Authors: Jen Doyle
She sat up straight in order to hold her ground, then turned her attention to the task at hand. Deke was no lightweight. But Dorie wasn’t either. Though it felt like the longest five seconds of her life, she managed to keep the back of her hand from hitting the table.
“Holy shit.”
For some reason it surprised her that Deke had spoken. She’d been so intent on not thinking about Nate that she’d just stopped thinking altogether. Now she looked up to see Deke staring at her and murmuring, “Okay, then,” as his gaze darted over to Nate and back.
Trying not to pay attention to Nate, who was now leaning forward with an unusual amount of concentration focused on the coaster for his drink, it took a minute for Dorie to realize that the room had erupted into a roar and everyone was still screaming. Fitz was jumping up and down, Jules had thrown her arms up in the air, and Ella was trash-talking the other table.
Fitz clutched Dorie’s arm as she came back to the table. “Oh, my God. We’ve never beaten them at the coin toss.”
Which wasn’t a coin toss, of course, but that was neither here nor there.
Laughing, Ella shook her head. “We’ve never beaten them at anything, period.”
Jules raised one of the shot glasses that had been delivered to the table while Dorie was up at the front. “Cheers, ladies!”
Although Dorie had already had more to drink than was wise, she took the tequila, clinked her glass and then downed it. She’d earned it, hadn’t she?
Lola raised her own glass and interjected a loud, “Woo-hoo!” as she downed it. Then she pulled out a bunch of index cards from the table as Fitz sadly said, “It would have been the perfect night...”
“Except that Nate’s going to answer every damn one of the questions,” Jules finished for her.
Ella sighed. “At least we’ll always have the coin toss.”
Chapter Twelve
First Wash, now Deke. Was he that obvious?
Well, yes, probably, given that Nate was now tearing his coaster apart in order to avoid getting into it with his friends. What the fuck? It was arm wrestling, for heaven’s sake. It wasn’t like Deke was out there stripping her clothes off. He was barely even flirting; it was just Deke being Deke.
Yet the idea of
anyone
else’s hands on her—for whatever reason—made Nate want to leap up on the table and start a whole beating-his-chest-and-marking-his-territory kind of thing.
He could feel Deke’s gaze as the man came back to the table, a shit-kicking smile on his face as he said, “I get it, man.” His grin widened as he took in the reaction that Nate couldn’t seem to hide. “Damn.”
And you haven’t seen her half-naked
, Nate thought. Except then Wash and Jason started smiling, too, and Nate realized he’d said it out loud. Fuck. At least Dorie hadn’t heard him, thanks to the screaming going on all around them. Nate took another drink.
Jason, sitting with Tuck across the table, leaned forward. “You remember how this goes?”
Sure it had been a few years since he’d done the trivia night thing, but Nate had never met a competition he didn’t like or excel at. “Lightning round. Ten questions in a category chosen by the other team; two minutes to shoot them down. Whoever answers the most questions in the least amount of time wins.”
“Hopefully Dorie doesn’t kill Deke’s questions, too,” Wash laughed.
“Mmm,” Deke mumbled grumpily. “Thanks for that.”
Lola, who was getting as much enjoyment out of seeing her brother beaten as Nate’s own sisters, quieted the crowd. And it was definitely a crowd. Inspiration came out to cheer no matter what the game, although Wash did mention there was a bigger turnout than usual tonight. To Nate’s surprise, he hadn’t minded.
“Ready, boys?” Lola said, commanding everyone’s attention.
Deke, who was back to his jovial self, called Fitz out. “You’re going down, Baby Hawk.”
“Baby Hawk?” Nate said, eyebrows raised as he watched Fitz’s cheeks turn bright pink. He turned back to Deke just in time to see the kind of smile he was
not
ready for.
Deke met Nate’s gaze with a stare that got Nate’s back up, especially when it was accompanied by Deke’s slow grin. “It pisses her off.”
Yeah, they were gonna have words.
There wasn’t time to dwell on that, though, when the questions started rolling in. The first few were run-of-the-mill stuff. Given Jason’s tendency to binge-watch TV before that term was ever in existence, and Tuck being a few years older and able to handle two early 80s questions, they were already starting off strong. But, as Fitz had admitted, she’d had no idea Nate would be here until too late for her to change the questions she’d already handed in. And even though Fitz was his half-sister and hadn’t come to live with them until she was fourteen, her cultural education had pretty much been the same as Nate’s and largely fueled by Jules. The only thing that surprised him about the next question that came up was that it hadn’t come up before.
