Scott
The last time I saw my frat brother and my ex-girlfriend was more than two years ago.
Bishop and I were never BFF’s.
We were cool with each other and despite all the drama that had happened between us, we’d managed to save the respect we had for each other.
He was a good guy, and as far as I knew, he and Kara didn’t start dating until after she had broken up with me.
She could have easily cheated on me, but she didn’t.
And Bishop, he wasn’t that kind of a guy. Even when I was in the vestiges of denying that he wasn’t a cheater, Rikko had talked to me about him, and I just had the feeling that he didn’t do anything with Kara when she was still with me.
They had their backs towards us, and I felt Bridge’s small hand become clammy against mine.
I was traveling to Pennsylvania on Tuesday, and today was the last day Bridge and I would get to spend together.
Away games sucked and two in a row didn’t help when she and I were in the infancy of our relationship. We had our phones, Facetime was a must, but being with her in person was still a hundred times better.
So this morning when she asked me if I’d like to have breakfast with her, her brother, and Kara, I didn’t hesitate to say yes.
I didn’t even know that they were going to be here. Bridge had said that she waited to ask me until the last minute because she didn’t want to be stressed about it. She didn’t want to stress me out about it either.
I’d asked her if she was okay with it, and she just said that she didn’t want to hide me from her brother anymore.
He was the most important person in her life and she wanted him to know about us being together.
She might not be amenable to watching my games in person, but she was making strides into acknowledging our relationship to the people closest to her.
Her mother was another story, the revelations that Bridge had shared with me about her didn’t make me a fan, but my girl wasn’t really close to her, so I’d let her take the lead on when I got to meet her, if she ever wanted me to.
I kissed the top of her forehead, inhaling the scent of tropical sun on her hair and savored it. She loved to try all different types of shampoos, and I loved smelling them on her.
I never really thought about how a woman smelled before.
But with Bridge, I thought about it all the time.
She never failed to surprise me.
Sometimes she smelled like mangoes and kiwis.
Other times, coconuts and lavenders.
And my favorite, lilacs and watermelon.
She made me guess what her scent was, and I had a lot of fun exploring her body, trying to find out if I was correct.
My life was all about X’s and O’s, and Bridge, she got me to take the time to take a deep breath and inhale.
I held her hand tighter in mine, reassuring her that everything was going to be okay.
I hoped…
Kara was leaning against Bishop’s shoulder, and the sight of them brought calmness inside of me.
Gone were the feelings of raw anger, jealousy, and frustration.
I’d like to say time helped me deal with it, but I’d also like to give credit to the woman whose small figure beside me had slowly engrained herself into the threads of my life.
I loved Kara; she was the girl who’d been there for me throughout my younger years.
And I wanted the best for her.
Hearing her joyous laugh again brought fond memories of our high school days when I’d picked up her from her house and we’d go spend the day together exploring all of Southlake’s hidden nooks and crannies.
Looking back, Kara was right.
Our relationship had lost steam. I treated her like a baggage rather than my partner.
She deserved more and now she had it.
“Bishop…” Bridge tapped on her brother’s left shoulder and he immediately stood up.
I stepped away to give them room.
They hadn’t seen each other in a while.
I could see that Bishop had gotten bulkier and his skin was darker than the last time I saw him.
I’d watched him play in college, as part of our frat duties.
Whenever our frat brothers played and we didn’t have a game, we showed support by attending their games.
Bishop was the fastest guy on the grass.
He was a master tactician, and you could tell that he was going to be one of those greats.
Bishop’s eyes were solely on his sister’s, and I watched as Bridge’s small form was engulfed in his hug.
“Bridge, I missed you,” Bishop said, his brown eyes still on my girl’s face and it wasn’t until Kara said, “Scott?” that Bishop looked away from his sister and his eyes strayed to where I was standing.
I walked to Kara as she stood up, and gave her a quick hug. “Hey, how are you doing?”
Kara’s blonde hair had gotten longer and her blue eyes held a questioning look, but she answered, “I’m doing good. Been busy with the new job, so my schedule’s too much.”
Bishop, whose right arm was on Bridge’s shoulder, spoke up, “Hey man, it’s been a while. Good to see you.”
He raised a fist in the air and I bumped it with mine.
“Yeah. I heard you’re making all the splash in USAR.” Rikko gave me updates on our frat brothers, and I loved hearing their success stories. Rikko was our Chapter President, and he was trying to organize a get-together soon for us. As soon as our schedules aligned, I had a feeling that a mass text was in the horizon.
