The Chase (4 page)

He had to drive better. Plain and simple.

But the real question was why he was sucking so bad out there on the track.

He didn’t know the answer to that.

Which was a problem.

“Can I get another drink?” he asked the bartender.

“Sure, no problem.”

“I see you started without me. Am I late?”

Evan turned to see Tuesday slip onto the bar stool beside him, setting her purse down on the bar. She gave him a casual smile before shrugging her trench coat off.

“I was early,” he assured her. “It’s good to see you. Can I get you a drink?”

“Absolutely.” She plucked the giant binder menu off the counter and started perusing. “Hallelujah for the return of the cocktail. I never was a beer drinker.”

Figured. Just looking at her, beautiful and thin and bordering on exotic, her jewelry all expensive-looking and her shoes spiky heels with very pointy toes, Evan knew this was not his kind of woman. Not that he really knew what woman was his type. While he had dated a series of party girls in his twenties, he hadn’t really had a serious relationship since . . . that person. Damn it.

“I’m a beer guy,” he told her.

“Then why are you drinking . . .” She picked his drink up and sipped it, making a face. “Rum and Coke?”

“It seemed like a faster way to get drunk,” he told her honestly.

Tuesday laughed. “Meeting me requires reduced sobriety?”

He hadn’t meant that to sound quite the way it did. “Of course not. No, it’s just been one of those days that has kicked me in the teeth, you know?”

“I think everyone has had those. But generally speaking getting drunk doesn’t help the situation.”

Everyone knew that. He knew that. Didn’t make it any less appealing. “So you followed in your father’s footsteps with sports reporting,” he commented. “Guess I did the same.”

“Yeah.”

He waited, but she didn’t elaborate. “So . . . how did you get into the blogging?” From what he’d heard, her website was always accurate, but focused on the gossip in their sport instead of stats.

“It seemed like a void I could fill.”

Well, that was helpful. Evan took a sip of his drink. “Yeah?” He tried to think of something else to say, but he was running on empty.

“Which is it, business or personal, that has you reaching for the glass?” Tuesday flagged the bartender down. “Can I have a lemon drop, please?”

Evan thought about that. “Mostly business. But maybe some personal.” Like why the hell Kendall still got under his skin. And why did everyone else around him seem to have some sort of secret to happiness with a woman that he had no knowledge of. His brother was happy. Ryder was happy. Even Ty, who he would have thought was a confirmed bachelor for life, was following Imogen around with a stupid grin on his face. Hell, those guys were carrying their women’s handbags and getting couples massages.

He had yet to find any woman who even came close to inspiring him to that kind of dorkiness.

Kendall wasn’t the massage type.

Damn it. “No, not personal. Never mind that. It’s just that my career isn’t going exactly stellar at the moment.”

Tuesday waved her hand. “Oh, we all know your driving sucks this year, so what? Everyone has a bad year. The fact that you’re in the cup series means you are technically at the pinnacle of your career. So quit whining.”

Evan turned and stared at her. She was one ballsy chick. He kind of liked and hated her all at the same time. “Well, thanks for the sympathy.”

“I mean, seriously. You know how many guys would kill to be in your flame retardant shoes? I don’t think that’s what’s bothering you at all. I think it’s personal.”

Would it be totally tacky if he paid for her drink and got the hell out of there? “It doesn’t matter.”

“Who is she?”

“No one!”

“There has to be someone.”

He was starting to get irritated. This was a shitty date. Shitty day, shitty date. He felt like he was being grilled on a witness stand by the prosecutor. “There is no one. I’m not dating anyone.”

“But it’s someone you used to date, right? Maybe someone you thought you were over but who has suddenly popped back into your life?”

No. Maybe. He didn’t think so. “This is totally not first-date get-to-know-you chatter.”

“You’re right.” She took her drink right out of the bartender’s hand and took a healthy sip. “I’m just going to be straight up with you here. I asked you to meet me for a drink before I realized that you and Kendall have a history. She says it’s cool with her, but I can’t fathom dating my best friend’s ex, no matter how long ago it was.”

