Bad Games 2 - Vengeful Games (16 page)

Patrick’s eyes crinkled with a soft smile. He ran his fingers through her hair. “Okay,” he said. “I just love you so much. I was worried.”

She rubbed his shoulder some more. “I know.” She leaned in and gave him a small kiss. “Goodnight.”

Amy rolled away from him and clicked off the light on her nightstand. She stayed on her side, away from him, and wondered if he would try and cuddle up to her. She was conflicted just then: She wanted him to because it would mean she had convinced him all was well, and had put the matter to rest, and she didn’t want him to because she still felt like being left alone.

Patrick rolled onto his back, reached over and clicked off his own light. He remained on his back and didn’t try to cuddle. Amy reached behind her and took hold of one of his hands, squeezed it, and then held it there. They fell asleep that way.

Chapter 32

“Going on a trip?” co-worker Steve Lucas said when Patrick walked into the office kitchen the next morning for his third cup of coffee.

Patrick glanced at Lucas as he stirred in some sugar. “Huh?”

Lucas pointed to his own eyes, then to Patrick’s. “Looks like you got some extra baggage there,” he said, a smirk following his dime-store wit.

Patrick didn’t have a problem with Steve Lucas. The guy was annoying, but tolerable. However, after only a few hours sleep and yet another colossal day looming ahead, he felt the sudden urge to throw his steaming coffee into the man’s face.

“Didn’t sleep too well,” Patrick said.

“Are you still on schedule?”

Patrick tossed the wooden stirrer in the trash. “No, it’s not that.” He sipped his coffee. “I just didn’t sleep too well.”

“Maybe you need a
Megablast
instead of coffee.” Another proud smirk. “Have you even tried the stuff yet?”

Patrick shook his head and sipped more coffee. “No. Amy and I went out with a younger couple awhile ago and they kept ordering us Red Bull and vodka. I don’t think either of us slept for a week.”

Lucas kept smirking. “So you’re hyping a product you won’t even touch yourself?”

Patrick imagined scalding him with the coffee again. The smirk was quickly losing its harmless status and venturing into the realm of patronizing dickhead. “It’s called advertising, Steve. We don’t have to love the product—just hype it.”

Lucas chuckled, opened the fridge, took out a small bottle of orange juice and started shaking it. “Well I hope you eventually get some rest. And it might not hurt to try the stuff at least once before the big day. Could only help. If it was me, I’d be drinking a bottle of the crap
while
I was giving my presentation.”

If Steve Lucas hadn’t been so preoccupied with the new foreign language software company he’d recently been working with, Patrick might have guessed that he was trying to worm his way in on the huge account that was Megablast: the first all-natural, all-day energy, almighty heart attack in one 16-ounce can. Patrick had lied to Steve. He
had
tried a can—of course he had. And after about twenty minutes, when he was sure he could feel his pulse in his teeth, Patrick wondered if cocaine wasn’t a safer option—and at $8.95 a can, a cheaper one too.

But in this field, it was all irrelevant. Patrick’s job was to propose a marketing plan for any and all things that came his way. Who cares he liked it or not? It was his job to make it shine, and he liked his job. In fact, dare he admit it, it was the products he
didn’t
care for that were the most fun to market. They produced the biggest challenge. And Megablast was indeed a challenge, especially when you considered the dozens of energy drinks that already flooded the market. The key selling point on Megablast was that it was “all-natural”—whatever that meant. Patrick was very aware of all the ingredients in Megablast, and was also humble enough to admit that he hadn’t heard of, nor could hardly pronounce, two-thirds of them. “All-natural,” in this particular market, seemed a very subjective term. But that was the main angle he was going with—among others—and he was determined to make this stuff look like it had been poured from the Holy Grail itself. If he succeeded, his already promising status within the company would climb that much higher.

But there was still lots to do. His presentation as of now was akin to a jigsaw puzzle that was complete around the edges—it was the shape of a picture, but the middle still needed work, still needed to be put together just right until it began to look like something beautiful.

