Title: Bottom of the Glass
Pairing: Alex/Liz
He didn't recognize her at first.
Her hair was different. Longer.
Curlier.
He blamed it on that, but knew that had she been with her usuals, there would be no mistaking her. The fiery red hair, smooth, dark skin…
But not that night.
That night, she looked like a bargirl – a wilted, careless young woman with her heart at the bottom of a shot glass. Her body was unbelievably still, stuck in a crouched position over the edge of the bar. And yet, she moved him.
Distracted him.
Especially in that dress.
If he hadn't realized it, he would have hit on her.
No, if he hadn't realized it…he wouldn't have hesitated.
It was what he had come there for in the first place, anyway. To hook up. To flirt shamelessly with the intention of getting laid. To feel for a few sweaty hours.
Something.
Anything.
There was only a seat between them, but to him it seemed like an ocean. He wanted to test the waters, but knew how dangerous it could be to wade in thoughtlessly. Yes. Surely, he would drown.
"I'll try a long island," she spoke for the first time that night and he couldn't help but listen.
There was something unique about her voice – strong and a little rough around the edges – that made him twitch. For brief moment, he thought fondly of a time when such a response was pleasurable. He tightened his grip around the stem of his wine glass and watched her, skeptical. He'd only been there an hour, but she'd already cycled through all the drinks the bar offered and it was apparent her memory was getting shaky.
"Something else for you, sir?"
Cunningham barely noticed when the bartender leaned into his space. His eyes were still glued on her and the slow, sulking movements she made while waiting for her drink.
"Rum and coke," he said absentmindedly, and then finished the last of his red wine. "And do me a favor…"
The bartender leaned in.
"…put anything else she orders on my bill."
The young man looked at Cunningham as if he had suddenly grown a third eye, but when Alex flashed him a black Amex, he did as he was told. The gesture was nothing strange to Alex. He did it whenever he wanted to have a girl home with him, but he told himself this was different. She wasn't his to take anywhere, after all.
He'd lost that right a long time ago.
Cunningham watched the bartender slip the long island onto a dirty "new" napkin and paid attention to the way the glass sweated in her palms. She held it like that for a long while before reaching into her purse for payment. The bartender stopped her halfway and Cunningham picked up his own drink as the young man explained.
It wasn't long before he felt her gaze, and though he could have wavered, turned to about face with a smile.
"You," she picked up her glass and raised it to mirror Cunningham.
"Liz," he tested her name on his lips and liked the way it felt. "Liz Ricarro."
It was then he got a good look at her face. Pink, fluorescent lighting touched her features gracefully, but revealed shadows and circles he'd never seen before. Their familiarity had ended months ago, but he had enough of a heart to be disturbed by the sight.
This wasn't the way she was supposed to look, he told himself. This wasn't what he remembered.
Instead of bright and shimmering her eyes were a wet, cloudy teal color, and framed by smudged mascara.
He wasn't sure she noticed it or even cared, but it made her hard to look at. But as he sipped his drink, he wondered how he appeared. A young man creeping up on thirty, sitting alone, ogling women on an evening like this. His eyes averted downward immediately, straight into his glass.
"Thanks for the drink, Hume," she used his last name, but there was a familiar lilt to it that made him blush.
Despite her withered state, she still had that playful smile on her lips, glued stiff with desperation or alcohol – which of the two, he couldn't tell.
When he didn't speak, she turned back to her drink and sipped again. Her lips, rosy red with a loud gloss left sticky prints on the glass with each peck. It brought his attention to her attire again, and that damn dress.
It didn't suit her at all, he thought.
It was some backless number with a plunging neckline and tube like shape. On any other girl he would have relished the excessive show of skin, but on Liz, it displeased him. And he was disappointed in himself for reacting to it. For imagining brushing his lips over long, swanlike neck, for wanting to trace his tongue along the familiar swell of her breasts.
He stared down into his drink and downed it in one shot.
"It's been a long time," he spoke out over the bar instead of to her face.
Liz turned to him again and from his periphery, Alex could see her head dip down solemnly.
"Yeah," she cleared her throat as if it was dry and he watched in the reflection of a bottle of Absolut as Liz seemed to brush something from the corners of her eyes.
"You look the same," she placed one hand on the seat between them and spun it a little. He faced her, flushed from the alcohol, and smiled.
"Thanks, I think," his voice cracked slightly from the burn of the rum and they both chuckled quietly to themselves.
"Still burning through your riches, I see." Her tone was mocking, but she still kept that smirk on her lips.
She never used to do that, he couldn't help but think.
Smirk.
That was his careless behavior. Before, she'd throw out a few expletives, laugh loudly, be brash with her assault. Here, to him, she seemed drunkenly demure.
