One Step Away (A Bedford Falls Novel Book 1)

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One Step Away (A Bedford Falls Novel Book 1) Page 7

by Sydney Bristow


  Marisa couldn’t help but laugh out loud. She had no idea what Lauren had in mind, and she had no interest in finding out. But she wasn’t threatened by the comment because Lauren would never leave her seven-year relationship; although unmarried, she and Denny owned a home together and offset each other’s extreme attitudes and opinions, which seemed to work for them. Besides, Marisa had known her friend long enough to realize that she would never find the backbone, or the interest, in staging such a wicked seduction.

  “Congratulations on the promotion,” Lauren said with actual enthusiasm, which she used all day at the flowers shop she owned and operated. “How does it feel?”

  Marisa’s thoughts diverted to Alexander. If he hadn’t opted out of interviewing, would she have still gotten the job? It reminded her that two weeks from now, she would no longer see him every day. While they currently worked on different floors, they met for lunch daily. She didn’t realize how much she needed his presence, his quirky jokes, and his unwavering belief in her. Then she recalled their unexpected conversation this afternoon outside Lance Albrecht’s office, and she felt nauseous.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m glad, but—Alexander got a new job. He’s going to be the new director at Vista Heights.”

  “Oh. Well, maybe that’s a good thing. It gives you both a chance to move on.”

  “What do you mean?” Marisa asked, surprised by the resentment in her voice.

  “Nothing,” Lauren said, scrambling for an explanation. “It’s just…I always felt that he kind of had a thing for you.”

  Another spasm rippled through Marisa’s stomach. But Lauren’s remark explained why she would never give up on their friendship: Marisa counted on her friend to say the things that she couldn’t or wouldn’t admit to herself, even if she did so at the most inopportune times. After all, Lauren had known—and liked Alexander—for as long as she had known him.

  “I could tell you never wanted to admit it,” Lauren said. “So now that we’re talking, how do you feel about that?”

  “Like I’m going to be sick.”

  Lauren, who now looked like she had secretly wanted them to get together, lowered her gaze. “Only not love-sick?”

  Marisa shook her head, dejected.

  “What happened?” asked Lauren, picking up on the unsaid.

  Marisa sighed. “He told me he loved me.” Tears filled her eyes. “I didn’t know what to say, except that workplace romances are a terrible idea and that I didn’t want to lose his friendship. But he’s hurting right now. And it’s my fault. And I can’t help him get through this.” She paused. “Isn’t that what best friends are for?” Then, after a few seconds of silence, she looked up at Lauren to see her discouraged expression. “Oh, I didn’t mean that you weren’t also—”

  Lauren broke into a rare smile. “You two were always closer than we ever were.” But melancholy gripped her. “You two have this thing…whenever you’re together, you’re on the same frequency. And no matter how hard anyone else tries to get the same reception with you, they can never find the same signal.”

  Marisa felt so touched that Lauren wanted to have a closer relationship that she pulled her into an embrace.

  “Wow,” Lauren said in a dry tone, “uncomfortably intimate much?”

  “Shush,” Marisa said, releasing her.

  “What are you going to do? About Alexander?”

  Now that he had shaken the core of their relationship, Marisa couldn’t pretend that it had never happened. She’d never disrespect his feelings like that. But what could she say? Should she wait for him to bring it up? And if so, how much should she say? She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but there didn’t seem to be a way around it.

  Once more, indignation roiled inside her because, in a sense, Alexander had hijacked her best friend. Her abdomen clenched tighter. “What should I do?”

  “You have to talk about it,” Lauren said. “You can’t get around it. If you value his friendship, you have to be firm and direct. You can’t leave any room for misinterpretation. You have to tell him that he is your best friend. And nothing more.”

  If she did that, Marisa couldn’t predict how Alexander would react. And that worried her. After all, if she couldn’t call upon her intuition to guide her this time, how could she claim to know him as well as she thought? It reminded her of her own mother’s indifference to relationships.

  “But…” Lauren said, leaving the sentence unfinished.

