All For You (Boys of the South) (3 page)

“Good to know
that a woman won’t ever come between us,” I growl.

“Watch it,”
Parker snaps and I look at him. His green eyes are narrowed at me.
“Dude, I don’t even know you anymore.”

My eyes close
briefly as he walks away. He thinks I’m a user, that I’m
just like the men that come sniffing around his mom, and that is the
one thing that would put me on his shit list.

“Damn it,”
I mutter, plopping down in the nearest chair. Now I have
two
people
to convince that I’m not an asshole.

Christmas miracle,
anyone?

***

By the time I get
home, the sun is setting. I pull into the circular drive and park. To
my surprise, McKenzie’s dad is directing a couple of guys as
they string lights at the roofline.

“Weston,”
Mr. Walsh says with a genuine smile. “Merry Christmas. How’s
Georgetown? Soccer season start, yet?”

Apparently, McKenzie
never shared what high school was like for her, or I doubt very much
I’d be on the receiving end of such genial conversation.

Ted Walsh is a
linebacker of a guy, with a neck the size of one of my thighs. His
features are harsh, his attitude friendly and open. Everyone knows
him, likes and respects him and his business, except for my friends
and me.

All we saw was some
guy mowing our lawns and shoveling dog shit. Yeah, we weren’t
privileged little pricks at all.

“Yes, sir. In
August.” I rub the back of my neck. “Made it all the way
to Nationals before we were shut out.”

“That far,
huh?” I can tell he has no idea that soccer even has a National
Championship. “Get any air time?”

“A little.”
He’s totally a football fan, like most men around here. Their
view of soccer is confined to little kids kicking a ball around a
makeshift field. Something they do before they’re old enough to
play
real
sports
.
“So, how’s business going?”

“Slow right
now, but it’ll pick up in the spring. McKenzie’s has
ideas though, like this one, that’ll help get us through the
winter.”

At the mention of
his daughter, I glance at the guys working so efficiently while they
decorate my house. “She’s a smart one.”

“Ted, just the
man I want to see,” my dad says as he joins us, shaking Mr.
Walsh’s hand. He’s still in his work uniform, dark
slacks, striped tie loose, and top two buttons of his tailored shirt
undone. There’s a lipstick stain on his cheek, from my mother.
She always gives him a kiss as soon as he walks through the door, no
matter what.

It’s a part of
their ritual, and, if I have to be honest, it’s one I like. My
parents are in love, I have a really good life, and yet, I felt a
need to bully one small female in high school.

God, I’m
pathetic loser. No, I’m worse than that. I’m a predatory
pathetic loser.

I half listen to my
dad and Mr. Walsh talk, interjecting only when I’m directly
addressed.

The two men, each on
a ladder, look down at us, their dark eyes and skin so like mine that
I automatically greet them like I would my cousins down in Texas.

They exchange a
look, then whisper hello, before resuming their work. It’s not
unusual for me to get
that
look
when I’m at home, or in a setting I’m not expected, equal
to everyone else. My father isn’t in construction, or any other
labor job that you’ll usually find
my
kind
in around here.

He’s an
investment banker, his head filled with facts and figures, and other
people’s money. My mom doesn’t clean houses, not even her
own. We have maids for that. But she does cook, and takes extreme
pride in it.

As for me, I’m
expected to follow in my dad’s footsteps and work in banking,
at some firm in Charlotte, have two point five kids, and live in this
neighborhood, while attending Mass every Saturday.

My soccer
scholarship is nothing but extra icing on the cake that had been
baked and decorated for me before I was born. I’m fourth
generation Mexican-American, and the most discrimination I’ve
dealt with is the occasional profile by cops.

Yeah, it pisses me
off, but I have it better than the two guys climbing down their
ladders.

Money and the right
address solve a lot of problems.

“…party,
Christmas Eve. You and McKenzie should come. We open presents at
midnight,” I hear my dad says, pulling me back into their
conversation. “Then eat and drink, until morning.”

