now there’s something more in the way he touches me, makes love. Every movement is suffused with understanding, with the knowledge of how precious this is.

  This being us––the unspoken understanding between our bodies, moving with unpracticed perfection, both of us so present in the moment that nothing else exists. This, I remember.

  It’s so good with him. It always was.

  He grips the armrest above my head for leverage, his hips thrusting with enough force to move the couch across the oak floor. His lips move, speaking quiet words, barely audible. They get under my skin and curl around my black and blue heart.

  “Are you with me?”

  “Yes,” I whisper back, meaning it in more ways than one.

  He grinds the base of his dick against me and a beat later I’m coming, shuddering, pleasure zipping along my muscles. His name torn from my throat, my short nails digging into the divots of his gorgeous ass. My body contracts around his and with a hoarse shout, he comes too.

  Breathing harshly, he collapses back into my arms. I kiss his sweaty neck, the side of his head. Anything my lips can reach while I’m pinned beneath his dead weight gets kissed.

  “How do you feel?” I whisper a time later.

  “Like I just popped my cherry.”

  He laughs again. Not so rusty this time. Still the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard.

  * * *

  After we christened the couch, we decided to do a fuck tour of the rest of the house. The kitchen counters were blessed after making turkey sandwiches because as Noah wisely pointed out, “If you’re not starvin’ after sex, you ain’t doin’ it right.”

  The shower in his master bathroom saw some action. So did the stairs. Eventually, we made it to his king-size bed, where we’ve been ever since.

  “Why didn’t you come find me…explain what happened?”

  Up on an elbow, he looks down at me with the relaxed look of a man who’s been industriously making up for lost time.

  “And say what?” His fingers patiently explore every curve, every peak and valley of my body. They briefly take my attention with them. “Sorry I made a fool of you in front of the entire town, but I did it for your own good?” He gives me a quick headshake. “I was goin’ nowhere.”

  I stop his hand when it reaches my heart and curl my fingers around his.

  Staring where they rest, he says, “It took me a long time to figure out who I was after football and you had the world at your feet.” He exhales loudly, the sound hopeless, as if he’d thought about it a million times and still couldn’t reconcile those two facts. “You were doing well. You looked…happy.” His unwavering gaze locks onto mine and won’t let me go. “Someone once told me, when you love someone, really love them, you do what’s best for them. Even if it means what’s worst for you.”

  What a beautiful idiot. He actually believes it. He actually believes I was better off without him.

  “That’s beautiful––and stupid. I wasn’t happy, not really. There was always something missing. You weren’t only punishing yourself, you were punishing the both of us.”

  It’s not an accusation. It’s a fact told without animosity. I’m all out of anger––not a drop left. All that’s left is the sad realization that we both stumbled through the last decade without really living.

  “I used to look for you in the stands,” I admit. Too many things left unsaid caused a lot of unnecessary heartache in the past and I don’t intend to do a repeat of that horrible experience. Seen that movie, don’t like how it ends. “One time I even thought I saw you.”

  He gives me a long look filled with sympathy and understanding.

  “I used to imagine you watching me, cheering me on.” My voice cracks, the floodgates opening wide. I quickly wipe away the tears streaking down my temple and he helps. “I meant it when I said those wins weren’t nearly as sweet.”

  He moves on top of me, settles between my legs. Instinctively, my hips press up.

  “I was cheering you on.” In one smooth motion he buries himself to the root and stills. “I’ll be in your corner for the rest of my life––no matter what.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Noah

  Sometimes, to save the one you love, you have to break their heart. It didn’t make sense to me at the time. Truthfully, it sounded ass backward and I’ve always been a straightforward guy. Fight for your country, respect your parents, help those less fortunate, and love one woman. Life seemed pretty simple to me.

  It took me a decade to realize that life is all kinds of fucked up shades of right and wrong. After my dream of playing professional football ended, my life spiraled out of control pretty quickly.

  Maren tried to help pull me out of the depression I was sinking into. Dane and Jermaine did their best––they all did. But I didn’t want to be helped. My friends were on their way to becoming superstars. Dane was drafted by the NY Gladiators. Jermaine by the Kansas City Chiefs. And I was back home, living in an empty house with no prospects and no plan b.

  After a particularly heavy night of drinking I found myself at Rowdy’s around closing time. I was passed out in a corner booth when I felt a big calloused hand slap me awake. I forced my swollen eyes open to find Ronald sitting across from me, expression grim.

  Rowdy was practically family to me, a rock after my parents died. Someone I could lean on. He made all the arrangements for the funeral while I was still in the hospital. I owed that man. I loved that man. I would’ve done anything for him no questions asked.