  “What?”

  “If you tell him the truth, and you should, you have to be prepared for the fallout. That you’ll lose his friendship.”

  *

  After Brad excused himself from Marisa and Lauren, he made his way toward Alexander, the ever-present grin pricking his lips upward.

  “What a hideous smile,” Damon said with genuine fright. “You know this dude? Is he hoping to play Joker in the next Batman flick? Jesus. I’m going to hit the john.”

  Brad was a heavy metal enthusiast who wore tattoos of Eddie, the skeletal-like mascot of the group Iron Maiden, on muscular biceps that peeked out from under his navy blue polo. He spent as much time in the gym working on his physique as he spent angling to beat the market with the actively traded mutual fund portfolios he managed for one of the largest brokerage companies in the country. A belt consisting of bullets, which exposed his desire to return to the 1980s metal scene, secured an expensive pair of blue jeans. Deeply tanned with clear blue eyes that met every person with a cheery smile, he had flecks of silver at the temples of his slicked-back brown hair, the only trait that convinced others he’d recently turned forty.

  Having one day caught Alexander gazing at Marisa with more than just friendship in mind, Brad confronted the situation by ridiculing him in private, stating that Marisa would never consider him as a potential boyfriend. Since then, whenever they crossed paths, Brad took great pleasure in tapping around the issue by pretending that Alexander took home a different woman each night.

  Brad stopped next to Alexander at the bar, leaning his back against the counter so he could watch the customers standing around the tables spread out before them. “Alexander the Great,” he said. Because Iron Maiden had performed a song named after the world famous conqueror, Brad found it essential to repeat the title each time they met, which served as the only positive remark he’d ever made in Alexander’s presence.

  “See any beauties?” asked Brad, eyeing a brunette with a huge rack. “Anyone you want to take home?” He chuckled. “I can put in a good word. Help you get laid. How long has it been, anyway? A decade?” He laughed again, a hollow sound that reverberated with the same pitch and pattern each time he found something funny. “Two decades?” He shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t know how you do it. I’d bust. I’d literally bust.”

  “Really,” asked Alexander with a smirk. “How would that look, you busting? And busting what? A move? Your balls? What would you bust, since you said it’s literal?”

  “What do you mean?” Brad asked, realizing that Alexander had insulted him, but unsure exactly how or in what way.

  “Amazing. How do you process a thought with no brain activity? How does that work?”

  Brad pushed off the bar and turned toward Alexander, glaring down at him, winding back his arm, prepared to launch a vicious assault. “You’re insulting me?”

  “I guess not, since you’re questioning it.” Alexander’s sarcasm had gotten him into similar jams throughout this life, but he always relied on his quick wit to bail him out and it never let him down. To avoid watching Brad’s right fist smash into the eye, he decided to divert the man’s attention. “It must bother you to always say ‘Alexander the Great’ each time we meet. Why don’t you come up with something that rhymes with it? You should try something true and original. How about ‘Alexander, I hate’?”

  “Hmmm,” he grunted, grasping his chin as though doing so induced deep thought. “I like that one: Alexander, I hate.”

  “But
see, you can’t use an insult I created for you.”

  Brad stroked his chin with greater intensity. “Right. Something true. Something original.”

  To avoid laughing in his face, Alexander said, “How are your funds doing for your clients?” Brad had come to the irrational conclusion that his market “intellect,” and constant need to be the center of attention, would one day earn him a featured role on CNBC, the premier cable channel that focused on the stock market.

  Brad’s wicked grin returned, glad to reflect on his favorite subject. “It’s insanity. With the market wavering all over the place, my clients aren’t expecting miracles. How about you?”

  “I’m just waiting for the price of gold to go down, so I can buy some for my portfolio.”

  Sneering and giving Alexander a dubious sideways glance, Brad said, “Gold is a sucker’s bet.”

  “Over the past decade, the stock market has produced a goose egg for most people. In that time, gold is up over 300 percent.”

