Sidelined (5 page)

“You?”

“I’m good.” She smiles, but there isn’t an ounce of warmth in it.

“Great.” I offer a lip twitch, but then, thankfully, my father comes barreling into the room.

“Georgia!” he says excitedly to my mom. “I finally cracked the puzzle!”

“You finished it?” Mom asks, showing the appropriate interest.

“Finished it? No. I just found the piece I couldn’t figure out. I was putting it in upside down!”

“That’s great, honey.” She claps her hands together. “I’m so glad.”

Dad nods enthusiastically then pauses. Slowly, he turns his head to me and narrows his eyes.

It shouldn’t, but it stings.

“Hon, Macey stopped by.”

“Hey, Daddy,” I say quietly.

“Macey…” he mutters, looking at me. “Macey!” He throws his arms in the air, laughing. “Well, hi, baby girl!”

He comes forward and kisses my forehead the way he always does. Or at least, the way he always used to. Before the Alzheimer’s began to claim his mind a year ago.

“How are you, Daddy?”

“I’m good. I found the puzzle piece that was bugging me!” he repeats, clearly already having forgotten his earlier announcement.

“You did?” I smile, holding his aging hand. “That’s great, huh?”

“Absolutely. Do you want to see it?”

“Sure, Dad. I’d love to see it.” I keep hold of his hand as I get up, and he guides me into “his” room opposite the living room.

I swallow hard as I step into the room. What was once the old dining room is now my father’s puzzle room. The walls are adorned with framed, finished puzzles from the last several months. They’re of anything—fairies, dragons, castles, villages. You name it, my father has bought and completed it. There’s even a Minnie Mouse kids set we bought him last Christmas when he was still in control enough to appreciate the joke. Cal dared him to finish them and put them on the wall.

He did.

“Wow, Dad. That’s amazing,” I breathe, staring at the giant scramble of pieces on the table. The outline is complete, and there are hundreds of pieces inside that are done, too. “What is it?”

“This.” Dad hands me the box. “New York. Your mom’s favorite place.”

I take the lid from his hands and smile. “This is a great image, right?”

Dad nods, staring at the puzzle. “I wanted to finish it before Christmas and give it to her.” He tilts his head to the side. “But, Mace, I’m afraid that, by Christmas, I’ll have forgotten why I started it.”

I push my face against his arm. “Daddy,” I whisper. “She’ll love it.”

“She will.” His tone is brighter, and he pats my arm.

“And I promise, if you forget, I’ll remind you why you started it, okay?”

“You will?”

“Sure I will. So you better finish it, okay?”

Dad beams. “Oh, I will.”

“How many pieces are there?”

“Five thousand.”

“What?” I sputter, looking at him. Five freaking thousand?

Dad smiles, but it soon falls. “It creeps on me. All the pieces… They keep me focused, baby girl. And if my mind is focused, it doesn’t…wander.”

I reach up and kiss his cheek. “You want a hand?”

“Naw. It’s okay.” He wraps an arm around my shoulders and squeezes me. “I like the challenge.”

“All right. It’s gonna look great.”

“Sure is.” Dad kisses the side of my head. “Hey, how’s Mitch? Why isn’t he here?”

I breathe in. “We broke up, Daddy. Remember? At Christmas.”

“You did?” My father’s brow furrows as he thinks, and I let him remember. “Oh, of course. Sorry, Mace. I forgot.”

“No worries.” I kiss his cheek again. “I’m gonna sit with Mom, okay? Do you need anything?”

“Maybe some water,” Dad answers, sitting down in his chair, his focus on his puzzle.

“Okay.” I lightly squeeze his shoulder and then walk out into the kitchen.

I pour him a glass of water from the dispenser in the fridge door and take it to him. He completely ignores me as I set it on the table, but I don’t mind because his fingers are nimbly pushing aside the piled-up pieces at the side as he looks for what he needs.

I lightly brush my fingers over his shoulder and leave him to it. It’s crazy, I know. The first time Cal told me how Dad was dealing with it, I laughed. Until I realized he was serious. Now, it’s both happy and sad. Sad because he has to do something like that to keep his mind, but happy because he
has s
omething like that to keep his mind.

“Okay?” Mom asks, lifting her eyes to mine as I reenter the front room.

“Fine.” I smile. “He’s really into those puzzles now, huh?”

“He has been for a while,” Amy answers, her eyes on the television. “I helped him complete the last one. I think it was a Paris scene.”

Smile and nod, Macey.
“Great. I’m sure he appreciated it.”

“He did. He said the help was nice.”

“Hey, babe,” Cal says, touching Amy’s arm. “Could you get me a coffee?”

Amy frowns but gets up. “All right.”

As soon as she’s out of earshot, Cal leans forward and hisses, “Behave!”

“Me?” I widen my eyes. “I didn’t even say anything to her. She’s the one who threw her bitch at me!”

“Mace,” he warns.

“No. Why the hell are you with her?”

“I can’t answer that with our mom in the room.”

