The Final Score (24 page)

“Mikey, this is Cyndi,” I say harshly, taking a step back.

“Nice to meet you,” Mikey says while noticeably checking her out. Now that I’m totally pissed off, I leave them to talk as I storm off.

Thankfully, I spot Luke and JJ talking with friends on the other side of the bar. Everyone is already congratulating them on their engagement. I catch up to meet them, thankful for the distraction. They look happy and seem to be having a good time hanging out with everyone.

I glance over, watching Cyndi and Mikey. She looks to be doing all of the talking, but he doesn’t seem to mind, especially when she runs her hand down his arms every time she laughs at something he says.

“I’ll be right back. I’m running to the bathroom,” JJ says, breaking my trance.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Luke asks, protectively wrapping his arm around her waist.

“I think I got it.” She laughs. He pulls her close and kisses her lips before releasing her. God, they’re pathetic.

Luke watches her as she walks away. His friends take note and tease him about it. He laughs along with them, knowing he’s caught.

***

(Jesse)

I step out of the stall, only to come face-to-face with Alexa who is standing at the mirror. She’s running her fingers through her sexy, blonde locks of hair, shaking it out wildly. The bathroom is tight and there isn’t much space, so I have no choice except to stand beside her as I wash my hands. I can feel her staring at me, wanting to say something.

“I’m sorry,” she finally says. I ignore her and continue washing. “I’m sorry for what I did to you,” she repeats, watching me through the mirror.

I confidently pull my lipstick from my purse, being sure to apply it with my left hand, baring my shiny new diamond as it glistens off the mirror. I’m not the scared girl I used to be.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about. You weren’t a factor in my life then, and you
most certainly
aren’t a factor in my life now,” I say arrogantly as I continue to apply my lipstick with a steady hand.

Alexa smiles timidly. “I deserve that.” She pauses. “You’re right, I never was. From the first day I saw him with you, I knew that. He never looked at me the way he looked at you.” I don’t respond, but she gets my attention and I look at her through the mirror. “I hated you for it, and I did a lot of shitty things to try and get in your way.
Obviously, it didn’t work
.” A sorrowful smile falls from her face.

“Why are you telling me this? It doesn’t even matter now, it was high school,” I ask, turning to face her.

“See, that’s the thing. It doesn’t matter to you, but it was a huge wake up call for me. I guess you don’t know how it feels to have someone you care about not even be able to look at you because all they want is for you to be someone else. God, it’s not like he even tried to hide it, even when we were together. He made a point of telling me numerous times that I wasn’t you and I’d never be you.” She laughs to herself, shaking her head. “It took me a while, but I finally got it. I realized I didn’t want to be the girl that everyone used to have a good time. It made me want what you had, someone that respected me, loved me and defended me… someone that actually liked spending time with me.”

“Well then, good for you,” I reply, seeming a bit sarcastic. I’m not sure what to make of her. I stuff my lipstick in my purse and turn to leave.

“I guess, I shouldn’t have said, ‘I was sorry.’ I guess what I meant is,
thank you.
I think I’m a better person now. I still haven’t found that guy, yet, but at least I’m making better choices, hoping to find him some day.” She smiles and it’s a sincere smile.

It’s now clear to me that I’m not the only one who has changed over the last two years. She doesn’t have an ulterior motive and seems embarrassed by her past behavior. I think she is sincerely trying to make amends. “You will,” I tell her and give her a half-hearted smile.

“Thanks,” she says, then calls out as I’m leaving, “Jesse, congratulations to both of you.”

“Thank you,” I say, feeling somewhat relieved to have had that conversation.

Even though I told Alexa she wasn’t a factor in my life, obviously back then, she had been a huge factor. It mapped out the last two years of my life. I believed that Luke had slept with her that night. It’s why I stayed away from him. Of course, I’d never admit that to her.

