No White Knight

by Angel Payne

  “The waitress asked if we wanted dessert, but I figured you were probably too full.” He went for small talk to gauge the temperature of my mood.

  “Good call. I don’t think I could eat another bite.” I played along with the niceties.

  “Do you want some coffee, dear?” Mac’s mom asked.

  “No, I have to work in the morning, and if I have caffeine after a certain hour, I don’t sleep well.”

  “Oh, Mac knows you very well, then.” She smiled at me, so fucking fake I wanted to puke.

  “I told her the same thing,” he explained off to the side. I wasn’t impressed with the small detail he’d gotten right about me after the way he’d just let her speak to me for the better portion of the night.

  As far as I was concerned, the check couldn’t come soon enough.

  “So, Taylor, where did you go to school?”

  “I’m from Georgia, originally. I finished school here in San Diego, though.” I knew she meant college, but I was trying to dodge the question. I only had an Associate’s Degree in business, and it was always a sore subject for me.

  “Did you go to a state school or one of the private schools? There are so many fine schools here in the area.”

  She wasn’t going to stop until she got the down and dirty. I just needed to rip the Band-Aid clean off. “I went to San Diego City College, right in downtown San Diego. It’s a junior college, where I got a two-year degree in business admin. It’s all I could afford because my mother was in and out of jail a lot around that time and I had to work as well as go to school.”

  Oh. She was horrified, and it was priceless. “I see.”

  No, she really didn’t, but it felt good to leave her speechless. That’s right, lady, no fucking debutante balls for this one.

  “I’d really like to go home now. If you aren’t ready to leave, I’d be happy to call an Uber.”

  “No, I’ll take you, babe. Let me just settle the check, okay?”

  “I can handle the bill, Maclain.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re my guest, Mother.”

  “I’ll go have your car brought around. Can you please give me the valet ticket?”

  When I stood up, Mac and his mother did the same. “It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Stone. I hope you enjoy your visit to San Diego. There are so many great things to do and see in ‘America’s Finest City.’” I made air quotes around San Diego’s nickname. When Constance went to hug me, I put out my hand to shake hers. I had no interest in pretending we were close enough to hug each other.

  “Have a safe trip home tonight, dear.”

  “Thank you. Mac is an extraordinary driver. But I’m sure you know that. Good night.”

  My feet could not carry me fast enough to the valet stand, where I handed the young guy the ticket. He grinned and took off at a jog to fetch Mac’s car. I hoped Mac was out here by the time he came around with it, because, I realized, I didn’t have any money to tip him and I didn’t know how to drive a manual transmission.

  A few minutes later, Mac slid his warm hands around my waist, a feeling I would normally enjoy. Tonight, my instinct was to spin around and knee him in the balls. Lucky for him, the valet pulled up with his car at precisely the same time.

  “Your car, ma’am.” His young, boyish charm would’ve been adorable on any other evening.

  “It’s his.” I motioned over my shoulder with my chin and then slid into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut before either he or Mac could do it for me. I was about to endure the longest fifteen-minute car ride home of my life. I would probably regret not calling a cab.

  Mac got behind the wheel, put the car into gear, and slowly eased out of the driveway. We were on the road for several minutes before he finally broke the silence.

  “I’m so sorry, baby. I’m sorry.”

  I wasn’t even sure where to start. There was a part of me that wanted to just do my usual: sweep it all under the rug and walk away from it. Not deal with it. It certainly would be easier. That was how I got this far in my life. Just don’t deal with it.

  But that mountain of shit under the rug was getting bigger and bigger by the day. It was getting so big, as a matter of fact, I was going to have to start working it into my décor. It was starting to become part of me, to affect who I was and who I was becoming, and I didn’t like it.

  “What exactly are you sorry for, Mac?”

  “All of it.” He shrugged almost nonchalantly.

  “No. That’s a cop-out. Narrow it down for me. Start small if you have to. Just name one thing you feel remorseful about from tonight.” I refused to let him off easy. I felt so angry and bad inside, there was no way he was walking away clean.

  “I’m sorry she started in on you about your weight.”

  “There is nothing wrong with my weight.” This was an easy one.

  “I agree with you,” he answered quickly.

  “It used to bother you too, though,” I challenged.

  “That was before I got to know you better and saw how much you eat in a day. You just happen to have the metabolism of a hummingbird. You may find this hard to believe, Taylor, but most people are envious of that. Most people have to work really hard at keeping weight off, not on. So yeah, it worried me a little when I first met you. She just has a big mouth and doesn’t have a filter.”

  “Do not stick up for her right now. She doesn’t deserve that from you.” I stared out of the window. The other cars seemed to stand still while we flew by. “And slow down, for Christ’s sake. We’re not in Thermal anymore, and I want to make it home to my shitty apartment and my shitty life that my rough childhood landed me in.”

  “Wow, you’re really going for it here.” He flicked a hard glare at me.