“McKenzie’s
the one in charge of what we do at Christmas, so let me check with
her,” Mr. Walsh says. He shifts from side to side. “Let
me get back to work, so these guys can get home to their families at
a decent hour. I need to get home at a decent hour, or Mac will have
my head.”

After McKenzie and I
had sex the first time and most likely the last time ever, I held her
in my arms while she told me about her mom, about her leaving without
a word to anyone. She’d been thirteen, and after two years,
when her dad realized his wife wasn’t coming back, he’d
packed up and moved here.

The memories had
been too fresh there.

Wasn’t it just
awesome of me to make Forrestville especially welcoming for her? If I
could pay Beckham to repeatedly kick me in the throat, I would.

After saying
good-bye, I follow my dad inside. “So nice to have you home,
son.”

“It’s
nice to be home.” And it is. The only real drawback to
Georgetown is the distance. It’s an eight-hour drive from here
to there, although that same drawback is the perfect excuse for only
coming home on holidays and special occasions.

I can’t tell
my parents that my guilt keeps me away, that the knowledge McKenzie
is still here, going to community college while living at home, makes
it impossible for me to even consider coming home more often or for
longer than a weekend.

Last summer I’d
spent all but a week in Texas, with my extended family, until I had
to be back to campus for practice.

Coward
,
I sneer at my reflection in a mirror as we pass by it.

My mother is waiting
for us at the kitchen table, a smile on her face. A big,
look-who-is-here type of smile. The table is set for four instead of
three, and I look at my dad in confusion. For a moment, I have this
weird notion that McKenzie is here, sitting at the table.

Charlie appears,
wearing a pale pink Georgetown shirt with her sorority letters
printed on the sleeves, as she comes to stand beside my mother. Her
pale hair is up in a perfect ponytail, brown eyes soft, and a
commercial-worthy smile on her face.

“I hope you
don’t mind, West, but I—”

My mother gives
Charlie a hug, and I cringe inside. “Of course he doesn’t
mind. Why would he mind his beautiful girlfriend eating here? You’re
family, Charlotte.”

Not anymore, I want
to say. But I don’t. Charlie and I haven’t informed our
parents that we broke up over Fall Break. Okay, so Charlie insisted
we wait until after the holiday, because our parents were such good
friends and spent a lot of time together at parties.

Reluctantly, I had
agreed, because I knew it would be a shock to everyone. I knew our
parents expected me to propose to her, despite our off-again on-again
relationship. I
hate
disappointing my parents, and I know that this break-up will do
exactly that. They love Charlie.

With the exception
of how she treated McKenzie in high school, Charlie isn’t a
bitch, she’s not a cheater, attends Mass regularly, and she
willingly does a lot of community service projects. Everything my
parents could ever want in a future daughter-in-law.

But I can’t
explain exactly why we can’t get our stuff together to
consistently be a couple. I mean, I am attracted to her—she’s
a hot girl, after all—but that extra something isn’t
there. Pop Rocks don’t zing around in my stomach when I see
her; my palms don’t get sweaty; my knees don’t get weak.

And I’m pretty
sure she feels the same way. We’re like habits for each other,
benign habits that neither us can shake. Until now.

“What do the
two of you have planned while you’re home?” my mom asks
as we all sit down to the table, Charlie directly across from me.

Before I can answer,
Charlie pipes up, “The usual: see old friends, The Oaks’
Christmas and New Year’s Eve parties, and whatever else West
has up his sleeve.” She gives me a conspiratorial smile, and I,
instead of calling her a liar, smile faintly before digging into my
food.

Throughout the meal,
Charlie and my parents keep up a steady stream of chatter. But I’m
too lost inside my head to even attempt to contribute. My mind’s
on McKenzie.

Someone kicks me
under the table. I wince, rub my shin, and look up.

Charlie raises her
brows at me. “Walk me to my car?”

