The Truth About Us Read online

  I watched as Rowan shook hands with Evie, my girlfriend. Between the two of them, they made the act look foreign and strange to me.

  “Oh, um, sorry, I’m being rude. This is Evie, Rowan, my girlfriend.” Pride slithered through me as I spoke those words. I kept my gaze on Rowan, and watched as she took in Evie, in all her glory. Evie was something else, really, and a Dallas Cowboy’s Cheerleader to boot. I’d spent so many nights broken and raw after Rowan and I had split, that I had barely been able to collect myself to even begin to think about dating again. Not until Evie waltzed into my life.

  I was Tyler Nusom. I owned my own business, I wasn’t trapped under George Steel’s thumb anymore, and I had a smoking hot girlfriend and a mended heart. I wanted Rowan to drown in my success and happiness until she couldn’t fucking stand it.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Evie,” Rowan said quietly, her cheeks slightly flushed. She was nervous. Good.

  “I’m not sure what we could have to talk about?”

  Rowan glanced between Evie and I, before her honey-brown gaze settled on me. “It’s not much, and it’s nothing serious or anything. It will just take a few minutes of your time.”

  “I need to speak with Mina about our group date this weekend anyway, babe. I’ll catch you for lunch in a few minutes.” Evie moved over and pressed her collagen-full lips against mine. Normally I would have objected, as I know she had just recently applied lipstick, but I allowed the kiss, and let it linger longer than normal.

  “Sure, catch you in a minute.”

  I watched her leave, her black, skin-tight pants covering her perfect figure. I’d watched her leave many times over the last few months, but this time it was purely because I didn’t want to look at Rowan. Once Evie was gone, I had no choice.

  I cleared my throat. “What can I do for you, Rowan?” I sat behind the desk and moved some paperwork out of the way.

  “I’m sorry to bother you at work like this, Tyler.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Then why did you?” I couldn’t fathom why she would be here. She’d left, taking all the goodness out of my life in a split second and never returned.

  Until now.

  “I need to tell you something, and it can’t wait any longer.”

  A moment of dread settled over me. This was the time in those sappy movies that men found out something life-changing, and then the rest of the movie was spent with the two of them finding their way back to one another.

  Not me.

  I wouldn’t be caught dead with Rowan Steel, not after the bullshit she put me through.

  “I just wanted you to know that I lied to you, when we split up. I didn’t do those things.”

  I stared at her in disbelief, I was sure my face said it all. “You mean, you came here in the middle of my work day to say that you didn’t cheat on me a year ago when we split up? That I didn’t physically see you cheat on me with my own two eyes?”

  “Well, it hasn’t quite been a year yet, but yes…” her voice trailed off and she cleared her throat. “I just wanted what was best for you, and I knew that you could never find it with us together.” Her gaze implored me.

  A burst of laughter escaped my lips. “You’re joking, right?”

  The strained look on her face said she wasn’t.

  “Wow, Rowan. I don’t know what to say – except, thanks for wasting even more of time with your lies?” I started to stand.

  “No, wait, Tyler, you don’t understand.” She reached her hand across the desk, but she couldn’t reach mine. “It’s not a lie, okay. I didn’t do any of those horrible things. It’s not what you think, really, I, I just—”

  “You just what, Rowan?” Anger ripped through me like a hot knife. “You just like to fuck around with people’s lives, is that what it is? You missed fucking with mine and now you’re back to try to and force even more of your bullshit down my throat?” An annoyed chuckle burst from my chest. “Or even better, I bet good ol’ Daddy is tired of having to compete with me for business, isn’t he? He wants you to come over here and play nice, maybe throw a blow job on the table so I’ll come running back to you, and in turn back to him? Is that what this is, Rowan? Some sort of fucked up con cooked up between you and big daddy Steel?”

  “That’s not what this is, Tyler. You know that. You know me.” She still sat across from me in my office, in my shop. Rowan. It seemed weird to be having a conversation with her at all, especially here and after all this time. After all the love I’d had in my heart for her. I could remember the way it felt – full, unbreakable, that forever kind of love. But I had been wrong, my heart, my mind, all of it – wrong.

