“That’s not…my heart wasn’t…God, you are such a pain in the ass! Must be a genetic trait,” I huff.
“Yo, Zave!” Macy calls out to her brother.
“Don’t you dare say anything to him!” I hiss while grabbing her arm to pull her away from the cage.
“What? I was just saying hello to my brother,” she laughs. “It’s fucked up that he came to see you before me when he got into town.”
“There’s my annoying little sister!” Xavier says when he jogs out of the cage door and down the steps. He wraps Macy up in a hug that lifts her off her feet.
“Yuck! You’re all sweaty and gross!” she complains while pushing him away.
“Now you are too,” he chuckles. “Where have you been? Josh said you were here, but we couldn’t find you.”
“I went and sat in the sauna after I finished my workout,” she informs him. “What are you doing here? Why haven’t you been by before now? Have you seen mom and dad yet?”
“Um, no. I was planning to go by and see them later today,” Xavier responds, reaching up to run his fingers through his damp hair and ignoring her question about why he’s working out.
“Liar,” Macy huffs. “I’m surrounded by liars. So many pants and panties are on fire. It must be contagious.”
“I don’t know how you deal with mom and dad breathing down your neck all the time, asking a million questions about your life,” Xavier grumbles, thankfully ignoring her comment about liars.
“They can be pains in the ass and a little intrusive but only because they give a shit,” Macy tells him. Punching his shoulder, she says, “Go see them! It’ll take some of the pressure off me for a few days while you’re in town!”
“Okay. I will,” he agrees. Looking over at me, he asks her, “Can you give Cass a ride home? I’ll drive my rental car over when I leave here.”
So, I guess I’m not invited to go see his parents with him. What’s up with that? And why does it bother me?
“Great,” Macy says. “I’m ready when you are,” she tells me.
“Yeah, sure,” I agree, throwing my arm around her shoulder. “It’ll give us a chance to catch up on who you’ve been dating.”
“No one,” she says. “I’m not seeing anyone. No time for the drama.”
“Sure,” I drawl as I guide her to the exit.
Looking over my shoulder at Xavier, I mouth the words, “Go talk to Coach Briggs!”
He gives me a nod of agreement before he gets back into the cage. I really hope he doesn’t chicken out.
When Macy and I climb into her Jeep, she says, “What are you sleeping in? Showing a lot of skin?” as soon as the doors shut.
“Huh?” I ask.
“If you’re trying to reel in my brother while he’s in town, then you need to go for broke before he begins his whorequest.”
“Whorequest?”
“He’s been in a shitty marriage for two years, stuck with the bitch for three years counting when they dated. Now that he’s free…well, he’s probably not going to sit around alone at home when he could fuck through his feelings. That’s what Zave has always done.”
“Oh, well from what he’s told me, the whorequest is well underway,” I remark.
“Jeez, he doesn’t waste any time!” she grumbles before starting the Jeep and turning the knob to blast the air conditioner. I hear her sniffing, her nose crinkling before she says, “Something smells like fish.”
“Well, uh, that’s probably me,” I announce. “Xavier and I went fishing at the lake.”
“Now that I think about it, he smelled a little fishy too under the stench of sweat,” Macy says. “What did you two do? Roll around with dead fish?”
“Sort of,” I reply with a cringe. “We got into the lake.”
“Needwood?”
“Yep.”
“Do you have a death wish?” she asks as we pull out of the gym parking lot and hit the road.
“It was Xavier’s fault,” I tell her. “He threw me in, and then he jumped in.”
“You were flirting with each other?”
“What? No. We’re two friends messing around is all,” I say.
“But you want to be more than friends,” she points out.
“He just ended his marriage, and I’m not going to ruin two decades of friendship if we cross the line into more and it turns out to be a disaster.”
“Right,” Macy says. “Because it’s perfectly healthy to go twenty years and have an unrequited love so strong that it prevents you from dating for all those years.”
“I date,” I declare.
“When? Who?” she asks, stealing a glance at me before her eyes return to the road again.
“Recently, and I’m seeing two guys, thank you very much.”
“Really?” Macy asks. “Are you sleeping with them?”
“Yes.”
“Are they big guys? Dark hair.”
“Uh-huh. How did you know?” I ask.
“Let me guess, you close your eyes and pretend they’re Xavier when you’re fucking, don’t you?” she asks, making my jaw drop.
“Macy Malone! You spend way too much time with foul-mouthed fighters.”
“Maybe the foul-mouthed fighters just spend too much time with me,” she counters with a grin. “So? Tell the truth. The men you date aren’t even close to the real thing, are they?”
Eddie and Mike are both big, tan, buff guys like Xavier, with dark brown and black hair. I just have a type, that’s all. I’m not trying to find a substitute for my best friend, am I?
“You totally do!” Macy exclaims. “Don’t even deny it. I see the truth written all over your face. You love my brother and are screwing his stand-ins.”
“My sex life has nothing to do with Xavier.”
“It has everything to do with Xavier!” Macy exclaims. “And that is not healthy, girl.”
“I can’t help if I have a type that’s similar to your brother. I just want someone who is fun to be around, sweet and attractive.”
“And you won’t ever find anyone else to check all of your boxes, because you don’t want someone like Xavier, you want him! So just go for it, Cass.”
“No.”
“Can you honestly say that on the day of his wedding when I found you sobbing in the church’s bathroom before the ceremony that you weren’t regretting never telling him how you felt?” she asks.
“Nope. Those were tears of happiness for him.”
“Who has the foul-mouth? You called Camilla a heartless cunt-canoe with an evil, wretched soul who would eventually eat my brother alive!” Macy reminds me.
“And for the record, I was totally right about that,” I say. “Although, Xavier hasn’t said what happened to end things. Has he told you?”
“No,” she replies. “I just assumed he got tired of her nagging voice telling him she wanted to go shopping. Did you know that she ran up, like, tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt?”