Hard (15 page)

He
shakes his head. “No,” he says. “But it’s a
routine I’d be happy to start.”

***

Later
that morning, I speed through my house, a half-filled duffle bag
dangling from my arm as I go through a mental checklist for a camping
trip to Lake Lanier. Before I left his place, Ryder invited me to
join him and Cash and Jackson on the trip, and seeming to sense my
hesitation he’d added, “Shelby and Avery and Ruby will be
there, too,” as he exited the steamy bathroom, wrapping a white
towel around his hips, just below his sharply defined V-muscles, the
lines of them straight and angled, directing a viewer’s gaze in
only one direction: down.

“We’ll spend the night, play hooky tomorrow morning.
Leave Katie to manage the bar.” The hot air in the bathroom
puffed like clouds, making it look like his shower must have been
some kind of portal to heaven. And considering he was wet and naked
in there, I guess it kind of was.

He walked over to where I sprawled on the unmade bed wearing only his
Kings of Leon t-shirt and lay next to me, propping himself onto one
elbow, only a white towel around his waist. “You should come
with us. If you don’t already have plans.”

“No plans,” I said. “I’m free and easy.”

“Those are my two favorite qualities in a girl,” he said,
kissing me.

“You are such a prick sometimes,” I said, smiling as I
climbed on top of him.

“But I think you like me anyway.”

He had me there.

Ryder
dropped me off at my place a little bit ago and is coming back to get
me after he does a quick grocery shop at Publix. The lake is an hour
away, and I want to be ready to leave when he gets here so we can
maximize our time with everyone, but searching for a sleeping bag and
swimsuit and sunscreen in a house I haven’t lived in for two
years is making I feel like I’m a headless chicken.

I’m
scurrying around the kitchen, finally having found the sunscreen—why
Jamie was keeping it in a drawer with the batteries and flashlight,
God only knows—and as I pass by the window behind the table, I
notice a bouquet of flowers sitting on the step outside the side
door.

The
assortment is simple but gorgeous, blood-red roses scattered among
pink and coral peonies, the colors of a sunrise, and I smile at the
old-fashionedness of Ryder’s gesture. I’m not a girly
girl really, but I think all women like to get flowers, a lovely
little reminder that in the middle of buying hamburger buns and beer,
he was thinking about me.

I
open the door and pick up the flowers expecting to see Ryder, too.
But he’s not there, which probably means he’s out front,
waiting in his car. Which also probably means I definitely need to
get my butt in gear so we can get on the road. Every minute I’m
not ready is another minute we’re not skinny dipping.

I
carry the bouquet inside and set it on the kitchen island. The vase
is heavy, thick glass, with braided etching, fancier than anything I
might have thought a grocery store florist would have, but then
again, I haven’t been to a Publix in a while. I almost kind of
missed them when I was in England.

That’s
how you know you’re really homesick: you long to debate granny
smiths or gala apples in the produce aisle of your old neighborhood
grocery store.

I
pluck the card from the middle of the bouquet to read it as I head
back upstairs to grab a couple final things.
Cassandra
.

I
stop dead on the last stair from the top floor. Only one person ever
calls me
Cassandra
.

And it’s not Ryder.

Darling,
the note begins,
I hope these flowers remind you
that if the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must
come to the mountain. And once he gets there, he will conquer its
peak at any cost. He doesn’t just give up, and neither do I.
You may think you’re too high and mighty for me to scale now,
but my lung capacity is excellent, even at altitude. Love always, S

Tears
of frustration well in my eyes, and I scream as I rip the note to the
tiniest shreds I can manage until it’s unrecognizable, the
damage irreversible.

But it doesn’t erase the message from my mind.
At any cost
.
The fact that Sebastian thinks I can be intimidated into going back
to England, back to our dismal, tension-filled, ugly life only
further solidifies my decision not to see him or respond to him or
think about him ever, ever again.

I
shake my head. It’s almost funny to imagine him dictating this
card to some poor 1-800-FLOWERS customer service rep.
What a
passive-aggressive coward
, she might have thought.

Because that’s definitely what I think.

