Chapter Eleven: "He Remembered."

I CAME 8th.

It was a goal I had set for myself—a realistic one—and I obtained it.

Yet it wasn't truly enough for me to suppress the small irritation that crept in my mind but I held it all in when the team had gone for celebratory pizza after the award ceremony before the bus ride home.

There was an array of green t-shirts around the table. Liya had managed to snag 6th. Nikko had placed 7th in his pool, the highest in the team of the men's rankings. He was currently engaged in a conversation with another one of our teammates, Alan, nodding to what he was saying as he ate pepperoni pizza. I was currently sending a picture of the shirt to the group chat to which I received stellar compliments.

Jaime: THAT'S MY STAR.

Yasmeen: OUR WINNER!

I wish. 

Mariam: omg, I love that colour on you.

"What's going on with him?" Alan asked on the other side of Nikko, tilting his chin in Rhett's direction. Rhett's eyebrows were furrowed as he typed at his screen while tearing into a pizza. His poor phone screen. 

"Dating issues," Nikko said.

"I am not having dating issues," Rhett grunted. "I'd have to be dating to have the issues that come with it."

"Fine, you're having friends with benefits issues," Nikko said he got up. 

"I am not having friends with benefits issues," Rhett repeated again. "I'd have to be friends with—"

"Okay, we get it," Alan rolled his eyes as Nikko excused himself to the bathroom. Rhett went back to his phone and scowled deeply. Whatever message he had received was clearly not one that made him happy. "Forget I asked." 

Polly, another player who had secured top 32 in our section perked up at the mention of Rhett's sex life. "Who is it?"

"It's nunya." Rhett said with a grin.

"What year is she in?"

"Year nothing because it's nunya business."

Polly rolled her eyes at his maturity. Even I couldn't help but make a face at the lame joke. Rhett, once he realized the disgruntled expression I was making, frowned. Oh God. I knew that face that he was making. I wore it well. I had just become a target of the day for Rhett's consistent brooding behavior.  

He narrowed his eyes at me. "Larine, you've known Nikko for a while, haven't you?"

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

"Sort of."

He straightened his back, ready to bother me. "What does 'sort of' mean?"

"It means sort of," I said to him, unbothered by his big body and sneering smile.

Rhett didn't look like he was going to leave me alone. He even put his pizza slice back on its plate as curiosity swam in his mud-like eyes. "What happened?"

"Nunya." I said and his face pinched at me for stealing his terrible joke.

Those eyes narrowed into slits. "I think I have an idea of what happened."

I don't care. "When you finish thinking, which we know could take a long time, come and find me then, alright?" I deadpanned, biting into my veggie pizza that suddenly tasted like cardboard. On the other side of me, Liya held in a laugh while Rhett seemed to find the glare button in his brain, repeatedly clicking intensify.

When Nikko arrived, sitting back in his seat, the storm brewing on Rhett's face hadn't faded. I was convinced that whoever Rhett had been texting just got on his last nerve and he decided to take it out on his latest victim: me. I did the same thing whenever I was riled up with no release in sight.

"You and Larine are friends, right, Nikko?" Rhett looked at up me and Nikko, his index finger feeling more and more like a laser beam with each passing second. "No?"

Nikko nodded, his eyebrows furrowed as he glanced at me in question.

"When did you meet?" Rhett asked.

September 7th. Three years ago.

"Back in first year," Nikko answered before he took a sip of his coke. "I told her to sign up for the squash intramurals and join my team."

And that was that.

No, it wasn't. I remembered that day clearly. But it was obvious if he remembered that, he probably remembered one other thing. My face was probably already red thinking about it but if he had the slightest idea of what I was thinking about he didn't let it show.

Nikko paused before he tilted his face up from across the table, looking at me. "Do you remember the first time we met?"

Of course, I did.

At Rec Center. First year me was looking at pamphlets of intramural squash after one of my mentors had told me about it. I had been holding one of the pamphlets while staring at the information board to see the schedules for the squash games.

