Just Rules (22 page)

She didn’t feel that she could go in her bedroom or the bathroom. It was painful to look at the furniture and the walls. Everything reminded her of him.

When Tim left her and called off the wedding, Susana asked herself why she wasn’t devastated and why she didn’t feel a terrible void when her fiance disappeared from her life.

Now she knew why. Tim had never really been part of her life, and he had never kissed her or held her close enough to destroy her.

Oh, God. Her knees were giving out and she fell to the floor. What had she done?

She placed a hand on her chest to contain her heartbeats. If she felt such horrible agony when she and Mac had only been together for one month, what would have happened when he abandoned her later on? No, she had done the right thing. Sooner or later, Mac would have left her, and she would have never gotten over it.

No, Mac didn’t have a box. Mac had her entire self.

You could be known as the girl that went out with one of the players of the Patriots and married another. Or you could end up leaving me, just like you are doing right now.

She burst into tears.

Sixteenth rule of American football:

When a referee calls a penalty the first thing he does is throw down a yellow flag that he keeps in his pocket.

To everyone’s surprise, Tim Delany returned to Boston four days later. He arrived with his wife, Amanda, and with his eleven years old son, Jeremy. At the airport, he let the press take photographs of him with his family, mostly because he couldn’t have avoided it anyway, but he didn’t answer any of the malicious questions they asked him about Susan or the wedding.

The day before embarking on his journey Tim called Susan to let her know that he was returning. He didn’t want the press to catch her by surprise, and it was the least he could do for her. Susan congratulated him for having gotten the woman he loved back. She seemed sincere when she said it, but Tim detected sadness in his ex-fiance’s voice.

“Is something wrong, Susan?” he dared to ask her.

She was about to tell him yes, that she was devastated because she had made the biggest mistake of her life, and she didn’t know how to fix it. She wanted to ask him if he knew where Mac might be. She worked up the courage to go to his cabin, but it was empty. She hadn’t called him. She had dialed the number hundreds of times, but she never made it to the last digit because she didn’t want him to hang up on her or to ignore her phone call.

“No, I’m fine. I’m just tired, that’s all.”

“I’ll give you a call when we get settled in. I’d like for you to meet Amanda.”

“We’ll see, Tim,” she sighed. “Thanks for letting me know you were coming back.”

She hung up before he could ask her if she was OK again.

Tim returned to Boston because practice started for the Patriots in a few days, which meant that Mac would also be returning to the city.

And maybe then she would be brave enough to go after him and ask him for a second chance.

Mac was in the kitchen looking at the images of Tim at the airport with Amanda and Jeremy. Amanda hadn’t changed much over the years and there was no denying that Jeremy looked exactly like Tim did when he was that age. Obviously, after airing those pictures, Susan’s picture popped up on the screen. The journalists followed her to the door of the T.V. station to see if she would say anything. She didn’t answer any question, and he observed her, fascinated, as if he had been shipwrecked and had just seen an island in the middle of the sea.

He had his cell phone in one hand and he moved his thumb over the digits that formed her number. She hadn’t called him.

It’s true that that wasn’t the phone he normally used; he had left that one in the city so that he wasn’t tempted to call her, but it didn’t matter because he knew her number by heart, just like he knew everything about her.

The device he was holding in his hand was the phone he used for the foundation. If Susana wanted to get in touch with him, she could have find a way, but she didn’t, which proved even more that she didn’t miss him and didn’t want to be with him.

“Call her,” said Harrison.

“She hasn’t called me,” answered Mac, defensively.

“Oh that’s right, your stupid phone test. Come on, Mac, don’t be an idiot. That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Maybe.”

“No, not maybe. You and I are living proof that love turns even the most intelligent people into idiots.” His brother sat down in front of him. “Come on, call her, I’m sure she needs you.”

Mac set the phone on the table and pushed it away with his fingers.

“I’m going back to Boston tomorrow. Practice starts in a few days,” he explained to Harry, finishing the conversation about Susan.