  “That’s the thing, Rowan, I don’t know you. I thought I did, and I was wrong.” I stared into those eyes, the eyes that had crushed me, and the familiar hurt threatened to bubble back up to the surface before I squashed it. “I’m busy. I’d like you to leave.”

  “Just give me a little more time to explain. I know what this looks like, but I just wanted to tell you the truth, to get it off my chest. It’s been my burden for almost a year.”

  “Fuck you and your burdens, Rowan. Neither are my problem anymore.”

  Her eyes grew glassy – those eyes I had looked into many a time, with love, soulfulness, and compassion. It used to crush me when she cried. All I had ever wanted was to make her better, to fill her with happiness. But not anymore.

  Her glassy gaze only reminded me that I wasn’t the same man anymore – the one who loved without guard, who stooped to fix and mend the woman who sat in front me. I wasn’t the person in charge of fixing her, of helping her, of loving her. She wasn’t my problem anymore, and I was better off because of it.

  When she hurriedly left the office, I watched her go. I expected relief to follow, happiness, joy that I was about to attend lunch with my beautiful girlfriend, Evie. But none of those emotions found me. Instead I was left feeling emptier than I had in a long time.

  “It was like he didn’t even care, Stace. The look in his eyes, it was like I was a stranger invading his private space.”

  My friend Stacie sat across from me in her big, fluffy purple chair. Her apartment was adorned with all sorts of wacky furniture and decorations.

  “I still can’t believe you went there and actually talked to him!” She grabbed a hair tie off her cluttered coffee table and started putting up her shoulder-length, black hair.

  “I told you I was going to.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t think you were serious! I mean, girl, I love you, but that is some bold shit right there. Bold even for me! But for you?” Her hands slapped down on the arms of her chair. “It’s like a personality flip.”

  She chuckled, and I couldn’t help but join her. Stacie and I had been friends since I moved in to the apartment across the way from her last year, after Tyler and I split. I couldn’t very well live with him anymore, and I wasn’t about to move back in with my dear old dad. I would have rather been homeless than live under his thumb again. So, I moved out and got my own place: a tiny one-bedroom on the second floor of some ancient apartment building, just a couple miles from both the Steel Mechanics, Inc. and Jones College, where I had been working on my bachelor’s degree until the breakup changed things. My place wasn’t anything special, but it was mine, and after the first couple of days of wallowing in my own pathetic loneliness, I had grown to love living on my own. Stacie had been a part of that transition.

  We’d met on my fourth day in my new place. She’d been outside watering her Venus fly traps just outside her door, which was across from mine, when I’d come out to check the mail. We’d hit it off right away, especially when she invited me in for homemade lemonade – from lemons she actually grew herself on her balcony. Since then I had learned she was my age, twenty-three, and fresh out out of her own badly-ended relationship. We were practically meant to be friends. The universe had deemed it so.

  “Well, how did he look?”

  I conjured up the image of Tyler in my head from three d
ays prior. Stacie had been out of town for work, and I’d been dying inside to tell her how it went – but not bold enough to confess over the phone. “He looked…” I bit the inside of my lip. “Great.” I sighed. “It’s pathetic, really. How did he get even more good looking? It’s like he’s working out now. Or something, I don’t know. Ugh.” I’d relived those few minutes in his office over and over again, with his reddish-brown hair long on top and cut close on the sides, his skin so tan, his green eyes bright.

  “Well, what about the girl?”

  “She’s perfect, and completely awful.”

  “Yeah? She couldn’t be that great.” Stacie fidgeted with the end of her booty shorts. She could really pull them off, but she was a professional gymnast and trainer, which had led to her having a very sculpted physique.

  “But she is. She’s like Carrie Underwood, but prettier.”

  Stacie cocked her head. “Prettier than Carrie Underwood? No way, I don’t believe you!”