Nikko was there. He had given me a smile and asked me if I had a team to join. When I said no, he suggested I come and join the team he was making. 

I said yes too easily.

He was friendly. He was kind. And I knew from the second he greeted me that there was something about him I'd mull over later that day. That week. That month. For years. 

In the beginning, Herringway was a university where I didn't know a single person apart from my roommate in first year and we weren't close. But Nikko had given me hope as he encouraged me to meet some of his floormates that had been nearby.

How ironic that even though Nikko was the first person I set my eyes on, it was Benny in that circle who, once spotting me, made it his mission to hold my attention the entire time.

Allowing him was my first mistake.

Maybe if I didn't say yes when he asked me out during a party everyone ended up at later that night, then we wouldn't have happened. Maybe if Nikko and I went up to each other after the small conversation that made me want to speak to him more, after the glances and fleeting smiles, things would have been different.

"And what?" Rhett's eyes darted between us. "You guys never talked after Nikko joined this team or something?"

At this point, my face was flushed red. Nikko spoke up, "Um, no we spoke a few times after."

He could've said once. From that moment in January that followed after the breakup.

Instead, he said 'a few'.

I bite back a curse.

He remembered.

He remembered one of the cringest things I had ever done that involved him the following summer of that year. It had been the last time I had ever spoken to him before I went to the info session for the squash team.

Fuck.

I was flushed red in the face at this point. Rhett seemed to like the sight of that because he maliciously grinned before he took it one step further, "And nothing?"

Nikko's eyebrows furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"I mean nothing happened? You guys didn't hook up?" Rhett scoffed. "It would make sense since you guys seem weird around each other sometimes as if something happened."

Something did happen. But lord knows it wasn't any of Rhett's fucking business.

Rhett glanced at me, "Look, Larine's face is like a tomato. You can't tell me nothing happened."

Next to Rhett, Alan's pizza stayed midair. Liya's eyebrows rose. Even Polly down the table along with a few members turned and stared, glancing at me and Nikko. All of them waited for an answer.

And Rhett. Rhett, the man I had begun to tolerate, a man whose dark cloud I had begun to be okay with grinned. It really took less than two minutes to prove he could be an asshole.

My deep embarrassment suddenly turned to rage as I glared at him, "No."

The reaction I gave him was the one he wanted because amusement coated his stupid face. "No?"

"Are you selectively hard of hearing?" I rhetorically asked him. "No. Nikko and I are friends. If you're so nosy about other people's sex lives you should probably fix your own before you try to stick yourself into others."

You fucking asshole, I wanted to add but instead of saying it, I pushed myself away from the table. Not bothering to look at him or anyone else from my mini outburst and walking through the pizza parlor and out of the door.

Into the windy and chilly night, I yanked my phone out of my pocket. It was only 8:30. The bus was going to be here by 9 but I had a feeling that if I ran, pushed my feet ahead into the middle of the night where I didn't know a single soul, a single street, let alone the area, there was a big chance I'd end up being scared. That resulted in me being angry that I had gotten myself in a situation where I could be scared in the first place. 

Without thinking, I dialed a number I knew would pick up no matter the circumstance. 

"What's wrong?" Paula asked.

"I'm mad." I huffed, unable to take long deep breaths, my inhales and exhales sharper than necessary. 

"What happened?"

"One of my teammates. He's a dick."

"What's new?"

That was not the response I had wanted. "Paula, you're supposed to be on my side."

"Well, what did he say?"

Stupid Rhett with his stupid face. And stupid words. And stupid everything. "He was trying to goad me. I don't like that it was working."

"What did he bring up?"

"He brought up the idea that something happened between me and Nikko and then he made it seem like," I shrugged helplessly even though she couldn't see me. "Like he sort of knew?"

Paula paused before asking, "Knew what?"

"That summer, remember? When I had gone with Jaime to that country festival and we got really wasted and phone calls were made—"

"Oh," Paula groaned. "The one where you called me? Where you told me about him because you called him first and said a few things?" 