“Oh, Lord. Are you two teenagers or in your twenties?” Mom snaps quietly. “Mace, we all know you don’t like Amy, and it’s clear she doesn’t like you back, but for the love of my remaining sanity, can you not fight?”

“I. Didn’t. Say. Anything.”

“Cal,” Mom sighs.

“I know.” He leans back. “I’ll talk to her, all right?”

“Better,” I mutter under my breath.

“You know, you’re still smaller and weaker than me, Sprout.”

I give him the finger as Amy walks back in and shoots a disgusted look my way.

Cal returns the gesture, and a minute’s eye contact leaves us both grinning. His girlfriend might be a bitch, but my brother is still the coolest guy ever. Even if he did break all the heads off my Barbies when I was seven. Bastard.

“So, Mace,” Mom says before any tension can tighten up. “You usually call when you’re coming over and I do dinner.”

“I know, Mom. I just…felt like stopping by.”

“Or you’re running from something again,” Cal observes.

“Or I just felt like stopping by.”

“Macey Jay Kelly, you never go anywhere without calling first. You even call me before we meet for an arranged lunch to make sure we’re still doing it,” he snorts. “What are you running from?”

Double bastard.

I sigh and tuck my legs beneath my butt. “I met this guy, and well, we hooked up.”

“I need a cup of tea,” Mom mutters, scurrying out of the room.

“Carry on,” Cal prompts.

“And he seems to think we can have something more serious, and yeah, no.” I shrug a shoulder. “He called earlier, Ryann made me answer the phone, and he said he was coming to my place at six. So I kind of stood him up.”

“Coming to your place for what?” My brother’s lips tug up.

I stare at him flatly. “Pizza and sex. What else?”

“And who is this guy?” Amy inputs. “Anyone important?”

“Important…how?”

“Well, this is L.A. Like, important famous?”

Yeah, Macey. This
is
L.A. Obviously, everyone here is famous.

“Oh, well, I guess,” I mumble, scratching behind my ear. I guess. Ha!

“Well?” Cal pushes. “Who is it?”

“This conversation is already way too intimate.”

“Macey.”

“Jack Carr!”

“The football player?”

“No, the fucking astronaut.”

Amy’s jaw drops open. “As in, L.A. Vipers’ running back?”

How does this chick know him and I didn’t?

“The same guy,” I answer slowly.

“Oh my god.”

Words I have said several times where Jack is involved. Just in a very, very different context.

“So, why are you here?” Amy leans forward, pushing Cal back.

“Because, funnily enough, I’m a little anti-relationship after my boyfriend knocked up my cousin,” I snap.

“Well, I get that, but Jack Carr. Hell. Jack. Carr.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you had a thing for him, Aims,” Cal says nonchalantly.

She sputters.

Seeing the beginning of a dispute, I get up, saying, “Know what? I’m going to Leah’s.”

I
left her the half-empty pizza box outside her apartment door, because if she wants to be a bitch, I’m sure as fuck gonna be a dick.

I have no idea what Macey’s problem with me is, but I’m not gonna play bullshit games. If she truly believes I couldn’t walk into a c
offee shop
right now and walk out with a chick on my arm, she’s delusional. Shit, man. I could walk into a fucking nunnery and still pull.

So if she thinks for one motherfucking second I’m going to chase her gorgeous, blow-job-loving ass until she gives in, she has a shit-ton of thinks coming her way, and soon.

“So you tell her you’re bringing pizza, imply you’re going to fuck her, and she bolts?” Corey confirms.

“Basically.”

“You weren’t clear enough on the fucking part, bro. Fuck the pizza. If you’d told her that you’d be fucking her into next week, I bet she’d have been there waiting.”

“Oh, please!” Leah slaps her hands against the kitchen counter. “You really believe that, Corey?”

“If I told you that, wouldn’t you be there waiting?”

Leah looks to the ceiling and mouths, “One, two, three.”

“Well?”

“Corey, honey,” she says slowly. “We are in a relationship, and since you practically manhandled my ass into moving in here an hour after giving me your house key, yes, I would be waiting. But Jack and Macey are not in a relationship, certainly not a living-together one, and Macey and I are very, very,
very
different.”

“Thank fuck,” I mutter.

Relationships, living together—that shit doesn’t work. Kudos to Corey and Leah for trying it. It might work out for them, but it sure as fuck didn’t for me. Walking in on my ex in our fucking apartment with some random
freshman
the day I got drafted for the Vipers all but shattered my trust in anything more solid than one night. I could have given Lucy a fucking certain future, but she decided she’d rather shack up with some eighteen-year-old cock who’d probably had more action with his hand than a real woman.

“Right,” Corey adds. “Macey doesn’t give a fuck about anything. She’s way more open than you.”

Leah looks at him flatly. “Watch what you’re saying here, cowboy.”

“I don’t mean it in a bad way, babe,” he answers. “But ain’t you noticed how she hates men but fucks them happily?”

Leah sucks her lip into her mouth.

“Leah?” I ask.