“What took so long?” Luke asks as I walk up. I give him a kiss and tell him there was a line. I’ll tell him later about running into Alexa. Besides, we are having a good time and I don’t want to waste a second of it talking about her, no matter how much she has changed.

***

(Mikey)

It’s getting late and the bar is about to close. I take a walk around, looking for De to let her know we are about to leave. I don’t know why I always feel the need to push her away just as we’re getting close, but the way I feel about her is making me insane. I want to tell her, but it scares the shit out of me not knowing how she’s going to react.

I see her talking with one of the bouncers. He’s worked here for a while. I know him from when we used to hang out here and De knows him from the summer she worked at CJ’s.

As I walk up behind her, he holds out his hand to shake mine. I reciprocate the handshake but barely acknowledge him.

“Are you ready to get out of here? We’re leavin’,” I whisper in Deanna’s ear.

“Um… I don’t know. Where’s Cyndi?” she whispers to me with an attitude.

“Back there, do you want her?” I say sarcastically.

“No, do you?”

“Would I be standing here?” I ask. Fixated on her eyes and mouth.

Her bouncer friend can’t hear the bantering between us, but I can tell by the way he keeps shifting his stance that he feels uncomfortable, as if he’s in the middle of something,
which he is
. When she finally breaks her focus from me, she realizes that he’s still standing beside her. She politely turns to him and says goodbye. I feel the need to take her by the hand, so I do, and she doesn’t resist. We make our way to the back bar to say our goodbyes to our friends.

***

The next morning I overhear Deanna and Maria discussing Jeffery at the kitchen table. I hang back so I can try to hear what they are saying. I hear her say that he has been texting her, telling her that he misses her. I feel the back of my neck get warm when she tells her mom that she is confused and maybe she should hear him out. It leaves me feeling a little torn up inside, knowing that she still cares about him. I decide to head into the rec room and flick on the TV instead of being around anyone right now.

Not long after, she enters the room. I can’t help noticing that she looks just as beautiful now in her flannel pajama pants, thermal shirt and slippers as she did last night in her tight jeans and the short black sweater that hugged her body. She plops down next to me, putting her feet up on the table in front of us. She’s quiet as she rests her head against my arm. Without giving it a thought, I lift my arm and wrap it around her, giving her access to rest her head against my chest. I’m not sure why, it’s just a natural instinct and something we sometimes do whenever we watch TV together.

“What are you watching?” she asks quietly.

“Nothing really… here.” I hand over the remote. She looks up at me with those big, dark eyes. I’m usually not so passive, but I’m enjoying sitting here with her and being close. I don’t feel like bickering. I give her a slight smile while rubbing the top of her head with my fingers. I align my eyes with the TV, not wanting to make more of it. She surfs the channels and ends up on the Sport’s Channel.

Wow, if I would have known that handing over the remote to her would make her put on something that I like; I would have done it years ago. We watch the highlights of today’s games.

“Who do you like today?” she asks.

“Uh… I like the Redskins, ‘cause I’d take anyone over the Cowboys.” I laugh. When you’re an Eagles’ fan, you like any team that’s versus the Cowboys, no matter who it is. “… and I like the Patriots, ‘cause you gotta go with Brady on Thanksgiving, but whatever, I just enjoy the games.”

“Do you miss playing when you’re in off season?”

“I always miss playin’ when I’m away from it for too long, but it’s okay havin’ a little break. It was a long season.”

“Do you like flying and going all over the place to play?”

“I like seeing all the different cities and playing in the stadiums that we grew up watching; it’s cool.”

“I’ll bet.”

“I’ll take you with me sometime… better yet…” and then I just have to go and open up my big mouth because everyone knows I can never be that nice for too long. “…once you graduate, you can come with me. I’ll put ya up. You won’t have to work.” I laugh.

“Nice, so I’ll be a kept woman?” she asks sarcastically.

“Well, not like that, but let’s be honest… you major in Cheerleading. What the hell are you gonna do when you graduate, cheer for the Eagles or the Tampa Bay Buccaneers? You’ll only get a couple of years out of that and then you’ll be too old.”

