3. The Odds are Against Him
3
Tessa
“Cheers, bitches!”
Roxy and Hadley clink their shot glasses against mine at my words, and we throw back the tequila, each of us shivering as it slides down our throats. I grab a lemon wedge and suck it, my mouth puckering at the sour taste.
“I love you guys,” Hadley says with a grin before taking a sip of her beer. “I’m so glad we’re friends.”
“Jesus, Had. You’ve only had one shot and already, you’re getting mushy?” Roxy replies, tossing a tater tot into her mouth and chewing it.
Hadley and I have been friends since high school, and Roxy joined our group shortly after graduation. None of us left town for college, with Hadley and I attending the junior college in Branston. Roxy went straight into the work force when she graduated two years before us. Our fourth, Skye, owns this place and is working behind the bar tonight. We always hang out here so Skye can stop by to chat on her breaks, and she lets us drink for free. It’s a win-win for all of us.
“Oh,” Roxy says, slamming her palms on the table to gain our attention, “did you hear? Riggs Malone is back.”
She grins widely and makes an exaggerated purring noise while running her hands through her long red hair, but I don’t smile at her antics. I see Hadley’s hand fly to her chest from the corner of my eye, and I look over at her. Her face is pale as she gives me the sad eyes, and I subtly shake my head.
“What?” Roxy asks, not missing a thing. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” I say quickly. “It’s fine.”
“Tessa…” Hadley says softly.
“It’s fine, Hadley,” I snap, then instantly feel guilty.
I shoot Hadley an apologetic look, but she waves it off. She knows what a sensitive subject Riggs Malone is to me. Even after all these years.
“Can someone please tell me what in the hell is going on here?” Roxy demands, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Nothing is going on,” I say, but Hadley’s already talking over me, spitting the words out quickly before I can stop her.
“Riggs Malone made a bet with his friends that he could take Tessa’s V-card in high school!”
“Hadley!” I spit between clenched teeth, but it’s too late.
The words are out there, and Roxy is staring at me with wide, unblinking eyes.
“What. In the actual. Fuck?” she says slowly.
I can’t tell if she’s shocked or angry…or a combination of both. I heave a sigh, knowing I’m going to have to tell her the whole ugly story.
“It was after you graduated,” I say, my voice low and emotionless. “Riggs was a senior, and I was a junior. He asked me out one day, and I couldn’t believe Riggs Malone, captain of the football team and star quarterback, was actually interested in me, the nerdy bookworm. He shouldn’t have even known I existed. I should’ve trusted my fucking gut.”
“You went out with him?” Roxy asks when I fall into silence for a few moments.
“Yes,” I say, silently cursing the hollow feeling in my chest as the memories wash over me. “He was so perfect, saying all the right words and doing all the right things. He took me on my first date, and later gave me my first kiss. I fell for him, hard and fast. I even practiced writing Tessa Malone in my journal every night. Pathetic.”
“You weren’t pathetic, Tessa,” Hadley says softly. “You were a teenage girl in love with her boyfriend.”
“He wasn’t really my boyfriend, was he?” I say, feeling a horrible burning in my eyes.
Shaking my head, I take a long drink from my beer for fortification. I’m almost thirty years old. I refuse to cry over some asshole I pseudo-dated in high school.
“Anyway,” I say flippantly, “I decided Riggs was the one, and I was going to give it up to him. Let him be my first everything. We made plans to meet at my house on a night my parents would be out for the evening. I went to Branston and bought some cute lingerie and some candles. I wanted to make it perfect. The day we were supposed to do it, I overheard some football players laughing and joking about how the odds were against Riggs, and he would never win the bet. That ‘that dumb little bitch Tessa White’ was too frigid to open her legs, no matter how much he fucking begged for it.”
Roxy gasps, then her eyes narrow as her mouth pinches into a straight, ruby red line. If she were a cartoon character, smoke would be coming out of her ears.
“How have I never heard this story before?” she asks.
“You’d already graduated,” Hadley says. “I’m sure you weren’t keeping up with high school gossip.”
“That’s true,” Roxy replies, her gaze zeroing in on me. “But we’ve been friends for over a decade. Why did you never tell me?”
I shake my head. “I decided I was never going to speak of him again. I refused to even think about him. As far as I was concerned, Riggs Malone never even existed.”
That’s not exactly true. It’s kind of hard to pretend he doesn’t exist when you love watching football, and he’s the number one quarterback in the league. Add in the town’s pride that one of their own actually made it and the memes people post all over social media, and Riggs has been a near constant in my life.
But that never stopped me from pretending.
“At least he’ll be in Branston. His parents moved to Florida when they retired, so he has no real reason to come to Sublime, right?” Hadley offers.
“What’s up, boozehounds?”
Skye’s sudden appearance breaks the tension, and I immediately reach for the shot she set before me. Not waiting for the others to lift their glasses, I toss the tequila back with a shiver of revulsion. It warms my belly, making me feel a bit more relaxed after that difficult conversation.
“What’s going on?” Skye asks, dropping into the empty chair and tossing back her own shot.
“We were just talking about Riggs Malone and what he did to Tessa in high school,” Roxy says.
“Oh, that,” Skye mumbles, and Roxy stiffens.
“How am I the only one who didn’t know about this?”
“You’d graduated––” Skye starts, but Roxy cuts her off.
“I know. I know. I just can’t believe you guys never told me,” she huffs.
“And like I said, it doesn’t matter because he has no reason to come here. Tessa won’t have to see him, at all,” Hadley reiterates.
Skye’s face twists up, and she’s suddenly looking everywhere but at me. Cocking my head, watching her for several moments as she continues to avoid the eye contact.
“What is it?” I ask.
“What is what?” she shoots back, finally meeting my eyes.
“Skye.”
“Fine,” she says, her body deflating. “You’re going to find out soon enough, anyway.”
“Find out what?” Roxy asks.
“Candi Chetworth came in earlier bragging about her latest victory. She sold a house to the Riggs Malone.”
“Here? In Sublime?” Hadley asks, a horrified expression on her face.
Skye looks back at me and nods with a frown. “Two-seven-six Briar Street.”
The oxygen in the bar evaporates, and I can’t seem to fill my lungs. My breaths come faster and faster, my body rigid as my mind spins out of control. Throwing my hand out, I grab Hadley’s untouched shot of tequila and toss it back before slamming the glass down onto the surface of the wooden table.
“That’s right next door to my house,” I say between labored breaths.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
I knew the house sold when the sign came down last week, but I never imagined it was him that bought it. How could I? Why would a rich professional athlete move into my modest neighborhood? Why would he move back to Sublime, at all?
“Riggs Malone is my new neighbor,” I mumble, and Roxy helpfully pushes her shot glass in my direction. “God damn it.”
I drink the booze down, but it doesn’t help. How in the hell am I supposed to pretend the man doesn’t exist when I could run into him at any moment?
I’m so fucked.