It was better that way.

“I’ll take you to the airport. I’m going to stay here a few more days.”

“You never told me what it was that you had to fix,” said Mac, frowning.

“No, I haven’t —he stood up— come on, if you’re leaving tomorrow why don't we ride the horses one more time?

Harrison went out the back door of the kitchen and stopped to pet one of his grandpa’s dogs. When he stood up, his back became tense and Mac looked at him worried. It was obvious that Harrison’s left shoulder hurt him a lot. As if that wasn’t disconcerting enough, the fact that he had to hide it was.

If Harry had had a car accident or if he had hurt himself at the gym, he would have told him.

Why the hell hadn’t Harrison told anyone that his shoulder hurt?

Mac half closed his eyes and did a mental check of the various things that his brother had done during the days they had been there that were out of the ordinary, such as the calls he received in the middle of the night, which he denied when Mac asked him about them at breakfast. Under normal circumstances, Mac probably wouldn’t even have found out, but thanks to Susana he couldn’t sleep, and he heard the calls perfectly.

Harrison had locked his bedroom door. All the doors at the ranch had locks on them, but his grandmother had always insisted that it was silly to lock them, and every time they went to visit her when they were little, she didn’t allow them to keep the doors locked. Their grandmother was no longer with them, but Mac and his siblings still honored her wishes whenever they visited their grandfather; except Harrison, who had locked his door this time.

Mac stood up and went after his brother. He found him in the stable. The shouting that was coming from there could probably be heard from several miles away. Harrison was arguing with someone on the phone, but he was speaking so quickly and above the noise of the horses, that Mac could barely make out anything he was saying. He could only tell that he was furious. Harry hung up suddenly and threw his phone to the ground. Not realizing that his brother was there, he ran his fingers through his hair like he was seriously thinking about ripping it out, and he let out several swear words.

Then he did something that left Mac completely shocked; he took a gun out of one of the saddlebags that was hanging from a hook. He checked to see if it was loaded, and then he put it in the waist of his jeans…as if he’d been doing it is his whole life.

“You have a gun,” said Mac, stunned. He couldn’t piece together what he just saw. To him, Harrison, Harry, was a kind person who loved books, European movies, and to travel, and the only athletic thing he did, besides riding, was going for runs in the city. Mac couldn’t believe that Harry had a weapon and knew how to load it and tuck it under his shirt.

“Mac,” said Harrison, turning around. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“You have a weapon.”

“Yes,” he admitted, without saying anything else. He moved about silently and started saddling up two horses while Mac stood there watching him.

“Why the hell do you have a gun, Harry?”

Harry stopped and tugged on one of the bridals. Mac didn’t say anything else. He could hear his brother thinking from where he was.

“Because of work.” He moved away from the animal. “Don’t worry, I know how to use it,” he added, with a scary sense of humor, turning around to look at Mac.

“Did you get shot in your left shoulder?”

“Yes, but it’s better now. Don’t tell Mom and Dad.”

“Shit,
Harry,” exclaimed Mac
. “Fuck!
How can you tell me that they shot you as if it was nothing, and then tell me not to tell our parents as if we were in high school? What the hell have you gotten yourself into?”

“I can’t tell you, Kev. I’m sorry.”

Mac paced nervously from one end of the stable to the other.

“So you didn’t come here because you got in a fight with some woman,” he suggested.

“Oh yes, I sure have fought with a woman, and I assure you that what she did to me hurts much more than the bullet wound,” explained Harrison.

“You have to tell me what happened, Harry. Maybe I can help you.”

Harrison grabbed the reins of the horses he had just saddled up and began to pull on them.

“I can’t tell you, Kev, not yet. But I promise that I’m not in danger.” He saw how his brother raised both eyebrows and added: “It’s OK, if I need help, you’ll be the first person I call, alright?”

“OK,” agreed Mac, through clenched teeth.

