Chapter 20 TJ
I was too blunt. Stupid Tyler. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I’m only trying to help her, but it came out all wrong. It’s what I get for trying to be clever and deflect from the hard questions she’s asking me.
"I’m sorry," I add quickly. "That came out wrong. I’m not very good at words, which is why I just take my shirt off." Instantly, I’m back in college, standing in line in the cafeteria behind a group of girls I’d met the night before at a party.
The one that I thought was especially cute was in this group.
They’d yet to notice me as they rehashed the events of the previous night.
My grip tightens on my tray. My hands are a little shaky from having too much to drink the night before. Coach would kill me if he knew I was hungover. I need to get some food in me ASAP to absorb the alcohol.
"Yeah, and then Jessica started talking to that soccer player," the tall blonde one says.
"Oooh, Jess, he’s so hot."
I tilt my head down, the brim of my ballcap obscuring my face. Jessica. That was the cute girl’s name. Maybe I’ll go sit with her. Maybe we can pick up where we left off. Maybe …
"Ugh, no, he was a PBD."
PBD? What the hell is that?
"No," the tall blonde sighs. "Say it isn’t so."
"Yup," Jessica confirms. "He’s Pretty but Dumb. One hundred percent pretty dumb in my book."
"Did you have to shush him so you could admire the view without having to listen to him?"
Jessica shakes her head. "Short of putting a gag on him and taking off his shirt, it wasn’t going to work."
I put my tray down and walk away without eating.
I shake my head to bring me back to the present.
"So what if I’m hiding?" Rachel challenges. "What’s it to you?"
I carry the cutting board of chicken breasts over to the frying pan on the stove and gingerly put them in.
"It’s nothing to me. Nothing at all." How do I explain to Rachel that her sister putting me on this list did something to me?
That I feel like I need to earn it or deserve it?
I stay facing the stove for longer than I need to, trying to come up with the right words.
Rachel finally breaks the silence. "I don’t feel like explaining it all right now. I’d need another bottle of wine. Got any wine?"
I turn around to face her. "I’m more of a beer or hard liquor guy myself. Plus, I’ve got a game tomorrow, so no alcohol for me."
She folds her arms over her chest, her mouth turning down into the most adorable little pout. "Party pooper."
"Catch me in the off-season. Right now, my job is the priority. Most likely, I only have a few seasons left in me. I’m not going to mess it up. Plus, once you’re in your thirties, you seem to lose all ability to metabolize alcohol. It makes me feel like shit."
"Oh, I’m gonna feel like shit tomorrow. No doubt about it." Her head bobs up and down in an exaggerated motion. "But it’s better to feel like shit from this than from my reality."
Fair point.
Her eyebrows knit together as if she’s trying to do long division in her head. "What are you going to do after soccer?"
I refill her glass with water. She’s definitely going to be hungover in the morning. "I have no idea," I say honestly. Usually I avoid this question but I doubt she’ll remember this conversation.
She rests her chin in her hands. "Well, what did you want to be when you grew up? Other than a soccer player."
I flip the chicken, peek in on the vegetables, and then return to my side of the counter, facing Rachel. "I wanted to be a magician."
Rachel’s eyelids are drooping. Her speech is slurred as she says, "If only you were, I could be your assistant in a sexy sequined costume."
As I start to reply, it becomes apparent she’s fallen asleep.
Quickly I race around to her, before her head can slip out of her hands and hit the granite countertop.
I slide one arm around her back and the other beneath her thighs, pulling her close to my body.
I pick her up and turn, surveying my place.
Now what do I do?
Maybe I should bring her home? I can get her to my SUV, and then I’ll drive over to her apartment and—shit, I don’t know what apartment she lives in.
It’s probably not great for my image to be walking around with a woman passed out, thrown over my shoulder.
Some nosy neighbor would definitely call the cops on me for that.
I don’t need people thinking I’m a creeper who drugs women.
I could put her on the couch. That would be respectable, yet uncomfortable. My couch sucks. It looks great, but it feels like concrete. I could put her in my bed, which would be the chivalrous thing to do. But then where would I sleep?
Tomorrow is game day. I promised Coach that if I stayed at my own apartment, I’d obey the curfew and the sleep rules. It’s literally my job to be in peak physical shape. I can’t be stiff and sore, and that couch would absolutely wreck my back.
Maybe I can put her in my bed for now, and by the time I’m done eating, she’ll wake up and then I can walk her home.
Except by the time I finish cooking dinner, take some video of it, eat it, and then stack my dishes in the sink, Rachel is still out, snoring very lightly.
As gently as I can, I shake her shoulder.
"Rachel, wake up." My voice is barely above a whisper. She doesn’t move.
I do it again, this time a little louder and a little more forcefully.
All she does is roll over, curling herself into a fetal position, her hands in fists, bent in toward her body. She looks so small in my king-size bed.
There’s so much space left in the bed. I could sleep on the other side without disturbing her at all.
Normally, I’d sleep in my boxers, but tonight, I change into gym shorts and a T-shirt.
I lie down and roll to my side, my back to Rachel.
If I were any closer to the side of the bed, I’d be on the floor.
I scroll on ClikClak with the volume so low I can barely hear it. While I normally scroll for an hour or two, I feel sleep coming to my body almost immediately. See? I’ll be totally rested. Before I know it, my eyes are closing, and I’m out.
The hand shaking my shoulder is surprisingly strong. "Wake up. TJ. Tyler, wake up!" The hissing voice is surprisingly loud, too.
