The Comeback Route Read online

  “Here.” Nico held out his arm to me after the valet opened the car door, and it was a real relief to lean some of my weight off the six-inch heels. “Are you walking so slowly to make a big entrance?”

  “No. I have to take tiny steps because I’m on my tiptoes. And anyway, you always go faster than I do. I have to jog when we walk together even when I wear my regular shoes.”

  He walked a little slower. “Why didn’t you say something before?”

  “I like the cardio.” I saw a camera and smiled up at him, which was really a pretty natural reaction to the baby steps he was taking so that I could keep up. And damn, he did look so cute. My smile got bigger as he grinned back at me.

  “We should get champagne,” I said, after we finally arrived at the table and sat down. The host had stopped several times on the way over because Nico and I had moved like sloths, but we got there eventually. “We’re celebrating tonight,” I explained. “In a temperate way.”

  “Sure.” Nico motioned to the waiter and ordered. “What are we celebrating?”

  “You turning over a new leaf, and me moving to Miami.”

  The grin dropped from his face. “First of all, I don’t see how what I’m doing is so bad. I’ve gone out a few times—”

  “Five brushes with the law since you got traded. Five,” I repeated with emphasis. “If that doesn’t say something about how you’ve been acting, I don’t know what does. It’s a matter of time until you get arrested. Trust me, I know from experience.”

  “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, a few times,” he informed me, still frowning. “Not my fault. And what were you saying about moving to Miami?”

  “I can’t go home to Michigan,” I said. “I mean, I guess I could move back to the state, but it’s not my home anymore. Why wouldn’t I stay here? Sun, sand, and I’m fascinated by palmetto bugs. I saw one as big as my hand on my way home from the grocery store.”

  The frown deepened. “Maybe we need to set up a go route for you.”

  “Don’t use football terminology to talk about kicking me out of your apartment,” I said, scowling right back at him.

  “I just don’t want to have to involve a lawyer like your dad did to get you out of my life,” he said. There was a long silence. “Tatum, I didn’t mean that. You can stay—”

  “You’re not understanding that life coaching is a Mary Poppins kind of thing,” I said briskly. “Maybe I’ll stay just until I kick your ass enough that you’re all right on your own and you can go to a park and sing a jolly song or something.” No, of course not, because I wasn’t leaving, and he had a terrible singing voice. “I don’t need to waste my time and talents on an unappreciative—oh great, champagne.” The waiter popped the cork and poured, and I held up my glass to Nico. “To new beginnings, and to eyewitnesses who forget to wear their glasses.”

  “To new beginnings,” he echoed, and clinked his glass to mine. “Speaking of, I called the linebacker I know, Faris. He is here for the winter because his kids are in school, so we’re going to meet up.”

  “Good.” And yum, this champagne was delicious. I slid off my shoes under the tablecloth and my enjoyment notched up even higher.

  “He’s going to bring some of the other guys to work out and then afterwards we’re going together for a pedicure and fruity cocktails.”

  “You’re hilarious. But I would like to get my nails done. You and I could go.” I took out the little notebook I had bought at the grocery store, drew a star, and wrote “joint pedicure for bonding time” next to it. Then I circled that entry, because a February pedicure wasn’t so necessary under your leather boots in Michigan, but was just not optional with your strappy heels in Florida.

  “What is that notebook?” Nico asked.

  “I’m keeping track of all my good ideas for you.” I flipped quickly through the pages, giving him a glimpse of everything I had written.

  “That’s a lot. Those are all things I need to work on? What about you? Or did your life coach give you the all-clear to forge ahead on your own?”

  “Well, after we had worked together for a while, she actually told me that she wanted to leave coaching and try another career. I think it was totally coincidental. But I still get inspirational quotes from a guru named Mysti each morning because I guess she forgot to turn off that service for me. I checked my email on your laptop this morning at I had about a million little messages to motivate me. By the way, you should upgrade to some stronger passwords for your bank and shopping accounts.”