The two men got on the horses and rode in silence for a while. They stopped next to a lake so that the horses could drink a little, and they talked about the women who, apparently, had broken their hearts. Harrison didn’t give much detail, but he did say that Mac would be an idiot if he didn’t try to fix things with Susan.
At least you can fix things
, he said to him.

And Mac didn’t stop asking himself what the hell had happened to Harrison.

The next morning, Harrison took Mac to the airport just like he had promised, and he spent the entire flight thinking about Susana, about what he felt for her and about the ridiculous argument they had had in that restaurant the night they ran into Quin and his wife.

He couldn’t lose the woman he loved over something like that, and it would be absurd if he didn’t talk to her about it because of his damn pride. He had pressured her too much; she had just gotten out of a serious relationship, and he was asking her to jump right back into another one. It made sense that she wanted to take things slowly. The only thing he needed to do was to be patient, stick by her side, and show her that he would never do to her what Tim did…Susana already had feelings for him. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t kiss him like that. He just needed to be patient.

And be with her again.

Exhausted from his own stupidity, as soon as he arrived home he went straight for the kitchen where he had left his cell phone. Surely she had called him.

He had two missed calls from Tim, who had left a voicemail asking where he was and explaining that he was on his way back to Boston. Then there was a message from Mike, reminding him that he expected to see him at practice and another message from his lawyer in reference to the latest project of the foundation.

There weren’t any missed calls from Susana.

He was tired, and not only from the trip, so he laid down his bed and fell asleep. Tim woke him up with a demanding and persistent phone call, and didn’t leave him alone until Mac agreed to go have lunch with them at his house.

It wasn’t that Mac didn’t feel like seeing his best friend, it was that he wasn’t sure if he was ready to come face to face with the man who, without meaning to, had made Susana afraid of falling in love.

He sighed, feeling beaten down, and he stood up. It wasn’t Tim’s fault, Mac thought, while he took a shower. And he repeated it to himself on the way to Tim’s house, which was in a residential area of the city. Tim was so happy that Mac found it difficult, if not impossible, to stay depressed, but that all changed quickly when Tim began talking about Susana.

“The other day I spoke to her on the phone —began Tim— and she seemed sad.”

“When?” Mac needed to know.

“A few days ago,” Tim answered, half-closing his eyes. “I called her to let her know that I was coming back.”

After a delicious meal, of course prepared by Amanda, she and Jeremy had gone to rest a little. Mother and son weren’t so used to transatlantic trips like Tim was.

“I am glad Amanda and Jeremy came back with you. He is great and she looks happy,” said Mac.

Mac and Tim were sitting on the stairs in the back yard with a beer in hand.

Tim scanned Mac’s face and raised his eyebrows suddenly.

“Something happened between you and Susan,” he said, sure of himself.

Mac could barely swallow.

“Why do you say that?” He didn’t take his eyes off a tree that was in the corner.

“Because of the way you reacted when I mentioned her name.” He drank a little and let his friend take his time. “What happened, Mac?”

“Do you remember the day you met Susana? We had gone to the T.V. station to do an interview and you bumped into her in the hallway.”

“I remember.”

“I think I fell in love with her that day,” he confessed sadly. The consequences of that first day weighed heavy on his heart.

“
Shit
, Mac. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t know. The two of you started seeing each other and I…—he cleared his throat— I swear that when you were together I never thought about coming between the two of you.”

“I know, Mac. Don’t insult us by saying otherwise.” Tim gave him a slap on the back of the neck and drank a little beer.

“Susana came to see me one day at the cabin. I had given her a box of her favorite chocolates and she was furious with me.”

“Susan has favorite chocolates?” He looked at Mac. “I didn’t know.”

Mac shrugged and drank a little more beer..

“I thought that we could be together,” he continued, because he didn’t think he was capable of giving Tim the rest of the details. “But Susana doesn’t feel the same.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“I’m sorry, Mac” said Tim. “Besides Amanda and Jeremy, you and Susan are the people I love the most in this world, and in my opinion, the two of you make a great couple.”