Chapter Twenty-Three
NICK
I had been here before…more than once. You’re allowed to bring one weapon of choice and choose from their arsenal at will. Karli and I found a spot at the table and she sat her pumpkin about half a foot away from mine. I smiled at her. She smiled back. She’s so pretty. I picked up my pumpkin and moved it over about two feet and then sat my duffel bag in between them.
“Really?” she said with a laugh.
“Sorry, babe, I need room.” She rolled her eyes at me and shook her head. “When you see what I can do with it, you’ll be amazed.”
“I’m sure I will.”
We listened to the staff in charge of the contest go over the rules. While one of them did that, another sat the carving utensils out on the table and another lay stencils in two piles on each one. I snorted. “Kindergarten tools.”
Karli laughed. “Wow, this is heavy stuff for you, huh?”
“I’m going to win this year,” I told her with a wink. I unzipped the canvas bag just far enough for her to look inside.
“A drill?”
I smiled. “Not just any drill. This baby is an 18-volt cordless, and I have twenty different bits for it.”
She laughed aloud. “Really? You’re going to carve a pumpkin with a drill?” Before I could respond, the staff announced that we could begin. I reached in the bag and pulled out the heavy drill. As I looked around, I noticed it was just as I’d thought: none of the women looked impressed…at least by the drill, but most of the men were practically salivating over it.
“Really,” I told her. “Look at their faces. This contest is 50% skill and the other 50% is all in your head. This baby just intimidated the hell out of half my competition.”
“Oh my God, you’re killing me,” she said as she reached for a knife. I watched her shove it into the pumpkin and a little voice in the back of my head told me that I’d better hide all the knives if I ever really piss her off.
“Just stay over there on your side, babe. There’s nothing like the awesome power of a steel rod.” She threw her head back and laughed at that. “Get your mind out of the gutter and back on your pumpkin or you’ll be left in the dust.”
I pulled a pair of goggles out of my bag and put them on before firing up the impressive tool. I got a few more looks as I held it up like a gun. Karli was laughing so hard that she had tears running down her cheeks.
I turned my back to her and plunged the tool down into the top of my pumpkin. I cut a circle around the top and pulled it off. Scooping it out was my least favorite job and as I sat my tool down and started to lower my hands into the slimy insides, I felt my face draw up in disgust. I grabbed a handful of the guts. They felt like snot with seeds and as I pulled them out, I actually wretched a little bit. I thought I’d hidden it well until I felt Karli bump me with her hip.
“Step aside, big guy, it looks like you need help.” I took a step to the left and watched in morbid fascination as she picked up a spoon in one hand and the pumpkin in the other and began furiously scraping. She didn’t seem to mind the slimier guts clinging to the back of her hand and squishing through her fingers. She tipped the pumpkin almost all the way over above the newspaper that covered the table. A pile of pumpkin guts appeared and Karli left them there and used the spoon to scrape even more. By the time she was finished, the walls of my pumpkin were completely smooth
“Thanks, babe. If you want, I can help you carve yours when I’m finished here.”
“I’ll let you know if I need help,” she told me with a wink as I reached across her for the black marker the staff left there with the carving tools.
I carefully drew myself a pattern and then started cutting. I worked steadily until I heard the sound of the whistle that signified putting your tools down. I stood up and tried to work the stiffness out of my neck and shoulders and then I looked over at Karli. She was looking at my pumpkin with a smile on her face.
“I have to admit, I thought you were crazy for using a drill, but that looks fantastic.”
“Right?”
She laughed. “You’re welcome.”
“Sorry, thank you. But look at it! Have you ever seen a more perfect spider?” I’d carved out an intricate design that signified a spider’s web and then, just off to the side, crawling toward the center of it, a gigantic spider.
“Never,” she said. “What do you think of mine?”
Karli’s was a rose, or some kind of flower. It was off-center and there was one spot that looked like it was supposed to be a rose petal, but had broken off and fallen inside. It was cute, and she looked proud of it. “I think it’s almost as pretty as you.”