I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep, but it hasn’t been long enough. I push the hand away and pretend I didn’t hear anything.
"TJ. Tyler!" Someone is shaking me again.
I open one eye. "What?" It’s not even light out yet. "What time is it?"
"Um, it’s a little after four."
"Okay, I’ll talk to you after seven. I have a game. I need my sleep." I pull the pillow over my head and go back to sleep.
When I wake up to the sound of my alarm at seven—a much more reasonable hour—I find myself alone in the apartment. Rachel’s gone.
That’s disappointing.
I can’t think about what this means until I’m properly caffeinated.
I start coffee in the pot—the one thing I know how to make—and pick up my phone to text Rachel.
Me: Sneaking off in the middle of the night? No note, no nothing?
Rachel: It was after 4.
Me: That’s the middle of the night. You still could have left a note.
Rachel: The last note I received has thrown me for quite the loop. I don’t want to do that to someone else.
Me: You can leave a note, as long as you don’t die on me. That’s easy. Next?
Rachel: What happened last night?
I smile, knowing I’m going to have a little fun with her.
Me: Let’s just say number 9 is taken care of.
I give it a minute to see her response. When there’s nothing, I second-guess my attempt at humor. I’m certainly not the funny Doyle. I shouldn’t try to be.
Me: TOTALLY kidding. You fell asleep at the kitchen counter. I put you in bed. I took the other side. Both of us were fully dressed, and there was enough room for 3 other people in between us.
Me: I only touched you to pick you up, over clothes. I swear.
Shit, shit, shit. Rachel has massive trust issues. I know that. I was the world’s biggest idiot to even joke about something so delicate. I hit the call button. This isn’t something I can do through text.
"Hello?"
"Rachel, you’ve got to believe me. I was only trying to be funny. I’m not funny. Joey’s the funny one. It takes intelligence to be funny, and we all know I don’t have that. I’m sorry. I …" I falter, not knowing what to say next.
"TJ … Tyler, I’m not upset." Her voice is quiet on the other end of the phone.
"You didn’t answer back."
"I was texting someone else, trying to make plans for tonight. Sorry."
Someone else. Those words hit like a ball to the gut. Maybe she met someone at her new job. Maybe it’s someone in her building. Maybe she’s on Tinder.
It’s none of my business. None at all.
"What are you doing tonight?" I can’t help myself.
"Not sure yet. Things are still up in the air."
"Rach." There’s more than a hint of desperation in my voice. "I’m sorry I made that joke about number nine. It wasn’t funny."
I hear her sigh. "Richie certainly thought it was, including that on the list. We both swore—pinky-promised each other—that we wouldn’t be like that."
"Like what? I mean, pinky promises are solemn business. I’ve sealed all my professional contracts that way."
She breathes out a laugh. "Handshakes and notarized signatures are so last year. Pinky promises are where it’s at."
I sit down on my horribly uncomfortable couch and take a sip of my coffee. "Absolutely."
There’s a pause on the line before Rachel continues.
"Our mom didn’t know the difference between sex and love.
She thought if she slept with a guy, he’d love her.
She did this—a lot. She was always looking for love.
Or at least the love of a man. She had two daughters who adored her, but that wasn’t enough. "
That would explain number ten: Forgive Mom.
I couldn’t have imagined what could be so bad that you wouldn’t be on speaking terms with your own mother. I think of Ma, and how she’d go to the ends of the Earth for her boys. It hurts a little knowing Rachel didn’t have that.
"So Richie and I promised each other that we’d value ourselves more than Mom valued herself. That we’d never confuse sex and love, and if we didn’t think we could make that distinction, we’d steer clear until we could."
I don’t know what to say to that. After a moment, I ask, "Why did she put it on the list then?"
"She never really figured out the difference either, but I think she wants me to. I think she wants me to be free and liberated and to be able to experience pleasure without getting all emotional."
Immediately, a mental image of Rachel lying naked underneath me, spread across my bed, in the throes of pleasure, emerges. It’s a powerful enough suggestion that it’s having a real-life effect on me.
Great.
"I’m not there yet. I’m not sure I’ll ever be." Rachel laughs nervously. "But enough about me. What’s up with you?"
Why’d she have to phrase it like that? If I’d been taking a sip of my coffee, no doubt, I’d have spit it across my living room. "Um, nothing. Just normal game-day prep. Light workout. Pregame fuel."
"Are all the games as exciting as the last one?"
I stand up and start pacing. As soon as I get off the phone, I’m going to take a long, cold shower, but she doesn’t need to know that. "I thought you read a book during that game."
"I did, but there was a big fight and two people got thrown out. Does that normally happen?"
I explain to her what happened and why and how, no, that doesn’t normally happen.
"So, will you be offended if I bring a book again?"
It takes me a minute to understand what she’s saying. "Are you coming to the game tonight? I thought you were making plans?"
"Yeah, I was. With your mom. Apparently your brothers can’t make it, so she offered me the ticket. So, like I said, will you be offended if I have an emergency book with me?"
"What’s the emergency?"
Rachel giggles again. "Um, is it offensive to say boredom?"
It’s my turn to laugh. "Yes, but it’s probably because you don’t understand the game. I’ll explain it all to you, and then you’ll find it interesting."
"I don’t know about that, but you can try. I need to go back to sleep for a while. See you after the game?"
"See you after the game," I say as we disconnect.
She’s coming to the game. That knowledge makes me happier than it should. I barely know this girl.
Yet it still makes me happy.
Now, about that shower.