This time I let out a pained groan, leaning against the brick wall of the building while attempting to rub my arms to create warmth, "Has it ever been brought up?" Paula inquired. 

"It's never been brought up," At this point, I was considering turning around and banging my head against the wall a couple dozen times. "And he remembers."

"Of course, he remembers. He wasn't the one that downed a bottle of wine and then some," Paula deadpanned. "I'm only surprised you remember considering how hungover you were. It lasted a week."

I grimaced. Jaime and I had collapsed in her bed when we had gotten back to Port Yonge and didn't leave her bedroom for three days as we went in and out of sleep.

"So are you angry at Rhett for what he insinuated or are you angry at knowing Nikko remembers?" She asked. 

Behind clenched teeth, I said, "Both." 

"Real answer." She demanded. 

"The latter." I admitted. 

"Well, he hasn't said anything, so he probably doesn't hold it over to you. Besides, from what I remember, it wasn't a big deal."

"It was to me!"

"It was so long ago, Riri!" She stressed. "What were you? 20? You're 22 in a few months. Was that phone call part of the reason that you didn't play squash in the first place?" 

It may not have been the main reason but it was definitely a fraction of it.

Before I could respond, the door to the pizza parlor opened. 

"Hey," Nikko held a plate with pizza in his hands. My plate. "You forgot this."

I sighed, putting my phone in my pocket and taking it from him. "Thanks."

Nikko pushed his hair out of his concerned face. The only thing that let up the street was the sign of the pizza parlor and the lamps along the road. The light created shadows on his handsome face and the hairs that fell on his forehead added a darkness of their own. "Rhett's a dick."

"Yeah," I huffed. "I know."

"A major dick." Nikko sighed. "He's..."

"He's hurting, isn't he?" The signs were there. I could say that I couldn't believe a text message was enough for him to be a jerk but I got it. 

I hated it, but I understood.

Nikko nodded. "He'll get over it." 

Yeah, he will. But will he own up to whatever he had done in the process of getting over whatever happened? 

Nikko glanced behind my shoulder, at the darkness in the distance, "Were you going to run?"

"I wasn't..."

I trailed off at the sight of his raised eyebrows. "I considered it," I corrected myself. "But it's too dark."

"You sure, you don't want to?" He asked. "I know Sundays are usually our days and we didn't get to run today."

He was right. I looked forward to our runs every Sunday but if we ran right now, knowing me, it there wasn't a good chance we'd make it to our bus in time. I shrugged instead. "We'll make it up somehow."

"Sunday and Tuesday runs?" he suggested.

"After Mondays and Wednesdays at the gym with you? On top of practice?" I'd take it. I'd take it gladly. Yet instead I pushed down any sign of excitement, forcing dryness into my voice. "Nikko."

He let out a breathy laugh before his smile dimmed, "You know, the first day we met, I knew we were going to get along."

Oh. The first day we met. How much did we change over the course of the years? Since we were teenagers? "You did?"

"Yeah," The smile graced his face yet again making my own lips rise. "I remember you asked me if we got uniforms."

His memory was too good because that sounded exactly like something I would ask. "I did?"

He nodded. "You asked if the intramural teams got uniforms. Then I told you we get shirts if we win and you said 'oh, we have to fucking win now. I want a free shirt'." He laughed, shoulders shaking, eyes warm. "You said that and it was the way you said it like nothing was going to stop you from winning it. Nothing was going to stop you from getting it—"

"And I did," I said, unable to hide my complacency. "Every single semester." 

"Every single semester." He repeated as he slowly shook his head. When we had racked up points at the end that amounted to the win of each intramural season. When in the height of excitement, Nikko would launch towards me to grasp me in a hug and lift me up. Then he added: "You're something special, L."

His words cut deep. They opened the wound Rhett's stupid voice had managed to penetrate and changed whatever pathology had been brewing. Because why was I exchanging a grin with him? Why did everything seem to be so much better now that he was standing right in front of me?

God, I liked him.