And this is one hell of a big puzzle,
he thought as he settled into his office chair and clicked open a document on his PC.
One
hell
of a big puzzle.

Patrick sipped his coffee, yawned, and then went to work.

Chapter 33

Patrick was still yawning at a quarter to five when the phone on his desk rang.

“Patrick Lambert.”

“Hey, baby, it’s me,” Amy said.

She sounded pleasant. Downright happy. It filled him with a wonderful sense of relief and he could feel the remainder of last night’s anxiety melting away.

“Hey, honey. How’s my girl?”

“Good. I’m standing outside Friday’s right now. Me and a few of the girls decided to go out for happy hour. Would you mind picking up Carrie and Caleb on your way home from work?”

The relief was short-lived. Of course he had no problem with Amy going to happy hour with friends; she did it from time to time. But it seemed wrong after what had happened last night. And then Amy’s words came back to him, as clear as if she had just spoken them over the phone:
(“Just don’t … overanalyze everything so much.”)

So he tried not to. “Happy hour, huh? You aren’t still hurting from last night?” His tone was pleasant but forced. He was walking that exceptionally thin line between pleasant and passive aggressive. He steeled himself for a defensive reply.

Except Amy’s response was anything but defensive; it was just as happy as her initial greeting. Happier even?

Because she’s been drinking.

“Oh stop,” she said playfully. “So can you get the kids? They’re next door with the Lehman’s.” She slurred a little when she spoke the last sentence. Many might have missed it. Patrick spotted it immediately.

Not even five o’clock yet and she’s got a buzz.

(“Just don’t … overanalyze everything so much.”)

Patrick closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose when he said, “Yeah, I can get the kids. What time do you think you’ll be home?”

“I don’t—hold on.” A pause, followed by the muffled then blaring sounds of bar noise as Amy reentered the bar. Amy yelling over the noise: “Hey! HEY! HOW LONG DO YOU THINK WE’LL BE HERE?” A woman yelled something back and Amy laughed. She was still laughing when she came back to the phone and said, “We have no idea.”

“Well how are you going to get home?”

“
WHAT?
”

Patrick pinched harder on the bridge of his nose. “
HOW WILL YOU GET HOME?
” he yelled back, drawing a few looks from colleagues outside his office.

“I’ll get a ride. Sarah’s not drinking.”

Patrick wouldn’t testify in court, but he was fairly certain he heard a woman shout: “
YEAH RIGHT!
”

“Amy, I —” He stopped himself. Did he need to point out the obvious? Her dad? Last night? She had to have sensed his concern. But then again, she was on her way to being drunk, and those considerations have the uncanny ability of dissolving with each new drink that slides down the chute.

“What?” she said. And then, her mouth away from the receiver, apparently addressing her crew: “
SHUT UP! I CAN’T HEAR!
” More laughter. “Say that again, baby?”

“Nothing,” Patrick said. “I was just telling you to have fun and be safe.” His voice was intentionally flat—a somewhat shameful attempt at getting her to shed the party girl for a second and send some reassurance his way.

“Thanks, baby. See you tonight. Love you.”

Patrick said “I love you too” into a dead line. He hung up and stared at his desk without blinking for a long time.

*

Patrick was going over some notes on the kitchen table. It was after ten, the kids were asleep, and Amy wasn’t home yet. He had read the first page of his notes at least ten times. Actually, this was a lie. He had never gotten to the end of the page. He would get halfway, sometimes a quarter of the way, and then his mind would wander and he’d go back to the beginning. He remembered Amy with the book propped up on her chest last night, pretending to read, trying to draw attention away from the issue at hand. Was he so different now with his notes? He was getting nothing done. The notes were a prop, just like Amy’s book had been. He wanted an excuse to be at the kitchen table, to be in plain sight when she walked in the front door. Their motives might have been slightly different—she using a book to dilute her intoxication and steer away from heavy conversation, he using his notes as an excuse to appear working as opposed to waiting for her like a worried father whose daughter was past curfew—but if you got down to it, they were both doing something they loathed: they were playing games. After so many years together, after knowing and loving each other more than they loved themselves, did they really need the book and the notes as catalysts to get awkward moments up and running?
Why was a straightforward approach still so difficult?
Patrick wondered. Amy could have waited for him to walk into the bedroom last night and immediately unburdened herself without the book, and Patrick could now be waiting at the kitchen table with nothing but a cup of tea, rightfully concerned about the well-being of his wife.