“What’s the ‘sport of the future’ according to Lloyd Dobler? Name the movie and actor who played him.”
“Kickboxing,” Nate answered before the words were fully out of Lola’s mouth. “
Say Anything
, John Cusack.”
“Danny Zuko’s best friend?” Lola asked.
Grease?
Really, Fitz? “Kenickie.”
“Runner-up to Kelly?” Lola said, adding, “Points off if you have to ask who Kelly is.”
With a laugh, Nate shook his head. Fitz had been obsessed with
American Idol
for years. “Justin Guarini.”
Her lips curving up into a smile, Lola—who was as much Nate’s big sister as she was Deke’s—said, “I hope for your sake you don’t know this one, Nate. I don’t think you’ll ever live it down. Name the members of NKOTB.”
Nate had no shame. Not when it meant winning. “Jordan Knight, Jonathan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Danny Wood and Donnie Wahlberg.”
Even Dorie was laughing at that point. “New Kids on the Block? I’m from Boston and I don’t even know all their names,” she said, raising her glass to him. Her sparkling eyes threw him enough that he almost didn’t hear the last question, which would have been a travesty, since it was from one of his favorite movies of all time, despite how much he’d protested every time Jules insisted on watching it.
So, yes, he had a thing for chick flicks. It was Jules’s fault and it didn’t bother him one bit.
“According to Westley, what ‘cannot stop true love’?”
True love. Nate grinned, although he deliberately didn’t look Dorie’s way. “Death.”
Lola smiled in response. “As long as we’re there, finish the quote—’My name is Inigo—’”
“‘Montoya,’” Nate said, speaking over Lola. And since he’d had a tendency to yell that very saying at the men around this table as he schooled them in basketball, it was the whole group of them standing up and high-fiving each other as they yelled, “‘You killed my father. Prepare to die.’”
Trivia night wasn’t exactly game seven of the World Series; it wasn’t even pennant league. But Nate hadn’t heard those kinds of hoots and cheers in a very long time. Even Fitz was clapping. Looking around as he sat back down, Nate realized he hadn’t had such a good time in years.
Until he looked at Dorie and a sinking feeling hit his gut. He sat back down.
“Impressive, boys,” Lola said, her voice carrying over the microphone as she shook her head. “Sorry, ladies. Ten questions in seventy-two seconds. That’ll be tough to beat.”
“So. Not. Fair,” Fitz groaned. She straightened up and looked at Dorie. “No pressure, but I hope you know some esoteric facts about cars and sports. Deke’s been on a roll lately.”
Now it was Dorie who was smiling, although in a lopsided, not-very-happy kind of way. “A little,” she mumbled, her eyes down at the table. Then they came up and she caught him watching her and the churning got worse. The ping of a rock hitting the windshield before the crack started to spread.
It started off innocently enough in a trivia kind of way, with the questions that a decent sports fan—or, say, the sister of several—could probably get an answer or two. About hockey, for example, a sport that Nate was sure at least one of six brothers from Boston Bruins-land may have mentioned at some point.
Like, for example, the goalie with the most shutouts in his career. “Martin Brodeur,” she answered without hesitation.
Basketball, another sport of which Boston fans were well aware: most points in a game. “One hundred,” she said. “Wilt Chamberlain.”
Even NASCAR, although that was less of a New England thing, but with all those brothers, of course it was possible.
“What color do rookie NASCAR racers have on the back of their race cars?”
“Yellow.”
By seven questions in, the room was quiet. Quite a feat given how many people there were. It embarrassed Dorie; Nate could tell from the way she was sitting in the chair, as though she had to remind herself not to hunch her shoulders and curl into herself entirely. What she didn’t seem to understand was that the reaction was pure awe. Nate hadn’t been around in a while, but he was well aware that this town didn’t take to outsiders easily—not after they’d seen themselves on national TV time and again, long past the novelty of being touched by fame had died down. And Nate’s family—both blood relatives and non-—were, though friendly, even less likely to open up their ranks.
Yet here Dorie was, owning it. And, embarrassed or not, too much of a competitor to let it stop her from putting herself right there on the front line and getting it done, a quality Nate admired deeply.
But if he’d stayed home—if he’d insisted she stay with him—they could have gone on pretending they weren’t each living a lie. Because, yes. Question answered. Resoundingly so. As much as he was trying to convince himself otherwise, he’d been fooling himself since the moment he’d met her.
