Perfectly Played: A Sweet Romantic Comedy (Love & Alliteration Book 1) Read online

  You’ve been in a rut for the last two years

  despite my best efforts to pull you out.

  I can’t continue to carry your weight. You’re

  not the man I thought you could become,

  and I don’t think you ever will be.

  I know I should have spoken to you sooner.

  I’m on my way home now. Please don’t

  call or text. I’ll be in touch soon to

  discuss what’s to be done with the house.

  The text is impersonal, to the point. Just like Evelyn. No excuses, or apologies or explanations. And to tell me via text—that is classic Evelyn.

  “Bitch,” I mutter into my beer.

  “What’s a guy like you doing alone on a Friday night in Vegas?” the bartender asks as he wipes the counter.

  I lift my glass and drain it. “Drinking.”

  He clucks sympathetically. “Women problems. I can always tell.”

  “Just one woman is enough for me.”

  “One woman is never enough, sugar,” a husky voice says. A tall woman slides onto the stool beside me. “You look lonely.”

  “Nope, not lonely.” The bartender pours me another Guinness and slides it along the counter, possibly realizing I’m about to make a run for it.

  The woman beside me laughs. “Oh, don’t be afraid, sugar. I’m harmless. Just stopping by to say hi to Bob here, and get my nightly nightcap before the show. Thanks, love.” She smiles as Bob sets a snifter of brandy before her. “You look like you have the weight of the world on those big, broad shoulders.”

  “Yeah.” I glance at her out of the corner of my eye, not wanting to encourage her. Once upon a time, when I’d been on the top of my game, oozing good health and confidence, women flocked to me, desperate to get a piece. I had been a notch on their belts; someone to brag about.

  And I lapped up the attention, like a cat who couldn’t get enough milk.

  And then came the injury. The surgeries. The attempts at rehab. All the attention went away. But I still remember the women.

  This woman has long black hair tumbling down her back; not a pretty face, but attractive enough, even though she wears too much makeup. She rests her chin on her hand, and turns sideways on her barstool.

  “So why is such a tall drink of water in this neck of the woods?” She tugs on the cuff of my jacket. “You look like you’re ready for a night on the town.”

  “Not anymore. She didn’t show up.” It’s the first time I’d said the words. I roll them around my mouth. It seems easier to admit to a stranger. “She decided she didn’t want to marry me.”

  “That’s a tough one.”

  I slide my phone along the counter to her; she silently reads Evelyn’s text. “She’s a witchy one, isn’t she?” she says, passing my phone back. “What’s her name?”

  “Evelyn.” I’ve never considered Evelyn witchy, or bitchy, but there’s a coolness about her that keeps people at arm's length. She had made me work to get her.

  A lot of good that did me.

  “What’s this rut she’s talking about?”

  “I’m kind of between jobs.” Is Evelyn right? I hadn’t felt like myself since I moved to Toronto. I work at The Baseball Zone training facility, supervising young players. I like it, but it doesn’t take the place of playing every day.

  And Evelyn never approved. Deep down I know she wanted me to forget about baseball, but it didn’t happen. I can more likely forget my name.

  “Your Miss Evelyn—what did you love most about her?” I draw a blank at the question and she laughs. “That’s not a good thing. But very telling.”

  “There’s a lot of good things about her,” I protest. “I just can’t think of any right now.”

  “What are you going to miss most about her?”

  “I should probably have something for this, too, shouldn’t I?”

  “What about the sex?”

  I don’t answer. There’s no way I’m discussing my sex life with a stranger in a bar.

  “Do you think maybe her not showing up is a good thing? Maybe it’ll get you out of your rut,” she presses.

  “What is this, a therapy session?”

  She shrugs. “If that’s what you need. What would have happened if you’d gone through with the ceremony?” Her questions are the ones I’ve been dodging for the past two years. “If your little miss had shown up, how would your life have improved?”

  I watch the condensation pooling around the bottom of my glass.