  “Because it was in the basement. The price had nowhere to go but up.”

  “In the first decade of the 2010s, the U.S., China, Japan, and central banks around the world created money like they fear their printing presses will break. And if Europe and the U.S. don’t pay off their debt, we’re headed for some serious inflation.”

  “That’s all speculation.”

  “No, that’s backed by historical fact.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “If you print money, you are reducing the value of the currency in circulation. Unless the Fed recalls those hundreds of billions of dollars, we’re going to see prices rise across the board. China is buying fewer T-bills and buying gold instead. So is India, Russia, Brazil. If you believe the crap your company keeps shoveling to your clients, don’t say I didn’t warn you. A few years from now—”

  Brad broke into a fit of laughter, but a lopsided grin took the place of his confident smirk. “A few years from now? Who knows what will happen a few years from now. A few years from now, I’ll be married to Marisa.”

  Until now, Brad had always alluded to the fact that Alexander would never find his way into Marisa’s heart. Not confronting this fact only increased the potency of dancing around the subject. But because Alexander had used evidence to prove his point, which Brad interpreted as a direct threat to his belief system, not to mention his career, he disregarded the frivolous banter and scored a direct hit by drudging up Alexander’s unrequited feelings for Marisa. Since a guy can always tell if another man is attracted to the woman he’s seeing, he decided to trample his hopes.

  “This is a discussion,” Alexander said, “But what I stated are facts. And here’s another one: Marisa will never marry you.”

  “Really,” Brad said, moving in closer. “Why’s that? You going to steal her from me?” He stopped just inches from Alexander, bearing down on him, nostrils flaring. “That what you’re telling me?” The tattoos of the Iron Maiden mascot, Eddie, flexed on both biceps. His ghastly skeletal smile widened, as though excited at the prospect of causing Alexander serious harm. Brad sized him up, smirking as though he needed only five seconds with Alexander before claiming victory. “You think you’re man enough?”

  The time for sarcasm had passed. Seeing anger replace Brad’s usual smug expression triggered a warning siren in Alexander’s brain. Staring up at a bigger, stronger opponent, he didn’t blink, didn’t give the slightest indication that he wanted anything less than to resort to fisticuffs. Of course, he’d prefer to handle this situation like a gentleman. But apparently, the balled up fists in his pockets didn’t agree with that solution. After all, every impulse told him to comply with Brad’s request and let violence end their dispute.

  Then the past rushed back to him: all the damage; all the pain; all the blood he’d spilled, and all the screams in the background because of his violent actions. But this evidence served as mere precursors to the real torment Alexander suffered from: constant self-doubt and countless nightmares, resulting in endless indecision that affected every relationship and every conversation for years after that pivotal moment. Even now, two decades removed from that childhood fight, one where he beat a kid unconscious, he nearly flinched from the memories. Then another thought saved him from considering the past…

  If he gave in to Brad’s preferred method of conflict resolution, how would Marisa react?

  Would she would rush over to Brad (after all, he was her date tonight) and console him, while admonishing Alexander for pummeling him? On the other hand, if Brad won, would Marisa be angry at him? It seemed that, no matter how he responded, he couldn’t win.

  Brad, however, wouldn’t face such dubious distinction, unless he started the fight, which explained why he baited Alexander to throw the first punch. After all, battling a smaller opponent wouldn’t win Marisa over. But if Alexander engaged him in conflict, Brad could justify his actions by saying that he needed to protect himself. So no matter what Alexander did, he would come out looking like a loser.

  Brad smirked as he stepped closer. “You think you’re man enough? Huh?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “I didn’t expect to see that,” Lauren said, shock registering on her face.

  Marisa followed her gaze. And saw Brad staring down at Alexander, pulling back his right arm, preparing to launch it. “My God.” Without a second thought, she hurried in their direction.

  “Wait,” Lauren said, grasping her arm and pulling her to a stop. “You can’t get in the middle of that.”

