This was way too much information.
“I –” I broke in but he shook his head.
“You wanted to know, babe, here it is,” he told me. “I think you get I was a good football player. And I was good. So good, I had scouts comin’ to games my junior year. Senior year I had six offers before I took the seventh and two came in the day after that. Neeta, she liked that, bein’ with me, lookin’ into our future, plannin’ it all out. It wasn’t about me, what I could do, what I earned. It was about what Neeta could get outta it.”
I bit my lip, Tate held my eyes and kept speaking.
“But Neeta, she’s not like you. She isn’t smart. She doesn’t work hard. She thinks of the future with her head in the clouds. And she doesn’t work for shit. Always, even when she was a little kid, expected everything to be handed to her on a silver platter. So she wants to party, have fun and she wants me with her. And I’m with her because I’ll get laid or get a blowjob but also because I’m not, there’s no f**kin’ tellin’ what she’ll get herself into. And, f**k me, I love her. Not just her mouth or her cunt, but her. The way she is, the way she dances through life.”
“Tate –”
“So I gotta look after her. Problem with that is, she gets bored, she wants somethin’ new, new faces, new adventures, new ways to have fun. And there I am, at her side one night when she finds that shit and the party we’re at gets busted. I know in my bones it ain’t where we’re supposed to be, these people are older than us, rough, no good. But she wouldn’t go, she was havin’ fun. I could go, she told me, but she was stayin’ and I knew no way I could leave her there on her own. And I was right, they were no good. So Neeta and I are there and we get busted along with them. Drugs, not pot, not coke, not a little bit of it, they had crack and they had lots of it because they dealt it. When I made the papers, local football star busted at a party hangin’ with drug dealers, Ace, let’s just say the football program at Penn State, they didn’t like that much.”
“My God,” I whispered, horrified at what he was telling me.
“They almost pulled the scholarship. Dad and Pop didn’t talk to them, explain things, they would have. They were puttin’ their money down on a future All-American. Not some ass**le who gets his shit in the papers.”
“Tate –”
He cut me off with a dare. “That’s the first time she f**ked up my life, you wanna hear more?”
“But you went to Penn State,” I reminded him quietly.
“Yeah, thanks to Dad and Pop,” he returned. “I quit Neeta and went to school.”
“So, um… later you took her back?” I asked cautiously.
“More times than you got fingers, Ace. Each time, she f**ked up my life.” His arms gave me a powerful squeeze that made my breath catch and his voice got so low, I could feel it vibrating in my chest. “So I find this woman, see. High-class, great f**kin’ hair, legs that go forever but I see her when I’m pissed. I’m pissed at Bubba and I’m pissed at Krystal but most of all, I’m pissed at Neeta ‘cause I let the bitch play me again. Next day after Neeta plays me, the next f**kin’ day, that’s when I find this woman. She’s workin’ in my goddamned bar,” he growled and my heart stopped. “And I do not need that shit. Had years of that shit. I need that woman and the trouble that’s written all over her in my bar like I need a hole in my head. So I get pissed, say shit I don’t mean and what happens? I walk out after sayin’ that shit and she looks at me and I know she heard. Part of me, gotta tell you Laurie, is glad. Part of me can’t take it. Which part wins?”
“Tate –”
I got another squeeze. “Which part?” he demanded to know.
“I don’t –”
“You’re right here, Ace.”
“But I don’t understand.”
“What’s that say about me?”
“Sorry?”
“What’s that say about me?” he repeated.
“Honey, I don’t understand the question,” I whispered.
“Babe, honestly?” he asked.
“Yes.” I was still whispering.
“You’re standin’ there wonderin’ what the f**k you got yourself into after gettin’ yourself outta that jacked up situation with your ass**le ex. After makin’ two piss poor choices in the women I let in my life, what do you think I’m thinkin’?”
I couldn’t be sure but I thought I knew what he was thinking.
“I’m not Neeta,” I said quietly.
“You’re your own brand of trouble, I know that and you’re still right here,” he told me and I felt my heart start beating faster.
“But I’m a good girl,” I whispered. “I’ve always been a good girl.”
“Laurie, you strut up to a f**kin’ garage, all tits, ass and legs. Jesus, if you had a fishin’ pole, you couldn’t’ve hooked those boys faster.”
“I needed my oil changed,” I reminded him.
“Wood didn’t come out first, babe, no f**kin’ joke, the rest of those boys woulda fought to change your oil and bring you margaritas while they were doin’ it.”
“That’s crazy,” I breathed.
“Ace, hello?” he called. “I was f**kin’ there.”
“Tate,” my voice was stronger, “I needed an oil change.”
“Yeah, there it is,” he shot back, “your own brand of trouble.”
“I don’t understand what you mean!” My voice was definitely stronger since I was semi-shouting.
“What I mean is, two months ago I scraped off the bitch who’s been ruinin’ my goddamned life for over twenty years. The next day, the next f**kin’ day, you’re in it. You’re totally clueless, wanderin’ through a biker town like you’re in Disneyland. And, I’ll repeat, the day before I met you, I scraped off the woman who I spent two decades with, a different kinda clueless woman who lived in her own head.”
I felt my head twitch.
“I’m not clueless,” I whispered.
“You’re clueless and you’re lost,” he returned.
“I’m not lost either,” I told him.
“Lauren, you live in a hotel.”
“So? It’s home!”
“You can tell yourself that, babe, but a hotel is not home.”