Chapter 11

Jacob

I TURNED TO Sierra as the group began sectioning off in preparation for the game. It only took a glance for me to surmise she’d come to the same conclusion I had.

“What do we do?” I asked under my breath.

Her eyes flicked back and forth, bouncing between me, Joe and Tom, and Charles. I could see her fingers jangling at her side as though she were playing an invisible piano, and I grabbed them in my hand to keep her from shaking.

She looked at my hand. Slowly, quietly, she replied, “We’ve gotta at least try to do well in the game. After the whole golf cart incident, if we don’t get this right, Charles’ gonna start getting suspicious, and no one can afford that.”

I nodded. Her reasoning was sound. “Okay,” I agreed.

“Though it’s not like you’re gonna remember anything,” she muttered. “It’s been years.”

“Right,” I said, darting my gaze away from her own. “Of course.”

She squinted at me, but before she could ask a question, Charles was calling our names.

“Jacob, Sierra,” he hollered. “It was your suggestion we come back and play this little game, so you’re up first. Here, take a seat.”

He gestured in back of him, near the pool house, where evidently, some staff members had set up two large red velvet armchairs, complete with gold curls at the arms and edges. A little too prop-like, for my taste, but I suppose it was on point for a faux game show.

I gulped and began to march towards the armchairs, Sierra closely behind me. I didn’t have to look to feel the entire company shifting to watch us, some with casual interest, our bosses with something more resembling pressing fear.

Sierra and I settled into the velvet that was far too hot for a Floridian afternoon. Between us was an erasable white board and a marker.

“He really has done this before,” I observed. Not like the average man had a mini whiteboard just laying around, certainly not one he could dig up at the drop of a hat.

Sierra groaned and ignored my insights. I suspected she was steeling herself for the outcome of this game, which couldn’t possibly be good.

“Let’s begin,” Charles announced. “Sierra, please write down your answer to this question. What’s your favorite film?”

She scribbled her answer, then Charles finished, “Jacob, what would Sierra’s answer be?”

I scoffed. “Easy. The Devil Wears Prada. She must’ve watched it half a dozen times while we were — ahem, I mean, we watch it together all the time.”

“Sierra, show us your whiteboard.”

She turned it around, and sure enough — I was right. She looked a little surprised.

“Well, we did watch that half a dozen times,” she mumbled, as if to negate the victory.

“Next question,” Charles said. “Sierra, write down your answer to this — what color outfit did you wear on your first date with Jacob?”

She shot me a concerned look before writing something down.

“Jacob?” Charles prodded.

“An ice blue dress with thin straps. Kinda silky.” Perhaps anxious to show off for Sierra, I added, “And shiny black heels — short ones, ‘cuz she didn’t know if I’d be tall or not, it was a blind date, and being the polite gal she is, she didn’t wanna embarrass me.”

I’d rambled too long, but oh well.

“Sierra?” Charles said.

With trembling hands, she turned around her whiteboard. All she’d written was ‘blue,’ but it was enough — I’d nailed it.

“How’d you remember that?” she asked me under her breath as the team applauded us.

I played it cool, pointing to my head and saying, “Steel trap.”

“Last question for you, Sierra,” Charles announced. “When and where did you have your first kiss?”

She blushed, but obliged him by writing something down.

I answered before Charles could call on me. “Summer night, in a park, after a long day’s picnic. We popped Champagne and ate strawberries. It was perfect.”

Sierra’s mouth hung open in surprise. She, too, didn’t wait for Charles before turning around her board and revealing her answer.

Do I even have to tell you? I nailed it. Her response, written in that near perfect handwriting: “Picnic.” She looked at me as though she were seeing me, for real, for the first time since we’d broken up. The team was cheering politely, and our bosses were definitely each making some kind of face, but all I could really focus on was Sierra.

She whispered simply, “Jacob?”

I tried to act casual, but inside, I was burning with the thrill. I’d finally had a chance to show her how much our relationship meant to me. If she hadn’t believed me before, maybe this silly little game did the trick. Because, in truth, Sierra was the most important woman to have ever waltzed into my life, bar none, and our relationship had been a fairy tale. Up until I’d turned it into a ghost story by leaving abruptly, with barely a word. Can regret eat your bones?

She was shaking her head in surprise — and some other emotions too complex for me to decode — when Charles clapped his large hands.

“Well done, Jacob,” he said appreciatively. “A man with good listening skills and a strong memory is the kind of man I like on my team. Sierra, it’s your turn.”

Still discombobulated, she passed the whiteboard over to me, and I saw that her hands were trembling. As the board was exchanged between us, I squeezed her fingertips, just enough to reassure her that everything was going to be all right. She looked into my eyes, and I swear to God that at least in that moment, she believed me. We could deal with the bullshit from Joe and Tom later — this time belonged to us and us alone.

And as a secondary measure, I whispered, “If you don’t remember, and fail the game or whatever, don’t worry. I won’t take it personally. I know I was a dick so… don’t feel bad. That’s all.”

She turned her face away from mine and towards Charles, expression inscrutable. Huh, wonder what that was supposed to mean, I thought idly. But my words, for what it’s worth, had been true — Sierra had been the greatest thing in my life, but that didn’t mean I had to be the greatest thing in hers. Does that make sense? Of course, I hoped that she’d cared for me too, but I couldn’t expect it to have been entirely reciprocal. After all, I’m sure her memories were tarnished and tainted by my sudden exit. Being miffed about that would just be hypocritical.