“Almost?” I leaned over and kissed her on those sexy, soft lips.
“Yeah, almost. Nothing else even comes close.”
“Okay, ladies and gents, it’s time to judge these pumpkins!” I held onto Karli’s hand and watched as the judges walked table to table and wrote something down on the little pad they carried as they looked at each pumpkin. When they got to mine, I smiled and automatically tightened the muscles in my chest and arms.
I felt Karli poke me. She leaned in close and said,
“Stop trying to cheat; they’re judging the pumpkins, not the hot bodies.”
I smiled at her and looked around at the other people in the contest and then I whispered, “If they were, who would win?”
She picked up a towel, wiped her hands on it, and then hooked her arm through mine as she said, “Tricky Nicky Storelli, hands down.”
********
I won the pumpkin contest and I got to leave with the most beautiful woman there. I felt like one lucky son of a bitch.
On the way back to my house, we picked up Chinese food and I saw Karli send a text to her dad. I hoped that she was telling him she wouldn’t be home tonight because ever since she left my bed on Monday morning, I’d been craving her like a drug.
As soon as we walked into the kitchen from the garage, I saw the note from Kevin written on the chalkboard and my mood and the entire evening started to unravel. Karli looked at the chalkboard and said,
“Aw, he left you a note.” It said, “Hey, Bro, spending time with Elaine tonight. Didn’t want you to worry.” There was a smiley face then and underneath that it said, “Your dad came by.”
I didn’t know if it was Kevin thinking I would worry about him or my father coming by that set me off. I wasn’t Kevin’s fucking guardian and the idea of it made me feel like I was having a hard time breathing. My whole life, I had only me to worry about and suddenly, I was a guardian and a boyfriend. I was not sure why that was just now setting in and why it felt so suffocating all of a sudden. Wasn’t this what I wanted? Wasn’t this all about changing my life? Maybe it was just too many changes all at once.
“Nick? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Am I fine?
Karli looked like she was about to say something else, but her phone started ringing. It was the theme to Rocky.
“Shit. It’s my dad. If I don’t answer, he’ll just keep calling. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine, take it.” She started to walk toward the dining room and I said, “Hey, Karli, what’s my ring tone?”
“Eye of the Tiger” was still playing loudly, and she looked at her phone nervously before saying, “Peter Pan.” She put the phone to her ear then and went into the dining room. I heard her say, “Hi, Dad, what’s up?”
Theme songs were part of my life. Martin taught me years ago that you should take a lot of time picking out your song. Not only the beat should matter, but the words should represent your personality.
Karli obviously looked up to her dad. He was her hero, so “Eye of the Tiger” was fitting. I wondered how much thought she had put into mine. My father used to call me Peter Pan. He always told me I’d never grow up. I hated that song the first time I heard it because of that. I walked over near the dining room and heard her saying,
“I’m twenty-two years old, Dad. You can’t keep telling me what to do and who I’m allowed to do it with.” Obviously, he wasn’t buying that she was spending all of this time at Michaela’s house.
“What? Are you kidding? Did you really just say that?” She had her back to me, but I could visibly see her whole body tense.
“You can’t honestly believe I pick my men with the sole purpose of pissing you off in mind. That’s a bit narcissistic, Dad, even for you.” She took the phone away from her ear and pressed the end button, hard.
Her shoulders slouched forward. I tried to quiet the selfish thoughts in my own head and did what a real man was expected to do. I went over and put my hands on her shoulders. She leaned back into me, and I wrapped my arms around her stomach and held her close.
“He’s such an asshole sometimes. I can’t get him to even acknowledge Kevin, and yet he’s all over my life.”
I couldn’t argue with her assessment of him. I thought he was an asshole most of the time, too. “What did he say?”
“He can’t wrap his head around the fact that I’m a grown woman and capable of making my own decisions – and even my own mistakes. It’s nobody’s choice but my own.”
I was the one that tensed now. All I really heard her say was “mistake.” I turned her so she was facing me. “You think I’m going to turn out to be a mistake, Karli?”