  “So maybe this isn’t a bad thing. You’ll miss her, and you’ll need some time to get over her, but if she could leave you in the lurch like that, it tells me that maybe the whole thing wasn’t meant to be.” She smiles coquettishly. “That’s what I think anyway.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I know you’re not going to admit I’m right, but I am. I always am.”

  “If you’re always right, then what do you think I should do?”

  “Something that makes you happy,” she decides in a firm voice. “Because I bet you’ve been doing everything you can to make her happy. And that stops now.”

  She stands up. With her long legs, she towers over me on the stool. “My work here is done. You’re welcome.”

  “Thank you,” I say. “I think.”

  “You think?”

  “You’ve just spent the last fifteen minutes telling me my relationship was crap. It doesn’t sound like it’s something I should thank you for.”

  “Ooh, the backbone shows up. Good boy. Don’t forget to show a little spunk when you’re dealing with your little miss. Just because she broke your heart doesn’t mean it has to stay broken. Trust me, sugar, she’s not worth it.”

  With that, she drops a kiss on the top of my head and sweeps out of the bar. I stare after her in amazement.

  “You know she’s a man, right?” Bob the bartender says, carefully drying a glass.

  “What?”

  “Darcy’s part of Les Ballets de Trockadero, group of male dancers dressed up as women. It’s a great show. You should check it out.”

  Chapter Four

  Flora

  “We’re out of here in time to meet Clay, all right?” M.K. asks for the fourth time.

  “Sure, sure,” Ruthie says as she leads us into the venue that’s bigger than a club, but smaller than a stadium.

  I’ve seen my fair share of male strippers. Or is it politically correct now to call them dancers? Whatever the best term for buff men dancing on stage wearing next to nothing is these days, I’ve seen them.

  Those shows were nothing like this.

  The noise assaults me like a wave trying to wash me to shore. Hundreds of women crowd around the stage, chanting and screaming and shrieking. Some offer their bodies, many beg for babies, and I hear a few marriage proposals. And this is before the men come out on the stage.

  The display of estrogen is a little frightening.

  The bar area is just as bad, but eventually we get drinks and head out to find seats. Within a few feet, I’m elbowed, two women have a screamed conversation on either side of me, and glasses of beer, Pepsi and one of red wine are splattered onto my dress.

  The stains are never coming out.

  Not that I’m ever going to wear it again, but it might have been nice to donate it to Value Village back home rather than leave it in some Vegas dumpster.

  I can’t bring myself to join in the enthusiasm. I keep replaying the expression on Thomas’ face when I told him I couldn’t marry him. It’s not exactly haunting me, but it’s not enjoyable.

  What’s odd is that when I was talking to Dean, I didn’t think about Thomas once.

  Now I’ve got all these emotions—a faint sense of pride mixed with guilt and confusion swirling around—and they don’t sit all that well. Like eating pizza without one of my lactose digestion pills.

  “Clay’s so nice,” M.K. bubbles as we doggedly follow Ruthie. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen M.K. so excited over a guy.
Or showing any sort of excitement about a guy.

  “We’ll find them when this is over,” I promise, clutching M.K.’s hand as to not lose her.

  Ruthie finally manages to find us seats a few rows from the stage, using elbows, her somewhat intimidating height, as well as her I don’t give a shit attitude.

  “Have you ever been here before?” the woman beside M.K. asks as soon as we take our seats. “I hear one of them is hung like a horse!”

  “Better be more than one of them,” her friend cackles with delight.

  M.K. leans into me and squeezes my hand. “I’m scared of them.”

  “Me too,” I whisper into her ear. “We can’t let Ruthie piss anybody off.” My niece looks happy talking animatedly with the woman beside her.

  M.K. settles into her seat, still with a nervous expression. “This is a good idea, right?”

  “It’ll be fun. We had to go with her. Plus, Thomas hated me doing things like this, so I kind of owe it to myself, don’t I?” I give a bark of laughter. “Maybe this weekend should be all about doing whatever would piss Thomas off the most.”

