The Truth About Air & Water (Truth in Lies #2) (43 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Free Fallin' -LINC

It’s another fifteen minutes before Tally reappears, and she looks a little unsettled. She bestows me with stony silence at first. When I ask her what’s wrong she says, “later” through clenched teeth. “We can talk later.”

Hillman leans in, interrupting the moment. I can’t decide if that’s good or bad. “So Tally. You have to show us the
Dirty Dancing
move.
You have to.
This place would go wild. It would be the best thing to happen to Fresno in years.” Hillman laughs.

The Dirty Dancing move.
I don’t remember the move, of course, and this quiet panic assails me.
Now I’m really in trouble.

Hillman looks expectantly at me and then Tally, who definitely looks intrigued as if it’s the best idea of the night.
So far.

“I can teach you again,
baby
.
Remember
, I do most of the
work,”
she says getting this slow wicked smile. “In fact, let’s give them a good show. I brought you something. You know, to make it authentic. Doug, where’s my garment bag?”

She stares at me for a long moment while Hillman races off for the mysterious bag. Then, she’s busy downing another shot and sucking an orange instead of a lime again, and still insisting to the entire table that this is how it’s done. Half the ballplayers are following her lead shooting Patron and sucking on orange slices now.

“They’re going to think you know it,” she says to me alone. Then she grabs the bag from Hillman upon his return. “So
man up
, and let’s do this.”

“I don’t remember it,” I say getting a sixth sense that I’m being played although some part of me knows it’s already a little too late to back out. “I’m not going to do it. I could drop you. You could fall then where would you be? No. No way.”

“Yes. Yes way. Don’t be
afraid
. Don’t be afraid of
falling
. Oh, but you
are afraid
of falling, failing, and losing; aren’t you? I
forgot
.
I
forgot. How funny, I
forgot
.” She’s baiting me good but then she sets her sights on Hillman. “I can show you how to do it,
Mr. First Baseman
. What you need to do. You should try. You want to impress Brandy, right? This will do that.”

She unzips the garment bag and out comes her wedding dress. In the next ten seconds, she’s effectively pulling it on over her clothes and performing some kind of magic trick—like with a costume change—shimmying out of her black jeans and T-shirt and even takes off her bra like the dancer did in
Flashdance
.
Classic.
She has the undivided attention of the entire bar. There are long whistles, loud shouts, and heavy-duty table pounding happening now.

She looks at me thoughtfully. I’m speechless of course, but in the back of mind things are beginning to come together.

“You said you wanted to see me in it. So here you go, Prez. You’re seeing me in it. Now, let’s show them the move. Your tux is right there. I’ll wait. For you.”

She grabs Hillman’s hand and leads him across the dance floor away from our table. Hillman’s bravado recedes within a few steps. “I don’t know, Tally. What if I drop you? Let’s see Prez do it first.” He looks uncertain over at me.

I’m shaking my head side-to-side but feeling no pain as I dutifully change into the tux as Tally commanded in hopes of receiving redemption of some kind, although a distinct part of me already knows it’s too late for that. I shuck the jeans, and the polo shirt even smoother than Tally did and do this all right in the middle of the bar, which causes a mini uproar. Brandy averts her eyes but everybody else gets a good look at the Calvin’s while I climb into the tuxedo pants and zip them up. Two of the guys help me out with the cuff links on the tuxedo shirt. Another helps me with the jacket.

Two minutes in, I’m good to go.

I can feel Tally’s stare at me from a long way off. She’s nodding, and the weird gleam in her eyes is back while Doug Hillman gets the honors in doing up all the pearl buttons on the back of Tally’s dress. “Just do some of them, Doug, I need to get out of this thing, pronto.” I hear her say to him.

Pronto? What the hell does that mean?

“Prez, you about ready?” Doug asks looking guilty for bringing up the idea of the move in the first place.

The crowd grows restless. We’ve stolen the show and now they want one.

I know Doug was trying to set this up in my favor, but since I don’t remember the
Dirty Dancing
move, and I could drop her just as easily too, anger streaks through me serving as an adrenaline rush. I decide to try one more time to talk Tally out of this. Doug can live with the disappointment and so can the crowd.

“I’m not sure I remember how to do this,” I say running my hands through my hair as I walk over to the Hillman Landon duo. “So, let’s
not
do this.”

This admission apparently pisses Tally off. “Just give the crowd what they want, Prez. Everybody wants to see us do the move.”

Hillman’s looking more anxious but clears out the dancers who still linger on the dance floor telling them to make way for Tally and Linc’s dance move. A few other ballplayers hurriedly sweep the peanut shells from the floor. Another is talking to the band about Tally’s song choice.

They are all at her command.

“What the hell?” I ask Tally as I stand between her and Hillman.

“Come on. They want to see it. You can do this. Get over
yourself
,” Tally says irritably. “I can tell you what to do since you’ve obviously
forgotten
.” She turns to Hillman. “So, Doug, I’ll tell you how it works. You can watch Linc do it first and then you can. Okay? If you want. So, it’s kind of a run-up. Linc will stand over there about thirty feet away kind of in an upright catcher’s stance.” She demonstrates. “Maybe more like first base, huh?” She smiles at Doug. “He’ll keep his arms out in front of him like this and he’ll catch me as I run up to him. Then, he lifts me straight up overhead.” She looks at me finally. “Arms straight up, Prez.
I
do the rest.”

“Fuck, Tally,” I say under my breath.

“Maybe later,” she says with a wicked smile. “I do the work here, Elvis.” A shadow crosses her features. “Just catch me, okay?” I start to walk away taking my position across the bar from them when she says, “Oh, don’t over-rotate, Prez.”