  He briefly covered his eyes. “I’m going to change them immediately.”

  “Good, I’ll be able to cross that off my list. Look, it’s that actress! No, don’t look like that! You’re so obvious. She’s the one from the movie about the blood that makes people witches. No, zombies. No, werewolves. Something bad.”

  “Oh, yeah. I recognize her.” Nico was blatantly checking her out, the asshole. “Maybe I should go over and introduce myself.” He smiled in her direction and damned if she didn’t smile back at him.

  “Except that you’re already out with someone, hello!” I leaned over the table to take his chin in my hand. “Me.”

  “Oh, right, Tatum.” He removed my hand from his face. “How could I ever forget you? The woman who lives in my house and drives my car.”

  “That’s correct. The woman who’s your life coach and for tonight, your perfect date. Shower me with affection and stop looking at her fake boobs,” I told him.

  “Are they really?”

  “I have nothing against a person doing some body work, but please. No one’s nipples are at chin level. If I put my breasts next to hers and you did a side-by-side comparison, you’d feel a difference, too.”

  “Hm,” Nico commented. “I wonder.” His eyes were on my cleavage, and that was fine by me. “Think she’d care to join us?”

  “I think you should keep your hands on one set of breasts only: your own. Having a lot of boobs available to you hasn’t done you a lot of good so far in life.”

  “I disagree. Everyone needs variety. Why settle with two when the world is filled with so many?”

  “I feel the same way,” I agreed. “I haven’t ever stuck with just one dick, but chasing different breasts around hasn’t helped you a lot, has it? Wasn’t that your problem two weeks ago, when you took up with some other guy’s girlfriend and he objected?” Nico opened his mouth to tell me how I was wrong but I flipped my notebook to a new page and changed the subject. “Tell me about your diet.”

  “Besides the tortillas and cream cheese that you served last night and claimed were quesadillas?”

  “Well, now I’m going to be learning to bake at my job, but cooking is still going to be an issue for us. Who’s going to do it?” I asked him.

  “Let’s order in.” He sighed. “Can we take a break from the life coaching? Tell me more about this bakery.”

  I told him about Salvador’s Aunt Lucy, the geraniums in the window, and how I was planning to learn Spanish. Nico tried to teach me some of the Spanish words he knew, which mostly seemed to be swears and vulgar stuff. And we ate oysters, and I drank more champagne, and we talked about nothing and laughed our heads off as Nico told me stories about how bad he’d been when he started playing football. Unlike most of the other guys, he hadn’t picked up the game until high school.

  “I’ll tell you what I was into before, if you keep it to yourself.” He actually looked around. “Ballet.”

  “You were a ballerina?” I asked, amazed.

  “No, I was a ballet dancer! You don’t say ballerina for men. I danced for about ten years, until I took up football.”

  “Why did you stop?”

  “I grew out of the largest size of tutu,” he said. “No, there were a few reasons for it.”

  “Like having to wear a tutu?” I shook my head. “You need to be more secure in your masculinity.” I underlined the notation about us getting a pedicure together to reinforce that concept, and wondered what col
or he should get. I asked more about ballet, and he made me laugh so much that I forgot I was supposed to be guiding him and just had a lot of fun.

  “I guess we should go,” I said, hours later, as I took one last bite of the dessert we were sharing.

  “There’s a great bar—”

  “We should go home,” I expanded. “Remember what this night was about.”

  “A normal date with a normal woman. It actually went according to plan,” Nico said. He sounded surprised. “I didn’t think you could pull it off.”

  “I’m totally normal! I just need one minute to get my shoes back on.” It was hard to do it without crawling under the table and I didn’t get the strap on the right one buckled correctly. “Ok, they’re good enough, I can make it work. Let’s hit it.” Nico offered his help and I leaned on him again.

  “Can we throw out those shoes? You’re about to pull off my arm,” he complained as we descended the steps to the curb to get the car.

