Primal Threat - Earl Emerson [41]
“I was playing tennis.” Zak stood close to Nadine. “You all right?”
“Scooter and I were just talking. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Zak turned to Scooter. “Stalking old friends?”
Scooter’s face revolved through a medley of disbelief, disgust, and then antipathy. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you showing up at almost all of our tennis games.”
“Fuck you, buddy.” Glowering at Nadine, Scooter added, “Jesus, pal. My family were founding members of this club. I can be here whenever I want, and unlike you, I don’t have to ride in on someone else’s membership card. And here’s a bulletin for you. Nadine’s way out of your league.”
“She’s better off with a stalker? Is that what you’re saying?”
“You keep this up, I’m going to speak to my attorneys about slander.”
Zak had a feeling they were headed toward a physical confrontation. There was no doubt in his mind that he was fitter and stronger than Scooter—Zak was six feet one, slim, and muscular; Scooter was a few inches shorter and forty pounds heavier, the extra bulk consisting of the kind of baby fat some people carried into their twenties—but according to Nadine, her ex-boyfriend had taken years of martial arts training.
“You broke into her car, didn’t you?”
“What?”
“You heard me. You broke into Nadine’s car at Green Lake.”
Zak knew and hoped Nadine did, too, that the proof of guilt was the way Scooter’s face went through a catalog of feigned reactions. Even behind the dark sunglasses you could tell his eyes were flitting all around the room. He was nervous as a cornered ferret.
“What makes you think I have a key to Nadine’s car?”
“How did you know it was done with a key?”
“You little firehouse fag. When are you going to realize you don’t have anything to offer her? On top of everything else, your family and her family are going to fit together like fine cheese and horse turds. I mean, Jesus, your dad’s working on the pool house like a wetback.”
“Scooter,” Nadine said. “Stop it.”
“I’m not going to stop it. Somebody needs to say this. If everybody in your family’s too polite to tell this guy what they’re thinking, then I’ll just have to step up to the plate. They don’t like you, pal. None of them likes you. Nadine’s parents and Kasey think you’re nothing but a gold digger.” Zak knew from the way Nadine tensed up that Scooter wasn’t inventing these accusations. “We all know you’re after her money. And don’t dare tell me I’m stalking my own girlfriend.”
“Ex-girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend. I never broke up with her.”
“Scooter,” Nadine said, “I broke up with you, and you know it.”
“The crux of the matter is I’m right for Nadine, I can provide her with the material comforts she needs in life, and you can’t.”
“I’m going to support myself,” Nadine said. “I’m going to be a social worker. And you won’t be around.”
“The point is,” Scooter continued, throwing Nadine a withering look, “I can treat her the way she deserves to be treated, and somebody like you…I mean, do you even know how to order wine or use a salad fork?”
“Come on, Zak,” Nadine said, tugging Zak’s arm. “Let’s go play tennis.”
Scooter and Zak glared at each other for several long seconds without moving. “Nadine, it matters where people come from. Look at his father. And that oversexed sister with the Dolly Parton boobs? Kasey said—”
Zak started toward Scooter, but Nadine pulled his arm and managed to swing him around in a half circle as if he were on a tether. He knew Nadine was strong, but she surprised him with just how strong. Scooter had crouched in a defensive stance. “Come on, motherfucker. Try me.”
“You fool,” said Nadine. “I told you I never want to see you again.”
“You know you love me.” Scooter smiled a smile that in another time and under other circumstances might have been charming.
“Get out,” Nadine said. By now everybody in the corridor was watching, and Scooter, realizing he’d become the center of attention, ambled toward the door with a deliberate slowness and left the building without looking back.
When they got to the court, Nadine said,