Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
“Are you saying you don’t want her?” he goaded, purposefully misinterpreting what Pierce said.
Pierce drew in a very long breath.
He let it out, speaking slowly.
“What I’ll make very clear right now is, what I want, what Genny wants, our marriage and the family we’ll create is none of your business, Szabo. I will hurt her, and I’ll hate it, but it’ll happen. She’ll hurt me, and she’ll hate it, but it’ll happen. None of that will be your business. We will fight. We will make up. We will wonder if we made the right choice. We’ll remember that we absolutely did. We will repeat all of this time and again until we’re both dead. And in between times, there will be love that never dies and commitment that will never break. And not one fucking bit of it will have one fucking thing to do with you.”
It was Corey who was quiet then. He needed to be. He had to take that time to fortify his defenses.
“Am I heard?” Pierce prompted.
“I’m important to her,” Corey replied.
“I know you are, that’s why I’ll put up with you,” Pierce retorted.
Corey grew silent again.
“Have I made myself clear, Szabo?” Pierce pressed.
“You will hurt her. Your kind always do.”
“I’m not him.”
“No,” Corey spat, his tone and the expression he allowed to come over his face underlined his words. “You are not.”
Pierce’s eyes slightly narrowed.
“You still love him,” he said quietly.
He was talking about Duncan.
Duncan Holloway.
The man who broke Genny’s heart.
“He’s my best friend.”
“He tore her apart.”
“And this is why my best friend is no longer in my life. I had to choose. I chose her. I will always choose her, Pierce. And I will always be at her side.”
“You may always be in her life, but you’ve never been at her side, Szabo. And you never will. It’s only now you won’t because I’ll be there.”
That was the blow that penetrated.
“Yeah,” Pierce whispered, not missing he’d drawn blood.
They stood there, staring at each other.
And then it happened.
Never.
Not once since he’d graduated college had he lost such a duel, professionally, cerebrally, creatively or romantically.
So it was no wonder he tasted ash as he broke Tom Pierce’s gaze, turned and walked out the door.
That ash nearly choked him forty-five minutes later when Imogen Swan, the woman Corey Szabo loved down to his bones, became the lawfully wedded wife of a man who would become one of the greatest tennis players of all time, known for his physical prowess on the court, but most especially, his intelligence.
Tom Pierce.
* * *
Tom
A few years later…
“It’s…I don’t know what it is.”
“It’s bullshit, that’s what it is. It’s the creation of a useless woman desperately trying to prove she has something more than long legs, a beautiful head of hair and a golden snatch.”
“Jesus, Andrew.”
“Am I wrong?”
“I don’t know, but Christ.”
“I don’t agree. It makes me feel…”
“Yeah? It makes you feel? Feel what?”
“I don’t know…something.”
“Well, that’s a stellar recommendation for it. Wouldn’t buy it for my house, though, and not just because it’s butt-ugly.”
Tom, the last to have a turn, stepped away from the microscope.
He’d slid two slides under it, slides with white bits stuck between them, and you could only read what they said under the microscope.
The two slides he’d read said Sky and Brotherhood.
He didn’t know what he felt either, except he wanted to see what the other five slides said, and then maybe he’d understand.
A new voice, one he’d never heard, entered their conversation.
“It’s an homage.”
Tom turned and…
Shit.
Mika Stowe stood there.
The woman whose art show they were right then attending.
And whose piece Andrew was right then trashing.
“Or derivative,” she went on, uncrossing her arms from her chest and pressing her hands into the front pockets of her faded jeans. “Depending on how you want to look at it.”
No one said a word, and he didn’t know how he knew, but it was because he understood, as they all did, she’d heard everything they’d said.
She took a step toward them, stopped and spoke on.
“John Lennon went to an art show and there, he saw Ceiling Painting. He was in a bad way, significantly depressed. He climbed the ladder at that show, looked through the magnifying glass, and read the word on the ceiling. It said ‘Yes.’ If it hadn’t said yes, if it hadn’t said something positive, even John himself didn’t know what consequence that would have had on his life. He needed the positivity of that word. And he got it. So he climbed off the ladder and asked to meet the artist. That artist was Yoko Ono.”
Holy hell.
Tom didn’t know that.
Mika wasn’t done.
“There’s a lot of controversy around Yoko, mostly, obviously, based in sexism and racism, of course.”
Tom pressed his lips together, because she was right, but Andrew grunting didn’t come as a surprise, and Tom was torn between thinking her honesty in the face of Andrew’s assholery was hilarious or wishing like fuck he was nowhere near the man when this situation came about.