The Wall of Winnipeg and Me: A Novel

One week turned into two, then three, and finally four.

In the days that followed me walking out of Aiden’s house, and subsequently quitting my job, I thought about Aiden a lot more than I would have ever expected when I wasn’t busy working. Most of those times didn’t even revolve around me wanting to kill him either.

After I walked out of his house, my foot couldn’t hit the gas pedal fast enough to get me home. The first thing I did was start on a new project, more determined than ever to succeed at what I loved doing. I was ready and willing to bust my ass to make things work, no matter the cost.

The ties had been cut as far as I was concerned.

Aiden had been a fucking jackass, when I had never accused him of being anything other than practical and determined. I could relate to that, but I couldn’t connect with him being such a traitor. I was no Trevor or Rob. I didn’t make extra money off the choices he made, and if anything, things were better for me when he was happier. Hadn’t I tried to do what was best for him? Hadn’t I tried to do things that made him happy?

Yet he’d let that asswipe talk about me when I’d spent last Christmas in Dallas, instead of going to see my little brother, because he still hadn’t been able to move around much at that point.

Unfortunately, I thought about Aiden first thing in the morning for days after I walked out. My body wasn’t used to sleeping in until eight; even on my days off, I was usually up and about by six. I thought about him as I made my breakfast and chomped on breakfast sausage. Then I thought about him again at lunchtime and dinner, so used to making his meals and eating part of them.

Each day for those first two weeks of freedom, I thought about him often. You couldn’t work with someone five, six, or even sometimes seven days a week for two years without getting into a routine. I knew I couldn’t just erase him from my life like he’d been drawn in with a pencil.

Much less erase that moment when I realized I’d been holding on to a job with a man who wouldn’t come to my funeral, even if it fell on a day he was supposed to rest. The fact I had family members who wouldn’t go to my funeral didn’t really help ease the sting of it enough.

After a few days, my anger abated, but that feeling of betrayal that had seared my lungs didn’t exactly go away completely. Something had been going on with him; that much had been obvious. Maybe under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have acted like such a massive prick.

But he had crossed the thin little line I’d drawn in the imaginary sand. And I did what felt right.

So it was done.

I kept living my life as my own boss, which was exactly what I’d planned on doing anyway.

And I didn’t look back at what I’d done.

I was speed-walking toward my apartment one night after a visit to the gym, finalizing the last brainstorming touches I wanted to add to a paperback design I was aiming to finish before I went to bed, when I spotted a figure sitting at the bottom of the stairs. Patting the pepper spray I always kept within reach, especially when I was in my complex, I narrowed my eyes and wondered who the hell would be sitting there right then.

It was nine o’clock at night. Only drug dealers hung around outside at our complex after dark. Everyone else knew better. Plus, who liked sitting outside with the summer heat and mosquitos?

With that in mind, I walked a little faster, conscious that my knee ached only a little after my two-mile run. Two miles! It had only taken me half a month of jogging four times a week to work up to a steady one-mile distance, and then I’d added another mile, going just a bit faster. It was something, and I was proud of myself. The plan was to up another mile this week.

My hand was still on my pepper spray as I kept a wary eye on the… man; it was definitely a man sitting at the foot of the steps. I squinted. My keys were in my free hand, ready to get put to good use, either to open my door or to stab somebody in the eye if it came down to it.

I had just started pulling my spray out when a male voice spoke up.

“Vanessa?”

For one split second, I froze at the sound of the rumbling, raspy tone, more than slightly caught off guard at the fact that this stranger sitting on the stairs knew my name.

Then it hit me. Recognition.

I stopped in place just as the not-a-stranger stood up, and I blinked.

“Hey.” My ex-boss straightened to his impressive full height, confirming it was him. Aiden. It was Aiden. Here.

Crouched down, he could have been any guy who worked out, especially when he had his arms tucked into his sides, hiding the girth of muscles that made him famous. The possibility that this was the first time he’d ever used the ‘H’ word with me was the first thought that ran through my head before I blurted out, “What are you doing here?”

I was definitely frowning. My forehead was creasing and scrunching up as I took him in, in his T-shirt and shorts, for the first time in a month.