“Well, I can respect that.” And maybe he could leave now and go sulk in private. “I probably should have declined your invite, but it was over a long time ago with Kendall and me.”

“When did you two date?”

“About ten years ago. I was nineteen.” And stupid. Evan shifted on the bar stool, a headache starting behind his eyes. God, he didn’t want to talk about any of this.

“Was it serious?”

He could have lied. Could have blown off the question. But he was tired of pretending like it was no big deal. It wasn’t anymore, but it had been at the time. She had broken his goddamn nineteen-year-old heart. “It was to me. It was very serious.” He stopped just short of admitting he had loved her. “I can’t speak for her feelings though.”

“How long did you date?”

“About three months. It wasn’t that long, but we spent a lot of time together. Damn near every day.”

“What was your favorite thing about her?”

Evan was just buzzed enough to actually contemplate the question. He let his mind drift back a decade to when he and Kendall had been sharing most of their time and affection with each other. What had it been about her?

“It was her smile. When she smiled, it went all the way to her eyes, and I felt so proud that I’d made her happy.” Evan caught himself. “Man, how stupid does that sound? I think I need to chill on the rum.”

“You don’t need to chill on the rum. What you need to chill on is this idea that you have to be a big man driver who can’t show any emotion other than cockiness.”

He shrugged. It was what it was. It wasn’t a career for crybabies. And he wasn’t sure cockiness actually qualified as an emotion.

“So why did you and Kendall break up?”

“Beats me. One day she just stopped returning my calls. One minute we were hot and heavy, the next she totally shut me out. I never understood what happened.”

“Really?” Tuesday looked at him thoughtfully. “Did you have a fight or something?”

“Nope. We’d spent the night together and I snuck out of her room like I did a lot of nights because she was still living at home. We were supposed to go to the movies the next day. But she wasn’t at home when I went to pick her up and she wouldn’t answer my calls. I must have called her like a hundred times that week. Nothing.”

Evan wasn’t exactly sure why he was spilling his guts to Tuesday, considering he’d spent ten years trying to pretend he hadn’t been humiliated quite so thoroughly. Maybe it was needing someone to know that he’d been wronged. Maybe it was needing Tuesday to go home and report to Kendall that he had no clue what he’d done wrong. Maybe it was needing to just say that he hadn’t done anything wrong at all, and that it wasn’t cool for Kendall to have dumped him without a word.

“Really? That’s interesting.” Tuesday frowned at her lemon drop. “Maybe it was just a miscommunication or something. Do you think you would have stayed with her if that hadn’t happened?”

“Well, I can’t guarantee it would have been forever, but that was my plan.” Evan tossed back the rest of his drink, the ice clinking against his teeth violently enough to jar him into realizing he just might be drunker than he’d thought. “I was set to ask her to marry me.”

Tuesday choked on her drink. “Holy crap, are you kidding me?”

“No.” He sort of wished he were.

“And you’ve never gotten married?”

“Nope.”

“Huh. That really is very interesting.”

He wasn’t sure it was as interesting as it was just sucky.

“Can I step down off the witness stand now?” he asked. “I think I need to go home and pass out.”

He wanted to sleep for the next twelve hours and forget this day ever happened.

“Sure, but I reserve the right to call you back to the stand for further questioning.” She grinned at him. “And don’t leave the country.”

“I can’t afford it,” he told her, taking a moment to indulge in self-pity.

“Oh, my God,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Give me a ginormous break. There is no way you’re hurting for cash unless you’ve spent your substantial earnings on hookers and blow.”

No. He hadn’t really spent much of his money, to be honest. He’d been saving it for a dream house. A big, empty dream house that he would have to live in alone. Solo. By himself.

Definitely less disgusting than sex for hire, but decidedly more lonely.

“Can I get another drink?” he asked the bartender.

Tuesday excused herself to go to the restroom, but Evan barely heard her over the deafening volume of his own pity party.

