Playing By Her Rules (Sydney Smoke Rugby Series) (15 page)

Monday morning when she reached her desk, she checked her Twitter stream to find a tweet from Tanner. He’d been quiet on social media, not entering into the speculation raging all around him and dominating his feed.

I have perfect location for final “interview” with @MatildaK. Will text you time and place.

The tweet was depressingly void of hashtags. No #mightbelove teaser. Matilda felt curiously flat after reading it. Which was totally
crazy
. She didn’t want his dumb hashtags, she didn’t want to be at the centre of speculation, she didn’t want there to be any implication they were an item.

Because they weren’t. Nor were they going to be, either.

So she needed to snap the hell out of it.

She rifled through her bag for her phone. She usually had it on silent at work so she wouldn’t have heard a text. But sure enough his name was on her screen.

Meet you at Burnside Art Collective. 5.30pm tonight.

Matilda frowned. The name was familiar because it was one of the charities she’d discovered he supported when she’d been doing her research for the article that had caused him so much consternation.

The thought of seeing him again fluttered frantically like the beating wings of a scared little bird inside her chest. She didn’t want to see him again.

Surely it would be better not to put herself in the way of temptation?

But this was work. And it was their last time. After this she need never see him again. She was going to have to suck it up and just get it done already.

She typed quickly and hit send.

See you then.

Matilda didn’t know what to expect when she arrived, but it wasn’t this. The large warehouse-like structure was situated in an inner city suburb caught in that halfway stage between blatant neglect and early gentrification. In a decade, it’d be one of those trendy neighbourhoods where no one could afford to live anymore, but now it was in a state of flux.

Tanner’s car was already there when she pulled up, and she hurried inside. A very Zen-looking dude with tie-died pants and a grey beard so long he could plait it greeted her with clasped hands and a solemn, “
Namaste
.”

Artwork of all varieties—from paintings, sculptures and pottery, to wind chimes, gothic-looking tapestries, and large dream catchers—adorned the walls and any available surface in the large, open space. Halfway down the warehouse, a wide corridor split it in two, dividing off a series of semi-private rooms. Semi-private because there was no practical way for the walls to reach the towering roof leaving them open at the top.

Zen guy pointed down the corridor when she asked for Tanner. “Last door on the left,” he murmured.

Matilda headed down the corridor, her curiosity well and truly piqued. She hadn’t looked into the specifics of Tanner’s involvement with this particular not-for-profit when she’d been investigating his charity works. She’d mainly focused on the big name ones. The fact that he was supporting the arts, the opposite end of the spectrum to rugby, was very interesting indeed.

When she reached the room, she was surprised to read the sign on the door announcing it to be the Matilda’s Muse literacy programme for girls. The sign also said it had been established five years ago.

Matilda blinked, her heart squeezing in her chest.

She opened the door, and about two-dozen faces turned to check out the intruder. The girls, who all looked to be about eleven or twelve, sat around desks that accommodated four or five. Each participant had paper and pens in front of them.

Tanner glanced at her from his position lounging against the back wall. He smiled at her, then at the twenty-something young woman in front, who’d paused mid-sentence, waving at her to continue.

“Hey,” he whispered as he drew closer and the speaker picked up her thread. He was in jeans again, with a T-shirt that showed off his muscular physique to perfection. Something stirred deep in her belly. Some kind of primal recognition. Some weird wild pheromone thing.

As if he’d imprinted himself on her when he’d been deep inside her the other night.

“Come stand at the back.”

Confused, Matilda followed him. They lounged against the wall again, and it took her a moment to realise the identity of the woman who was talking.

“That’s Andrea Willoughby,” Matilda whispered.

Andrea was an up and coming YA writer whose book about a teenage girl who saves the human race had just been optioned for a movie. Her audience was listening with rapt attention.

“Yes,” he agreed, dropping the whisper but keeping his voice low. “Thought she might be a hit with the class.”

She absorbed the information and the scene for a while. “This is your baby?” she asked eventually, also dropping to a whisper, glancing at his profile for confirmation.

“Yes.”

He didn’t look at her or bother to elaborate. Yet there was pride in his voice. He’d established this? “Why?”

He shrugged, rolling his head to the side, their gazes meeting. “Because I remember how much you were into reading and writing, and how much you would have killed to have access to writing classes and mentoring opportunities. I wanted to try and foster the kind of talent you always had. To inspire and nurture it.”

A rush of emotion bubbled in her chest. “Matilda’s Muse,” she uttered.

