“You didn’t know,” I say, leaning forward. “How could you have done anything differently?”
He shakes his head. “I may not have known about the PEDs, but I think part of me suspected something was off. Little things that didn’t add up. The way Miles was recovering faster than he should have been, putting on muscle at a rate that didn’t quite make sense. And I wanted my dream so badly that I was willing to lie to myself, to not look any closer in case I found something I didn’t want to find.” He meets my eyes, and there’s no anger there, just a kind of tired acceptance that somehow makes it worse. “So no. It’s not all on you. We both played our parts.”
I don’t know what to say to that, to this man who I’ve spent half my life hating offering me absolution I’m not sure I deserve. The rain pounds against the windows and the soccer match drones on behind us, and I feel untethered.
“Do you want another round?” I ask, because it’s easier than saying anything else.
He smiles, and it’s softer than any expression he’s ever directed at me. “I’d like that very much.”
I wave down the bartender and he brings us two more glasses of the Enmascarado, and we settle back into our mismatched chairs while the storm continues to rage outside.
My mind won’t stop circling back over the last two decades, all that wasted time and energy. All those arguments and grudges and moments where we could have just talked like this, like two people instead of two enemies.
“I still just can’t believe this,” I say. “You know, all this past week I’ve been thinking about calling you to tell you what I found out, but I had no idea what to say or how to even begin. I kept picking up my phone and putting it back down.”
He nods slowly. “I was the same when I found out about Danny. I must have drafted a dozen texts to you that I never sent. I couldn’t figure out how to put it into words.”
I look at him across the table, at this man I thought I knew so well and didn’t know at all. “You really don’t... I don’t know, hate me? After everything?”
“No, I really don’t hate you.” He turns his glass in his hands, watching the mezcal catch the dim light. “Besides, I like my life. I have a successful business, I love having the gym, I’m part of the community in Dark River. And my fighter is about to compete for a title, assuming I can fucking get there in time.” He lets out a breath. “It all kind of worked out. Besides, on the subject of ruining careers, I had a hand in yours too. You probably wouldhave won the scholarship if I hadn’t gone after you. You could be an editor by now, a media titan.”
I let out a huff of laughter. “I don’t know about that. You were honestly really tough competition. You’re tough with everything. Even with us sabotaging each other constantly, I think I had to go further than I ever had before just to keep up with you.”
“God, I think I aged ten years trying to sabotage you,” he says, shaking his head with a rueful grin. “You remember when I told the committee you cheated on an exam? That I’d seen you with a cheat sheet?”
“How could I forget,” I say, and for the first time ever, I’m smiling at the memory instead of seething. It feels so far away now, funny instead of infuriating. “I had to get my teacher to write a letter confirming she’d watched me the entire time and I never looked at anything but my own paper. Do you know how humiliating it was to explain why I needed that?”
“I switched seats to sit behind you during that midterm,” he admits, rubbing the back of his neck with the sheepish expression. “I spent the whole test watching the back of your head, trying to catch you looking at notes or your phone or anything. You never even glanced sideways.”
“Because I actually studied, you absolute psycho.” I kick him under the table, laughing. “I was valedictorian material. I didn’t need to cheat.”
“I know.” He’s laughing too. “So when I couldn’t find proof, I just made something up. And then I paid Derek Simmons twenty bucks to report it so it wouldn’t look like it was all coming from me.”
I burst out laughing. “We really are similar, because I bribed Jenny Kowalski with concert tickets to tell the committee your community service hours were faked. I wasn’t about to be the only source either. Plausible deniability.”
“Oh my god.” He shakes his head slowly, still grinning. “We really were running parallel operations, weren’t we? Two little sabotage machines trying to destroy each other.”
“You know, I actually kind of respected how far you went back then,” I admit. “Even while I wanted to murder you. The way you never backed down, never let me intimidate you. Most people would have folded.”
“I felt the same way. The flyers you hung up around school about the fight I got into,” he says, tilting his head. “Right before the committee’s final meeting? That was a nice touch. Very thorough.”
“Well, it had been expunged from your record, so I figured they could use a reminder.” I take a sip of mezcal, smiling over the rim. “Public service, really. Keeping the community informed. I’ve never wanted anything as badly as I wanted to beat you.”
“It’s kind of impressive, actually,” he says, tilting his head like he’s seeing me for the first time. “The dedication we had.”
“The obsession,” I add.
“The sheer pettiness,” he counters.
“To the commitment to pettiness.” I raise my cup. “We were really something.”
He raises his too, touching it lightly against mine with a soft clink. “No one else would have gone that far, or cared as much as we quite stupidly did.”
I laugh. “God, we were unhinged.”
“Completely.” He grins and takes a long drink.
The bar is quiet around us except for the rain and the low murmur of the TV. The mezcal is warm in my stomach, and for the first time since ever, sitting across from Dominic Midnight doesn’t feel like war.
