26. Nicolette #2
“You know, she reminded me a lot of you. So, in a way, you were.”Chelsea offered a wry smile.
“I ended up taking the rest of the semester off, which turned into the year. I opted for online classes after I met Bill.”She lifted a shoulder before letting it slump down.
“When I came over this morning, I guess I expected to find you as wrecked as I was back then. I should have remembered you were always so much tougher than me.”
“Hey.”I placed my other hand on top of hers and demanded her attention.
“I was never tougher. I think I’m just more of an asshole.
”She laughed, and I was relieved to see her smile.
“And for the record... I was wrecked. Wholly. You should have seen the fit I threw. I broke all of Riot’s metalwork. ”
“I heard,”she said through a watery smile.“I left to go check on the girls who were with Bill’s parents while everyone was at the stage.”Chelsea’s eyes darted down and back up at me as if nervous to ask her next question.“So... you and Riot?”
The sound of his name brought a shy smile to my lips.
“Yeah... I don’t know. It’s kind of fresh, I guess.
He’s taking me on a date tonight.”Her eyes went a little wide before she recovered with an exaggerated nod.
I wished I could help her see what I saw in him.
“What are you and Bill doing tonight? Think his parents could take another shift and you two can double with us?”
For a moment her eyes were steeped in longing but her sad smile followed with a shake of her head.“That’s okay. They’re out of town. As much as I’d love to... Bill and I haven’t been on a date in years . We’ve been saving up to fix our shower. The girls’ bathroom is getting real crowded.”
“The five of you are sharing a bathroom?”I immediately regretted the incredulity in my voice but Chelsea just laughed.
“We did always love‘The Simple Life’, didn’t we?”I thought back to the hours of the reality show we used to watch in my bedroom because Chelsea’s parents never let her watch it .
The morning ebbed to the afternoon while Chelsea and I exchanged more stories from the past. Guilt crept up my throat for how I’d missed the worst period in my best friend’s life.
I pictured the excitement she must’ve had for prom night and even though her date had been a colossal asshole, a stab of ostracization pierced my insides.
Senior Prom. Homecoming. Winter Formal. It was a world I’d never been part of. Would that night have gone differently if I’d been there? I pictured myself in a sparkly pink dress. No, I wasn’t made for something like prom.
After we parted ways, another pang of guilt lodged in my chest. I thought about the offers I’d been extended when my sex tape had been uncovered.
Would it have made a difference? Would speaking out have done anything to prevent things like revenge porn and leaked sex tapes from happening to other men and women?
I sat on the edge of my bed, gazing out into the sunny afternoon, wondering how I could be so hypocritical.
Here I was, priding myself on making a name uncovering injustices, holding people accountable, giving a voice to the unheard, and telling their stories.
But I wasn’t willing to give myself a voice about the things that happened to me.
A light knock on the sliding glass door pulled me from the vortex of my brain.
Rising to my feet, I felt that vortex disappear like a dying windstorm because Riot stood on the other side of the door, a small bouquet of wildflowers in his hand.
I’d return to the thought at some point.
But for tonight, all I saw was Riot’s boyish grin and endearingly outdated suit jacket.
Embers & Ivy was nestled in the recently developed downtown area of Lycon. It was a large standalone building that was a stone’s throw from the lake and I had to admit that it was hard to believe we were only twenty-five minutes from Godot.
Inside, dim lighting illuminated the oak and cherry walls, casting an intimate ambiance throughout the space. The walls were decorated with fake gas lantern sconces. It smelled wonderful.
“Riot Asher, I should smack you for not coming in sooner. Come here, honey.”
A woman in her late fifties came sweeping up to us, beaming from ear to ear. It startled me because, outside she-who-I-refused-to-think-about, not a single person ever greeted Riot with such warmth.
“Hi, Aunt Jen.”He smiled and gave her a heartfelt hug. Her arms wrapped tighter around him, loaded with some ineffable grief.
Aunt ? I wracked my brain to try to remember whether he’d ever mentioned her to me.
“This is Nicolette Parker.”He gestured to me and she shook my hand zealously.“Nicolette, this is my dad’s sister, Aunt Jen.”
“Pleasure to meet you,”I said.