Bishop shrugged and he motioned, “You wanna join us? You know my sister Bridgette, right?”
I glanced at Bridgette and her face was fire-engine red and her hazel eyes were conflicted.
She hadn’t told Bishop about us.
“Yep. I know her.” I was just inside of her this morning, so I knew her very well.
I moved to the side so the servers could get through. The restaurant didn’t have much space. It was a quaint little place, and Bridge said that it was hers and Bishop’s favorite restaurant for brunch in Westwood.
Kara, whose voice had gone soft, said, “Why don’t you take a seat?” Her eyes flitted back and forth between Bridge and I.
She was now piecing it together and because it didn’t take much for a genius to figure it out, Kara knew that it wasn’t just mere coincidence that Bridge and I were here together.
I sat on the chair in front of Kara and pulled out the chair next to me and said, “Babe, why don’t you sit down before you faint?”
“What the fuck?” was quick to come out of Bishop’s mouth, and when his eyes zoomed in on his sister, gone was the warmth that he’d extended to me earlier. Instead his demeanor now emanated hostility and coldness.
But one thing I knew about Bishop was that he wouldn’t make a scene.
He was an upstanding guy and the frigid reception to me being with his sister came from a good place.
He loved Bridgette.
He was protective of her.
He was her family.
And I was the man who gave him and Kara a hard time when they first started dating.
So now, with Bishop, there was nothing but understanding on my side.
Kara’s hand moved toward Bishop’s arm, as if she was trying to hold him back from making a mistake. But like I said, I got it. I knew where he was coming from.
“Bridge and I are dating,” I said just as the server came up to get our orders.
I quickly glanced at the menu and ordered the first thing I saw – veggie omelet. Bridge was a mute beside me, so I ordered what I thought she would like, chicken and waffles with eggs benedict and extra hollandaise on the side.
Bishop said, “Have you been here before?”
He was still giving me the what-the-hell-are-you-doing-with-my-sister look, but maybe his curiosity overrode his annoyance for a second.
“No. My first time,” I answered, and thanked the server.
Kara ordered for herself and for Bishop because it was obvious that the Cordello siblings weren’t going to order for themselves.
I drank from the small glass of water that had been there since we arrived. It was probably for Bridge, but who cared.
The awkward silence grew as we sat there, not talking, just waiting for someone to speak up and tackle the elephant in the room.
I threw an arm around Bridge’s chair and as much as I would like to touch her shoulders right then, I didn’t want to add gasoline to the fire raging in her brother’s eyes.
I spoke first and addressed the woman who’s known me the longest, “Am I a good man, Kara?”
Kara’s voice was filled with certainty when she answered, “You are.”
It would be easy to use my position as Bridgette’s boyfriend and gain momentum from there, but I had to see it from Bishop’s standpoint.
I owed him that much because even when I tried to get him booted out of our fraternity because of my own selfishness and anger, Bishop stood steadfast and didn’t stoop low to my emotions.
Instead he tried to make sense of the situation, and he made sure that it came across that his and Kara’s relationship was more important to him than our fraternity.
He was a smart man.
And today, I was using his strategy to gain recognition that I was a good man for his sister.
It was important to him, and it was a necessity for Bridge.
I wouldn’t want to cause a divide between them.
“I’ve liked your sister for a long time now,” I started, Bishop’s eyes were on me now, but his posture was rigid, the only soft part around him was Kara’s hand which was now reaching out to his neck, probably to relieve the tension forming around there. “Two and half years ago, when I brought her back to LA after your grad party, I asked her out then. I wanted to see her, get to know her, maybe become friends with her, but even then I knew that friendship wasn’t going to be enough for me.”
Bridge was also hearing this for the first time. I’d never really talked about how I felt for her before. She was assured of my feelings for her now, but she’d never seen herself through my eyes before our present relationship.
This time, I let my hand drift to touch Bridgette’s shoulder, the skin exposed by the sleeveless blue dress that she wore today. She looked beautiful and I made sure that she knew before we left my condo just how much she affected me. Her effect on me was a potent drug, and I had to have her before we left. Hence why we were here twenty-five minutes late.
“Imagine my life during your grad party…Kara and you were together, and here I was trying to be okay with everything that was going on.” I was addressing Bishop, and even when he wasn’t saying anything, he was at least listening, “Kara wasn’t mine to give up. I know that now. She was free to be with whoever she wanted to be and she fought to be with you. But that didn’t mean that her absence didn’t break my heart.”
