Chapter 8 TARAN #2
Who happened to be my boss, Olivia. Normally she was dressed in perfect business attire, pantsuits galore, and she absolutely killed in them. Today, she had on khaki shorts and dangly earrings shaped like traffic cones. She smiled and said, “Tequila. Good selection here, considering.”
“Music to my ears.”
“Diego, this is my boss, Olivia Aguirre. Olivia, Diego,” I said, trying to act like I wasn’t super fucking proud of the hot guy on my arm.
She held out a hand, and Diego took it and squeezed. “Good to meet you.”
“Boyfriend?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at me.
“Uh…” I said. Or grunted, really.
“Almost,” Diego chimed in, saving the day. “Date, for sure.”
Olivia smiled and said something about enjoying the game, and Diego chatted with her for another moment, but I was busy figuring out ways to avoid having that same awkward conversation a hundred times today.
I was rescued by Bettina and Kyle, who descended upon us with cries of, “Is this Diego? Finally! Diego!”
They pulled us over to a standing table they’d claimed, and Bettina sent Kyle to get everyone drinks so she wouldn’t have to interrupt her questioning once it started.
“Are you from around here?” Bettina asked Diego.
“Yeah, we’re from the same town.” Diego leaned an elbow on the table and propped his chin up with that hand. The pose meant his back was just arched enough to show off his ass in those skintight jeans.
“What!” Bettina mock-glared at me. “You never told me that!”
I chuckled. “You never asked.”
Bettina had her game face on now, though. “Well, I’m gonna ask everything today—Oh! Hey Gina. Franny, where did you get that jersey? I need it.”
Just like that, her attempt at inquisition was interrupted by a stream of arriving co-workers, and then Kyle with the drinks, and then more co-workers.
Diego took it all in easily, posing at the table, offering his hand to people who wanted it, smiling with those big green eyes and laughing with that adorable gap in his teeth and explaining to Franny from accounting how he doctored his Jalapeno Hannah shirt into a cute little crop top.
I watched him with something like awe in my heart, kind of like seeing him on stage in high school.
It wasn’t that he was playing a part—he was very, very Diego as he charmed every curious co-worker who stopped at our table.
But he was on, both funny and laughing at other people’s jokes, showing off and admiring everyone else’s “sportsball fits.”
While he was talking to Kyle about childhood trips to Pirate games, Bettina sidled up to me and said quietly, “I don’t know why I didn’t expect him to be this cute, but oh my god, he’s cute.”
“I know.” I chuckled.
“Normally you’re the one everybody wants to talk to.”
I frowned. “I am not.”
“Ooookay.” She rolled her eyes. “You go to school together?”
“High school, yeah.”
“And?” She raised an eyebrow.
“We… might’ve hooked up a few times. Or a lot.” I flushed, but not at the confession. I flushed because of what I didn’t say.
“I cannot believe you didn’t tell me any of this.” She sighed. “You’re the worst.”
I laughed. “Sorry. We’re still figuring stuff out.”
“Oh yeah? Like how?”
I glanced up to see Diego and Kyle talking to some of the IT folks nearby.
I didn’t realize that I wanted to talk to someone about this until she asked, but now I really did.
“He’s kinda cagey about commitment. He says he wants to be a thing, like an exclusive thing, but he doesn’t want to put the boyfriend label on it yet. ”
“Oooh, he’s been burned before,” she guessed with alarming accuracy.
I sighed. “I mean. Yeah. By me.”
“What?”
I gave her a quick rundown, which felt surprisingly good. It wasn’t like telling my mom or talking to Diego about it; Bettina was an outside voice, unaffected by it all. Fresh perspective.
“Oof. Yeah, patience is your best friend right now,” she said when I finished.
I nodded. “Okay. That’s what I thought, but I’m really in my head about it. He got kind of annoyed that it seemed like I was trying to prove something to him.”
“He does not look at you like he’s annoyed,” she said, eyebrows high.
“What?”
“Please. He just looked over his shoulder at us and those eyes ate you up from head to toe. Anyone could see he’s smitten.”
“Really?” I glanced at him, but he was facing the field again, listening to Kyle and sipping his paloma.
“If nothing else, he wants you bad.” She chuckled. “Soooo glad the sweatpants pics worked.”
I’d already thanked her for that hot tip. Several times. “He asks me to wear them all the time when he comes over.”
She fist bumped me. “I got you.”
“What’s the tea?” Diego slid his free arm through mine and hooked it, then lifted his drink to his lips with the other.
“We’re talking about you,” I said.
“Oh, good! Better than talking about sports. Though, kinda surprised you all don’t do this for the Steelers too,” Diego said.