He rolled his head back to the midline, returning his attention to the guest speaker now. “How could I call it anything else?”

The quiet sincerity of his voice hit her hard, and a block of sudden emotion in her chest balled into a big fat lump, threatening to crush her ribs and cut off the breath in her throat.

He’d established a literacy programme for talented young women.
In her honour?
That was about the nicest, sweetest, most awesome thing any guy had ever done.

He rolled his head to the side again, leaning in, their arms brushing, his mouth close to her ear, his voice low. “I never
forgot
you, Tilly. I never just walked away. You were always on my mind.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “I never stopped loving you.”

A tear Matilda didn’t even know had been building slid down her face.
He loved her.
Those words should be joyful, but all she felt was pain. Him loving her didn’t matter. He took her choice away, and she couldn’t forgive him for that. Maybe she’d have followed him, maybe she wouldn’t have.

But it had been
her
decision to make—not his.

There may have been a lot of good in the way things had panned out
and
in Tanner’s reasoning, but right now it just felt like she’d been punished. For loving him too much. For wanting too much.

And it hurt.

“But
I
stopped loving you,” she whispered.

And she had. It had been the hardest thing she’d done, but she’d excised him from her life. Or so she’d thought. Already she could feel the rekindling of old emotions and she couldn’t go there again. She had to deal them a swift blow—for both their sakes.

If his slumped shoulders and the disbelief in his eyes were anything to go by, her mission was accomplished.

Good. It was imperative she destroyed any hopes he might have that she felt something for him, that they might get back together.

Destroy them as he had destroyed her hopes all those years ago.

What had he said?
Smash a gulf so wide…

She locked her gaze with his. “Good-bye, Tanner.”

She pushed off the wall and headed for the door, her hands shaking as she escaped into the corridor, tears streaming down her face as she hurried from the building, dashed to her car, and locked herself inside. She gripped the steering wheel hard, staring through the windscreen at the front door, willing it to open, willing Tanner to appear. Her foolish,
contrary
heart hoping desperately that he’d seen through her bravado and would refuse to take no for an answer.

If he came for her now, with the heavy dread of finality sitting like an elephant on her chest, she wouldn’t have the power to resist.

She waited for fifteen minutes, tears falling freely, but he didn’t appear. She guessed there were only so many times she could push him away before he stopped pushing back.

She started the car and slowly drove away, her head stoic, her heart a mess.

Chapter Fifteen

“So then, out with it,” Hannah Kent said as Matilda handed her a coffee and sat on the chair next to hers on the back porch.

There were damn reminders of Tanner everywhere.

Matilda frowned. “What?”

Hannah shot her an incredulous look. “I’m old, not stupid, girlie. You know how much I love seeing you, but it’s Wednesday. You
never
come on Wednesday. And you’re moping around here like you just lost your best friend.”

Matilda’s stomach lurched.
It felt like she had
. “I’m just preoccupied,” she evaded. “With work.”

There was an elegant snort to her left. “With Tanner, you mean?”

Well, yes. Tanner
was
work. “Kind of,” she evaded. “I’ve started the last feature article half a dozen times. I just can’t seem to get it right.”

“And is there a particular reason why you’re not at his place discussing this? Drinking coffee with him? In his bed maybe? You know, like naked? Making me great-grandbabies?”

“Gran.” Matilda didn’t think that the warning note in her voice would be paid much heed but she injected it anyway.

“He’s always been the one for you, Matilda. So, it didn’t work out when you’re younger.” She shrugged. “Doesn’t mean it won’t now. I could tell with my own two eyes he’s still carrying a torch for you. Blind Freddy can see that.”

A spike of annoyance flushed through Matilda veins. Her grandmother had always had a soft spot for Tanner. “And do you know why it didn’t work out?” she demanded.

Her grandmother didn’t seem too perturbed by Matilda’s crankiness. “Why don’t you tell me?”

So she did. She told her grandmother everything. About that night and the kiss and how she’d just learned it was a deliberate action by Tanner to break them up. About how hurt she’d been then and how betrayed she felt now.

Hannah waited for her to finally come to a halt and calmly asked, “So?”

Matilda blinked. “What do you mean,
so
?”

“If he hadn’t broken up with you, would you have knocked back your scholarship?”

Matilda opened her mouth to tell her grandmother that it was beside the point, but shut it again as Hannah held up her hand and said, “No. Just
think
about it for a moment. Forget the emotions of that time, what are the facts?” Despite her affront, the question sunk its claws into Matilda’s brain. “And be
honest
,” her grandmother added, capturing Matilda’s gaze.