His face was that same immovable mask as always. Those brown eyes I’d seen hundreds of times in the past bore down on me, his eyes going over the bright ruby red I’d let Diana color my hair two weeks ago. He didn’t comment on it. “You live here?” His question cut the air between us abruptly. His gaze dropped to the hand I had on my pepper spray and the set of keys clutched between my fingers.

I thought about my neighbors, the crappy building, the number of cars parked in the lot that were always in some sort of disrepair, and the cracked sidewalk with a dying lawn straddling it. I rarely had people over, so it wasn’t like I had any reason to care about where I lived. All I’d needed was a roof over my head. Plus, it could be worse. Things could always be worse. I tried to never forget that.

Then I thought of the beautiful, gated community Aiden lived in, and the awesome kitchen I’d cooked in so many times before… and finally, I envisioned the stained carpet in my apartment and the peeling vinyl countertops with only a slight cringe.

I wasn’t going to be ashamed that I didn’t live in an upscale condo. It was the first place I’d ever had all to myself, and it had done what I needed it to do: give me a place to sleep and work in peace.

So I nodded slowly, surprised—okay, I was shocked as hell—to see him. I’d talked to Zac a few times since I quit and had gone to eat with him twice, but except for once, he hadn’t brought up Aiden in any of the conversations we’d had. The extent of what he’d told me about my ex-boss was that they’d been working out together. That had been more than enough.

Aiden’s gaze didn’t waver for a moment. His remote, clean facial expression didn’t change at all either. “I want to talk to you,” he demanded more than said.

I wanted to know how he found out where I lived, but the question was trapped in my throat. The one syllable word I knew I needed to tell him had taken a stroll down the block… and then I remembered: dinner roll.

That fucker Trevor had called me a dinner roll of all things, and this man had said nothing.

I couldn’t help but squeeze the loose side of my shorts. I’d lost almost ten pounds over the last five weeks, and it had taken its toll on most of my clothes. But thinking about Trevor’s comment only made me angry and more resolved.

“No.” There, I said it. Easy. It was so easy to say it. “I don’t have time. I have a lot of work to do.”

Guilt nipped at my head for being so rude, but I squashed it. I didn’t owe him a single thing, not a moment of time or a single extra thought.

That stubborn, strong chin tipped up, that full, masculine mouth flattening, and he blinked. “You don’t have a few minutes for me?”

I swallowed hard and fought the urge to fidget under his gaze. “No. I have a lot of work to do,” I repeated, looking at that familiar face evenly.

The lines that came over his forehead settled the emotion he’d been fighting with a second ago. Shock. He was shocked for what was more than likely the first time in his life, and that gave me a boost of strength and confidence not to waver under his glare.

“We need to talk,” he brushed off my comment in typical Aiden-fashion.

What the hell did we need to talk about? Everything that needed to be said between us had been said. He’d been an asshole, and I was done. What more was there?

“Look, I really am busy.”

I was just about to make up some other excuse when one of the doors in the building in front of mine closed with a loud snap. I didn’t want to find out what could possibly happen if anyone in my complex found out who was standing in the stairwell to my building. I’d been home enough Sunday evenings to know there were football fans everywhere.

With a sigh and a promise to myself that he wasn’t going to get whatever he came here for, I waved him toward the door. “I don’t think there’s anything for us to talk about,” was the only thing I managed to respond with. Did I want to stand outside my apartment? No. Did I want to go inside? No. But I definitely didn’t want my neighbors finding out a semi-famous millionaire was standing right outside my door. “But you can come inside for a little bit before anyone sees you,” I said in more of a mumble than anything, turning back to unlock the door. “I guess,” I added just because the sight of him made me pretty bitchy.

You should have told him to beat it, Van, my brain said. And it was the truth.

I held the door open for him, watching out of my peripheral vision as he squeezed inside. Once the door was locked, I flipped on the lights as the big defensive end took a few hesitant steps inside. I could see his head turning one way and then the other, looking at the pieces of stretched canvas art I had on the wall—not that he knew they were my work unless he looked closely at the initials in the corners. He didn’t make a comment and neither did I. He’d never asked what I did when I wasn’t at his house or with him, and I’d never mentioned it either.