Kara’s eyes softened, and this time Bridge leaned into me, showing her support of whatever I wanted to say. “The night I drove your sister back to her apartment, I got to know a woman whose beauty didn’t just shine from the outside. She was also funny, really smart, and she didn’t care if I was going to be number one in the draft. She also didn’t care that her brother was now with my ex. She was just herself…and I liked her. I gave Bridge my number but she never called me.”
I now knew that Bridge didn’t call me back then not because she wasn’t attracted to me, but rather she didn’t want to get involved with me, especially since her brother had just gotten together with Kara. I didn’t have to force it out of her; she’d just casually mentioned it one night when we were watching a movie at her apartment.
I wasn’t the only one who felt the magnetic chemistry between us.
Back then, she’d felt it too and while I felt that time was wasted, I saw her point and she’d allowed me to heal my heart so when another opening came for me to be with her, I took it and here we were.
“We might not have been close in college or in the frat, but you know that I don’t cheat. I respect women and I really like your sister,” I said, just as the server put the hot plates of food in front of us.
Bishop gave a small nod, acknowledging that he’d heard me. Whether or not he believed me was another story, but he was a smart guy, he knew what I was saying was true.
“Let’s eat before the food gets cold,” Bishop remarked, creating a pause to the subject of me and Bridge dating for now.
We ate in silence, but I could tell that the tension was lessening amongst us.
Kara fed Bishop some of her food and when Bishop asked Bridgette if she was enjoying her food, she gave him a quick smile and a huge sigh of relief whooshed out of me.
Bridge asked if I wanted to try the waffles on her plate. During the season, my trainer kept me on a strict diet.
But I found myself not being able to say no whenever those gorgeous hazel eyes asked me something, so I took a small bite that she offered and her dimples made an appearance.
I lifted my left hand to place a soft caress on her cheek and she blushed.
A fake cough interrupted our moment.
Her brother was eyeing us, but this time with a curious look before saying, “I thought you didn’t like athletes, Bridge.”
Bridgette raised an eyebrow and the sheepish smile on her face was absolutely adorable. “I thought so, too, but thoughts can be wrong.”
“Gao xing,” Bishop said something to that effect and I went, “What?”
Kara replied, “They have codes.” Her pointer finger gestured towards Bridge and Bishop.
“Ah.” I knew Bridge spoke many different languages. She could speak Japanese in a heartbeat, but it didn’t sound like it was Japanese.
“When we were kids, when I could finally speak in complete sentences, Bishop would quiz me on if I really knew how to speak a language since it came easy for me, but not for him.” Bridge’s expression was now relaxed, gone was the stifling tension from earlier. “He’d ask me what my favorite words were.”
“She’d always say, ‘Happy in any language is my favorite’,” Bishop supplied. His entire mood had changed. He was now in better spirits. Maybe it was from the food or maybe it was because of what I’d said, but whatever it was, I couldn’t be more grateful.
The last thing I wanted was to come out of this brunch with a new enemy in Bishop.
We may not have been tight, but we didn’t need to be staging a war, another war, against each other.
It would break Bridge’s heart, and I would hate to see her heart broken up by this.
“Anyways, Bridge found ‘happy’ in every language.” Bishop continued, as he pushed a fry into his mouth, “Even in Tagalog.”
“Masaya,” Bridge laughed, then took a sip from the glass that I’d had from earlier.
“When our parents…” Bishop stalled, and checked Bridgette’s expression and my girl said, “Scott knows.”
Kara’s hand tightened on Bishop’s arm, and I could see that this wasn’t a comfortable subject for him.
“Whenever our parents did something stupid, which they often did, Bridge and I would play the language game to distract ourselves,” Bishop finished as he pulled Kara closer to his side.
“It was a good game. It served its purpose.” Bridge added, and this time, her voice was quieter but she continued, “I’m with Scott because I like him. He treats me well.”
Kara teased, “Is it weird that I felt that there were some magical strings pulling you guys together during the Sports Night awards way back when?”
It was a night I’d rather forget because it was the night that I had my cement-blocked logic - not wanting to see that Kara had checked out long ago from our relationship. It was also the night she’d told me about my father blackmailing her into being with me so I would be less stressed.
However, she was right.
I nodded my head and massaged the top of Bridge’s shoulder. So soft. Her skin was so soft. “I guess, even back then, I wasn’t immune to Bridge’s charms.”