But
until this moment, I hadn’t really considered what it means
that Sebastian knows where I live. I mean, even as I shut the door to
our apartment that morning, after he’d gone to work, I realized
that when he figured out I was gone for good he’d assume I went
home to Atlanta. And he’s been to this house, of course. Two
and a half years ago he grilled steaks with Jamie and me in the
backyard, just around the corner from where those fucking flowers
were delivered.

These past couple weeks I’d been taking for granted the
distance between us, literally and figuratively the width of the
Atlantic Ocean. Taking for granted I was safe in my own home. That
even though Sebastian could find me here, he wouldn’t.

And now he’s basically in my fucking kitchen, disguised as a
sunburst bouquet.

I run down the stairs, gaining momentum as I turn into the kitchen
and grab the vase. So numerous and tightly packed together, the
flowers look stifled to me now, forced into an arrangement that
offers them no room to breathe, no space to negotiate: Sebastian’s
relationship philosophy made physical, complete with the rose thorns.

Outside,
I toss the bouquet into my empty city trash bin. The flowers scatter,
and the vase lands with a soft thud on the plastic bottom. It might
have been more satisfying to see it shatter into a million little
pieces, but you can’t always get what you want.

It’s a lesson Sebastian could stand to learn.

CASSIE

Ryder
drives the way he has sex: aggressively, confidently, purposefully.
He changes speed gently, never jarring, never sudden, knowing exactly
how much pressure the Audi can handle as we cruise along I-85.

I
try not to think about Sebastian, instead focusing my attention on
how hot and relaxed Ryder looks in his jeans and V-neck t-shirt with
short sleeves that show off his tatted biceps. He’s even
wearing flip flops. This is probably the most casual I’ve ever
seen him—dressed anyway. Although, is naked so casual that it
doesn’t even count as casual?

I have no idea, but I welcome the chance to picture Ryder in the buff
while I try to figure it out.

So
I develop a little game with myself. Every time Sebastian or the
flowers or the phone call yesterday creep into my head, I substitute
it with the image of Ryder in his bath towel or his work-out pants or
his shirt unbuttoned, trousers around his knees, me in his arms.
Trading in a bad habit for a sexy one.

Everyone’s
at the campsite when we arrive at Lake Lanier.

“I’m so glad you came,” Shelby says, giving me a
hug.

She introduces me to Parker, the fourth partner in Altitude, a tall,
broad-shouldered guy with a shaved head and strong chin who looks
like he could be a Navy Seal but actually just moved back to Atlanta
from six months in New York for work. “I’m in finance,”
he says when I ask what he does. Turns out he works at the same
investment bank as Sebastian, but in a different department. I smile
and nod when he tells me, letting the image of Ryder pinning me on
the gym mat this morning erase Sebastian’s presence from my
mind.

We
spend the day eating and talking and laughing and drinking. Jackson
brings out a football and we break into teams, boys against girls. On
the final play the four of us women huddle together. “I’m
going to hand the ball off to Cassie to run it,” Shelby says.
“Now, she’s fast, but they have Parker guarding her, and
he is, too.”

“I
have an idea,” Ruby says.

Turns
out she has two of them: as I run across the grass toward our
makeshift end zone, Parker just a few steps behind me, Ruby appears.
“Park!” she yells, lifting her t-shirt, her lacy push-up
bra enough distraction that I make the touchdown safely. I spike the
ball on the grass and drop to my knees as I throw my hands into the
air, victorious. The girls run over and dogpile on top of me, and we
all scream our heads off like we’ve just won the Super Bowl.

“Okay, okay,” says Jackson once we’re on our feet
again. “You don’t have to rub it in.”

“Actually,
we do,” Shelby says. “We’re number one,” she
chants, clapping on each syllable and Avery, Ruby, and I join in,
marching across the field to the cooler for celebratory and
much-deserved beers.

In the afternoon, the guys grill burgers and we eat lunch as Cash
tells us about his latest love interest, a backup singer he met at
Altitude Friday night. “Her vocal range is unbelievable,”
he says.

“She
performed for you?” Avery says.

“More
like I performed on her,” he says to an equal mix of groans and
laughs.

