Losing to Win

Here’s one thing I’ve learned on this show: The problem with reality television is that very often, reality is completely staged. Take tonight, for instance. At no point in time in my reality would I have invited Jordan or XJ out for drinks. Nothing against either of them, but we weren’t that tight. I’d barely known XJ when he lived in Belle Haven all those years ago and I wouldn’t have known Jordan at all were it not for this television show. Add in the fact that Jordan made no secret of the fact that he was just waiting in the wings for me to mess up with Carissa so he could step in? Yeah, not my first choice of drinking compadres.

The producers of Losing to Win thought it would be “fun” for us to do a Boys’ Night Out and a Girls’ Night In, so instead of spending the evening dazzling Carissa with what a sparkling and enlightened man I was, I was sitting on the back deck of the Idlewild nursing a beer. I didn’t really want a beer and I didn’t really want to hang out with the guys, but “reality” waits for no one, so here I was. I hadn’t seen any cameras, but I assumed that some footage of this evening would turn up somewhere. With these folks, it always did.

Meshach, Burke, Mac, Lee, and Corey had come out so it wouldn’t be obvious that I was out on what was basically a grown man playdate with guys I didn’t really know. We’d been here since around eight o’clock shooting the breeze about a number of topics. Having exhausted sports, weather, and what was new in the reality weight-loss world, the conversation took a turn to the personal.

“So XJ, what’s your story?” Corey asked. “How did your wife feel about you spending the summer doing a weight-loss show in Belle Haven, Louisiana?”

XJ barked out a laugh. “Truthfully, I think she was happy to get rid of me for the summer, pleased about the extra money coming in, and willing to do anything to get a few pounds off my ass. As far as she was concerned, this was all win, bruh.”

“Has she been out to visit?” Mac asked.

“She came out over the Fourth of July and said she’d see me in September,” XJ offered as an explanation. “What about you fellas? How is it I’m the only one with a ball and chain at this table? Well, not you, Mal; we know your story.”

I snorted. “I doubt it, but yeah, I’ll let you guys answer that one.”

Corey said, “I’m married. Wifey gave me a get-out-of-jail pass for a few weeks so I could come play with Mal, but I’m headed home after the weekend. Lee?”

“Oh, I’m single,” Lee supplied.

“Not that single,” Burke piped up. “I’ve been seeing you hanging around the lovely Ms. Sugar.”

Lee grinned. “She is something, isn’t she?”

Mac slid him a look. “That she is, but she’s also a hometown girl, so if you were planning on hitting and quitting, you may want to slide out on that same plane with Corey.”

Lee put his hands up. “Hey, I’m not that guy. Understood. I’m supposed to be playing a preseason game tomorrow in Denver. I’ve asked Sugar to come along. And then we’ll see where she wants to go from there. I’m willing to see where it goes if she’s interested.”

I had to tease. “Well, is it something in the water in Belle Haven? Meshach is all up in his feelings over Niecy, you and Sugar getting sweet . . . Anything you want to share with the group, Mac?”

Mac raised his brows, looking both surprised and ambushed. “Not unless you know something I don’t?”

Burke elbowed his brother in the ribs. “Seriously, bro? How long are you and Taylor going to do this dance?”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about, so you can move on to the next and ask Jordan about his love life,” Mac snapped and picked up his beer for a long draw.

“Jordan doesn’t have a love life...yet,” Jordan said with a glance my direction.

I really was going to let it go. But then I just couldn’t. “Well, I wouldn’t expect that to change anytime soon if you’re looking where I think you’re looking,” I shot out.

“Oh, I’m planning on doing more than looking,” he said with a smirk.

I slapped my beer bottle down in the wooden tabletop and made to get up. Meshach grabbed my arm and held me in place. “Not this close to the tryout. Not worth it. You’ve got too much to lose. Especially not when she’ll be in your bed tonight. All you gotta do is keep her there.”

Shach had a point. All Jordan could do was talk about it and dream about it. Carissa would be calling out my name before the sun came up. Of that I was sure.

“Keeping her? Good luck with that,” Jordan added. This guy was begging to catch a Belle Haven butt-kicking.

“Bruh,” Mac snapped at Jordan. “Mal may be the only one who’s not allowed to kick your ass, but he’s not the only one who can, hear? Carissa and I go way back and I don’t like hearing her talked about like a damn piece of ass.”

“I don’t think of her that way,” Jordan said. “She’s not a trophy, no matter how others have treated her. She’s the best person I’ve ever met.”

My jaw clenched with the fervent unquenched desire to punch Jordan Little squarely in his pretty-boy face. Part of me knew he was speaking his truth; the other part of me knew that he was baiting me to see how far he could push. There may have been a time where I thought of Carissa as an attractive trophy, but all of that changed in the years without her. I definitely didn’t need him telling me Carissa’s worth. So with a self-satisfied smirk of my own I raised my bottle. “There’s none better, son. None. You can believe that.” I sat back with the satisfaction of knowing that I had first-hand knowledge of just how awesome Carissa Melody Wayne was in a thousand different ways that Jordan never would. Not while I had any say in the matter.