  “Yes way. I would show you, but I can’t find her on Facebook.”

  Stacie quickly pulled out her phone, and after less than ten minutes of searching, had pulled up Evie’s Instagram. Naturally, Evie was even prettier in pictures.

  “Oh my gosh, I know who she is! I can’t believe it didn’t ring a bell when you first said her name.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Stacie clicked on one of her pictures, making it larger. “She’s a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader! Did you watch that show last year? About them? She was one of their focal points – a camera favorite, if you will.”

  I stared at the image of Evie in the tiny white, blue, and silver uniform. It fit her thin but curvy body perfectly. She was a freaking goddess, with legs for days. Perfect in every single way.

  “I guess the truth doesn’t matter when you have someone like that.” I sat back, refusing to look at Evie any longer.

  “Well, keep your chin up. There are no pictures of them together on her Instagram, and she only has a Facebook fan page, from what I can tell. And Tyler seems to still be anti-social media.”

  I sighed. “That’s not the point, Stacie. He introduced her as his girlfriend… I just…”

  “You didn’t go there expecting to reconcile things, though, right? I mean that’s what you told me every time you brought this ridiculous idea up. You just wanted him to know the truth, and with the truth being out there you could move on, right?”

  With one hand I fiddled with the end of my braid, and then the lace on a very bright yellow pillow next to me. “Yes, but, I didn’t get to explain it to him like I wanted. It’s like, when I got in there and she was there, and he was there, and they just looked like a fucking model couple from a Fast and Furious movie, I just couldn’t even form the words like I wanted them. I know I just sounded like a dope, like I didn’t know what I wanted to say.” I paused. “All that planning – I had rehearsed it, played it all out in my head over and over, exactly what I was going to say. Only I didn’t say any of those things.”

  Stacie reached over and put her hand on mine. Her brown eyes, several shades darker than mine, peered at me. “Don’t beat yourself up, R. We can’t plan out every conversation we have and expect them to actually go that way.” She chuckled. “No matter how much you might want to.”

  “Yeah, but, I don’t know. I didn’t expect his forgiveness, or to get back together or anything at all like that. I just, I expected to see him and look into his eyes and see the same Tyler I loved for almost three years of my life, but—”

  “—you didn’t.” Stacie finished for me. “I get it, Rowan. I really do.” She sighed. “It sucks. But people change, and sometimes not for the better.”

  “It was like he didn’t even see me.” I thought back to his green eyes. “He looked right through me, like I wasn’t even there. He didn’t even care.” I shook my head. “He always cared.” And that was what messed me up the most, I realized, it wasn’t that he was with some hot sexy cheerleader model, or whatever, it was that he didn’t show me the care, the willingness to listen that he had shown our whole relationship. I had expected to waltz into his office to find Tyler with open ears, a willingness to hear me out, even after all this time, even after what he believed I had done. He would still listen because he was still Tyler. But I had been wrong. He didn’t listen. He wasn’t my Tyler anymore.

  “But you guys aren’t together, and that changes things. He’s different now, and that’s why I didn’t think you would actually go talk to him. I figured you knew it wouldn’t be the same. I mean, come on, R. How could it be? He thinks the absolute worst of you.”

  I let out a puff of air, defeated. “Blah, Stace, I know, but that’s why I wanted to tell him the truth, so he would know I wasn’t this horrible monster he’s made me out to be.” I sat forward waving my hands. “You should have seen his friend Victor. Now don’t get me wrong, Victor has never been much of a fan of mine to begin with, mind you, but he was acting like I was the freaking Anti-Christ when he talked to me in the waiting room.” I paused and shook my head. “And I just hate the idea that Tyler is out there, hating me, when all I wanted was the best for him.”

  “Don’t let this get you down. Here—” Stacie got up and went to her kitchen, winding in and out of her many indoor plants. Her kitchen basically doubled as the living room, her floor plan the same as mine. “Some Jack will make you feel better.” She pulled out a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey.

