Page 25 of Flagrant Foul
“As a result, I was more shocked by his rejection the second time than I was the first. How’s that for dumb? Itrulybelieved he felt something for me too. I told myself that he was a gentleman—spoiler, Sev isn’t and has never been a gentleman—and that he cared about me so muchhe didn’t want to take advantage of me, and that’s why he stopped me the first time.”
I chuckle dryly. It really does sound incredibly stupid when I say it aloud. “I fully believed my little story. So much so that I was happy when I leaned in the second time, not nervous at all. My heart was beating like it was on its way home. I thought the waiting was over, and the rest of my life was about to start.”
Completely unexpectedly, my chest caves and my eyes well.
Mae pats my arm gently and tilts her head toward mine until it’s resting on my shoulder. The comfort the small gesture delivers finds something fragile in me and soothes it in a way I’m not expecting. A way I hadn’t thought was possible.
“I’m sorry, dear boy,” she says.
I’m not someone who likes sharing lots of things about myself with others. I guess you could say I have trust issues, so I’ve never told anyone about what happened with Sev, not even Tommy, and I think somehow, Mae knows that. I think she knows it was more than a couple of fumbled kisses that didn’t work out. It was all my worst fears come to life. Rejection in its truest, most naked form. A cold dismissal not only of what I wasoffering him, but of who I am, and everything I thought we were to each other.
We all have a day our innocence ends, and that day was mine. I thought it had ended years ago, when I was fourteen and learned what hate was, but it hadn’t. Somehow, my innocence had stayed with me. It had clung to me. Whispering naïve notions into my soul. Things like,if you love someone with your whole heart, they’ll love you back. And I did, I loved Sev with all my heart, and truthfully, I still do.
But more than that, I trusted myself. I trusted my instincts and intuition. They all saidyes, this is real, and I believed them. But Sev said no. He pushed me away. Not just with his words. With his hands too. He physically took hold of me and held me at arm’s length. He did it firmly, and he didn’t even have the balls to look me in the eye as he did it.
Nothing between us has ever been the same again, and not only that, I’ve never trusted myself completely either.
I’ve spent years going on about it in therapy. Ultimately, it hasn’t helped at all, but it has made me feel like shit for the strength of my reaction.
“Do you think it makes me a huge asshole that Sev said no to me, which, of course, he had every right to do, yetI absolutely cannot get over it?” I ask. “Does it make me terribly entitled, or something? I mean, I’ve torched our friendship over it. Unless we’re with Nate, and sometimes not even then, I simply cannot bring myself to act normal around him. It’s been more than five years since it happened. That’s asshole behavior, isn’t it?”
“Oh no, dear, not at all. Rejection is a very unpleasant beast. Someone once said no to me, and I couldn’t possibly have taken it worse.” She drifts off with a sad smile that turns impish when her attention returns to me. “His name was Neville. Nerdy name. Smokin’ hot body.”
She smacks her lips at the memory. “He was the love of my life. We’d been going steady for about six months when, out of the blue, he broke up with me. When I asked him why, he said I was inappropriate, too loud, and that his mom didn’t like me. He said he wanted to marry a nice girl and have a simple life. Can you believe that shit? That was coming from a man who was attracted tome. I heard his no, and I couldn’t accept it because I knew him. Iknewhe wanted me. Iknewwe were meant to be together. And more than that, I knew he wasn’t the strait-laced dullard he wanted people to think he was.”
I feel her outrage, all these years later, and groan in solidarity. “What did you do? How did you get over it?”
“Oh, I didn’t get over it.” She sweeps a lock of hair off her forehead. “I cried and cried. I can’t tell you how much I cried.” I nod sagely. Been there, done that. “Then I got angry.” Oof. Yep. Been there too. “And then, finally, I came to my senses, pulled on my big girl panties, and did what needed to be done.”
Hmm.
I might have skipped that step.
My ears prick up. “And what specifically was it that needed to be done?”
Her eyes sparkle as she unleashes the most menacing beam I’ve seen on her yet. She preens for a moment, placing her hands primly on one knee as she turns to me, pausing to let the significance of what she’s about to say sink in.
I wait with bated breath.
“I seduced him,” she says, punctuating the statement with a satisfied nod. “I didn’t pull any punches. I put myself in his path deliberately and reminded him of all the things about me he liked.”
She lowers her voice conspiratorially. “I went so far as to wear a white sundress to church. People werescandalized. They called me a tart.” She raises a hand to her lips in a faux attempt to hide an evil cackle. “It was supposed to be an insult, but I didn’t take it as one.”
“Did it work?”
“Absolutely. Poor old Neville didn’t stand a chance. You see, here’s the thing: that man didn’t know what he wanted. It took me a while to figure it out, but it really was that simple. He was following society’s expectation of him when the truth was, he didn’t like nice girls. He liked loud, inappropriate women who didn't give a shit about things like normal, and all he needed was a healthy reminder of that. He was putty in my hands after the day of the white sundress.” She hums happily. “Ah, we had so much fun together, Neville and I. D’you know, for years, his pet name for me was Tartlet.”
“Is he…no longer with us?”
“No, no, no such luck. He’s still knocking around. Fighting fit and giving me hell. He just stopped calling me Tartlet when I turned seventy-five. He calls me The Old Tart now, and I call him The Old Fart. Bless him. He lives in the building, two floors down, in his own apartment. I love the man to death, but I can’t live with him. Can’t think of anything worse than having a man in my house all the time. No offense, dear.”
“None taken,” I say, waving her off because, believe me, I get it.
12
Teddy “T-Dog” O’Reilly
Itapmyfingertipslightly but repetitively on my forehead, eyes screwed shut, as I will common sense to take hold. It’s been four days since Sev moved in and three days since my conversation with Mae.
