Three Years Later

One downside to being a ball of sunshine? For me, it went hand in hand with being a people pleaser.

People Pleasing 101: smile.

And I was doing what every textbook people pleaser would do in my situation—smiling like an idiot and drinking whiskey to numb my pain.

As long as you're smiling, people think you're happy. And my smiles had always been genuine—like rainbow sprinkles—but sometimes people break you.

No one noticed though because I was still smiling, dammit. Even though I was watching my ex-boyfriend flirt with my friend. Even though I was watching her flirt back. Even though they were dating.

Why was it so easy for either one of them to do that to me?

My throat tightened as I watched them from the kitchen on the gray oversized couch. They came in and out of view as the party moved around them. Her long legs were across his lap, and he slipped his hand around her thigh while she threw her head back and laughed—but I was still smiling.

So it had been a while since we dated, and I didn't want him anymore. So I told her it was all right if she liked him.

I really did tell her that so many times.

I had no clue why she would want him anyway.

And you can't blame me. That's what people pleasers do. We make life for everyone around us better. No matter how we feel inside. We want people to be happy, despite our own feelings. We sacrifice our own selves to see other people smile for real.

He was supposed to have been different. But of course, he wasn't. They never are.

And it still sucked. Why did it still suck?

I leaned onto the island, my elbows on the cold granite, and looked into my half-full (or maybe half-empty) drink.

Why did I even come to this back-to-school football party? I knew he'd be there. But my life was surrounded by student athletes, even though I wasn't one. I'd worked as the student photographer for the athletic department since my second semester of freshman year. Every single one of my friends and exes played a sport for Southern Florida.

"You're an idiot," Millie said next to me, confirming my exact thoughts.

"You can't just say whatever you want because you're edgy," I coughed out as the bourbon burned my throat. I eyed her beautiful auburn hair with a small section of the left side shaved and her long waves cascading down her right shoulder. One of those things that I had always thought only worked on celebrities, but I was wrong. It worked on Millie. "That's not how it works. Besides, your name is Millicent. Not very edgy."

"That doesn't change the fact that you're an idiot, Devin. As your only best friend now, I have a right to tell you that. How could you tell her over and over you were okay with it when you're not? And don't call me that."

I kept drinking while Millie put her elbow next to mine, rested her head against her hand, and stared at Matt and Alice.

"I mean, look at them," she continued, stirring her mystery punch and ignoring me. Then Millie barked at me when I started to turn. "No! Don't actually look at them."

I rolled my eyes at her and finished my drink. I turned back to the cabinet I'd found the hidden whiskey in and pulled it out. The top made a nice pop sound when it released the suction. I filled my red cup halfway—then a teeny bit more.

"It's gross though," Millie said, unable to keep her mouth shut for more than five seconds or the disdain dripping from it. "Volleyball players. She's only interested in him because he's the starting quarterback now."

I chuckled and ran my finger around the white edge of my empty cup. Alice was the star libero for the volleyball team—all five foot six of her. Millie was a D1 soccer star who transferred to Southern Florida the year before. She and Alice were always holding each other in fake contempt for their respective sport, even though we were all best friends. We made the perfect threesome. Millie, with her deep reddish brown hair and freckles, was the cool one. Alice, with her dark brown hair and tan skin, was the mysterious one. I, with my blonde hair and big smile, was the bubbly one.

"How am I supposed to live with her all year?" I grumbled.

"Easy," Millie mused. "Find someone new. Someone better. Speaking of..." Millie squeezed my forearm. "This guy has been staring at you. Like intensely." She looked past my shoulder and smiled. "He's totally checking you out. Wow, he's hot."

I turned my head toward her slowly and whispered, "How intensely?"

"Is there a scale?"

"'Can't look away from a car wreck' to 'I'm about to beat you in Mario Kart' to 'looking at a solar eclipse' maybe."

"Solar eclipse, definitely," she whispered before straightening.

Solar eclipse could only mean one person. I knew he was back. I just didn't know he was there at the present moment.