I think I liked him more than I knew I did years ago.

And the thought of that, of knowing that even on top of what happened those summers ago were partial factors as to why I hadn't tried out before.

Summer. Oh God.

"Um," I cleared my throat. "About what Rhett said. I'm sorry about that phone call from—"

He put his hands out, "Larine, you don't have to apologize."

"I was really drunk," I said. "Like out of my mind, four-day hangover drunk. We hadn't spoken since January of that year and I just," I shook my head. "Then fast forward a year and a half later, we talk for the first time in a very long time and—"

The door to the pizza parlor opened again. An annoying figure of a man lumbered out and down the steps in our direction. Rhett's expression was tight, almost as if he was uncomfortable.

He glanced at Nikko who seemed impressed. He stared at Nikko harder, making it evident that he wanted to speak to me alone. Nikko gently took the pizza from my hand, "I'll be inside. Larine if you need help, scream and I'll run."

"Fuck off." Rhett grumbled. 

"Love you too, Rhett." Nikko grinned, giving me a comforting squeeze on the arm. His touch send a jolt down my body that I didn't even have time to process as he made his way back inside. 

When I turned back to Rhett, he still had that uncomfortable face on.  "I didn't mean to make you storm out like that." It sounded as if it took everything in him to say that. 

"Usually people don't do things to make others storm out like that," I stated and he fell quiet.  

He was looking everywhere but at me and it made me raise my eyebrows. The silence itself seemed to go on forever to the point where I realized that this was as close to an apology that I was going to get from him.

I rolled my eyes, "What was it? Your non-friends-with-benefits situation pissed you off?"

"Something like that." Rhett's face pinched tight. "I didn't mean to take it out on you."

I crossed my arms. "Yes, you did." Rhett pursed his lips. There was no getting to this man. Forget it. "Anyways, you're fine. I'm over it. Just don't do that again."

Rhett nodded once glancing behind his shoulder before stepping up to me, "I meant it though, there's something weird between you two sometimes."

Yeah, me and my awkwardness and Nikko and his lack of it.

"It's nothing."

Then there was a shift. A flicker of realization dawned upon Rhett's expression and for some reason, my heart picked up. And it wasn't in a good way.

"Oh. I think you really do like him," Rhett said as if he had an epiphany. "Nikko. And something happened between the two of you that caused a strain. Maybe not on his side because he seems to want to talk to you but on your side—"

I exhaled sharply, "Can we go back inside?"

"I'm right, aren't I?" Rhett's lips rose upward. "So, you did hook up."

"We did not hook up." I gritted out. 

I'd know if we hooked up. The memory would probably be playing in my head multiple times a day.

"Then what did you do? Clearly, Nikko doesn't care but..." Interest replaced any sign of tension on his body. "You do."

I kept my mouth shut. I didn't need to remember anything again. It's one of the reasons I avoided him in the first place.

"Now that I'm thinking about it more," Rhett even had the nerve to stroke his stupid chin. "It's really obvious."

This conversation needed to end. "I'll see you inside, Rhett."

"But—"

I glared at him once again. I had a feeling that I'd be shooting him dirty looks for the rest of the season. "I'll see you inside."

The smile that came on his lips didn't make me nervous. It irritated me but I wasn't annoyed that he knew. He smiled at me like we had a secret.

I guess we did.

When he walked back into the pizza parlor, I took my phone out of my pocket, holding it up to my ear. "Are you still there?"

"I am," Paula said. "You still like Nikko."

It wasn't a question. I sighed, "I still like Nikko."

"And the Rhett person knows."

I groaned out loud. If Rhett and his non-friends-with-benefits situation got into a fight again and the big doof was planning on taking it out on me by using my attraction towards Nikko against me, we were going to go into a full-out war. "Paula."

"Yes?"

"I hate my life."

"At least you can hate your life with that cool green shirt of yours."

Without thinking, I let out a laugh, everything Rhett said going out the window. Leave it to Paula to have that effect on me. 

And Nikko.