Chapter 16
Chapter 16
THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON AT our agreed time, I arrived at Max’s Pool Hall in downtown Auckland to meet Josh for our game of pool. The place was busy for a Sunday afternoon, full of groups of mainly men, with the odd woman thrown in for good measure, bottles of beer sitting on the bar leaners, waiting for them to make their shots. I spotted Josh at the bar, talking with the barmaid, who was busy explaining something to him, gesticulating with her hands.
I sidled up to him.
“That’s what I was telling you! He so did it,” the barmaid said, shaking her head for emphasis.
“Who did what?” I asked, taking a seat next to Josh.
“Oh, hey, Paige. Sal here is putting forward her argument as to why O. J. was the killer.”
I scrunched up my face. “O. J. Simpson?”
“The very same,” Sal said. “Guilty as sin.”
“Isn’t that pretty universally accepted?” I said, looking from a vehemently nodding Sal to Josh.
“Exactly,” Sal said. “Only, Josh here thinks maybe not.”
“Hold on there. I didn’t say that. All I said was the evidence is not conclusive, that’s all.” Josh held his hands palm up in supplication.
“Why are you talking about this, anyway? Wasn’t this, like, when we were kids?” I asked, wondering what all the fuss was about.
“I just finished watching that show, The People Versus O. J. Simpson. Have you seen it?” Josh asked.
“No.” I laughed. I preferred happy, feel-good shows, like reruns of Gilmore Girls , Downton Abbey , This is Us, and, of course, Dad’s and my much-loved reality cooking shows. Not real-life crime documentaries.
“You should,” Sal replied, nodding her head sagely at me. “It’s nice to meet you, Paige.” She extended her hand, and I shook it.
“You too.”
“I hope you know what you’re up against, taking on this guy in pool.”
I raised my eyebrows at Josh. “Been talking yourself up, have you?”
“Me? Never.” He grinned, and an unexpected warmth spread through my belly. “What would you like to drink?”
I placed my order with Sal, Josh collected his half-drunk bottle of beer, and we claimed the pool table he’d reserved.
“May the best man win,” he said as he offered me a cue.
“She will,” I replied with a smirk, selecting my own cue from the rack on the wall.
“Oh, I see. It’s like that, is it?” Josh asked. He took a swig of his beer.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” I bent over the table and sized up the break. I liked to take a firm first shot, showing my opponent what I was made of. Traditionally, when I played with Dad, I had a lot of success with the high balls. I liked them, and not just because the stripes on them made them prettier than the plain lows, although it helped.
Concentrating on my target, I drew my cue stick back and stabbed, hearing the satisfying crack of a good break. I held my breath, waiting for one of the high balls to drop nicely into a pocket. The ten-ball rolled, heading directly toward the back left, slowing, slowing, and then plop , straight into the pocket.
“Nice shot. I can see I’ve got my work cut out for me this afternoon,” Josh said, and I couldn’t help but smile, try as I might not to let his compliment distract me from my game.
I flashed him my smile and walked around the table, sizing up my options. I could feel Josh’s eyes on me the whole time. I tried to ignore him; I knew he was merely trying to put me off and that was the last thing I was going to let happen.
The thirteen-ball was my best bet. It was about two feet away from the middle right pocket, but I had a clean line of sight to it, and I felt confident I could make it. I got myself into position once more, preparing for my shot. Pulling my cue stick back, I stabbed the white ball once more, it clunked into the thirteen, which went hurtling toward the pocket and right down into it.
“Two down.” I was enjoying myself, thoughts of Marcus pushed to the back of my mind.
Josh shook his head, smiling. “Lucky shot.” He took another swig of his beer, finishing the bottle off.
“Lucky? Ha! Just watch this.” I already knew which ball I was going for next: the number twelve. It was a tricky shot, hiding behind one of Josh’s balls, but it was close to the right pocket, and I knew I could take it. It was a shot Dad taught me years ago, and I was kind of an expert at it.
I got myself into position, which meant balancing my left butt cheek awkwardly on the edge of the pool table. I thanked my earlier self, who had chosen a pair of slim-fitting cropped pants and lace-up flats over the A-line skirt and wedges ensemble I had initially picked out. I leaned back, my cue held behind my back, ready to take my shot.
“Oh, my gosh,” Josh said.
I harrumphed. The oldest trick in the book: trying to distract a player when she’s cleaning you up on the pool table. So not good sportsmanship.
“Is that . . . ? No, it couldn’t be,” he continued.
Without moving, I stole a glance at him for a second. He was looking intently at something on the other side of the room. I wasn’t falling for it. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“If you say so. Only, it looks a lot like that guy you like.”