Not really, I want
to say, but I do walk with her anyway.

“You could
have put in some effort, West,” she says, her hips swinging as
she walks in front of me. She pauses by the side door and turns to
face me. I stop a few feet away. “Don’t you have
anything to say?”

Actually, I do. “I
don’t want to wait until after New Year’s to tell our
parents. I think we should tell them now.”

“No way. You
agreed to the plan. We’re sticking to it.”

“Why? I’m
not buying you anything, if that’s what you’re after.”
Yeah, a little unfair of me, but I’m desperate to make her
change her mind. Being an asshole usually does it.

She makes a face.
“You won’t piss me off enough to change my mind.”

The hell I won’t.
“Then I’ll break the news.” Reputation is
everything to Charlie. She always liked to say she was the one
breaking up with me, and the one who decided that we were getting
back together. For the most part, I didn’t mind that it
appeared she led me around by my dick, because sex was always an
integral part of our relationship. And because I’m a moron led
around by my dick.

But not anymore.

McKenzie is more
important than anything else. I just wished it hadn’t taken me
so long to realize it.

Charlie’s lips
thin. “Fine,
we’ll
tell everyone, but can you at least wait until after The Oaks
Christmas Party?”

Going to our country
club’s Christmas party seemed benign enough and it would take
place next Friday night. “You have a deal if you agree that in
the meantime, you don’t expect me to be your date for anything
else.”

“Slumming for
the holidays?” she asks in a sickly sweet voice.

Jaw clenching, I
ignore her jab at McKenzie. Unfortunately, I’d gotten drunk one
night and confessed everything to Charlie, right down to—ugh. I
don’t even want think about what I said to her. Hell, I don’t
even remember half of what I said to her.

“Do we have a
deal or not?”

She tips her nose in
the air. “Fine. See you next Friday, seven o’clock. Tux
required. I prefer orchids.”

As she walks out the
door, I grimace. She’ll be lucky if I don’t give her dead
roses as a corsage. I don’t get this animosity she has for
McKenzie.

Guys aren’t
like this. Reasons for not liking another dude are clear and involve
one of three things: he slept with your girl, your mom, or your
sister. Other than that, I’m cool with most guys, ignoring the
assholes, not holding a grudge to last the centuries.

I shuffle back to my
room, locking my door behind me and crashing on my bed. Tucking my
ear buds into my ears, I crank up Imagine Dragons and let my mind
run.

For three years, I
tortured McKenzie Walsh. That’s five hundred and forty days,
three thousand seven hundred and eighty hours of hell, if I count
each hour we were in school together. Fate was kind enough to put us
in every class together, including art.

How in the hell do I
make that up to her? How in the hell do I make up for taking her
virginity and walking away the next day, back to Charlie and my
buddies—all over my guilt for being drunk when it happened, and
the possible damage to my image for allowing it to happen?

And how in the hell
do I forgive myself for ruining an innocent girl’s life, with
my selfish wants?

Chapter Four

McKenzie

“You want me
to accept his apology?” I ask Julia. “Are you high?”

“No.”
Julia shakes her blond head. “But if you do, he’ll
probably stop showing up at work.”

“Probably stop
isn’t very reassuring,” I grumble, collapsing on my bed.

Julia flops down
beside me. “It’s not my job to reassure you, it’s
my job to tell you the truth.”

“Lie to me,
baby.”

“Weston Diaz
has been in love with you from the moment he saw you sashaying your
way across campus, in your denim skirt and cowgirl boots.”
Julia giggles. “I was in love with your outfit.”

I make a noise of
disbelief, not at her love for my clothing choices, but at her
assessment of West. “One: I don’t sashay. Two: a jock god
like him would never notice a mere mortal while dating a goddess.
Three: I barely spoke two words to him my first month of school.”
And when a guy’s in love, he sure as hell doesn’t kiss
and tell. But I never told Julia the truth, and she assumed he’d
lied about me.