“No! Of course I don’t think that. I didn’t mean you. Dad just makes me crazy sometimes. When telling me what to do wasn’t working, he started telling me that I’m messing you up. He says you’re too close to your title fight to get involved in a relationship and basically, if you lost, it would be my fault.”
“It kind of sounded like he was also saying something about you picking losers just to get at him.”
There was a flicker of something in her eyes and I wished I knew her better. I wished that I could read her. “You were listening.”
“I just heard the end of the conversation. But it does kind of make me wonder.”
“It makes you wonder? Are you fucking kidding me? You chased me, Nick. You were the one that wouldn’t leave me alone. I finally embrace my feelings for you, and now you’re going to run scared on me?”
“I’m not running, Karli. We’re just talking. Why are you getting so defensive?” The real question here was what the fuck was I doing? I’d just spent the last three hours having the most fun out of bed I’d ever had with a woman. Why was I trying to screw that up?
She put her hands on her hips and as I looked at her, my inner voices were dueling with one another. One of them wanted her badly enough to tell me to shut the fuck up. It was telling me, “You’re steps away from having this sexy woman back in your bed and you’re overthinking it. You don’t overthink things. You’re practically famous for your impulsivity. Hell, you barely think it over once before you do it. What the fuck are you doing?
The other voice was telling me I was making a fool of myself. Karli thought of me as Peter Pan, a boy in a man’s body, and I was the expert on doing things to piss Dad off… Is that what she sees in me? Is she using me to somehow get back at Charlie for this crap with Kevin?
“I’m defensive? I guess maybe you’re right. I am. It’s because I don’t understand where this is coming from. We had a great time tonight, didn’t we? I thought things were going well and then…what is it, Nick? What’s going on in your head?”
I tried to stop myself but again, I couldn’t. “Is this…” I motioned my arm between her and me. “Us…are we about pissing off Charlie?”
“Excuse me? Please, tell me you’re kidding.”
“You told me that you didn’t date fighters and gym rats any longer. Why the sudden about face? I should have asked you then, that day…but I was just so thrilled that you wanted me that I was blinded by that.”
“And suddenly, you’re not any longer? Why is that, Nick? Is it because the thrill of the chase is over and now you’re feeling a little claustrophobic and you’re ready to move on?”
“No, that’s not it at all.” Is it? I really didn’t fucking know. It was like I was in such a panic mode all of a sudden that I had no control over what was coming out of my mouth. “You sat there and watched my fight, and then you watched the groupies swarm all over me. Nothing changed between the night before when you gave me an absolute, unequivocal no and that afternoon when all of a sudden you wanted to be with me…except that maybe you were a little more pissed off at Charlie.”
There was fire in her hazel eyes all of a sudden. “I don’t do things just to piss my father off, Nick. I’m a little more mature than that. From what I hear, that’s your specialty.”
“Is that what Ethan told you?” Now I was jealous of my brother and angry with him all over again. Jesus, what is wrong with me?
“No. You told me that yourself. Ethan is too much of a gentleman to gossip about you behind your back. As a matter of fact, he sang your praises to me, and that’s part of why I decided to go out with you. I trust him.”
“Oh, you trust him, but not me.”
“I’m going home.” She picked up her bag off the counter next to the uneaten Chinese food. I should have left it at that, but I felt compelled to make it even worse. She was almost to the door when I said, “I have one more question.”
“I can’t wait to hear it,” she said, sarcastically.
“Why Peter Pan? Do you think I’m never going to grow up?”
“Jesus, Nick, it’s only a song.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Why did you pick it?” She was silent for a long time and then she said,
“Because I guess I knew all along that you were going to fly away as soon as you could.”
I watched her slam the door behind her. Only then did I let myself process the fact that I’d pushed away the only good thing in my life and for no fucking reason other than I was afraid.
I was afraid that in a matter of weeks, a woman came along and not only changed the way I felt about things, but the way I did things, as well. I was afraid that my life was going to change…and that was as stupid as fuck. My life sucked. Why the hell wouldn’t I want it to change?