“The Spyder is a limited edition supercar,” Lola read. “Name the company that manufactures it and the total of cars manufactured.”
Nate looked over at Deke and glared. “Really?” He’d had to use Nate’s car?
The man at least had the good graces to look apologetic. “If Fitz had no clue you’d be here tonight, do you think there was a chance I did?”
Looking down at the coaster again, Nate could hear the hitch in Dorie’s voice as she answered, “Porsche. Nine hundred and eighteen.”
Damn
it.
Question nine didn’t seal the deal. Nate couldn’t imagine there was a Boston sports fan out there who couldn’t answer the question, “Before their 2004 win, when was the last time the Red Sox won the World Series?”
“1918,” Dorie said, the roll of her eyes evident in her voice.
Deke smiled sheepishly. “So sue me. That one was a gimme. How was I supposed to know she was Bob Freakin’ Costas?”
But it was the last question that was a knife to Nate’s gut. The one that he knew was coming, but hoped against hope would prove his doubts wrong. His heart came to a slow, painful stop as the words came out of Lola’s mouth. “This player led the Yankees in RBIs in every season from 1949-1955. Name the player and, as a bonus, name his claim to fame from the 1956 World Series.”
He wanted her to bungle it. To give an answer just about anyone else in the world would give hearing those words. Mickey Mantle. Joe DiMaggio, hell, even Babe Ruth, although the timing was off by about twenty years. So many famous Yankees that even a Red Sox fan knew them all; so many names that someone could throw out and think they had a shot of getting it right. But what most people didn’t realize was that the man whose quotes provided laughs on a regular basis was also one of—if not
the
—greatest catchers of all time.
“Yogi Berra,” Dorie answered quietly. “He caught Don Larsen’s perfect game.”
Once again cheers erupted around her, but all Nate could do was close his eyes and breathe.
Fuck.
When he opened them it was to see her staring at him. To see her flinch at the power of the look that passed between them and then turn away as her tears began to fall. The rush of sound that overwhelmed him had nothing to do with the crowd closing in. Instead, all he could think of was that he had to get to her before she ran away. He had to...
He had to fucking
understand
why she would lie to him like that.
He stood up so quickly that his chair would have overturned if not for Wash reaching out to grab it. No, to grab Nate. “Dude, what...?”
Nate yanked his arm away. When he pulled back, he practically tripped over Fitz, who should have been celebrating with Jules and Ella but wasn’t. He put his hand to his forehead and squeezed his eyes shut. As a general principle, he didn’t get angry with Fitz. He’d tried to ignore her, once upon a time; had hated the idea of her. But not once in over fifteen years had his anger been directed at her. Not the day he heard the first whispers, not the day his mother told him the rumors about his father were true and not the day his mother brought her home to live with them because they were the only family she had left, ironic as that may have been.
Yet right now, for the first time in his life, all he could see when he looked at her was red.
He pushed past her.
“Nate...”
“Goddamn it, Fitz.”
“No, Nate,” she snapped, getting in his face. “Goddamn you. Let her explai—”
“Let
her
explain?” That was rich. Fucking perfect. “You—”
“Yeah, well, I’ll be happy to explain my part later.” She grabbed his arm and pushed him back toward the kitchen, muttering, “Don’t make a scene. That’s the last thing you need.”
“Seriously?” He let her lead him away from any curious eyes, right through the double doors and into the alley. He was highly aware that this...
rage
had as much to do with everything that had been going on over the past two months as it did with what Dorie had been hiding. But that didn’t stop him from coming right at Fitz the second they were outside. “What the fuck? Has she known all along? Have
you
?”
She wrapped her arms around herself. It was the end of fucking January and they were standing outside without coats on. Yet despite the snow still coming down, all Nate felt was fire.
“I decided not to tell you,” Fitz said, not even close to apologetic. “And I would do it again in a heartbeat.”
He couldn’t look at her. He didn’t need this, not from her. If his career hadn’t so recently been on the edge of being in the toilet, Nate would have rammed his fist into the wall.
As though she read his mind, she said, “I hate what’s happening to you. I hate that there’s nothing I can do about it.”
He spun toward her. “And you thought
this
was going to help?”
“Yes,” she snapped, back in his face. “And you weren’t all up-and-up, either, so don’t be a dick about it. You can be pissed at me later but don’t take it out on her. Just go find her and don’t screw it up.”
Nate had no idea what to say. His mouth actually dropped open. So rather than say something he’d regret—starting but not coming close to ending with,
That’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard
—he turned on his heel and left.