KENDALL
was trying to watch TV, but all she kept doing was glancing at the clock to see if it was possible that Tuesday would be done with her date with Evan yet. Given that it was only seven-thirty, it didn’t seem likely. She grabbed a black toile pillow off her couch and hugged it. Her mother always said she didn’t understand how a woman who could break down an engine could also have a thing for French toile, but Kendall didn’t see why it had to be one or the other.

Couldn’t she dig racing and gilded sconces all at the same time?

Not in her family. It was one or the other. You were either a domestic goddess or a grease monkey, and never the two shall meet or cross gender lines.

Normally HGTV held her riveted, but tonight she could barely focus on the screen in front of her. 7:32. Good Lord.

Her cell phone rang and it was Tuesday’s ringtone. Kendall dove for it and answered, practically screaming, “Hello?” Why was she calling her so early?

“Okay, I have five minutes because he thinks I’m in the restroom, so just listen to me and answer my questions without wasting time.”

That was frightening and weird. Why had Tuesday ditched him to call her? What the hell was going on in that bar? “Okay.” Kendall bit her fingernail, caught herself doing it, and made a face.

“Why did you and Evan break up?”

That was not what she’d expected Tuesday to ask at all. Caught off guard, she answered truthfully. “Because he thought it was stupid that I wanted to be a driver. He laughed at me when I told him my dream.” It had been the ultimate betrayal to her at the time. It had hurt that he hadn’t respected her desires or believed she could achieve her goals.

“So you had a big fight about it?”

Kendall bit her lip instead of her nail. “Well . . . not exactly. He laughed and I changed the subject.”

“And then you broke up with him?”

“Yes.” Sort of. It might have been more like she had just stopped talking to him.

“And explained why you broke up with him?”

Fighting the urge to squirm, she said, “I don’t think I said that in so many words.”

“Did you say any words?”

Damn it. Why did hearing it spelled out like this suddenly make her feel so bad? It had been childish to dodge his calls. “Not really. Probably not. No. I think I sort of just stopped answering the phone.”

“Oh, my God.”

“I was eighteen!” she said in defense of her actions. “And I was hurt. He laughed at me!”

“And now ten years later you’re both still hurt and harboring resentments. This is stupid. You owe him an explanation. He owes you an explanation. Get your ass down to this wine bar and resolve this so you can both stop glaring at each other and get back to the real business of your careers.”

“What makes you think he even cares one little bit?” If he had cared, he wouldn’t have laughed at her.

“He has no clue why you broke up. It bothers him, it’s obvious. Give him an explanation and an apology and give him the opportunity to apologize to you. It’s time to move on. You said it yourself, you were eighteen, and you were clearly insecure. Hey, I get that, it’s normal at that age to have doubts. But you’re twenty-eight now and it’s time to deal with the past so you can tackle the future.”

“When did you become my therapist?”

“A friend is by definition an unpaid therapist. Trust me, both of you will thank me and sleep a lot better at night. This is called closure.”

“I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Don’t make me bring him to your apartment.”

Kendall balked. That would be awful because then she would be trapped there until he decided to leave. Not to mention that it was far too intimate.

She knew Tuesday wasn’t bluffing. Unlike her, Tuesday never bluffed. “Fine. I’ll meet you there.”

“Ten minutes, that’s all you get.”

“I still don’t think this is a good idea.”

“You’ll thank me later. By the way, how was he in bed?” Tuesday asked curiously.

Kendall didn’t say a word, suddenly thrust back in time to hot nights with the boy who had made her understand all the wonderful things her body was capable of.

“That good, huh?”

“That good,” she agreed.

Then she hung up the phone and went to throw on jeans that didn’t make her butt look too big and to run a brush through her hair.

 

 

EVAN
couldn’t shake Tuesday. Every time he hinted that maybe it was time to call it a night, she launched into some huge and meandering story that had him nodding politely and wondering when this hell was going to end. She seemed like a nice enough woman, but there was no chemistry between them. Not to mention she had pressed him about Kendall and he had confided in her about their breakup, which was not hot for a first date.