Chapter 12 Maverick
maverick
“I bet wearing my jersey doesn’t sound like such a bad idea now, huh?” I point my gaze at Chloe’s cut of jean shorts, noting the way her skin breaks out in goosebumps. It feels safer than focusing on her fire engine red T-shirt that barely covers her belly button.
“Usually, I have tequila to warm me from the inside out when I leave Rowdy’s.” Her teeth chatter and she clutches the jersey in her crossed arms but makes no move to put it on as we hustle across the street toward the neon arrow.
“After you, babe.” I hold the door open and smile when she trips over herself—likely at my use of the pet name—before regaining her footing and entering the warm pizza shop.
“Ciao! Maverick! Where have you been?” Enzo slides a pie into the brick over before rounding the corner and pulling me in for a strong Italian hug. “Good to see you. Good to see you!” He pulls back, smiling and patting me on the shoulder.
“You too, my guy,” I return the sentiment. “Enzo, this is Chloe.”
“Hello.” She offers a polite smile, but her eyes grow wide as Enzo reaches for her hand.
“Chloe. Così bella!” He kisses the top of her hand, and to my surprise, she just laughs, and I think she finds him endearing. “What do you like? Anything you like. On me.”
“Oh, um…” Chloe looks at me and I grip Enzo’s shoulder, sending flour residue into a small puff.
“We’ll take two classics, and a slice of the Devil’s Pizza.”
“Very good,” Enzo cheers. “Very good. Go sit, I’ll bring it out.” He waves us toward the back that’s full of empty tables. It’s too late for a pre-game dinner, but way too early for the drunk I-need-a-pizza-before-bed crowd.
“Friend of yours?” Chloe asks as she slides into the booth across from me.
“I’ve been coming here since freshman year. Sometimes I come with the guys after a night out. Sometimes I just come by myself on a random Tuesday.”
“The pizza’s that good?”
The people are. “Honestly, the pizza could suck, but I’d still show up.
Enzo treated me right once when I was going through something.
..” I trail off, thinking back on the random day I found myself in here.
I don’t even remember what was bothering me then, but I do remember Enzo talking to me.
I’m sure he had some words of wisdom in that thick Italian accent of his.
“Anyway, he’s got my loyalty now, and I make it a point to try and come in at least once a week. ”
Chloe tilts her head, looking at me, but it’s the feeling of her actually seeing me that makes me look down at the table. Every time she looks at me it feel like she’s somehow crawled inside my chest and she’s seeing past the usual walls I put up, reading the parts no one else does.
“I’m sorry for what I said the other day.”
Her words make me pause, and I lift my eyes to hers.
“About loyalty not meaning anything to you. I knew it wasn’t true when I said it.”
“It’s no big,” I say with a shrug.
“No, it is.” She nods her head, and it seems more to convince me than herself. “I was wrong, and even before tonight I could see that, and… you didn’t deserve what I said.”
For the first time that I can remember, I don’t have a witty response.
Part of me is grateful that she sees me the way my family and the boys do.
The other part of me is screaming at her to expect that for herself.
How is it that everyone else sees me as this reckless, selfish commitment-phobe, yet Chloe can see the truth.
And in the same breath, she can’t see that Nathan is exactly the kind of guy that everyone thinks I am.
Her eyes linger on me a moment longer, and I rub a hand across my chest, trying to push away the unfamiliar throb that comes from her words.
“What’s your favorite conspiracy?” she pipes up, breaking the ice.
“What?” I blink, completely caught off guard.
“Your favorite conspiracy theory. I think knowing that will tell me more about you than what your favorite color is or the name of your family pet growing up.”
“I’m not a conspiracy theorist.”
“I have two,” she says, ignoring me. “The first is about how J.P. Morgan orchestrated the Titanic sinking in an insurance scam.”
“And the other?”
She leans back in the red vinyl booth, the table giving a soft wobble when she shifts. “I think Jimmy Hoffa is buried under a parking lot at the old Tigers Stadium.”
I throw my head back, barking out a laugh that comes from deep in my chest.
“You laugh, but the Jimmy Hoffa rabbit hole is endless.”
“You’re gullible.” I lean forward, resting my forearms on the table.
“No. I just like to believe in things.” She shrugs, and almost immediately makes a face, like she’s said too much, or wishes she could take it back. She keeps her eyes on me, but I catch the way her fingers curl around a napkin, quietly picking at the corners.
“What else do you believe in?”
“Astrology.”
“Of course you do.” I smirk, watching as she tucks one leg up underneath her in the booth.
“Well, maybe if everything I’ve ever read about my sign hadn’t been me to an exact T, then I wouldn’t, but it is.”
“Is there anything you don’t believe in?” I ask her.
“Coincidences.”
Her gaze pins me for a moment, and I don’t look away. I’ve never questioned it before, but sitting across from Chloe, I wonder if this is just a chance, maybe it’s a chance I want to believe in.
“Bellisima Chloe and Maverick.” Enzo carries a tray of the pizzas we ordered and another four that we did not. “What else?” he asks, setting them down on the table.
“I think we’re good, Enzo. Thank you.”
“Yes, thank you, Enzo. This looks incredible.”
“You come get me if you need anything, okay?”
“Thank you,” I say again.
Enzo walks away and I grab the red pepper flakes as Chloe pulls a slice of pizza and sets it on her plate.
“Why don’t you tell me something about you. Besides the fact that you don’t believe in anything.”
“What do you want to know?”
“I don’t know. Tell me something a real girlfriend would know about you.”
“I wouldn’t have a real girlfriend.”
“Why is that?” she asks.
She’s let it be known twice now that this isn’t a date, so theoretically, I should be able to tell her.
I should be able to explain that there's a fine line between what people think they know about someone and who they actually are. That I don’t want to deal with the fallout of disappointing anyone when they realize I’m not the guy they decided I was.
Plus, she’s not wrong. My loyalty doesn’t come in halves.
When I give it, I give it all. The words are right there on the tip of my tongue, and this kind of honesty feels almost too easy for someone I hardly know.
But when I watch Chloe’s lips move as she chews her pizza, completely unaware of the truth I so desperately want to share with her, I realize she’s already seeing me more clearly than most anyone else does.
And the truth is, I’m not yet ready to find out what happens if she decides she doesn't like what she sees.
“I just haven’t found someone I’m ready to commit to yet.”
For the first time since we sat down, she looks away, and I swear I catch a flicker of disappointment in her eyes.