Meshach sent me an amused glance before turning back to Mac. “Really, Mac, you’re going to act like you and Taylor aren’t doing the dance of denial around each other? And before you say you don’t know what I’m talking about, let me speak plain. You want to bone her and she wants you to . . . repeatedly. What’s the holdup already?”

Mac motioned for a refill. “Taylor and I know each other too well. Well enough to know that once we scratched the itch, it would never work.”

“You lost me,” XJ said. “If she’s your best friend and you have hot sex, don’t you get to have hot sex with your best friend?”

Burke put his hands up and clapped them together in a “that’s what I’ve been saying” gesture. “Speak it plain!”

Mac shrugged. “Just wouldn’t work.”

“You know what that sounds like? Sounds like the words of a chicken to me,” Corey said.

“Does sound borderline poultrylike,” Burke agreed, making a clucking sound under his breath.

Mac took a quick sip of his drink. “This is a small town. We have a fairly tight circle of friends and acquaintances. If we do this and it doesn’t work out, the fallout would be epic.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Lee interjected. “Are you sitting there telling us that you’re not huddling up with that fine sister because shit may go wrong down the road and that would be awkward? More awkward than watching the two of you pretending that you don’t want to jump each other every time you come within staring distance? I ain’t even been in town that long and I see this shit. Dude, rediscover some balls.”

I cracked up. “And this is why we keep Lee around. Straight, no chaser; damn the niceties; serves it up cold.”

“How did we get on me anyway?” Mac complained. “What about Meshach sneaking all over town to do unspeakable things to the lovely Niecy?”

A slow smile spread across Meshach’s face. “Who says the acts are unspeakable? They’re pretty damn shout-worthy if I do say so myself. Though I don’t, because I’m a Southern gentleman. We don’t kiss and tell.”

Jordan spoke up. “Please don’t; that’s my roommate. She’s like a sister to me.”

“Well, your play sister and I are speaking all sorts of truth to power. We are enjoying the hell out of each other. There’s something there. Not sure what yet. Time will tell,” Meshach admitted.

“You’ve definitely spent more time in Belle Haven this summer than you have in a while and I don’t even pretend it has that much to do with me,” I noted.

“You’re finding the scenery in Belle Haven to your liking as well,” Burke said.

“Oh, I’ve always liked that particular scenery,” I drawled.

“You have stayed away and the scenery has always been this lovely,” Mac said, sending me a look.

“I guess I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t know what he misses until it’s gone.”

“Sounds risky. What if things aren’t the same when you come back around?” Jordy asked.

“It was a risk I was willing to take before. But not now. I’m not that guy. When I see what I want, I grab it and hold on.”

The mood turned tense while everyone waited to see what move Jordan and I would take next. He sat back and I turned back to Burke. “But what about you, Burke Bisset? Surely there’s some lovely diversions lined up outside your door lately?”

Burke just gave a secretive grin. “If you all weren’t so wrapped up in your own melodramas, you would know I’ve been seeing somebody this summer as well.”

My eyes narrowed in thought. I thought about the times I’d seen Burke over the course of the past few months and whom he had interacted with. Suddenly my eyes popped open. “You’re dating Darcy? The perky-ass personal trainer from hell?”

“I refer to her as my current boo thang, but you guess correctly, sir.”

Mac’s mouth dropped open. “How did that get past me?”

“Again, your eyes are focused in one direction only,” Burke teased.

“Lord, what are Mama and Daddy gonna say when they find out you’re dating a white girl.” Mac guffawed. The Bissets put both the old and the school in “old school” and thought only women with Bayou roots tracing back a few generations were suitable for their sons.

“They’ll remember I’m over thirty, it’s past the year 2010, and it’s none of their damn business. But more to the point, it’s not serious. We’re just having some laughs before she heads back to LA.” Burke shrugged.

Corey rolled his eyes. “Yep, that’s how it starts.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” XJ said.

This conversation could take a turn to get all of us in trouble. I put my hands up. “Okay, enough. I’m going to pull out aprons and knitting needles in a second. Who saw the preseason game between Houston and Indianapolis?” With that, the conversation turned back to sports. I glanced at my watch. In about two hours, I was bailing and going to crash Girls’ Night. Damn the producers. Life was too short to waste time. Sure, there was a time when I would’ve appreciated hanging out with the guys. Right now, my focus wasn’t there. Maybe this is how I knew I was finally grown, when I’d rather stay home with my woman and watch TV than sit in a trendy bar with the fellas. And you know what? I was okay with it.