5. Chapter 5
Dom
I'm tired after a long training day. Our last pre-season game is this Sunday, and we're itching to win it. That second championship ring will feel more likely, if we come into the season on a winning streak. It would help my particular goals if I get another touchdown or two under my belt, too.
I talked to Logan. I talked to the coaches. I'll push myself this year. This season, I'll be critical to every win as the starting tight end in our offense. Fans and broadcasters saying my name every week in admiration. No one should be able to look at me and doubt I'm an asset to the team.
The sounds of boisterous men welcome me as I come out of the shower.
Football teams are large and so is the locker room.
I rarely notice the smell of it anymore, mixing sweat, personal products, and the plasticky scent of athletic wear.
My cubby is right next to the QB, and I find him throwing his stuff into a bag.
I'm about to ask him if we should focus on some of the new routes the next day, when Evie's voice interrupts us.
"Please cover the goods!" She requests from around the corner in the hall.
I wrap the towel around my hips a little tighter.
It's a familiar plea. I've been with the Strike for a long time, maybe as long as Evie.
Whenever she came to us for a chat, she announced her arrival in the same way.
It's how she makes sure not to see us in the nude.
Back then, she insisted she had no interest in our privates.
These days, she insists she only has eyes for her fiancé, Logan.
Unbothered, I watch her come into the locker room with Pen… and with Mariana.
My heart leaps. The noise around me dims. Even the smell disappears.
So fast it seems instant, my mood goes from excited for home to annoyed.
It's been like that since our argument a few nights ago.
Whenever I think of her, shifting weights change the balance in my chest. It's the same right now.
Before she showed up with my friends, I looked forward to a quiet night eating the dinner mi abuela made for me, and my mom put in my fridge.
Now eagerness turns to irritation prickling down my back.
At the party, I don't think she heard the questions hidden in my accusations.
Tell me you regret how things went down between you and me. I know I do.
Fuck. I need to fix this problem before it becomes a thing.
Pen goes to Leon, a few cubbies down the line. Evie comes to Logan next to me, Mariana on her tail. While Evie kisses Logan and asks him a couple of questions I don't pay attention to, my ex stands awkwardly by her side and glances at me.
I cross my arms and watch her. She dresses differently these days. Still wide pants, but with a blouse underneath a vest that gives her a dignified look. To my surprise, she bites her bottom lip, like I saw her do a million times before.
She's nervous. She's trying to make herself do something she doesn't want to do. I do not help her out and ask her what's going on. I'm not feeling generous. All I do is raise an eyebrow and wait to see what she'll do.
She takes a deep breath and casts resolute eyes my way.
"Can we talk?" She asks.
The tone isn't warm, but carefully flat. If I try, I'm sure I could hear hints of the posh accent she learned growing up.
"Sure." I shrug. I don't otherwise move.
Evie and Logan study us, curiosity charging the space between them, and Mariana and me.
I ignore them. The voice in my head that whispers things gets ignored, too.
No memories of Mariana are welcome. No longing for how it felt to love her, like I could conquer everything, because she taught me hope, and showed me what the best relationships were supposed to look like.
No questions get to be asked in the quiet of my mind, either.
I don't want Evie and Logan or anyone else getting ideas of what they think is or isn't between Mariana and me.
Keeping an even keel around her is still the best way to go.
I just need to let out some of my frustrations first. Subtle is the name of the game.
Plus a little antagonism doesn't hurt anybody.
Her lips tense. "In private."
"Is this an official matter?"
"Of course."
"It's not a good time." I make a gesture to indicate my state of undress. "I'd rather not walk through the building wearing nothing but a towel."
"It won't take long." She shrugs. "Maybe there's a room somewhere close? You can put on shorts or something. I don't care either way."
"You don't care?" I raise an eyebrow.
"Not in the least."
Bullshit. But I can't call her out in public.
"There's a service room around the corner," Evie says before I can decide how to respond. "I go there for quick chats once in a while."
Logan talks to Mariana as well. "You're not the first to need a private word with one of us."
"Mh. I remember our first meeting there, Logan." Evie frowns and stares up at her fiancé. "You only wore shorts. So bare-chested meetings have a precedent."
"Make sure to get that towel nice and tight." Logan adds my way. "Just in case."
"Didn't you hear?" I ask. "She doesn't care, and I'm quite comfortable."
Mariana rolls her eyes, but otherwise hides her irritation at me.
Annoyance is a new look for her. She never used to give off those vibes around me, but I better get used to them. I don't see a future where she looks at me with love and devotion again. The kind that was a mirror of my own feelings for her.
How powerful I used to feel, when we were in each other's arms and I believed in what we had. These days, I expect we'll still match each other, but now it will be in the realm of our resentments.
She turns to Evie. "Do you mind telling me where the room is?"
"I know where it is," I say. "You can follow me."
Without waiting for confirmation, I lead her to the service room Evie mentioned. It's a decently-sized space, with harsh fluorescent lighting, metal shelves on the sides that hold products and tools, and industrial-sized washing machines and dryers at the back.
We mirror each other again, with our arms crossed and face to face.
"You wanted to talk?" I stare down at her.
She lifts her chin. A gulp makes it down her throat. "What have you told your friends about us?"
"I haven't told them anything. If they know we have a past, it's because Cora made it obvious a few months ago, when she graciously came to say hi to me at the ring ceremony."
"I can't see Cora telling them you and I had a thing in college."