  “For what, exactly?” I reared back, bracing against the door. “Did you really just go there? Because that’s rich, Doc. Why the fuck would my childhood ever be a topic of discussion between you and that woman? How could that possibly be something you two needed to discuss?” I took the chance to level my own glare, though his stare remained solidly on the road—not that it mattered. “And I’m serious. Slow down. The speed limit is sixty-five here.”

  “Do you want to drive? I’m doing seventy. But I’ll slow down to sixty-five if suddenly you need to control every single aspect of the evening.” He was raising his voice louder and louder, surpassing normal conversational tones now.

  “Do you hear yourself right now? Control every aspect of the evening? That evening?” I thumbed back over my shoulder. “That evening was one of the worst experiences of my life. And you? You!” I was shouting now. Jabbing my index finger into his shoulder while he drove. “You fucking sat there and let her take shot after shot at me like I was the fucking turkey plumped up for the Thanksgiving Day feast. You call yourself my boyfriend? You, Dr. Clown, suck dick as a boyfriend!”

  We pulled into my apartment complex after a few minutes, and when he circled around to find a place to park as though he were coming in, I put my hand up in a stop motion.

  “No, just drop me off here.”

  “No. Damn it, I don’t want to end our night like this, Taylor.”

  I looked at him, and I couldn’t be sure, but he might have had tears welling up in his eyes. I wasn’t intimately familiar with crying, so I could’ve been mistaken.

  “Oh, dude. We aren’t just ending our night like this. We’re ending us like this. I wasn’t kidding when I said that was one of the worst experiences of my life. And trust me, I’ve had some pretty shitty things happen to me. But guess where we are right now? We’re at that super-crappy part of the relationship you so desperately wanted to label us with, where I say, ‘don’t call me, I’ll call you.’ But the one thing I won’t be saying…because it sure as hell is not the truth. It’s not me—this was all you, buddy. Go home and tuck your mommy in. I hope she fucking sleeps well.”

  I got out of his sweet little white car for the last time, slammed the door shut as hard as my skinny body could m
uster, and didn’t look back. I fumbled with the keys to my apartment, listening to the distinctive purr of the engine the entire time, wishing he would just drive away. When I got inside, I didn’t turn on the lights, just flipped the deadbolt over to locked and slid down against the door until my ass hit the floor in the entrance way of my dumpy apartment.

  Now, it officially wasn’t one of the worst nights of my life.

  It topped the whole damn list.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mac

  “Because I’m in love with her, Mother.”

  Why isn’t she listening to me? Oh, wait. I already knew the answer to this one.

  Because Constance Stone was incapable of listening to anything other than what she wanted to hear.

  “Maclain, just hear me out. She’s not the right girl for you, all right? Onward. Upward. Dear God, please, upward.”

  I locked my teeth. Let my breath leave me through nostrils as wide as a bull’s—with a red flag waved in its face. “Don’t go there,” I warned. “Not right now.”

  “And why not right now? You’re better off starting fresh, darling. Fresh city, fresh girl. Listen to your mother. I know what’s best for you.”

  “You’re the last person on this planet I’m going to take relationship advice from. I’m not sure why I’m even sitting here right now.” I glared around the restaurant of the overly priced hotel at which she was staying downtown. The US Grant reeked of tradition and money—right up the woman’s narrow cultural alley. It would’ve been convenient for her to stay in my home in Oceanside, but honestly, I’d rather have lost an eye than shared living space with the woman.

  “I should be at her apartment right now, apologizing for not standing up to you. I can’t believe you asked her if she had a fucking eating disorder.”

  “Would you keep your voice down? People are staring.” Her exaggerated whisper just fueled my rage more.

  “Let them fucking stare. You aren’t the Queen of England. No one gives two shits who you are in this town. Or Chicago, for that matter. Contrary to what you think.”

  “My heavens, you’re being rude this morning. This is that gutter trash’s influence on you. She has such a foul mouth for a young lady. You’ve been sounding like a sailor recently too. Now I see why.” She concentrated deeply on putting jam on every millimeter of her scone.

  I stood up so abruptly the padded seat I was sitting in fell backward and smacked the floor. “What did you just call her?” My voice echoed off the très ceiling.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “What did you just say? What did you call my girlfriend?” I slammed both hands onto the table so hard the silverware and stemware hopped an inch to the right.

  “Sit down. This instant. You’re acting like a spoiled child. And I thought you said she broke up with you? So, in theory, that would make her your ex-girlfriend. Would it not?” My mother’s voice shifted slightly. An outsider wouldn’t recognize the change, but as someone who had been on the receiving end of her destructive comments his whole life, I braced myself for pain about to be handed down, just by hearing her voice change. Pain I shouldn’t have been afraid of anymore but that had been ingrained by years of conditioning, courtesy of the tunnel vision she’d always kept on her world view and the psychological warfare she’d perfected to an art, thanks to the people who fell into her beautiful but shallow trap. But they did keep tumbling, didn’t they? Because of it, she’d spent years—practically my entire lifetime—being validated for her vapidity and rewarded for her snobbery.