“I wish.” Bettina sulked. “But it’s way more expensive, I bet. Even regular tickets are ridiculous.”
“Are you gonna take me to a Steeler game?” Diego asked.
“I haven’t been in years.” Not since Dad died, actually. Which was too bad. It’d be nice to revisit and reminisce about the fun stuff, since I’d had so much of the negative on my mind lately.
Diego shook his head. “Whaaat? Football hero!”
Bettina perked up. “Wait, football hero?”
“Oh, star quarterback all through school,” Diego assured her.
I covered my face with my hand. “God. In high school. And I wasn’t a star.”
“He’s straight up lying,” Diego reported matter-of-factly. “Also, he played in college.”
“Badly.”
Bettina shook her head. “No wonder he always wins the playoffs pool!”
Kyle appeared beside Bettina then and had apparently heard part of the conversation because he said, “I knew he played, but I didn’t know he was any good.”
“Amazing,” Diego insisted.
Kyle nodded. “I could see it.”
“Right? Look at him.” And Diego did, leaning back to look me up and down.
Bettina shot me a knowing look.
“What do you do, Diego?” Kyle asked.
“Bartender at The Pike on Carson.”
“I used to go there all the time when we had an office down there,” Kyle said thoughtfully. “I miss it.”
“Come back—I’ll get you free wings,” Diego said.
“He’s an actor, too,” I said, just for a little revenge.
He laughed and rolled his eyes. But a flush crept up his neck too.
“Really? Like theater?”
He nodded. “So far. I mean, I haven’t had much time for it this year.”
“My sister used to do a lot of theater,” Bettina said. “Now she mostly does voice-over work.”
“Oh.” Diego’s eyes lit up. “Tell me all about it. I’ve always wanted to get into it. I still have the demo recording I did back in school, with all the different voices.”
“She lives in Chicago—we can hook you up, if you’re interested?”
“Oh my god, would you?”
Needless to say, we didn’t even notice the game was three innings in until after our second drink. And the Pirates even won.
Sadly, Cheese Chester won the Pierogi race thanks to the Pirate Parrot mascot’s illegal interference. But otherwise, a pretty successful day of baseball.
***
We walked back over the bridge and past the Benedum to The Warren, to have an early dinner and wait for traffic to thin out. They sat us in the front again, next to the big windows, and Diego shot me a knowing look. “Were we super awkward last time we were here?”
“Probably.” I snorted. “Are we now?”
“Nooooo. Not us.” He laughed.
After we ordered, he said, “Your friends are nice.”
“I mean, they’re more co-workers than friends.”
“Even Bettina? She loves you.”
“Bettina and Kyle are more like friends,” I agreed. “I don’t really know many people outside of work, though.”
“Really? Even people who stayed in Stanley County?”
I shook my head. “It’s pretty amazing that you have friends from high school. I don’t talk to anyone, except random notes on Facebook when someone has a birthday or something.”
“Wait.” He leaned forward, both elbows on the table. His cheeks were flushed from the heat and the drinks and the crowd, his eyes bright. “All those guys who looked at you like you were fucking Hercules, and not one of them kept in touch?”
I shrugged, trying not to look as uncomfortable as I felt all of a sudden. So much for not being awkward. “I mean, it’s my fault. I kind of dropped off the earth after things went south with football.”
“Right, but, you were their hero,” Diego reasoned.
“People move on.”
He made a face. “In Stanley County? They absolutely do not.”
I gave the server a grateful look for dropping off the drinks, which gave me something to do with my hands. And an excuse to be silent for a second, think of the right way to answer his questions.
Because he was right. It wasn’t just the old folks in Stanley County who approached me to talk about the good old days; if I saw someone who was on the team, especially, they always wanted to shoot the shit and talk about that one time at State, or that big game with Capitol, or the time the guys stole Marshall’s mascot costume and nearly got the whole team suspended.
I endured it like I endured the old folks’ good-natured reminiscing. But, “Honestly, it’s a little bit embarrassing.”
“Oh.” He nodded, though. “I mean, I knew you didn’t love when people cornered you to discuss and dissect your career on the field. I just didn’t know…”
“I think I’ll add it to the list of stuff I’m working on,” I said with a little laugh at myself. “I don’t know; I just felt like after I lost the football career early on, I was kind of…”
“Embarrassed, yeah,” he finished. “No, I get it. I just—I mean, none of those guys went to the NFL either, you know?”
“I guess…” I considered, sipping one of those divine barrel-aged Manhattans. Of course, this was leading to another touchy subject, because why wouldn’t it? “I guess I just never engaged after a while.”
But he just nodded again, eyes still bright and wide, as if this was actually interesting. “Did you feel like you disappointed them?”
My turn to nod.