  “Oh, no, not tonight Stacie. I’m supposed to go in early tomorrow to double-check this month’s books at the shop for Dad. I think I’m gonna head to bed soon, anyway.”

  “Nonsense! I’ve been out of town for the last week, we haven’t had any girl time, and you freaking went wild and confronted your ex with the truth! Do you know what this means?”

  I frowned at her as she happily waved the bottle over my head.

  “This means it’s time to celebrate!”

  I didn’t want to be at the Motor House Bar off Rover street – the college street with a long line of trendy bars in our little city, but that’s exactly where Stacie and I currently were, standing at the bar waiting for the clueless new bartender to take our order.

  Being twenty-three and a recent local college student meant that this sort of place should have been one I frequented. However, I did not. The only time I hung out at any sort of bar was when friends like Stacie dragged me out of my Netflix-and-chill-with-Ranger or read-on-my-kindle-and-chill-with-Ranger – something that did not happen often. Stacie had other friends who liked to go out a lot, and she often went with them, always inviting me along of course. However, I typically declined. Since I didn’t like attention, bars had always come across as a place for attention seekers to go, get drunk and really make a scene – in other words, my worst nightmare.

  But tonight was different somehow. I managed to allow Stacie to convince me that time outside of my tiny apartment was for the best – that maybe company outside of my gray kitty would actually be beneficial. I only figured this, because I had been at home, outside of my working hours at the shop, and I hadn’t started to feel any better about the Tyler situation.

  “Grab us two double gin and cranberry juices, please!” Stacie said to the bartender.

  “Ugh, why do you always order us that? You know I’m not much of a gin fan.” I leaned in closer so she could hear me over the music.

  Stacie rolled her eyes. “You love it! It tastes like a freaking Christmas tree. How could you not love it?” She handed the bartender her card in exchange for two clear plastic cups full of pink liquid.

  A solo lime slice graced each rim. I would drink the Christmas tree in a cup for Stacie, like I always did when we came out, but the truth was that I wasn’t much of a drinker. If she hadn’t ordered this for me, I would have ordered a ginger ale. It looked like beer and no one, outside of the bartender, would have been the wiser. I just couldn’t get used to the taste of alcohol, no matter what it was mixed with. Stacie assured me it was
an acquired taste, which meant I just needed more, and then I would love it.

  “Come on, let’s migrate over there.”

  I followed Stacie across the bar. Motor House was her favorite, primarily because it was pretty much the only bar on this street that had a good-sized dance floor and a typically decent DJ.

  “Let’s toast!” she said once we reached a high-top table with no chairs.

  I gave her a half smile. “To what?”

  “To being awesome friends, with sexy bodies, great hair, and great fashion sense!” She raised her cup, flashing a bright smile.

  I couldn’t deny it; Stacie’s happiness was contagious. I clinked my plastic cup against hers before taking a big gulp. I was proud that I didn’t cough and make a scene after swallowing this time.

  “You’re going to have to start borrowing from my closet more often. You look amazing in that dress.”

  I glanced down at the skin-tight gray dress Stacie had loaned me for the night. I had been determined to wear a shirt and jeans like usual, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Not on our impromptu girls night out. I’d actually been shocked when the dress fit me. I wasn’t huge by any means, but I didn’t have a body like Stacie’s, which was toned and honed to perfection from years of working out as a gymnast. Instead I was the kind of thin that wasn’t really athletic – the thin that still had some pudge here and there that I liked to complain about not being able to get rid of. The truth was, I had never actually tried. My hips were rounder than Stacie’s and my breasts a size larger, which explained why both were threatening to burst the seams of this gray number I was wearing.

  I had to be honest though, I didn’t totally mind the dress. It did actually look kind of good. It made me feel sexy, something I hadn’t felt in a long time. And when I had looked in the mirror before we left, with my hair down to my waist and wavy from the braid I’d been wearing, I actually felt good about myself for the first time in a long time.

  “Thanks for letting me borrow it.”