Patrick heard the automatic garage door begin its metal churn and his worry instantly clicked to anger. She had driven home.

Screw the notes—he needed no prop in the face of this sudden discovery. He pushed back his chair and thumped towards the mudroom, waiting for her to emerge from the garage entrance. Amy’s only saving grace at this point would be if one of her friends entered with her after offering to drive the car home.

Amy entered the mudroom alone.

“Hi,” Patrick immediately said.

Amy’s head shot up and she placed a hand to her chest. She burst into a giggle. “Oh my God, baby, you
scared
me.” She was drunk.

“Amy, what the hell?”

She swayed as she took off her coat and hung it on one of the hooks lining the wall. She turned back around and the coat slid off the hook and onto the floor. She didn’t notice. “What?” she asked.

“You’re drunk, and you fucking
drove.
”

“I’m not drunk,” she said. She did not look concerned by his accusation—her reply was spoken as innocently as someone saying they weren’t hungry.

“Yes you
are.
I thought you were getting a ride home?”

“I did—I
was
… but they left.” She spoke this with an air of certainty, as if it all made perfect sense.

“Your friends left you there? They left you to
drive home?
”

Amy shook her head intently and swayed. “No—no, no. Sarah was going to take me home, but I started talking to this other girl, and we became friends.” She stopped there, once again seeming to presume it all made sense, that Patrick could surely fill in the remaining pieces.

“What the hell are you talking about? What girl?”

Amy walked past him into the kitchen. She reeked of alcohol. She spoke over her shoulder as she took a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water from the faucet. “Just some woman I started talking to. She was really cool. All the girls wanted to leave early, so this woman said she’d drive me home. The girls met her. They thought she was cool too.” She drank the entire glass of water in one go.

Patrick’s head was spinning. It made sense and it didn’t. “But you drove home.
You
drove home.”

“I know—bitch left me there.”

“She did? A complete stranger?” He put a hand on his chest in mock surprise. “I’m stunned!”

“Whatever, Patrick.” She rolled her eyes, turned and placed the glass in the sink.

“Why didn’t you call me?” he asked. “I would have picked you up.”

“What about the kids? Who would have looked after the kids?” she said.

“I could have gotten at least half a dozen neighbors to stay here with them while I got you. You know that.”

Amy made a funny face. “That would have been embarrassing.”

“And if you came home in a police car? How would that have been?”

She began pleading her case. “Look, I had a ride, okay? Sarah was gonna drive me. But they left because this other girl said she would drive me. And then
she
left. What else was I supposed to do?”

“You should have called me,” he said. “You should have called Sarah. Why didn’t you call Sarah to come back and get you?”

“They had already left.”

More absurd logic. Patrick was angry. Yes, Amy had the grief card to play, but the horrific irony in utilizing it after such a situation would have likely prohibited even the most wasted of individuals from using it. But Amy did use it—sort of.

“Look, I know I fucked up,” she said candidly. “And I know with what happened to Dad it seems especially bad, but …” She shrugged. “I just fucked up. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again, okay?”

Patrick stared at her. She stared back, defiant, as though mentioning her father had given her a pass for her recklessness—a different, and in Patrick’s opinion, worse version of the grief card.

“
Okay?
” she said again, her eyes still frustratingly defiant.

Patrick said, “I’m going to bed.” He left the kitchen and headed upstairs.

Amy joined him in bed twenty minutes later. Patrick was rolled over onto his side away from her. The lights were off, save for the lamp on Amy’s nightstand that he had graciously left on. Pissed as he may be, he didn’t want her stumbling in the dark and banging her head on something.