“First of all, asshole, I am not a Cheerleading major. My major is Public Relations! Are you freakin’ kidding me? You thought I was going to school for cheerleading?” She’s pissed.

I’m laughing hysterically. “What the hell do I know? That’s even better. You’re hired. I’ll have my own personal PR person. That’s what you had in mind all along, isn’t it?” I tease.

“Oh God, you are unbelievable! Yeah, that’s exactly what I had in mind, to follow you around and be your personal PR person so I can come up with some bullshit every time you do something asinine! God bless the person that’s stuck with that job!” she says sarcastically as she pulls away.

I tighten my arm around her so that she can’t get away. “Ah, c’mon, I’m just playin’ with you. What’s better than to have the girl I trust the most in the world on my side.” I kiss the top of her head.

“You’re still an ass,” she says as she submissively rests her head against my chest once again.

Chapter 19

(Luke)

It was nice to visit home, but we’re both anxious to get back to the Florida weather and planning our future. We have a lot to do in a short amount of time. We arrive home late Sunday night and JJ has class Monday morning.

Immediately following her last class, I pick her up on my bike. I still have one major surprise left for her. She has no clue where we are going as I speed down the highway towards St. Pete’s. I turn into the residential neighborhood, following alongside the canal before finally coming to rest at the end of the private tree-lined street.

“Oh, I like this. Where are we?” she asks, removing her helmet.

“It’s a nice neighborhood, right?” I ask for her approval as I lead her by the hand up the driveway.

“Really nice. What are we doing?”

“You’ll see.” I open the front door and lead her to the living room. “Well?”

“Luke, I don’t get it? Whose house is this?”

“Ours,” I answer, wrapping my arms around her waist.

“What? When? How?” she asks all at once, excited as she twists out of my arms and off to explore.

I follow behind, overjoyed by her reaction. “It’s ours. I bought it for us a long time ago. I was going to surprise you when you moved out here.” She goes from room to room, checking it out. “At the time, I had gotten it for a really good price. It needs a ton of work, but I figured while you were living in the dorm we could take our time and fix it just the way we wanted it to be.”

“I love it. It’s great. Why didn’t you tell me about it before?”

“I wanted to wait until you agreed to marry me,” I tease. “Honestly, I didn’t know I still owned it until a few days before I left for Arizona.” She looks at me quizzically. “I told Mikey to sell it. I told him I didn’t want it anymore. Thankfully, he knew I was screwed up. He knew how much I loved this house and what it meant to me. He kept it and I never asked him about it. I hated knowing I gave it up. After I got back and you and I talked, he brought me here and told me he never sold it.”

She hugs me tightly and tells me she loves me. I show her my favorite part of the house. It’s a private little sunroom off the back. The French doors lead out to a small patio with a clear shot of the tropical foliage, the dock and the canal in the backyard. This will be her studio. I bought an easel, some canvases, paint and a few supplies, and put them around just as props so she can get the feel of it when she enters.

***

(Mikey)

Lora Rae persistently calls while I am home on Thanksgiving break. She keeps asking when I’ll be back in LA. From what I’ve seen, she doesn’t seem to have family around her, but, then again, she’s always surrounded by an entourage, which she doesn’t seem to mind.

I arrive in LA shortly after Thanksgiving. I’m not sure why I hurried back so quickly, but once the weekend came to an end, Deanna flew back to Phoenix to wrap up her last couple of weeks of school and get her transfer in order. Not to mention, I was still feeling a little unhinged about her feelings for Jerk off, so of course, I jump on a plane to LA when I think of her with him.

I book a room at the Omni so that I can have a place to escape when I feel the need to get away from Lora Rae and the rest of her crew. After checking in, I decide to rest for a while. I need time to figure out whether or not I even want to be here, or if I want to see Lora Rae. She doesn’t know I’m in town. I give Deanna a call to make sure she got back safe.