  Hunched over in the booth as he was, he still looked as big as a mountain. His mere physical presence alone was enough to make anyone sit up straight and pay attention. With his elbows resting on the table, he laced his hands together and simply stared, those bright blue eyes burning through me. He had a way of looking at you like he was peeling back your skin to examine your true intentions.

  “You know I love you like a son.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I didn’t know why I was apologiz
ing, but I had the wherewithal to know I should be apologizing for something.

  “You’ve had a tough couple of years. I know it hasn’t been easy.”

  “I’ll cut back on the drinking,” I promised him and I meant it. Like I said, I would’ve done anything he’d asked of me.

  Picking my head up off my hands, I sat back and dragged them over my face.

  “That’s not what this is about. Everybody goin’ through something has got to find their own bottom. You don’t find it, it finds you later. But I’m guessin’ it’s gonna take you awhile.”

  In the pause my heart began to race. The puzzle was slowly coming together, even as my brain swam in whiskey. I could almost hear Rowdy’s next words as if I’d written the script myself.

  “My granddaughter is meant for greatness. She’s worked hard for it. She’s earned it. Let her have it.”

  “I love her. I would never––”

  He held up a big hand, fingers crooked and disfigured from arthritis and the countless injuries he’d sustained in his career. “She loves you more than anything. And I know that girl, she’ll give you everything––” His voice was low and steady. I got the sense he was cherry picking his words, trying to be as gentle as he could with me. His eyes drilled into mine as he continued. “Everything that isn’t yours to have, she’ll give it.”

  “I wouldn’t,” I rushed to reassure him, the cinderblock sitting on my chest making my voice reed thin. I knew Maren meant the world to him and I needed him to know it was the same for me. She was my world. My everything. Without her, I would’ve spun off the planet to be lost forever.

  “She’ll give it to you anyway.”

  The truth of it hit me like a wrecking ball. I’d heard Maren speaking on the phone with her coach, arguing about whether she should transfer to UCLA. I knew she would never leave me. Not willingly.

  Face wet. Eyes stinging. I stayed quiet and let him deal the last blow.

  “You’re gonna drag her down with you and you’ll end up losing her anyway…Let her go. Let her have her greatness. You’ll find each other again. Later…later you’ll get the best of her.”

  I was nodding, crying like a fucking baby by the time he finished.

  “When you love someone you do right by them––even when it’s wrong for you,” he said as he slid out of the booth.

  When I crawled into bed that night and wrapped my arms around her, pressed my body against hers, I knew what I had to do. Maren snuggled closer and as the words left my lips I knew they were a lie. “Promise me we’ll never be strangers.”

  Half asleep, she curved her hand around my neck and nodded. “Hmm.”

  “Promise me.”

  Eyes closed, she whispered in the dark, “I promise.”

  * * *

  Maren

  We are two people playing catch-up, cramming ten years of hot, vigorous lovemaking into weeks. Days pass in a blur of naked Jenga. Noah still has a business to run so we eventually leave his bed. At Rowdy’s, he finds the flimsiest excuses to call me to his office. I get to know the couch in there pretty well.

  We workout together in the gym and when I finish before he does, because I can’t lift with my cast, I make excuses to hang around and watch him.

  We get on his bike and ride and ride and ride. I tell him I feel guilty for not training harder, and he kisses me until I don’t remember why I feel guilty in the first place. He takes me to a little out-of-the-way Mexican restaurant he and Knox discovered and we eat too much and talk about traveling, his business, how I’m considering taking a year off from the circuit. Every night in bed, I sleep with his arms wrapped around me like steel bands and before he falls asleep he presses his mouth to the back of my neck.

  “Come on, I wanna show you something,” he tells me. After spending all day by the pool, night has fallen and so has the temperature.

  Snuggling closer to him on the lounge chair we’re sharing, I cry mercy. “Let’s stay here. I’m getting cold.” He rubs my back, chasing it away with his big warm hands.

  “You want to see this, trust me.” Looking up into Noah’s smile, full of mischief and promise, I know I can’t say no to this man.

  He takes my hand, pulls me up, and guides me to a spiral staircase. We climb up to a small patio adjacent to the roof, its only occupant a doublewide lounge chair.

  “What’s this? Your little love nest? If you brought other girls up here––”

  Noah falls backward onto it, taking me with him. I land hard on his chest and he lets out an, “Oomph,” and laughs, then tickles me. My cast presses awkwardly against his thigh and he grunts loudly.

  “Jesus––leave the good parts out of this, baby.”

