Page 10 of Never Always
He leans in. “You’ve either been told, or your understanding was never corrected about your place in the world. At some point on the road of life, you assumed you were less than. Maybe because your brain was so big that you thought you couldn’t possibly have the whole package, maybe because the seed was planted that you were less than and you let your confidence take a nosedive, and that’s your fault.” I go to interject—try to state my case, but he goes on. “It’s why you don’t think anyone could ever find you attractive. It’s why you won’t just ask the damn guy out. It’s why you bury yourself in work to compensate for your lack of a social life. Here it is.” He opens his arms out to the sides as far as he can. “The truth.”
“Is that what this is?” I sneer. “The truth? Some felon telling me who I am and what I should want.”
“Nope,” he says, laying a hand on the door handle. “Just some man, looking at a woman, telling her that she is fucking hot. Smart. Pretty much the catch of the century, albeit annoying and too dense to see it. Confidence. That’s all you need to fix it—to fix everything. Fake it until you make it. Everyone does it.”
My heart is pounding as I open the car door and snatch my belongings and the chess set from the floorboard. The slam echoes through the parking garage. Is that the trick then? Everyone just pretends to enjoy small talk? They just sit around chatting about inconsequential things and enjoy it? They pretend to have things in common with the opposite sex to lure them in, like a trap? I don’t want that. Any of it. I’ve known that for a long time, which is the issue. I’m never going to be the girl that has to hide who she is for someone else.
“I don’t want to fake anything, Corrick. I want to be myself. Maybe the mousy, self-conscious version of me is the real me. What then?” I say, talking to him over the hood of my car after he shuts the driver’s side door.
He tosses me the fob with my house key connected to it. “You called me by my full name tonight,” he says, ignoring my question. “No one has called me that for a long time.”
“That’s what stopped you from trying to violate that poor man? Your full name?” I ask, making my way to the elevator and slamming the button. He follows, I hear his footsteps heavy behind me.
“That poor man is a fucking dipshit who tucks his balls before bed.” He stands next to me, hands in his jeans pockets. “I don’t know what she sees in him. Why?” His tone is agitated, so the desire to turn and face him is strong.
“She broke your heart,” I say as the elevator door pings open. “You broke hers first though.”
“And you don’t know a thing about heartbreak.” Even though it’s a quasi-argument, he follows me in and the doors close behind us. “You had mail on your desk. It’s how I knew you lived in this building,” he explains, which is actually quite helpful, so I don’t have to ask. “Be more careful with personal things in an open office if you’re trying to stay hidden away.”
I hit the button for my floor and huddle against the corner away from his large body towering in the shared space. “Thanks for that advice. Or you could just not snoop.” He grins, shifting his body to lean against the side of the mirrored wall. When he doesn’t respond, I finish, “Heartbreak comes in all shapes and sizes, you know? I know what it feels like. Disappointment coated in heavy layers of sadness.” I clear my throat as the conversation delves to places that are uncomfortable for both of us. “Maybe all she sees in him is that he’s not you.”
I look at him. He’s staring at me, lips pursed and blue eyes narrowed in thought. “That so?”
Shrugging, I step out into the empty hallway and put the key in my door. Grange watches. I feel his eyes on me as I push open the door and hold out my arm to let him go in first. After I’ve shut the door, I realize there is a man in my condo. A big, testosterone-filled savage who has complimented me but has also offended me in every possible way. Grange looks around, a slow perusal of my things. I bluster past him to put the keys on the table and my purse and sweater on an empty chair in my kitchen and head to the cabinet for my water bottle. I fill it from the tap and drink several large gulps.
“Are you going to give me the whole story then?” I ask, turning to lean against the counter. He’s holding a framed photo of me and Sue-Ellen. She’s wearing a royal blue bejeweled number the night she qualified for a state pageant. I’m wearing a t-shirt that saysSave the Planet because there is no Plan B.Grange flashes the frame my way and smirks. “The hot older sister, I presume?”
“Sue-Ellen. She’s not bad. It’s just her and I. No other siblings.”
He nods and sets the photo back down. “I like your shirt.”
I blush. “When I went to those things, I always made sure to make myself heard in my own way. I never got into pageants like the other girls in Greenton.” My parents never suggested it. “Anyway, Black or White? I’ll set up the game. Do you want something to drink?” I almost said wine or beer, but my quick thinking didn’t let that happen.
“Shooter’s choice.” Leaning down, he looks at the other family photos I have clustered on my entertainment center. “And about that whole story. What do you want to know?”
Are we having a normal conversation? Telling truths? It feels strange, but it makes my insides flip in excitement. “Could start at the beginning, I suppose. If you want. I know it’s obviously a touchy subject. It might help to get it all out.”
He sighs, stalking toward me, gaze blazing my body to ashes. “I told it all once. To my best friend, Rexy. He’s back at the Teams waiting for my bum ass to finish with this service and get on with life. He didn’t have much advice because well, he’d never fucked up as bad as I did. Not like that anyway.” Grange sits down at my kitchen table and finishes setting up his pieces. “I’ll go first.”
“Nope. White goes first.” I open with a pawn move.
Grange furrows his brow and wipes the pad of his thumb across his lip. He also pushes a pawn. I concentrate on the board instead of his mouth. Lips. Tongue.Who am I right now?I can barely focus as the next few moves take place.
“Sierra’s friend called me over to her place. Friend might be too strong of a word.” He pauses and makes another move. I meet his eyes. “Under the pretenses that Sierra left something there and asked that I retrieve it for her. It wasn’t an odd request. Sierra stayed there the night before and I was on my way home anyhow.” He looks over my shoulder to the window. “She wasn’t wearing a shirt when I walked in. Or it was like this lacy half bra, half shirt thing. I thought, ‘okay. No big deal. Get the bag and go.’” Grange sighs. “She was drinking bourbon. Crying. In the damned bra. It’s when shit went sideways. I tried to get the fuck out of there as quick as possible, but she was crying and asked that I have a drink with her. She wanted to tell me about the problems she was having with her boyfriend.”
“You don’t drink. Not at all?” I move my knight. “Or rather you didn’t drink at that point in your life?”
He shakes his head. “I figured one drink would be fine and I could listen to the sob story and get the fuck out of there as quick as possible. I don’t do well with chicks and crying. Well, no man does, I think.” His hand shakes as he makes his next move—one I don’t anticipate. “The bourbon hit me like a freight train. It had been a long ass time since I’d drank anything, and I had an empty stomach, and I’m sure you can guess where it went from there.”
“I could guess, but if you told me I wouldn’t have to,” I reply. The next move I make is a bit more calculated because I thought through the next six moves after his last.
“She kissed me after I had another drink. We moved to the sofa by the front door, and the next thing I know, she’s naked, bouncing up and down on my dick. Sierra stormed in right around that time and I took off after her.” He swallows hard. “I could barely walk, let alone talk to her. It was horrible. Like those nightmares you can’t wake up from no matter how hard you try? Like I was in another dimension watching my life crumble.”
“It sounds strange. Like the woman planned the whole thing. Like a stage production or something. Question. When you’re drunk, you lose all ability to say no?”
“No one has come at me like that before. Honestly, I don’t even remember being hard,” he says, looking at me to see if his crass language has jarred me.
“You cheated on her, I don’t think how hard you were matters, Grange. It’s like those people who say they got herpes from a toilet seat. ‘I didn’t technically cheat on you because my dick wasn’t as hard as it was with you.’ You understand how idiotic it sounds, right?”