  But now, the emptiness even I had enabled was here to inflict its worst damage on my life. It was no longer just the slow IV drip of poison on my relationship with my mother but a haunting dagger into the very depths of my heart.

  My shattering heart.

  In that moment, having to stand there and listen to this woman speak ill of the woman in my life—the goddess with whom I had fallen in love—made me see blood red. No, worse. My hands balled into fists, fighting the urge to topple the table over and rush at Constance Stone with my bare hands. To maul her haughty neck like a rabid, insane bear.

  “You know what, Mother? Go fuck yourself.”

  Her mouth dropped open. Disbelief flooded her stare.

  “Oh, you heard me right. Take your stuck-up ass and go back to Chicago. Tell all your friends how awful your son is, how awful he treated you. You can rewrite history like you always do, make yourself out to be the innocent one. You’re an expert at it by now. I’ve seen you do it a million times. Hell, the more I think about it, the more I’m sure that’s exactly what you did with Uncle Josiah and Aunt Willa. All these years of bad blood were really just you rewriting history. And you dragged me into the thick of it as collateral damage. Well, those days are done.”

  “Be careful what you say right now, Mac. You make a decision here, and it’s done. You’re either with me or you’re against me. You know that.”

  “You make it pretty easy, Mother. I’m with everyone else but you. At this point, it doesn’t even matter who it is. I’d be on their side.” My voice was quiet but held the quality of a viper’s hiss.

  “You’re going to be sorry. You will be written out of my will.” This had always been the ace up her sleeve—or so she thought.

  “Because that matters to me, madam? You need psychological help, lady. I really hope you find it one day, but don’t call me when you do. Don’t call me—ever again.” I stood taller and folded my napkin on the table in finality.

  “Not to worry, Mac.” She paused just one small beat. “You’re already dead to me.”

  As I walked out of the hotel, my stride was strong, despite expecting to feel—

  What?

  Nothing?

  Maybe that was what I hoped. Instead, I had the strangest sense of relief. It seemed odd to feel that way after my mother had just announced I was dead to her, but I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

  Maybe that realization was what had brought on the faint sadness. Relationships weren’t supposed to feel like burdens. They were meant to be living things. Gardens. We planted them, fed them, nurtured them, and when we needed to, we harvested from them. They weren’t supposed to feel like parasites that fed from us and drained us and left us barren.

  A big inhalation of fresh ocean air cleansed my soul, and I felt a new plan coalesce.

  Since I was already downtown, I threw caution to the wind and headed toward the Stone Global offices. Taylor would not return my calls, texts, or emails since we’d had dinner with my mother two nights prior. How could we solve the problems between us if we couldn’t talk? I knew she had a sales department meeting every Thursday morning, so she would definitely be in the office. After several minutes of navigating city traffic, I pulled into the parking structure and circled around the five levels until I spotted her car to verify she hadn’t called in sick. I had no game plan, nothing organized to say or do, but I couldn’t keep letting the hours pass by without trying to save us. She meant too much to me, whether she wanted to even acknowledge there was an us or not. The past few months had been the best of my life, and it was because of her. I was not about to let my fucking mother ruin another relationship of mine.

  My car fit nicely into a corner spot on the same level hers was parked. Sitting there for a couple minutes, I ran through a few scenarios in my head. One—she freaked out and had security throw me out. I could handle that. I still wouldn’t give up, because I was determined to work this out with her. Eventually, she would have to talk to me, but maybe I should find a florist and come bearing gifts? Women loved flowers, right? But what womanly stereotype did Taylor Mathews fit into otherwise? That might not be the best plan.

  The second scenario was less likely to happen but would be the better option of the two. Taylor had had some time to cool down and think about dinner the other night and realized that my mother’s behavior was exactly that, my mother’s.

  As in—not mine.

  The only
problem that remained was that my behavior had been less than desirable in Taylor’s opinion too. And she was right. But she wasn’t being fair in not giving me a chance to apologize. She was right. I should have put a stop to my mother’s deplorable actions sooner that evening. But I was human and in the same uncharted water as she was when it came to relationships at this point. If we were going to survive the storms of life’s seas together, we were going to have to promise to do just that, stick together. Not tuck tail and run every time the tide rose and the waves crashed over the bow. I needed my first mate back, and damn it, I was willing to battle whatever sea creature got in my way to do just that.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Taylor

  The yawn I tried to hide behind my palm made a strange noise from the back of my throat, causing the two interns next to me to throw over furtive looks. All too quickly, they refocused on the PowerPoint Margaux was presenting to SGC’s Marketing and Operations Departments.

  “Ms. Mathews, am I keeping you awake this morning?” she said smoothly, never missing a beat from her talking points.

  “My apologies, Ms. Asher.” I was going to kill her the minute we got out of the fucking meeting. What’s the point of calling me out like that in front of everyone? She’d have a good case of the guilts when she found out why I’d been up half the night.

  Someone flipped the lights on as she wrapped up her goals for the next quarter, and everyone started talking among themselves.

  The team filed out of the conference room soon after. I hung back, wanting to have a few words with my friend about embarrassing me in front of my peers.