My heart jumped into my mouth. Marcus is here? Then, thankfully, my rational brain kicked in. He wasn’t here. He said he had a thing today, and besides, Josh didn’t even know Marcus. I returned my attention to the table and drew my cue stick back to take the shot.
“Paige, I’m serious. I really do think that’s Ryan Gosling.”
Ryan Gosling? I snapped my head up and peered at Josh. His mouth was open, and he was gawping at the other side of the pool hall. Could Ryan Gosling really be here? I swiveled my head to see what Josh was looking at. I searched frantically. Only, there was no Ryan Gosling, there wasn’t even a C-lister from the local soap. Immediately, I lost my balance, wobbling precariously on the edge of the pool table, trying my best to right myself. I fell flat on my face, knocking the balls in all directions across the table.
How embarrassing.
“Paige, are you all right?” Josh said, rushing over to the table from his spot by the bar leaner. His voice had an undeniable note of amusement to it.
I pushed myself up, knocking the balls around the table, a couple pinging off the edges and back at me. I glared at Josh. How dare he play that trick on me! “You did that on purpose.”
He pressed his lips together, trying to suppress a smile, threatening to turn into a full-blown laugh. “That was very funny.”
“There’s no Ryan Gosling, is there?”
He shook his head, chuckling.
I was so angry with him I almost growled at him. “Help me up.”
He put his hand out. I took it—only because I needed to get out of this humiliating position as quickly as possible—and he pulled me up into a sitting position.
“Sorry.” He chuckled, clearly not sorry in the least. “You fell for that one: hook, line, and sinker.”
From my spot on the table, I shot him a death stare. “Do you think it’s funny to play tricks on people? First the running off ahead of me at the speed of light and now this? Not funny, Josh.”
He scrunched his nose. “It kind of is.”
I scooted across the table until my legs were hanging over the edge, then I pushed myself off, landing on the sticky floor with a thud, right in front of Josh. He didn’t move, instead he stood there, grinning at me. We were so close we were almost touching. My heart began to beat faster and my eyes drifted to his lips. I opened my own. I wonder what those lips would be like to kiss?
I blinked, snapping myself out of . . . whatever this was. I cleared my throat and took a step back from him, pressing myself up against the pool table. Kissing one man last night and thinking about kissing another now? What had gotten into me?
“We . . . ah . . . need to start the game again.” I slunk along the side of the table for a couple of paces, looking down at the ground. This feeling was too strange, too out of the blue. We needed to focus on something—anything—else.
“Sure. You get the rack and I’ll gather up all the, ah . . . balls.”
Was it just me, or did he say that suggestively?
Instead of answering that question, I busied myself with taking the rack off the wall and placing it on the dot at the end of the table. As Josh arranged the balls inside the rack, I offered him another drink. With his order for another bottle of beer, I leaned across the bar, more than a little relieved to be a good twenty feet away from the confusing situation at our pool table.
“That was quite a spill,” Sal said once she’d finished serving the two men in front of me.
“You saw that?” I cringed.
“Sweetheart, everyone saw that.”
“Ah.” I chewed the inside of my lip. “Well, Josh tricked me. He said Ryan Gosling was here.”
“Ryan Gosling? Really?” Her eyes got huge. “How likely do you think it is that a Hollywood A-lister would walk into this pool hall on a Sunday afternoon?”
“I know. It’s a good point.”
“And you fell for that old trick?” Sal let out a laugh.
I shook my head at my own stupidity. I’d been played, well and truly. I glanced over at Josh. I wondered whether the moment we’d just shared was part of the ruse—or something else entirely.
What was it with men and their confusing messages? On the one hand, there was my Mr. Dream Guy Marcus. He was clearly interested in me, and he treated me like a princess on both our dates. But then he didn’t want to come near me with a ten-foot barge pole at the end of our first date, and on the second? He propositioned me like I was a cheap one-night stand.
And then there was Josh. Not my Mr. Dream Guy, but there was something about him I couldn’t quite put my finger on. That moment at the pool hall where it felt like we could have kissed? I didn’t know what to think of that in the cold light of Monday morning.
For the rest of the afternoon at the pool hall, Josh had carried on as though nothing had happened between us, as though we hadn’t had the moment that was now rattling around inside my head. In our games of pool, we’d been evenly matched: I won the first game, much to his disgust, and he’d won the next two, with me bringing up the fourth and final game with a famous victory I happily lauded over him. Then, we’d said goodbye, agreed to meet for a run Tuesday, and gone our separate ways.
In the end, I guessed it was all in my head, something to do with being confused over Marcus and the mixed messages I was getting from him.