  M.K.’s face creases into a toothpaste-ad-worthy smile that transforms her from merely pretty to downright stunning and claps her hands with delight. “Why only a weekend? Why not do everything he wouldn’t like you to do?”

  M.K. has a point. Since I’m no longer going to be Mrs. Thomas Howell, I think it’s time to let a little more Flora Harriet Shaughnessy out and about.

  The lights go out without any fanfare and the noise reaches a crescendo that makes me want to cover my ears. But my eyes don’t want to be covered as I watch as the dancers explode onto the stage.

  They’re nothing like the dancers I’d seen, more like a kindergarten class dancing alongside the Russia ballet, with abs and pecs and packages to stare at.

  I’m on my feet by the end of the first song, cheering along with hundreds of other women. “This was such a good idea!”

  “Hell, yes!” Ruthie cries.

  The dancers pose and posture, wearing little more than band-aids and big smiles. The music vibrates through my body and women are going crazy trying to get onto the stage, waving their arms with pleading screams every time the dancers look for volunteers.

  Even I’m tempted, especially by the blond dressed up as Thor.

  When a tall, beautifully built bruiser appears on stage, the crowd goes wild.

  “That’sbronthat’sbronthat’sbron!”

  “What?” I shout at Ruthie.

  “That’s Bron! He’s. The. Tower. Of. Power!”

  “He’s a nice looking tower.”

  Most of the audience agrees with me. A minute into the song, a heavyset woman uses a nearby table as a springboard and launches herself onto the stage.

  “Ouch.” I groan with sympathy as the woman belly flops onto the stage, her legs dangling as she frantically reaches for Bron’s feet.

  A second woman uses her like a ladder to climb up on the stage, and the first woman flops like a fish, trying to push her off.

  Bron moves to the other side of the stage and keeps dancing. The two women continue to struggle. I’m more interested in watching them than the Tower of Power.

  A black shoe flies through the air. At the same time, a tall blonde woman stands up and pulls the second woman by the leg, trying to get her off the stage.

  “What’s she doing?”

  “Looks like she wants Bron for herself.” M.K. clambers onto her seat to see over the heads, causing the women behind us to curse loudly, using a variety of words and phrases that women shouldn’t call each other.

  “Calm down,” I say over my shoulder. “She’s short.”

  “This is getting good,” Ruthie cries, the dancer forgotten with the antics on the stage in front of us.

  The blonde manages to pull both women off the stage and all three fall to the floor, surrounded by an angry mob.

  “Fight!” Ruthie screams as soon as the first slap is given. I grab at her, but Ruthie’s gone, hopping over seats and women to get into the melee.

  Ruthie is almost six feet tall, a former rugby star, as well as a hockey player. I’ve seen her hold her own against men, women and guard dogs. But this isn’t polite Canada. This is Las Vegas, and security guards are already converging on the group.

  To make matters worse, Bron stops dancing and stands on the edge of the stage calling to someone in the crowd.

  The tone changes from lovesick women to very pissed-off girls and Ruthie is nowhere to be seen.

  “Her father’s going to kill me if she ends up in jail.” I finish the last of my drink in a long swallow, before grabbing Ruthie’s glass to finish it as well.

  M.K. does the same thing.

  I meet her gaze. “I’m going in. Wish me luck.”

  “I’ve got your back.” M.K. grabs my hand and I lead her into battle.

  Dean

  Before I head back to the hotel to meet Clay, I call my sister Polly. She’s the only one I told about the trip and I want to let her know things didn’t go as planned before she starts talking. Polly might be my favourite sister, but she’s got a big mouth and there’s no need getting my mother upset about the news of me getting married when it never happened.

  “You shouldn’t be calling me,” Polly answers in a flat voice. “Shouldn’t you be doing something more interesting right now, something I don’t want to think about you doing?”

  “It didn’t happen.”