  Marisa couldn’t keep her eyes off the standoff 60 feet away. “But…” She tried to throw off Lauren’s hand, but her friend’s vice-like grip thwarted that outcome. She pounded on Lauren’s wrist, but she still couldn’t unclamp her hand. “Let go.”

  Lauren tugged like a person holding a dog leash, only to have her pet chase after a squirrel without warning. She regained her footing a couple seconds later and stomped her feet into the ground, holding Marisa stable.

  Seven or eight women at a few nearby tables noticed the altercation and perked up.

  “Alexander will never forgive you,” Lauren said, “if you get in between them.”

  That statement cut through the anxiety in Marisa’s mind, convincing her to halt all movement. Lauren’s argument made sense: if she got in between both men, Alexander would accuse her of coming to his rescue, in essence calling him a coward.

  Seven or eight women at a table nearby directed their attention in the direction Marisa had headed. One of them, a woman with radiant hair the color of a summer sunset, grasped the long silver necklace lying against bosoms that threatened to bust loose from her tight sweater. “A fight. So cool. I’m betting on the dude with the cool ink.” Her red lips grinned as she turned to her three friends. “Any takers.”

  Marisa also presumed that Brad would pound Alexander into a pulp, but she felt the need to stick up for her best friend. She strode toward the big-chested woman. “I’ll take that bet. Fifty bucks says you’re wrong.”

  “Really? Done.” She turned to Brad and Alexander. “Oh, wait,” she said, annoyed. “Is this just a staring contest? To see who blinks first? How pathetic. Two grown men. One daring the other to throw the first punch. The other too afraid to do anything.” She turned to Marisa. “My bet is void if they fight dirty. Agreed? I mean that’s the only way your little guy is going to win.”

  Marisa, no longer eager to simply prove this woman wrong, took umbrage to the woman calling Alexander her “little guy.” She closed the distance between them. “You’re going to get hurt if you keep running your mouth.” She glanced at the three women at the table beside her, who looked like they’d pull hair and gouge eyeballs if the situation called for it. For whatever reason, Marisa actually sought to relieve her tension by getting violent. But why? Because Alexander would have done the same thing for her? Or because best friends demanded full-support without question? The reason didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she had his back. And she always would.

>   “Come on,” Lauren said. “This is just a friendly wager. No physical contact, ladies.”

  “Hello stranger!” said a buxom blond in the group, obviously distracted by something other than the potential fight. “Who’s Mr. Yummy?”

  A handsome man who seemed too smooth, as if he had studied how to walk and how to cast a severe look from a book, walked toward Brad with a dangerous glare, giving Marisa the impression that he would somehow end the quarrel before it even began. And while she hoped for that outcome, she sensed that this man wasn’t a bouncer, which only left one other possibility, considering that he came straight from the restroom and didn’t gesture to anyone on his way toward Brad: he was Alexander’s friend. For that reason alone, she lowered her defenses, curious at how the situation before her would play out.

  *

  “What’s going on?” Damon asked, stepping between both men to grab a fistful of peanuts from a bowl on the countertop of the bar. He remained where he stood and met Brad eye to eye as he popped a few peanuts in his mouth. Then his face twisted in disgust. “I hate Macadamia nuts.” He lifted his eyebrows at Brad. “I suggest you move. Before I spit these in your face.”

  Alexander removed his fists from his pockets.

  Brad, unwilling to take his eyes off Alexander, held his gaze for a few more seconds then stepped aside. Something on the floor caught his attention and he knelt down to inspect it before rising and walking back towards Marisa.

  Alexander felt fortunate not to have gotten into a physical altercation; he remembered all too clearly that fight he was involved in so many years ago. He had stood up to a bully and handed him a one-sided punishment, and no one had ever threatened him again. But in doing so he had ostracized himself.

  Suspecting that others might fear him enough to avoid him altogether, Alexander developed a quick-wit to encourage others to include him in conversations. But it didn’t work. Because so many people had heard about the fight and how he’d hospitalized another kid with a broken nose and a cracked rib, they regarded his self-admonishing behavior as an act.

 

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