“Great.”

The band cooperates by putting on the song Tally requested. It’s John Mayer’s version of
Free Fallin’
.
Surprising.
Yet, half the bar is already singing the words to the song. A few people have their iPhones out ready to snap a photograph. Tally bites her lip when she sees this, but then shakes her head side-to-side and starts to laugh.

Then, Brandy is running up to me with my cell phone. “You got a call. It’s Kimberley. She
insisted
I find you.” She holds it to my ear while I keep my arms outstretched and watch for Tally and whatever signal I’m supposed to be looking for. To my surprise, it
is
Kimberley.

“Kimmy, kind of busy here.”

“She knows about Trinna!! She called me ten minutes ago. Candy Baxstrom has a crew there. So does Amy Ransom. What is
she
doing? The Star ran the story this morning with Trinna’s photo. TMZ’s running the story tonight. Prez!!
Tally knows
!!”

At that moment, Tally raises her finger at me.
The middle one.

Oh yeah. I’m so dead.

“Christ, Kimmy. I’ve got to call you back.”

Without a word, a sympathetic Brandy slips my phone into pocket of my tuxedo jacket, and everything around me transcends to slow motion. I watch Tally take a deep breath, tilt her head to one side apparently detecting a rhythm of some kind from Mayer’s soulful song, and then she move towards me.

Graceful. Hypnotic. Erotic. I am lost.
The lyrics play through my head at half-speed.
She’s a good girl. Loves her momma. Elvis. Jesus. She’s a good girl. America too.
Tally’s dress sways with every twist and turn, and the bar is captivated as am I. She waits for the chorus, and then she’s running full-speed at me on the words,
and I’m free, free falling
. I thrust my hands out which miraculously catch and span her small waist as she flies at me, and then I’m lifting her up on her momentum alone. She’s high overhead seemingly ascending with the euphoric rise from the crowd.

The place goes wild because somehow she’s timed it perfectly to the crescendo of Mayer’s song—something I didn’t even notice because my ears have been humming for the past three minutes. Everything centers around Tally—the world stops on its axis—as we all take flight and watch only her in absolute amazement. The dress flows out behind her. Perfect legs. Pointed toes.
She is mastery itself. Toned. Muscular.
The only athlete in the room at the moment and owning all of us. She makes it all look easy as she holds the pose for all to admire while I feel her sinewy muscles contract and gather strength within my upraised arms and hands. There are no words worthy enough to describe her. Her arms span out like the most graceful bird in the sky, and her hands do this mesmerizing ballet thing like she’s holding a diamond between her fingers.

Ultimately, she mimics the end of the move—sexy and sultry—as she slides down the front of my tuxedo shirt to Mayer’s chorus. The words
free falling
get stuck in my head and repeat themselves another ten times. She has this twisted smile on her face—a mix of devastation and unexpected elation. It appears like she’s unable to fully control either one.

We have stolen the show at O’Riley’s and probably the move as well.

Doug waves us off, laughing, and telling us he won’t even try to compete with me. Tally hides her face in my chest for few seconds and then she smiles in triumph as the camera flashes go off again.

“And that’s how it is done, Prez. I hope you had fun,” she says in warning. I semi-carry her back to our table where she turns down at least twenty offers to
do it again
.

“Sounds like that’s the last fun I’m going to have,” I say bleakly. “Are we going to talk about it? I know you
know
. Kimberley called me seconds before the big move.” I look up for some reason. “Oh shit. Candy Baxstrom
is
here. And Amy Ransom? You
called everyone
?”

“Yep. I called them all. Everybody gets to record the epic moment between us.” Hillman lingers about. “Once is enough,” she says to him sweetly. “I’ll work with you on the moves sometime, so you can try it with Brandy when it’s not so crowded.” Hillman is perfectly happy with this compromise. “Twice with me would be pushing it actually,” she says breathlessly to the ballplayers still lining up at our table hoping to change her mind about
doing it again
. But I begin to think her comment is directed solely at me and has nothing to do with the move we just did.

I still hold onto her hand. She looks down and sees this and quickly pulls it away.

“I was going to tell you,” I say. “I just didn’t…know how.”

“Yeah. That’s a tough call, Prez. Well, at least we fed the sports and entertainment news channels what they wanted to see, right? They got the money shot. The two of us together. One. Last. Time.” She looks at me with such intention that I think my heart stops beating for a few seconds. “Nicely done, Prez. Your fame status in the Star continues to soar. Of course, it will be on the Internet within thirty seconds so no surprise there. You better call Kimberley back; she’ll be demanding to know what the hell is going on.” If there was a smile on her face, it is now gone. “I called Kimberley about fifteen minutes ago to let her know what was about to go down.”

“What? Why Tally? Why would you do this?” I ask.

“I was helping you out, but now I’m done.” She turns to Hillman. “Hey, come with me a second. I need your help getting out of this thing.” An uneasy Doug shakes his head side-to-side at Tally. In fact, all the ballplayers take a hard line, and nobody will help Tally out of her dress. “
Fine. I’ve got this.
”

She pulls at the back of her dress and rips it from the back top to bottom. Some twenty-five pearl buttons scatter to the floor like marbles falling from a jar suspended overhead. “
Perfect
,” she says as she grabs her jeans and shirt that someone has nicely stacked for her.

About that time, Brandy delivers her another shot and tells her it’s from Candy Baxstrom. Tally looks up and over at the reporter who sits at the bar looking almost stunned by what just took place as I am. Tally gives her the parade wave and drinks the shot down sans orange slice.

We have hit a new level, but I’m not sure if it’s up, or if it’s down.