Aunt Jen showed us to a table for two in the corner.
“When Riot told me he was bringing a date, I had the best table in the house reserved.”She smiled.
The walls were deep mahogany and everything looked like it was made from solid oak.
The chairs were thick and sturdy as Riot pulled mine out for me.
He was milking this whole“official date”thing. I promised to be a good sport when he insisted on opening my car door for me. I wasn’t much for the overdone displays of chivalry, but it made him smile and I was a goddamn sucker for that smile.
Half an hour later we were almost through with the first bottle of wine and I had told him all about my crazy eco-parents and their hippie parents before them. Riot had never met his father’s parents, which I found sad.
There was a special kind of love grandparents gave their grandchildren, an unadulterated, unburdened kind of love.
His mother’s father had been around when he was little but died in a mining accident.
He said Grace used to go visit the mine every year on the anniversary of his death to lay flowers.
A sadness washed over him, describing it.
“Tell me about Aunt Jen,”I said.“You’ve never mentioned her before.”
“She’s my dad’s younger sister. She used to live in Charleston but moved this way when my dad passed. She was planning to stay with us, help my mom with me and Brennan but…”he looked around.“They couldn’t get along.”Riot shrugged and spun the fork in front of him.
“I would think your mom would be glad for the help. Two boys couldn’t have been easy.”
He lifted his eyebrows.“We most certainly weren’t. Especially Brennan. He and my dad were close. Dad was one of the few people who didn’t treat him like something was wrong with him.”
Realization passed over his face when he met my gaze.
“Kind of like you…”he said with a soft expression before shaking it off.
“When he’d do things like repeat himself, my dad would just give him a pat on the shoulder and say ‘I might be your old man, but I’m not so old you have to repeat yourself.
I heard you the first time.’”Riot smiled, lost in the memory.
“He was good with him. And when he was gone…”
I watched Riot’s eyes search for some intangible reasoning somewhere on the ceiling.
“Brennan was just more difficult. Aunt Jen tried to get him help. There was a therapist she wanted him to see. But my mom refused to let her take him to counseling. She said the church offered plenty for free and she couldn’t afford to be driving him to and from Charleston twice a week. ”
Riot pressed his lips into an unfortunate line.
“That must have been hard to watch,”I said.
His head bobbed a few times before meeting my eyes.
“When I was younger, I didn’t understand, so I just enjoyed being the good child , you know?
”Remorse painted his features.“Then when football started to gain some momentum, I spent every waking minute I could on the field, in the gym. Anything to be out of the house.”My heart ached for the little boy escaping his own family.
“You know I was offered a football scholarship to Stanford too? ”
My eyes widened in surprise.“I did not know that. Why on earth didn’t you take it?”I tried to mask the disbelief but I still cringed when I heard it. If Riot was offended, he didn’t show it because he just laughed.
“You know, I think I loved the idea of being the hometown hero.”He shrugged and pushed a few pieces of lettuce around on his salad plate.
“The idea of moving to a place where I’m just another face in the crowd scared me.
I wanted to be the guy they all looked up to.
I wanted to stand out.”He offered a humorless laugh.
My heart tightened, reading the thoughts all over his face.
He’d love to be just another face in the crowd now.
“I think about it often. If I’d taken it. Moved to California… How everything might have worked out differently.”
A small shudder ran through him and I found myself holding my breath.
He had opened the door to his mother’s death, and I had so many burning questions for him.
When he was just a name on a news article, I was cynical enough to believe anyone was capable of anything.
I still believed that but now, after meeting him, after a tiny peek into his heart, I had so many doubts.
I had studied his hands and fingers and I had tried to picture them wrapped around a bloody knife.
My mouth opened, the words perched on my lips.
“Riot, what happened with your m—”
“Dinner is served!”Our waitress appeared, balancing a large tray with our plates on it.
Our plates radiated the smell of warm food and my stomach rumbled. Besides the breakfasts at the diner, I couldn’t remember the last real meal I sat down and ate that didn’t come in a cardboard box.
I was about to dig in when I saw Riot dip his head and mutter something under his breath.
“Are you praying?”I asked, immediately regretting how critical I sounded. Riot looked up, surprised as if I’d caught him doing something wrong.