  “You know there’s pills for that, don’t you, baby brother?”

  “I don’t need pills. The wedding didn’t happen.”

  “What did happen?” Polly’s voice doesn’t give a hint of whether she’s happy or not about the news. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. The only time she’s ever said anything negative about Evelyn, I shut her down fast. Love me, love my girlfriend.

  “Evelyn didn’t show up. She said she couldn’t marry me. Thought she could, then—nope.”

  Keep it casual. Stay clear of emotion. I got dumped, ditched, left at the altar. It stings, but no one needs to know that.

  “Dean! I’m sorry?”

  “Are you?” I glance across the street at yet another group of laughing women.

  “Of course I’m sorry! But the important thing here is how you feel. Not me. How do you feel?”

  One of the women waves at me from across the street, pointing me out to her friends.

  “I haven’t figured how I feel yet.”

  “Because you’re waiting to find out how Evelyn thinks you should feel?”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  The women are crossing the street.

  I turn in the direction of the hotel and start walking. The last thing I need is to deal with more women. My sister is enough.

  Not that I can blame her. Polly only met Evelyn once when I brought her to Edmonton for our grandmother’s funeral. Since then, Evelyn refused every invitation for Christmas and Easter, claiming the prairie winter weather was too cold for her. I know Polly and the rest of the family hold a grudge about that, especially since I spent holidays in the city with Evelyn.

  “Are you really not marrying her? Like if you run into her right now and she still wants to do it, would you?”

  Of course. The words are on the tip of my tongue. “I don’t know,” I say instead.

  “Because you’re mad at her?”

  “Because I don’t know. Everything’s messed up. Just spill it, Polly. I know you’ve got something to say.”

  “But I’m not really sure if you want to hear it.”

  “I’ve heard worse tonight. Do you think I should want to marry her?”

  “No.” The admission escaped like a breath. “No, I think marrying her would be a very bad idea. Oh, god, that feels good to say!”

  “A very bad idea,” I repeat, a sinking feeling growing in my stomach. “Why is that?”

  “You met her at the very worst time in your life.” Polly’s words rush out and I press the phone
to my ear to block out the other noises. I wish I could block out what Polly’s going to say. “You got injured and had to stop playing. You stopped being you. A Dean without baseball isn’t the same Dean, and that’s who Evelyn got. I’ve always thought she was trying to fix you.”

  “I wasn’t broken.”

  “Oh, you were, baby brother. Everyone could see it but you. It broke your heart when you couldn’t play. Evelyn was trying to fix something that she didn’t understand. You probably never said anything about it to her, because you’re a stubborn man who doesn’t understand feelings. Evelyn’s been pulling you away from baseball since then, which is about the worst thing she could do. You’ve been so sad, but you said you were happy with her, and I wanted you to be happy, so I couldn’t say anything. But she’s not the one to make you happy.” Polly heaves a deep breath. “Sorry.”

  “That’s a mouthful.” I can’t think of anything else to say.

  “Dean?” Polly whispers. “Did you go away?”

  “I’m still here.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “You’ll be okay, you just need to find yourself again. You’re still there, just a little covered up with gunk.”

  I walk the streets for a long time after talking to Polly, thinking about what she had said. It’s after midnight when I finally remember I’m meeting Clay.

  “Sorry, lost track of time,” I say when I find him propped up at the end of the bar, a half-empty beer before him.

  “No worries,” Clay assures him. The bar is louder than earlier and Clay keeps glancing around. “They haven’t shown up yet.”

  I catch the attention of the bartender and order.

  “How’re you doing?” Clays asks, leaning close so I can hear him over the music.

  I shrug. “Do you think I should have wanted to marry her?”

  Clay makes a face. “I’m the last one you should ask that, Deano. I don’t think anybody should get married. What’s the point? You only get your heart broken. Take it easy, bro, that’s my motto.”

  I pay for my beer and wait with Clay, being a good wingman for my friend.