  “Are you serious? Do you or do you not play professional football? You’re going to get taken out by a hundred pound, well, ok, hundred and—shit!” Because at that moment I took a step down and slipped. The unstrapped shoe flew off my foot, the spike heel embedded in a palm tree next to the valet’s chair, and I was airborne.

  “Tatum, Jesus Christ!” So yeah, he was actually pretty good at catching things, and that included me. I never actually hit the ground, because Nico had me up in his arms before my ass met pavement. “You are never wearing those hell shoes again, do you hear me?”

  But at the moment, I was less interested in the shoes and more in tune with the fact that my arms were around his neck, my breasts pressed against him, his arms circled around me and holding me close. Our faces were inches apart. A flash from a phone lit up the soft darkness. “Smile,” I told him. “We’re on camera.” And then I kissed him.

  “It was for show,” I repeated, for the millionth time. “I saw that people were taking pictures of us. You did this big knight in shining armor move when you caught me in mid-air and we couldn’t have timed it any better for your image rehab! I thought there should be a big finish. A grand finale. That was all I meant by the kiss!”

  Nico still didn’t answer. He hadn’t said a word since telling me that I couldn’t wear my shoes anymore. Since I had kissed him.

  “With all the women you’ve been with, I don’t know why one little lip smack would be a big deal,” I grumbled.

  “Are you calling me a tramp?” he demanded.

  “If the shoe fits!” I retorted. Which it hadn’t on my foot tonight. “I’m trying to make you understand that I didn’t mean anything by kissing you. There wasn’t even any tongue involved! Why did you get your boxer briefs into such a knot?”

  “I’m not talking to you anymore,” Nico told me. “We’re going home and not speaking.”

  “Fine,” I answered. “No more speaking.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine! So stop!”

  “I’ll stop when I want to!” His volume had risen.

  “You were the one who told me we weren’t going to talk, and now you can’t seem to zip it!” And that was how the rest of our ride home went, both of us fighting over who was going to stop talking first.

  “I think this is why our relationship didn’t work,” I summarized as we drove into the garage. “You’re too immature! Did you actually just say, ‘I’m rubber and you’re glue?’ I mean, really!”

  Nico didn’t answer until he pulled the car to a stop and turned it off. “Our relationship. That’s what you said, our relationship. Tatum, we went out one time, and one time only. We had dinner, we went to a bar…”

  “You wanted to sleep with me, and I said no,” I concluded.

  “And that was it,” he agreed. “That was the extent of our ‘relationship.’ You have this whole thing built up in your mind about us and some kind of connection we had back in Michigan, but no.” He turned to look at me in the passenger seat. “No connection. Nothing.” It was very, very quiet in the car.

  I didn’t bother to answer, or even to look at him. I took my heels, got out of the car, and went up to the lobby.

  “It’s late, Evangeline,” the doorman told me. “You going out by yourself?”

  “I just need to take a little stroll to clear my head. I’ll be back in a minute.” I walked out under the starry sky. It was like I had already adapted to Miami, because I shivered a little as if it was cold outside. But it was February and I was wearing so little clothing I was practically naked, and I wasn’t dying of frostbite. Florida was going to be a great place to live.

  And as far as “no connection, nothing,” well, screw that. Nico was lying to me, and he was also lying to himself.

  Chapter 4

  The first step is always the hardest. Take your first step today for success tomorrow! Also take the rest of the steps, because those are also necessary.

  Yours in achievement, Mysti

  This couldn’t be possible. “What do you mean, I’m fired? I didn’t even start!” I protested.

  Lucy kept putting pastries into a pink box. “I told you to be here at three o’clock. It’s eight. You’re five hours late on your first day of work.” The customer she was helping turned to me, waiting for my response.

  “I thought you were kidding about three AM!” I protested. “No one could really start work so early. That’s the middle of the night! Right?” I asked the customer, who just shrugged. “Haven’t you heard the expression about the early bird getting the worm?”

  Lucy stopped and looked at me. “Yes? What about it?”