Peering back to that time eight years ago had always been a painful experience. Now it was uncomfortable as well, being forced to take out the feelings and step back and look at it with objectivity.

There was only one person on the entire planet she’d do it for.

What
were
the facts? Matilda wished she could shy from them but the truth was, she had been deadly serious about her intention to knock back that scholarship. Tanner had urged—begged—her not to, but she’d been adamant. She’d loved him so much, she hadn’t been able to bear the thought of being away from him for even a day, let alone three years.

Matilda dropped her gaze to her coffee. “Yes.”

“Right, well,” Hannah said, plonking her mug down on the table between them. “I, for one, am glad he did.” Her tone was brisk and no-nonsense. “If I’d have known you were even
considering
giving up on your dream, I’d have kicked your backside all the way to Stanford. It seems like I have a lot to thank Tanner Stone for.”

If Matilda thought she was going to get sympathy from her grandmother, she thought wrong. Hannah Kent had never been one of those over-indulgent grandmothers. Sure, she had Matilda’s back, but she wasn’t so one-eyed that she couldn’t see both sides of a story.

“Can you honestly sit here and tell me,” her grandmother continued, clearly on a roll, “that if you had your time over again that you’d not want to do Stanford? That you’d take back all those experiences you had, and all those people you’ve met, and all the contacts you made, and all the fun you had over there, and all those dreams you dreamed…to follow a
boy
around?”

Hannah made her sound incredibly flaky and naive, but it hadn’t just been some guy she’d had a crush on. It hadn’t just been
any
boy. It had been Tanner. And she’d been in love with him.

“He did you a huge favour there, girlie.”

It was Matilda’s turn to snort. “By smashing my heart into a million pieces?” she demanded. “By publically humiliating me?”

“Oh, for goodness sake,” Hannah said snippily, rising to her feet to frown down at her granddaughter. “He was
eighteen.
A teenager. A teenage
boy
. Everybody knows ninety percent of their thinking is carried out by their peckers. So, he made a hash of it.” She shrugged. “He hurt you and I’m sorry. But I seem to remember you making a hash out of quite a few things when you were a teenager. You’re twenty-six years old, Matilda. Should you
still
have to pay for them?”

Matilda remembered a few of those incidents, and her cheeks warmed. Her grandmother had the uncanny knack of getting right to the heart of the matter. She’d always hated that about the old biddy. Matilda had never thought of herself as petty or judgemental, but that was exactly the way Hannah was making her feel.

“I suppose not.”

“And correct me if I’m wrong,” Hannah went on, pressing her advantage, “but Tanner’s spent an awful lot of his time these last weeks trying to show you he’s not that kid anymore, yes? Maybe you could cut him a little slack?”

Matilda should have known not to come to her grandmother’s for pity. She should have known she’d only get honesty. Maybe that was why she
was
here. For honesty.

“You think I’ve been too harsh on him.”

“I think the only question that really matters is why? Why are you so het up about it all still? Surely after
eight years
you’ve moved on from all that, and if so, then why does it matter so much? Unless you still love him? Do you?”

Matilda hadn’t been feeling particularly emotional. She’d mostly been annoyed by her grandmother’s deep streak of fairness that had weighted the scales in Tanner’s favour. But the question hit her hard, cracking the denial she’d been holding in check since Tanner had walked back into her life.

“Yes.”

Suddenly, her face was crumpling, and her grandmother was beside her, sliding an arm around her shoulder, drawing Matilda’s head to her waist, patting her arm, and making soothing noises.

“Well, go and get him, girlie. Life’s too short to hold on to old grudges. Time to let go of the past.”

Matilda shut her eyes as the tears streamed down her face. It sounded so easy. But had she blown it for good?

…

When Matilda finally made it home, she walked through her door with absolute purpose. She loved Tanner, and she wanted him back. Her talk with Gran, and some thinking time on her drive home, had crystallised it all.

Gran, with her usual cut-through-the-bullshit style of diplomacy, had been right. They’d been teenagers, and yes, Tanner had made a hash of it. But his intentions had been good, and they were adults now. If she wanted to have a future with him—and God help her, she
did
—she had to get over the past. She had to let all that shit go to move on.

She had to forgive him for the hurt and understand that it hadn’t been intentional, that he’d done what he’d done for all the right reasons.

He’d forced her to follow her dreams because she wouldn’t have. And
that
was the truth of it.

Gran was right—she did have him to thank for that. Now, she had to get him back.

And she knew how to go about it.