Why could I not feel him? Sense his presence?

A smile started to inch up at the corners of Millie's lips.

"Millie, is he com—"

"Devin," his voice said behind me.

Yep, it could only be one person. I hadn't heard his voice in a whole year, but it hadn't changed. Not in the slightest.

Millie looked ecstatic at the fact that he already knew me. She looked between us asking me with her eyes if I was going to introduce them.

"Tate!" I said a little too enthusiastically, turning my waist to look up at him. My lungs forgot to take in a breath when our eyes connected. My eyes circled his face, tracing his hard jawline, across his lips that weren't technically smiling, but I knew he was happy, and back up to his mismatched eyes.

He glanced down to my empty glass and back at me quickly. Had he gotten judgy in the last year? It wasn't his business why I was drinking whiskey—heavily. His palm rested against my lower back as he touched his cheek to mine in a hello.

I breathed in his distant familiarity. I wanted to wrap my arms around him, but I stopped myself. I hadn't prepared myself for this moment.

"It's been a long time," he said, pulling back. "It's good to see you." His hand slid almost to my waist before he removed it and extended it toward Millie. "Tate Thacker."

"I'm sorry," I said robotically and waved my hand between them. "Millie, Tate. Tate, Millie."

"It's so nice to meet you, Tate. I've heard a lot about you. I'm Millie Anderson." Millie beamed as she took his hand lightly, but I watched her face twitch for a second when he squeezed back. I could only imagine his handshake was almost as intense as his gaze.

"Only bad things, I guess," he replied, and they both looked at me.

I laughed. Tate wasn't being serious, but it was extremely hard to tell. "Your sarcasm is lost on other people."

Millie recovered from whatever she was thinking. "No, from my ex-boyfriend, Taylor. He used to play with you—or he still does."

"Oh. Right." Tate dipped his head in a man-nod. "Great guy."

"He's not so bad," Millie smiled. "I should go find him." She pushed up her boobs and bent over a little for me. "How do my boobs look?"

I eyed her cleavage in her tight black dress. "Gorgeous," I replied, even though I knew Taylor was out of town.

She turned her lying ass away from us and disappeared into the crowd.

Tate leaned his elbows on the granite, bringing himself down to my level. "Why do you look sad, Devin?"

Classic Tate. Somehow able to read me better than anyone else.

"Am I still that transparent to you?" I snorted.

He pointed a finger at my glass with the faintest smile playing around on his lips. "You're drinking whiskey. You only drink whiskey when you're sad."

I nudged him with my body, but he didn't budge.

"That's not even your real smile. We're at a party, and you're sulking. Not the Devin I know."

Did he still know me? Did he still even get that privilege? Is this how it was going to be—right back to our friendship? He hadn't seen my real smile in over a year, and I didn't even know why. But like no time had passed at all, I said, "My ex-boyfriend and my best friend are dating. In front of me."

Tate raised his eyebrows. "Like physically right in front of you, right now?"

I nodded my head slowly and crossed my eyes at him. "Good enough reason for me to be drinking whiskey?"

"Acceptable," he said. His face flickered with a feeling I couldn't read. Maybe I'd lost my touch at reading him completely. "Which one is he?"

I tipped my head toward Matt and Alice, who were in their own little world.

Tate slid his eyes to them and back to me with surprise. "Matthew Elliot? Could you be any more cliché? Isn't he the starting quarterback?"

"He wasn't when I dated him. But Hayes tore his ACL so now he is." I shrugged. "He was supposed to be different."

Tate cast his eyes downward and played with an empty red cup sitting on the counter but stayed silent. He crunched it between his fingers and popped it back into place.

"And you weren't here to talk sense into me," I added, placing my chin on his shoulder.

"You insisted she should go for it, didn't you?" he asked me rhetorically. He already knew the answer. "How have you survived without me?"

"I don't know. I've missed you."

I meant it. I did. I just didn't mean to say it out loud.

He buried his mouth in my hair near my temple. "I missed you too."