  I pet his booboo and promise to make it better later. Our mutual laughter slowly fades and he cups the back of my head, fingers digging into my hair, and kisses me. Really kisses me. Full of tongue and teeth and passion, it’s hot enough to snuff out whatever else I was about to say.

  It still seems surreal. Not because it all feels exactly the same as it did the last time around but because it doesn’t.

  There are shades to him, nuances, where none existed before. His confidence is now rounded out by a deep-seated humility that was earned the hard way. There’s thoughtfulness where there was once only brash instinct and a desire to chase the thrill at any cost.

  This Noah is a thousand times more dangerous to my heart than the younger one ever was.

  He pulls away and stares, his expression too intense for it to be casual. We’re on the precipice of something big…and we both know it.

  “Look up.” He jerks his chin toward the sky and tucks a hand beneath his head, his bicep bulging.

  Turning onto my back, I snuggle into the nook between his chest and arm and what I see makes me hum in appreciation. No pollution, no clouds to mask the beauty. The night sky is filled with stars. An endless amount of stars.

  “I forgot about this,” I murmur, caught up in the magic of it.

  And so much more. It’s been coming back a little at a time. Block parties and Fourth of July fireworks at Memorial Park. Saturday football at OU and whiskey-colored smiling eyes, daring me to try the calf fries, cheering me on at my matches, promising to love me forever. Just some of the memories I packed away when I decided to leave my past behind. Never lost. Only forgotten.

  “I sleep out here when I can…It makes me feel closer to you.”

  My emotions are suddenly walking a tightrope, one wobble in either direction and I’m dead meat.

  He turns and his eyes filled with a bottomless reserve of feeling move over my face. “Maren…can you to forgive me?”

  I think about what my mother said––about the heavy burden of guilt and what it does to a person. And I can see it in his eyes. I can see it weighing on him and I know that I don’t want him to carry it for a minute longer. And my father was right. My resentment had been hurting me as much as it has him. It’s been keeping me in a place I don’t want to be––trapped in the past.

  The wobble starts, emotions swinging left and right. It’s too late to double back. I’m too far gone to save myself. I’m falling hard for him again and I refuse to be a coward about it for a minute longer. I’m ready to face my fate head on.

  “I forgive you,” I murmur. “No more looking back.” And I mean it down to the bone, my voice resonating with the truth of it.

  The shadows in his eyes disappear––along with our past, the scorecard I’ve held onto so tightly. All the little nicks and bruises we’ve inflicted on each other over the years. All the broken promises and disappointed hopes dissolve under the power of those words. A fresh start, free of conditions, is the only way forward––and likely the last chance we have to get it right.

  Clothes go flying. My shirt winds up hanging precariously on the railing. His t-shirt falls into the pool below. Shorts and underwear meet a similar fate. And as he’s sliding home, thrusting up with enough force to make the heavy chair squeak, he says, “I love you…I lo
ve you so much.”

  I’m free-falling. All I can do is pray the landing is soft.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Maren

  Forgiveness doesn’t happen instantly. You don’t wake up one day and wipe away a decade’s worth of hard feelings simply because you’ve decided to grant it. And you can’t force it either. You have to acclimate to it slowly. Like getting into a hot bath. It takes time before it starts to feel good.

  In the weeks that follow I let go of what remains of the resentment I’d stored up against Noah a little at a time. Until feeling good becomes the new normal. And in return, Noah gives me back a little more of what he took all those years ago, restoring the best parts of us and leaving the rest behind.

  The bronze statue of Rowdy and Goliath is finally ready to be delivered, albeit three weeks behind schedule. The ceremony is set for the end of the week. We have yet to talk about me going back to London. Technically, once the statue of Rowdy is unveiled, there will no longer be a legit reason to stay. I have a strict routine to get back to, a new coach and trainer to hire…career goals to accomplish. None of that has changed. Problem is, the thought of leaving him digs a hole in my gut and as one day rolls into another and we get closer to the unveiling that hole keeps getting bigger.

  “Miss Murphy!”

  I’m at the supermarket, loading groceries in the truck when I hear someone calling me. Glancing around, I discover Tim Walters waving at me.

  “Just the person I wanted to see,” he says, trotting over.

  “How was your trip, Mr. Walters?”

  “Terrible. All I caught was a stomach bug.” He waves a hand, dismissing it. “I was supposed to give you this at the unveiling but as you well know it’s been delayed.” He hands me a manila envelope. Speechless, I stare at it in my hand.

  “Ronald was adamant that you get this at the end,” Walters continues. “Have a good day, Miss Murphy.” And with that, he walks away.