The Rivals - Dylan Allen Page 0,210

do the job. I’ll miss the view but I’ve got my pride, Remington. And I won’t miss the constant reminders that you were settling for me.”

She looks me up and down and shakes her head. “What a waste.” She says before she walks out of our hotel room and out of my life.

As I board my flight back to Washington, I feel like I’m living in a whole new world. The hope-fueled torch I’ve carried for Kal has been snuffed out.

We’re not getting our happy ending.

I fucked-up.

She’s moved on.

Somewhere between those two facts is our full story.

A story held together by a mortar made up of my mother’s manipulations and her mother’s fuckups, my idiocy and the unpredictable twists of fate.

Look at what love does to people. Look what it did to me. I don’t care what Joni thinks, it’s the last thing I want to fuck with again.

I’m in the middle of a crucial, final year in law school. I’m competing for a federal clerkship that would put me on the path to US Attorney or Assistant Attorney General.

I’ve busted my ass in law school and not only am I number one in my class, but I’ve already established myself as one hell of a litigator in training during our moot court hearings.

People thought basketball was my gift.

I used to think so, too.

But, how good I am on the basketball court is a mere trifle compared to how good I am in a courtroom.

Advocacy is my gift and deciding to follow my convictions and go to law school was the best thing I ever did.

And now, it’s the only thing I’ve got. I feel sick as I think about Kal being with someone else. It’s not the future I imagined. But, I’ll make it be enough.

Part III

Again

Present Day

Chapter 22

CONCRETE JUNGLE

KAL

New York City

Eight years later.

* * *

“Dammit, ouch!” I reach out to grab the yelping, stumbling woman I just plowed head first into, while I grab my throbbing forehead. “Oh my God, are you okay? I’m so sorry, I snagged my hose on something and I was looking—”

“Look where you’re going,” she yells, the red of her wool knit cap seemed like the perfect accessory for her ruddy face, which is pinched in pain. She pulls out of my grasp and stalks away, with an angry glare over her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” I say to her retreating back and then step out of the flow of pedestrian traffic on East Twenty-Eighth Street and duck into the drugstore.

I dig in my coat pocket for the pack of tissues that’s taken up permanent residence there this winter. My nose has been running pretty much nonstop for two months and I haven’t been able to find the time to go see a doctor about it.

“Welcome to Duane Reed,” a young girl behind the counter calls without looking up from her phone.

“Where are your pantyhose?” I ask.

“They’re in the same aisle as the travel-sized stuff.” She points in the general direction of the back of the store.

Without looking up from her phone.

I want to tell her that when I was her age, I would have killed to have a job at a nice drugstore in Manhattan.

But today, my own life is such a mess that I can’t scold anyone.

For anything.

My phone rings as I stalk down the aisles looking at the hanging signs above them for a clue about where pantyhose might be. I yank it out of my purse and feel a jolt of panic when I see my lawyer’s name flashing on the screen.

“Hey, Fallon. I’m sorry I haven’t paid your invoice—”

“Yeah, me too. Too bad sorry doesn’t pay my kid’s tuition.”

Mine’s either.

“If you don’t pay me by the end of the month, at least half what you owe me, I’ll have to turn your account over to a debt collector. I can’t have this sitting on my books.”

I knew this was coming. She’s one of the Peters I robbed to pay Paul last month.

“Okay. I understand. I’ll get paid by then, I’ll just shuffle some other stuff—”

“I like you, Kal. I do. But we all have bills.”

“I know, I appreciate you letting me pay monthly in the first place.”

“I want to help you, kid. But that ex of yours is a special kind of asshole. It was time-consuming to answer all of his fucking motions. Next time you get married, get to know him a little better before you sign your life away.”

“Oh, Fallon. I can’t even imagine a next time.” I