  “Well, let that be a lesson to all of us!” I pointed to the guy with the loaf of warm bread. “Am I right? You don’t want the worm. No one does!”

  Now she shook her head. “Josefa got here at three to start training you, and that’s what time she started working alone.” Lucy turned to the register and gave the man his change. He looked like he didn’t want to leave but she went on to the next person in line, and nothing I said made her speak another word to me.

  Shit. Shit! I got in the long line too, and waited my turn to get to the front.

  “I’m not going to reconsider,” Lucy told me when I reached the counter.

  “I’m aware of that. I would like six of those, four of those, six of the chocolate ones, two here, and four of those,” I said, pointing in the display case. “And a knife, please.” I handed her some of my cash and she silently handed me some coins back. Then I left the bakery and spent a little more of my money on a cup of coffee across the street. I sat at a table in the little café and tried to patiently wait for the bakery’s morning rush to die down, taking the tiniest possible sips from my cup to make it last for the absolute longest time. The $500 I had left Michigan with had dwindled down to a whole lot less because it was just shocking how fast money seemed to disappear when you spent it. Tiny sips were a necessity.

  Finally, I watched the crowd clear out of the bakery. I cut up my pastries into bite-sized pieces and felt very thankful that I wasn’t wearing my super-heels today, because I was going to be doing plenty of standing and walking. I planted myself in front of El Asturiano. “Free sample?” I asked a woman who walked by with a grocery bag. “They’re delicious!” She tried one and went on her way, but the next woman went inside the bakery after she gobbled up her sample. And the next guy (who took two little pieces instead of one) also went in. As he should have, the greedy pig.

  “Don’t miss out on El Asturiano bakery, a Miami tradition since 1965!” I called as I strolled down the street with my pink box. “Authentic Spanish and Cuban pastries! Halba...abha…” I was trying to say we spoke Spanish, but clearly, not all of us did. I thought of the bad words that Nico had taught me, but I wasn’t going to start yelling those, especially since he hadn’t wanted to singe my delicate ears by telling me what they meant.

  Nico. I must have been scowling while I thought about him, because a man who was about to take a sample suddenly snatched ba
ck his hand and walked away. “No, you can…” Never mind.

  Nico was pissing me off like no man ever had. The night before, when I had come in from my pensive stroll and investigation of palmetto bug nightlife, he had been gone from the apartment. After all the work I had done to make it look like we had a normal relationship, he went out and ruined it by staying out until two AM at some rooftop bar and hitting on some tall, ugly girl. I sighed and helped myself to a sample. No, she had been a tall, very, very pretty girl. And she had freely tagged him in everything she publicly posted, so everyone had seen Nico with a big drink in his hand, surrounded by women. And the pretty, tall one had her hand on his zipper.

  Whore. I meant Nico, not the tall woman, who as far as I was concerned could grab any dick that pleased her. But Nico! About one second after getting mad at me for giving him a little kiss, he let some stranger into his—

  “Ok, Tatum Elizabeth Sincerity Smith.” Lucy stood in the doorway of the bakery, wiping her hands on her apron. “Why don’t you tell me how you increased my foot traffic so much that we’ve already sold out of our palmeras before ten in the morning?”

  “These ones, you mean?” I pointed to some crumbs scattered in my pink box. “They were delicious, that’s how. I gave away a ton of pieces but I ate a bunch, too.”

  “You’ve been walking up and down the streets, passing out samples of my goods?”

  I nodded and stood on one foot. These were my comfortable shoes, but they weren’t that great. “It would have been better if I had a flier or something I could have passed out, too. Or like a coupon, five palmos for the price of four.”

  “Palmeras,” Lucy said slowly. “We’re going to have to work on your pronunciation. Come on inside and get a drink of water.”

  The crowd waiting to purchase their bread and treats had slowed to a trickle now as I came to sit behind the counter. Oh, that felt much better.

  “I’ve given out samples before, but I never had that much of a result. What did you do to get customers to come in?” Lucy asked me curiously.