Bishop rolled his eyes and gave a grunt, “She’s my sister, Strauss. I’d rather not know about her charms.”
Strauss wasn’t spoken in malice, it was said in humor.
And I knew then that Bishop was okay with us.
“If you hurt her, I will make your life hell.” Bishop added, “I know who your friends are and I will bust your –“
Okay maybe he wasn’t okay with it.
“Pssshh. Stop being so dramatic, babe,” Kara interrupted, and gave his shoulder a light punch. Bishop caught her arm and placed it on his chest.
“This…” Bridge’s fingers went up in the air and she made a rotating motion with them, “The PDA is making me want to throw up.”
Bishop chuckled and Kara’s laughter followed.
Then, he asked, “Are you happy, Bridge?”
Bridge nodded her head unequivocally, her dark hair was longer now, and she had an added glow in her cheeks, the lightness of the mood on the table lifting her spirits. “I am.”
“What’s gonna happen when the season starts?” Bishop’s question was directed towards me. Like me, he was an athlete; he knew how hard it would be to maintain a relationship. One of the elements of a thriving relationship was closeness and with all the away games in my schedule, it wouldn’t be easy.
But I was willing to try.
For her, I’d always be willing to try.
“I’ll be traveling a lot, but Bridge is going to be very busy too, her load is doubled now since she’s trying to get into the program that NASA just recently opened up for undergrads,” I said, and the minute that the words came out of my mouth, I’d realized my mistake.
“You didn’t tell me, sis.” Bishop’s eyes held so much pride.
“You’re going to be an astronaut? In NASA?” Kara’s voice held awe.
“Well, now that the cat’s out of the bag…thanks blabbermouth.” Bridgette lightly tapped my hand as she shook her head but she was smiling. “Yeah, one of my professors is recommending for me to take the accelerated program so I could get into the astronaut candidate program. It will only take off a year from the required three years of experience, but at least I’d get in earlier.”
“Wow.” Kara said, “I had no idea you wanted to be an astronaut, Bridgette.”
“She’s going to be the sexiest astronaut out there,” I added, and I felt a light punch to my gut from the temptress to my right.
“I’m ignoring that comment,” Bishop’s light sneer was comical. “I’m so proud of you, Bridge.”
Bridge’s face splashed with red again, she didn’t take compliments very well. Even when I rained it down on her, she was still getting used to it. And it’s one of the many things I liked about her.
“I dreamed of being up there in the skies, two hundred forty miles above the Earth’s surface, since the day I could correctly name all the galaxies and the constellations.” A dreamy look took over her face and it made me want to kiss her.
But I held myself back.
Because her brother was there.
And he was just getting amenable to the idea of us being together.
“Basically since she was a toddler,” Bishop joked, yet the pride in his eyes never left. “So your schedules are going to be crazier than ours, huh?”
Kara said, her eyes serious, “I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t talk to Bishop within a day. Wow, with you being in the NFL and Bridgette fulfilling her NASA dreams, you guys are going on a wacky ride together.”
“Bridgette’s worth it,” I said, without hesitation. “We’ll work it out together.”
I turned towards Bridge and the expression on her face was unreadable, but her hazel eyes were shining against the sunlight streaming in from the glass doors of the restaurant.
Bishop cleared his throat, “I hate to say this, but I might just like you better now than I did in college.”
I laughed at his words because they held some truth. We were both busy athletes in college, and we didn’t really hang out much unless it was for frat-related activities.
The conversation flowed as Kara talked about her new job, Bishop about his role in making USA Rugby more recognized in the US, Bridge on her classes and me about the upcoming games.
Bishop gave me furtive glances the whole time we were conversing. He wanted to know about me, about my intentions towards his sister, and I hoped I’d conveyed how much I valued Bridge to her brother.
When it was time to pay the bill, Bishop single-handedly turned it over to me and I could only laugh.
He said, “The least you could do for all the trouble you’ve caused me.”
I found it extremely hilarious, but I sensed that there was some levity to his statement.
It didn’t evade me that life was paradoxical sometimes.
The blonde woman in front of me was the woman who occupied the first space in my heart.
The man beside her was the man who without knowing how much she meant to me, fell in love with her and it just so happened that –
This tiny, amazing fairy beside me was his only sister.
And she just happened to be the one who’s making me believe that maybe, just maybe I could also have my own happily ever after.