The dryer is running behind me, and its burr is the only sound for a few seconds. Her words hit a cord inside me somewhere, where it hurts that she called what we had a thing.
What we had was a dream. A time that followed no logic and yet defined the way I dated for the rest of my life. Like when you wake up from whatever your brain made up during the night, only to feel the ghost of it as you go through your day.
It's fine. It doesn't matter.
I raise an eyebrow. "She didn't need to share details for them to figure it out from our conversation."
"I see."
"Why are you asking me this? I have no interest in going around telling everyone you chose your family over me."
"Is that the story you're telling yourself?"
She purses her lips. Her eyes remain locked on mine.
I make my voice stern. "That is the story."
"Close enough, I suppose."
"Do you regret it?"
The words escape me. I still, immediately looking for a way out. But she studies me like she's trying to decipher what exactly do I mean— all of it, or just how it ended?
I run my fingers over my wet, prickly scalp in frustration at myself, but don't say anything else.
"Whether I regret it or not," she finally says, "it doesn't change what happened."
I make peace with the fact I'll never know the answer, because I never meant to ask.
"I guess you still got married," I say.
She chews her lip. "I still helped my family like I said I would."
"Is that the story you tell yourself, then? That you did it out of integrity?"
"That is my story."
She never lied. She warned me. She fought for us as long as she thought she could, then I let her go.
It's ironic, really. Kind of twisted. I loved her furious loyalty. The kind where she'd never walk away from the people she chose to call her own. I experienced it for ten months, but her faithfulness to her family was more powerful in the end.
I echo her. "Close enough, I suppose."
For the first time, her eyes soften on me. She doesn't look away, but they close. She takes a deep breath.
Maybe, just maybe, she regrets some things, too.
She shakes her head. "Regardless. I needed to talk to you about this because we work together now. From the meetings I've been having, we won't be able to avoid each other."
"How is that a problem? It doesn't have to be a big deal. As soon as I heard you were going to take over the foundation department I expected to see you around. Didn't you?"
"Of course I did."
"Does it bother you?"
I manage to ask the question like a challenge, when it sounds different in my mind.
Tell me I still make you feel things. Even if it’s irritation. At least it means you feel something.
Annoyance comes back to her face. We never used to talk like this. I'm glad she doesn't break under the change, and meets me with simple displeasure. In fact, I welcome it.
She presses her lips. "What bothers me is that if I'm going to work closely with you and your friends, I don't want them mincing their words or keeping their distance because of something you may have told them about me.
I want them to treat me the same way they would treat anyone in the front office.
If I'm going to work and live here for a season, I want to make my way without our— my— history getting in the way. "
"If they're holding their tongue it's not because of anything I've said, because I haven't said a thing."
"Good. I don't want them prejudiced against me."
"Give me more credit than that."
"I would have, if you hadn't called me a year after we broke up."
I tense my arms. They become a shield, protecting my chest from her call out.
"You used to know me better than anyone." I shake my head. "You should know why I called. Yeah, I did the wrong thing— once. Don't I at least get that? Why are you letting it redefine everything?"
"I had to let it redefine everything, or I wouldn't have known what to do with the hurt of what you were asking of me."
My nostrils flare. Seems she has a very low opinion of me these days. If Mariana let a phone call change everything she thought of me and the time we had together, I'm not going to argue. Who knows, maybe her parents put some extra pressure on her to view me a certain way, too.
"Well, then," I say. "You've made up your mind."
She nods. "So, back to your friends. Would they have looked me up? There are small press articles in the UK. They would have found a couple of things about the divorce or even the fact Henry's asking for alimony—"
I sputter. "He's asking for alimony?!"
That gets her bashful. She glances behind my back. It might be a way to avoid having to give me her eyes. She doesn't want me to read into them.
"He's not getting any," she says. "Prenup. Lawyers. It's fine."
"Wow. What a guy."
She purses her lips. "I see you haven't looked up details about my divorce. Thanks, I think."
"I didn't look you up after that email arrived in my inbox."
The way she smiled in that picture seemed genuine enough. I thought it meant she was happy, and I let her go one last time.
Then I started dating in earnest, hoping I'd forget. I've dated a hundred women since. It didn't work very well, but it won't help to stop altogether. I really should start again. I will, as soon as a new championship is guaranteed.
She stares at the floor. "I did not send you that."
"I believe you. It was probably your mom."
"Probably. She thought she was protecting me, I think. I… I didn't handle your call very well."
"Protecting you, or your marriage to a royal? And he's fighting you for alimony now?"
"Look. You're right. Okay? You're right." She fists her hands at her hips. "I didn't know my dad talked to you, but I bet he thought he was protecting me too. Just like my mom. They had big hopes for me and they were helping in their own way."
"Oh, please," I start, but she talks over me.
"And I don't like it! They were wrong. I was wrong.
I've made a hundred mistakes since. I'm trying to fix them.
Why do you think I came here? With Cora and away from them for a year?
Because I have big plans to focus on me and my career and if anyone has any problems with that or the fact I want to date fifty men post-divorce—"
"What?!" I lift my hands in a confused gesture.
It's a mix of please stop, with a dose of what are you saying, and plenty of I don't need to hear this.
"I'd rather not hear about any of it," I say before I can think twice about it. "Especially not your kinky dreams about fifty men."
But that's not really what Mariana was talking about. Her crestfallen face tells me exactly how far I took my comment, and how bad of an idea it was.