“Round two,” Charles announced. “Jacob, please write down the following — you and Sierra’s favorite song as a couple. The one you had your first dance to, the one you heard when you locked eyes in a bar… you get the gist.”

Oof. I remembered, but would she? It was pretty specific. With some trepidation, I wrote down La Plus Que Lente by Debussy, before laying my pen down. Well, not down. I did keep it locked in a vise grip in my lap, squeezing all my excess anger into its small form.

“La Plus Que Lente,” I heard Sierra reply.

It took me a moment to remember that I was supposed to turn my board around. I did so slowly, my eyes locked on Sierra’s profile, unable to reckon with this new discovery.

She didn’t make eye contact with me, but instead murmured, “What, you think you’re the only one who can remember things around here?”

My heart thudded loudly in my chest, and didn’t stop pounding until the game was over. Sierra aced the next two questions as I watched on with awe, my brain spinning out with possibilities.

What did it mean that she remembered? Was it bitterness at the faulty ending? Or did she, like me, have a special place in her heart for the couple we’d once been, the love we’d shared? Suddenly, infinite, amazing futures stretched out before me. Was it possible that Sierra cared?

I cleared my throat. There was no point in assuming, nay, hoping, for something as unlikely as all that. Better to stay grounded, to stay realistic. I have a habit of letting my imagination run away with me, and I didn’t want to get hurt all over again.

Before I knew it, Charles was congratulating us on a game well played, and various staff were passing us cocktails and escorting us out of the velvet chairs, back towards the area where most of the company was standing. Phil and Dorris were being escorted to the ‘stage,’ as it were, while Sierra and I rejoined Joe, Tom and Amy within the crowd.

“Bravo,” Amy cried. “You guys were incredible. I don’t know if you were passing the answers to each other or what, but damn, that was something to see.”

“Thanks,” Sierra said with a smile. “It was nothing, really.”

Joe broke in with, “Oh no, no, it was something.” He took a sip of his drink and repeated, “It was something all right.”

What was that off-color note in his tone? What was Joe implying?

I thought perhaps I’d imagined it when Tom joined in. “Funny, you two knowing so much about each other like that,” he said, eyeing me pointedly. “You gotta tell me how you did it.”

My throat grew dry and tightened, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see Sierra begin to blink rapidly, like she did when she was nervous. Well, it was either lie to my bosses or explain why I hadn’t told them the truth about me and Sierra earlier. Either way, I wasn’t gonna come out of this looking good. Better to respect Sierra’s earlier wishes, I figured, than to throw her under the bus without warning. Plus, for what it’s worth, I’m an excellent liar.

“We were tilting our boards towards our sunglasses,” I explained. “So that we could see the reflection of the answers in them. Poker trick.”

Simplest explanations are usually the best, but I’m also a show-off. Not sure what I would’ve said if we hadn’t both been happening to wear glasses, but there’s no point dwelling on that.

Joe’s and Tom’s eyes scanned us suspiciously. Joe broke the silence first. His mouth spread into a huge grin as he replied, “That’s clever, kid, real clever. Color me impressed.”

“Oh it was nothing, really,” Sierra laughed with a bit too much force. “Jacob just likes poker, that’s all.”

Tom’s gaze again went to me, though his remark was to Sierra. “Well, you’ve certainly learned quite a bit about one another, considering it’s been less than a day.”

“It was when we were marooned on the golf course,” she explained.

“Ah,” Tom said, clearly still a little suspicious, but unwilling to push the matter. “I suppose we’d better get back to watching this dumbass game.”

Amy and Joe laughed, and together, the three strode off as a pack to some ways away, intermingling with the other employees.

Sierra and I turned to one another and I watched her loudly exhale nervous energy.

“Holy shit,” she muttered, placing a hand over her throat. “That was close. Way too close.”

“Where’d you get that bit about the golf course?” I asked.

“You think you’re the only one who can lie?” she sniffed. “I’m pretty quick on my feet, too, I’ll have you know.”

I had to laugh. “That you are, kitty cat, that you are.”

She stepped a half inch closer to me, but it was enough — I clocked it, recognizing that it was possibly the first time she’d initiated a move towards me during the entire trip. My heart swelled, but I still didn’t want to let myself get carried away, so I shoved that heart down out of my throat and back into my chest.

“You remembered quite a lot about our relationship,” she remarked, her tone saying more than her words. “I was… surprised.”

“You too.”

“I didn’t think you cared that much,” she said, feigning off-handedness. “I thought I was just another girl to you.”

Now it was I who closed the gap between us by a small fraction of an inch. “I’m sorry I ever let you think that.”

She inhaled sharply, but didn’t reply. Her eyes were scanning my face, looking for a hint that I was lying or playing her. I knew that she would find none.

And then, without warning, her open expression closed up again, a mask of hurt and ill-healed wounds.

“Of course I thought that,” she said through gritted teeth. “Why else would you up and leave?”

Damnit. For just a second there… for a second, I’d let myself hope. That was amateurish and naïve. I wouldn’t do it again. But I was done with lies for the day.

“Sierra, some things are best left in the past.”

She scoffed. “You would say that, wouldn’t you? All right, Jacob. See you around.”

“Wait—”

But she was already pivoting away from me and diving back into the crowd, putting a distance between us that I feared could never be bridged.