Which was funny when I thought about it, because there were players on his team who knew exactly what I did. Players who had sought me out to redo their website banners, two of the guys I’d actually done tattoo designs for—and here was this guy. This guy that I had twice said to, “I was thinking your promo shots could be a little simpler. The font they used for your name doesn’t look very clear and the placement looks weird. Do you want me to change it for you?” and what had he done in return each time?

He’d said, “Don’t bother.”

He’d brushed me off. It had taken me weeks to get the nerve to make that suggestion to him, and I would have done it for free. But it was fine. It was his career and his branding, not mine.

He planted himself on the love seat in my living room, and I spun my desk chair around to face him, looking at him as evenly and unattached as I possibly could. The room was pretty small. The entire apartment was sized for one person. The only furniture that fit, cramped, was the two-seater couch, my desk, chair, and a bookshelf that doubled as a TV stand. Nerves didn’t pound through me as I watched him practically consume the space.

I was over this thing with him, and I just didn’t have the faintest urge to try and be friendly. I didn’t feel like joking with him or making it seem like there weren’t any hard feelings. If anything, I was annoyed he was at my apartment.

I had nothing left to lose, and he wasn’t in charge of my paychecks any more. I hadn’t even stressed when I realized I wouldn’t get paid for the last few days I was with him because there was no way I was contacting Aiden or Trevor. Walking out the way I had and flipping him off in the process, had been worth every penny lost.

“Why are you here, Aiden?” I finally broke the silence when a minute or two had passed after we’d sat down.

Aiden had his hands on his lap, his face was as remote as it was before a game; even his shoulders were as tight as ever, his spine eternally straight. I didn’t think, even when he was at home, that I’d ever really seen him at ease. His hair was freshly buzzed, and he looked fine and healthy. Like he always had. As if a month hadn’t passed since the last time we’d been in each other’s presence.

He leveled his dark gaze on me and said, “I want you to come back.”

I was dreaming. That probably wasn’t the best word to use. Nightmaring? Delusional, maybe?

“Excuse me?” I breathed as I took in the whites around his eyes to make sure they weren’t bloodshot. Then I took a brief sniff to make sure he didn’t smell like a skunk. He didn’t, but apparently anything was possible. “Are you… are you on drugs right now?”

Aiden gave me one hard, slow blink. His short but incredibly thick lashes went to rest for a brief second. “Excuse me?” His tone was subdued, guarded.

“Are you on drugs?” I repeated myself because there was no way he’d be here asking me this sober.

Right?

He stared at me with his unflinching eyes and hard, no-nonsense mouth. “I’m not on drugs,” he said, clearly insulted.

I eyed him like I didn’t believe him, because I didn’t. What the hell would give him the idea that I’d go back to work for him?

Drugs.

Drugs would make him think that wasting his time by coming here was a good idea. Hadn’t the parting comment I’d asked Trevor to deliver for me been enough?

What I was thinking must have been apparent on my face because he shook his head and repeated himself. “I’m not on drugs, Vanessa.”

I’d grown up with an addict, and I was well aware they denied they had a problem even if the signs they were out of control were right smack in front of their face. I narrowed my eyes and searched his features again, trying to find a sign he was on something.

“Stop looking at me like that. I’m not on anything,” he insisted, faint lines crossed his tan forehead—the children of the time he spent in the sun and a marker that he was thirty years old and not twenty-two.

I glanced at his arms to make sure there weren’t any weird bruises on them and came up with nothing. Then I glanced at his hands, trying to peer at the delicate flesh between his fingers to see if there were any track marks on there. Still, nothing.

“I’m not on anything.” He paused. “Since when have you ever known me to want to take a painkiller?”

It was my turn to pause, to meet his eyes in the safety of my apartment, and slowly say, “Never.” I swallowed. “But then I also didn’t know you to be an asshole either,” I replied before I could stop myself.

For one second, he reared back. The motion was minute, tinier than tiny, but I’d seen it. It had been there. His nostrils flared wide, the gesture so exaggerated I couldn’t help but take it in. “Vanessa—”

“I don’t need you to apologize.” My hands fiddled at my lap as that small hint of betrayal scourged its way right between my breasts, reminding me that maybe I hadn’t completely gotten over what had happened. Maybe. But I made myself tell him, “I don’t need anything from you.”