If there was one thing Matilda was good at, it was words. On paper, anyway. Her oral communication with him had clearly, thus far, sucked. So that was how she would reach him. She had one more piece to write, and she had to make it count.

Whether he’d fall for it, of course, after her rejection of him at the art collective on Monday—the last in a string of rejections—was a completely different matter.

But she was going to give it her best damn shot.

She went straight to her computer. The words, which had been stubbornly absent before, flew from her fingers. The piece was an utterly personal perspective of the man. Tanner through her eyes. It talked about growth and change and the passage of time. It talked about the boy she’d known versus the legend of today. It talked about sacrifice and courage and forgiveness.

About a man bigger than the myth.

She wrote for two hours without looking up, tinkering and editing, deleting and adding, until she had it perfect. But it needed one more thing.

Something to take it from a slightly personal feature article to a…love letter.

A public declaration.

A couple of weeks ago, Tanner Stone famously kicked three field goals for my favour. But past hurts and insecurities are hard beasts to master, and I sent him on his way. I was wrong. The truth is, I’m older, and I’m wiser, and I know the difference between reckless and real. So now here I am, standing in front of all of you and a set of metaphorical goal posts, with a ball and ten seconds before the final hooter, asking
him
for
his
favour. Asking for his forgiveness. Giving him mine in return.

You said once you wanted to marry me. I still do. #definitelylove

Matilda’s cheeks were wet as she typed THE END
,
desperately hoping it
wasn’t
their end, but a beginning.

Whether Imelda Herron and the paper would indulge her with this final piece, particularly with that ending, she had no idea. But she had to try.

Asking him to marry her? Cheesy, yes. Desperate,
hell yes
. But perfect. She wanted forever from him, and she wanted him to know it in no uncertain terms.

Nothing ventured. Nothing gained.

…

As it turned out, Imelda and the powers that be, already high on the outstanding sales numbers generated by the intense media speculation over Tanner and Matilda, were more than thrilled to print Matilda’s piece with absolutely no changes.

It was the first time she’d ever seen Imelda in raptures. “And in a leap year, too,” she’d enthused.

But when Friday rolled around, Matilda was like a cat on a hot tin roof. The article was an instant hit—her proposal, it seemed, going viral—but she felt ill sitting at her desk, screening hundreds of “can we please get a comment” phone calls for the one that really mattered.

Tanner’s call.

Which never came.

Twitter—his social media platform of choice—was going off. His followers must have been wearing their thumbs to the bone in their tweeting frenzy.

One of the many tweets from rugbybunny1 read:

#holysmoke @MatildaK you go girlfriend #TannMat #justsayyes

And from slickstonesmistress:

#holysmoke Looks like someone hasn’t been wearing her #kryptonitepanties!! Its ok
@MatildaK, am prepared to share my man with you
.

Hell, #TannMat and #justsayyes trended for hours. But Tanner was eerily silent.

By the end of the day, after stalking Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram, and checking her phone about a hundred times, Matilda had to admit she really
had
blown it. Had he read the article, or was he still too mad at her to even do that? But how could someone so active on social media miss the viral response to it?

Which meant he’d seen it and was ignoring it, or he was too embarrassed or too furious to speak.

By the time she got home on Friday night, she had to face facts. He wasn’t going to reply. She’d screwed up that day at the art collective. Telling him she’d stopped loving him,
not
telling him that she’d started again, actively
denying
her love to both of them—she’d pushed him away for good.

She went straight to the fridge, cracked open the lid on the bottle of white wine that had been sitting there since Christmas because it had been a cheap and nasty freebie from a stingy secret Santa, and swigged it straight from the bottle. She winced and screwed up her face at the vinegar edge to it but took another swig as she reached for a silver-foiled family block of fruit-and-nut chocolate and gnawed off the corner.

The sweetness—especially after gnawing off the other corner—overrode the sourness of the wine. Not that she cared. It was one of those nights. She was going to take her contacts out, put on her baggy pants, eat chocolate, and watch
The Sound of Music
—an era where a nun could fall in love with a naval captain without the aid of freaking
Twitter
—all while getting resoundingly drunk.

Three hours later, with still no word from Tanner, she staggered to bed having accomplished everything she’d set out to do. Lying in the dark, with no singing nun for distraction, the tears came and she didn’t bother to stop them. In the morning, she’d get her shit sorted and figure out another way to reach Tanner. Something bigger and grander.

A skywriter maybe.

Or a blimp.

But right now, she wanted to continue her pity party. So she cried. And she cried some more. In fact, she cried herself to sleep.