I was standing at the kitchen counter, buttering a piece of toast that bore more than a passing resemblance to a wedge of concrete, when Dad waltzed into the room. He was humming a familiar-sounding song I couldn’t quite put a name to, dressed in his new work-out gear.
“Good morning, honey! Beautiful day!” He pecked me on the cheek.
“Hey, Dad.” I smiled at him. Taking a bite of my toast, I looked out at the gray morning outside. Not quite my idea of beautiful, but then I guess I wasn’t smitten with a Paleo-devotee called Gaylene. Absentmindedly, I chewed the toast. And chewed. And chewed. It was like having a lump of silly putty in my mouth—not that I actually knew what that was like, but I think I had a pretty clear idea now.
“Oh, I see you’re eating the new paleo bread. Good, isn’t it? No grains, just protein and healthy fats.”
I swallowed, feeling it travel down my esophagus like an elderly snail with a dodgy hip, landing with a thud in my belly. “Mm. It’s delicious.”
“It’s so good for you. None of those evil grains and additives you get in regular bread. Gaylene made it.”
I gave him a weak smile. Since when did Dad think grains were “evil”? I tried to think of something positive to say about the lump of horrible-ness on my plate. “I bet it’s full of roughage.”
“Oh, yes. And protein and vitamins and minerals. Eat that every morning, and you’ll be doing yourself a big favor.”
I looked down at the concrete slice on my plate. “Okay.”
Not done with extolling its virtues, Dad added, “Plus, you’ll be full up until lunch. No need to snack on those high-calorie, nutritionally devoid snacks.”
“Wow, Dad, you’re really into this whole diet thing,” I replied, willing myself to take another bite. I didn’t want to offend Dad, so I picked up the toast, took a mouse-sized nibble, and smiled at him. “Mm, yummy.”
“Oh, it’s not just a diet, it’s a way of life. Gaylene said . . .”
I zoned out while he launched into the nutritional value of this food and the sheer evil of that food. He had clearly drunk about a gallon of Gaylene’s Kool-Aid—although, shouldn’t it be coconut water or hemp juice or something? I was quite certain Kool-Aid should fall under the “evil” category. I suppressed a chuckle.
“So, you and Gaylene?” I led, keen to talk about something—anything—else. I mean, I hadn’t even had my first coffee of the day!
Dad got that goofy, happy look people in the flush of new relationships get. “It’s good.”
I raised my eyebrows at him in expectation.
He caved in an instant. “Okay, it’s great. But I didn’t want to get your hopes up or anything.”
“My hopes up? For what, a new mum?” I shook my head. “Dad, we talked about this. And anyway, I’m twenty-eight.”
“I know, honey. It’s just with your mother and all, I didn’t want you to think I was rushing things.”
I harrumphed. Like Marcus had wanted to “rush things” with me on Saturday night. “No, it’s good. So? Tell me about it.” I poured a couple of cups of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table, the concrete slab masquerading as food left on the counter.
Dad took the seat opposite me, his face rosy. “Well, Gaylene is . . . incredible, perfect. Well, not perfect, but she’s as close to it as I could imagine. And she’s really helped me. My pants are looser, see?” He stood up and pulled on his elasticate waistband. There was enough room in there to fit a small child. Weird image.
“Yeah, I do. That’s awesome.”
Dad eating better, losing weight, and getting healthy were exactly what I’d been trying to get him to do since his diagnosis. This was a good thing, a very good thing. So, why did I feel deflated?
“And it’s all down to Gaylene.” His eyes shone bright. He put his hand on mine. “Honey? I think I’m in love.”
My eyes got huge. “In love ?”
He nodded, his grin widening until it almost reached his ears. “I hope you’re okay with that.”
“Oh, Dad! Of course, I am.” I leaped up and hugged him over the table, knocking my full cup of coffee over, its contents spilling and dripping down onto the floor. “Oh, bummer.”
I grabbed the kitchen cloth and began sponging up the mess. “At least I didn’t get one of us.”
Dad gestured toward my skirt. “I think you did.”
I looked down at the brown splatter marks all over the floral dress I had put on this morning for my Email Marketing Assistant interview later in the day. Great, that’s just what I needed. I let out a defeated sigh.
“Why don’t you go and change. I’ll clean this up.”
“Sure, thanks.” I walked toward the staircase, dodging the coffee puddle on my way.
“And honey?”
I turned to look at Dad holding the cloth in his hand.
“Thank you for . . . you know.”
“Of course,” I replied, shooting him a smile.
My Dad was in love with a Paleo enthusiast called Gaylene, and what did I have? I thought of Marcus, inviting me up to his hotel room and let out a sigh. Not a whole lot, that’s what.