He opened his mouth, and I would swear on my life the muscles high up on his cheeks twitched. He made a small sound, the beginning of a stutter, like he wanted to say something substantial to me for the first time since we’d known each other, but didn’t know how to go about it.

The thing was, I wasn’t in the mood for it.

Whatever he might have contemplated saying was a month too late. A year too late. Two years too late.

I had lied to my loved ones about why I’d suddenly quit. Adding up another lie to add to the list of things I’d refrained from telling them over the years because I didn’t want them to worry or be angry over something so dumb and insignificant.

It didn’t matter though. I didn’t work for him anymore, and I’d honestly expected never to see him again. What was the point in getting all bent out of shape? I tried to tell myself that leaving the way I had, had been the best way to go about it. Otherwise, who knew how much longer I would have hung around waiting for my replacement? Maybe they would have tried to get rid of me quickly, but I would never know.

We were as even as we possibly could be. I didn’t feel anything except the barest hum of recognition for someone I’d seen hundreds of times. This guy who I had admired, that I had once respected, who had slightly broken my heart and disillusioned me.

I have moved on with my life though, I thought, forcing my hands still. “I just want to know why you’re here. I really do have things to do,” I said in a calm voice.

The man who had earned his nickname in high school, because even back then he’d been a big son of a gun, cocked his head to the side, his tongue sweeping over his upper teeth. The big knot of his Adam’s apple bobbed before he finally aimed his gaze back at me, accusingly. “I kept expecting you to come back after a few days, but you never did.”

Had I been that much of a pushover? “You honestly thought I would do that?” I gave him my best ‘are you serious’ look.

His eyes slid to the side briefly, but he didn’t admit or deny anything. “I want you to come back.”

No matter what, he wasn’t going to guilt-trip me. I didn’t even have to think about my response. “No.”

He decided to ignore me. Shocking. “I tried to get Trevor to find you, but no one even knew you had another cell phone or had your right address.”

Of course no one did, because neither one of them had ever made an effort to know anything about me, but I kept that to myself. The address they had was from the place where I’d lived with Diana and her brother in Fort Worth, a sister city to Dallas. Rodrigo had moved out a year and a half afterward when his girlfriend had gotten pregnant, and when I got my job with Aiden, I got my own place, needing to be in Dallas instead of travelling back and forth almost an hour every day. Since then, Diana had moved in to her own place.

It also didn’t escape me that Aiden didn’t drop Zac’s name. He was the only one in our small circle who knew my personal number, and I was sure he wouldn’t share it.

“Come back.”

I pushed the bridge of my glasses up and used one of the strongest, most resilient words in the English language: “No.”

“I’ll pay you more.”

Tempting but “No.”

“Why not?”

Why not? Men. It was only freaking men who would be so… so dumb. He hadn’t apologized to me for what he’d said. He wasn’t even trying to be nice and win me over to come back—not that I would. It was the same old shit it always was.

Come back.

Why not?

Blah, blah, blah.

Why not?

Why the hell would I?

I almost said I was sorry for not doing what he wanted, but I wasn’t. Not even a little bit. As I took in Aiden, his overwhelming size swallowing my couch, demanding that I come back and not understanding why I wouldn’t want to, I realized that being ‘nice’ wasn’t going to accomplish anything. I had to tell him the truth, or at least the closest thing to the truth as possible. A small, immature part of me wanted to be mean.

I wanted to hurt him the way he’d hurt me, but as I took him in, I took in the man who had provided me with a job that had allowed me to fund and fulfill my dreams. This was the same person who I’d seen at his worst, when he’d faced the possibility he would never play the only thing in the world he loved again.

This was Aiden. I knew some of his secrets. I didn’t want to care about him, but I guess I couldn’t help it, even if it was a subconscious, mutilated version of what it had once been. And I didn’t want to be like Trevor, or Susie, or any other person I’d ever met who was mean for the sake of being mean.

So I kept it as simple as I could. I stuck my fingers under my thighs and said, “I told you. I deserve better.”