It’s
hot and humid,
sticky as a thief’s thumb
, my dad used to
say on a day like today, so Ryder and I get in our suits and decide
to go for a swim. We dog paddle out to a rock that butts up against
the lakeshore, away from the group, away from anyone. Climbing up to
the smooth, rounded top we sit side by side, the sun soaking into us,
but the warmth feels good now having cooled off in the water a
little.

I
tell Ryder about my parents, my dad’s death, my mom’s
moving to Florida. He tells me about his first fight, standing up in
eighth grade for a kid name Marvin Lutwak. “He was short and
fat and annoying. A whiny kid, cried a lot. He’d cry when he
didn’t get picked for a team in P.E. and then the next day he’d
cry because he didn’t like that the P.E. teacher was making a
team pick him first to make up for the day before.”

I
laugh. “Not to be mean, but I can kind of understand why people
didn’t like him.”

Ryder
smiles. “No, me, too. And we weren’t friends or anything.
But I never thought just being an insufferable human being was enough
reason to be picked on or made fun of or beat up,” he says.
“I’d also seen Marvin walking around the neighborhood,
pushing his grandmother in her wheelchair, and he had a nerdy sister
two years younger. She went to our school, too, and she and her
friends worshipped him.”

“So
he meant something to some people,” I say.

“Right,”
Ryder says. “So, one day, after school, in a side yard where
the teachers never went, Patrick Mason, who was the most popular guy
in school, has Marvin backed up against the chain-link fence,
demanding Marvin give him five dollars or he’s going to beat
the shit out of him. My friends, who were also Patrick’s
friends, are running over to see what’s going to happen. Make
fun of the cry-baby for probably the twentieth time that day. I go
with them.” Ryder squints his eyes, looks up at the blue,
cloudless sky. “The look on Marvin’s face. He was so
scared. And I remember thinking how he must be scared every single
day at school. Just because he wasn’t a cool guy or tough or
strong. He didn’t stand out, except as a punching bag.”

I
pull my knees to my chin. “So what happened?” I say. I
can tell from the way his voice has softened that this is a difficult
memory for him. I can relate to those.

“Marvin’s
telling Patrick, ‘I don’t have any money, I don’t
have anything.’ He’s pulling his pockets inside out,
tears streaming down his cheeks. Patrick starts slapping him in the
face, calling him a wuss, a mama’s boy, telling him he’s
going to have to fuck his little sister and her friends because no
other girl will ever do him. And no one’s doing anything, so I
finally tell Patrick to knock it off. Let him go. He doesn’t
have any money anyway.” Ryder swipes his hand through his hair,
already dry from the sun. “So then Patrick turns on me, tells
me to mind my own business, he’s not asking for my opinion, and
I tell him, Well, that’s probably good, because my opinion is
that he’s a coward who can’t pick on someone his own
size. So he takes a swing at me, misses, and I punch him in the side
of the head and he falls to the ground. Ice cold.”

I
cover my mouth with my hands. “Oh my God,” I say. “So
your first fight was a one-hit knock out?”

Ryder
nods. “Patrick Mason never messed with Marvin Lutwak again. No
one did, actually. And I started taking boxing classes that year.”
Ryder lies back on the rock, stretching long his beautifully rippled
torso. “When I had brawls in middle school, high school, I
never really pictured doing it as an adult. But there can be a lot of
money in it.”

“If
you’re good,” I say.

“If
you’re good,” he says. “And I am. Was.”

“Do
you miss fighting?” I say. I lie next to him on my side,
running my hand across his abdomen.

“Not
enough,” he says. “The money I’ve made and the
reputation I’ve earned have turned into better things than
clocking some dude every night. I opened one bar while I was still
fighting, and I used to think maybe that’s part of why it was
popular.”

“That
people would want to go to the place that underground fighting
built.”

“Yeah.
But then I opened another one and another one, and then Altitude, and
the new place soon,” he says. “And I’m not fighting
anymore and they’re still successful, so maybe it’s
because I’ve actually created sustainable businesses. Maybe I’m
not just some dumb fighter.”