That made me happy because I needed a friend, and I was down one at the present moment.

Maybe Tate was going to be my cure—like he was the antidote to myself.

For the first two years that was how it had always been between Tate and me: stoic and emotional, muted and colorful, lettuce and carbs. He told me when I was being too much of a people pleaser. I told him when he needed to live a little.

And we had to tell each other often.

One thing I'd always appreciated about our friendship was that neither of us ever acknowledged each other's golf world. We talked about golf, obviously, but not specifically about how he and my dad were two of the best players in the world. He'd even met my dad once when he came to visit me the summer after freshman year, and he still understood that I didn't want to talk about it.

But then during the summer between sophomore and junior year, something happened. Slowly our daily calls and texts became weekly calls and texts, which then became only texts, which then became an I'm not coming back to school next week text.

The last time I'd reached out was with a simple text after that: Are you okay?

I had stared at the text for ten minutes, wondering if I should send it. I didn't know if he wanted to hear from me. I wasn't sure if he even wanted me to care about him anymore. When I finally pressed send, I stared at the 'delivered' for another ten minutes.

I got the three dots. They disappeared.

I got them again a minute later. They disappeared again.

Ten minutes turned into a day turned into a month turned into a year. He never responded.

I could never point to anything specific that happened between us. It was gradual; slight. Like a day was added in between every new communication. Eventually, it felt like it had been too long. Too many days had passed for either of us to say anything, especially me.
Before I knew it, it had been a year since we'd spoken. A year since he'd played golf. A year since we'd seen each other. We knew nothing about each other's lives anymore.

I'd heard that summer that he was coming back—much to everyone's surprise. The rumor was that he hadn't touched a golf club in his hiatus, but no one knew why. That wasn't going to be a problem for Tate though. He had the personality you find in the most successful pro athletes: focused intensity. He obsessed. He practiced diligently. He ate right. He followed a strict regimen. He never stepped a toe out of line (well you know, mostly) because he cared about one thing: winning.

Don't they all.

I knew I'd see him eventually, but I hadn't expected it to go like that.

He left to get an organic beer, which I didn't even know existed, when Millie returned from wherever she went.

"Why didn't you ever tell me you knew Tate Thacker?" Millie questioned me, pulling me out of my thoughts and making me tear my eyes away from Tate's back as he pushed open the back door. She smiled mischievously at me. "I thought you didn't date golfers? You little liar."

"We never dated," I said.

"You could've fooled me. You were hanging on him. What's the story then?"

"We were friends."

She scoffed.

"Best friends," I sighed. "But we're not anymore. We haven't been in a long time."

Millie smirked at me. "Oh, come on. What was that?"

"I don't know. The whiskey? Really. That's it."

"Tate Thacker!" she repeated like she knew everything about him. "How do you two know each other?"

"We met at the driving range when I first started here."

"I always forget you're so good at golf," Millie laughed. "Maybe if I wasn't hopeless with a golf club Taylor and I would still be dating."

"You two see each other enough post breakup," I deadpanned. I ran into him in our kitchen enough mornings.

"So, why did golf's wonderkid quit then? And why is he back?"

"No idea. Like I said, we haven't been friends in a long time. We haven't talked in over a year."

"Who knew he was so sexy? I've never seen a picture of him," Millie said.

"Keep your raging hormones in your pants."

"His eyes though! You don't know which one to look at. The brown or the blue? Actually, the blue. For sure. It's so... striking but serious." She shuddered jokingly.

"He is serious," I told her. And while that was very true, I also knew there was definitely a hidden sliver of a fun and goofy Tate. I had gotten that Tate to make an appearance every once in a while, and those had always been my favorite moments with him. "Anyway, those days are long over," I said before I realized I was replying to my own thoughts.

Millie looked at me puzzled. "What days?"

"Let's dance!" I smiled brightly. I didn't want to sit there and think about what had been with Tate any longer.

I hadn't been prepared for how hard it would hit—just how much I had missed him.