"I feel like I have nothing much else to do, lately, considering." He said it, but didn't mean to say it, and an uncomfortable silence settled between them.
He hadn't discussed his retiring from the IGPX circuit with anyone since it happened, and especially not with her.
In that moment, he felt like turning tail. The mighty warrior, at the sight of a challenge, thought of running away. It was preposterous, and yet it was something he'd grown accustomed to lately.
He wasn't himself anymore. Once he entered her, he knew very well that he could never be again.
"What'd you do it for?" Liz didn't look at him while she said it. Her eyes, accusing, turned up to the bartender instead, and he brought her another long island without having to be asked. The man looked at Cunningham instead of her, undoubtedly thinking of his wallet.
In return, Alex studied Liz's hands, the slim fingers, and the heavy weight that hung on her fourth.
"I could ask you the same," he mumbled through a martini he couldn't remember ordering.
The tense air between them thickened, and Liz's hand moved away from the chair in front of them. The waves of the sea licked at his ankles and he withdrew.
"I don't know what you want from me," she held onto her glass with a death grip and he could see her hands shaking. The ice clinked and clattered loudly, a noisy soundtrack to their discordant relationship.
"I didn't ask you to quit," she snapped. "I didn't ask you…"
When she trailed off, he shook his head and chuckled through another sip of vodka.
"You're right. You never asked anything of me, did you? You never wanted anything."
The silence came again, but was different. Alex could feel her eyes piercing into him and couldn't bring himself to look away. He'd missed his time to storm out. Missed his time to pick up and leave her there, a humiliated, drunken shell of her former self.
Once again he'd missed a moment with the woman he'd told himself meant nothing more than a few sweaty hours over a couple desperate weeks in one meaningless month.
He it told himself, because the reality was too damning.
"Hey," Alex reached across the ocean but she was pulled out with a change of tide.
"It was a mistake," she said quietly.
"Him or me?" He asked, the vodka giving him guts. When Liz didn't look him in the eye, he ate the olive in his martini.
It was hard and bitter.
Alex felt the air stagnating between them, the claustrophobic nature of the sadness behind her presence, and felt guilty.
"When was the wedding?" he tried. It was supposed to sound smooth, but his cough disrupted it.
"Summer," Liz spoke, and for a second, she looked dreamy, as if remembering something beautiful.
Cunningham didn't know what he was thinking asking the question. He knew very well it was summer. He'd received his invitation last year, but never shown.
"Summer," he repeated, remembering. It was summer when they first met.
On a beach in Florida for the first US hosted IGPX tourney.
The teams had downtime and she was trying her damnest to read some shitty romance novel while he dragged along another uninteresting bimbo, as always looking for something better.
He never truly expected to find it there.
Find her there.
At that moment, he wasn't even certain of her name. All those years racing team Satomi and he'd never paid attention to her before – never noticed soft, womanly curves and strong, sinewy muscles.
"He gonna come get you?" Alex shook his head in attempt to clear the old thoughts and looked to Liz for an answer.
She had ordered some pink drink, but made no move to sip it. She looked dazed again, lost in some faraway memory.
"I should…pay you back for these," her voice was unusually soft, and it angered him.
"Forget about it," Alex slid his credit card across the slick, marble counter. "Look, Is he picking you up, or what?"
His voice was full of anger, and when Liz gave no response, he stood up in a hurry.
The bartender charged the card quickly and Alex prepared to leave. He assured himself he was done. He would pack it up and finally leave her behind.
"Wait," her hand closed around his wrist and Alex stumbled. He barely had his jacket back on and she was up on her feet, leaning on him for support.
"Wait…" she tried to rush forward, but her heel caught the edge of the bar and Alex jerked into motion.
She fell into his arms and it all came back. Those feelings he had tried to push down, the desperation, the anger, and the passion. In an instant, he unraveled. She had come to him back then, but he wanted her now.
"He doesn't deserve you," he said without thinking.
Liz let him help her stand, but kept quiet.
Quiet.
She was never so quiet before.
No.
When he'd first pursued her she'd fought him off with her words, rebuffed his advances, claiming her heart was with another, but he refused to back down. Something so easy wasn't in a forward's nature. He assumed that was why his hold on her was so great.
Back then; he thought he'd won. She showed up at his house in the rain, soaked through and grinning like a Cheshire cat. He thought that was all there was to it, but never considered the long haul. Never considered the hurt behind that grin.
"You said that then, too." Liz rubbed at the silver band around her finger and Cunningham couldn't help but notice there was no diamond inset.
'Was he that cheap?' he wondered, bitterly. 'I could have given you more. I could have given you everything.'
"I still mean it," his heart beat fast and his head raced with a jumbling of thoughts. Liz didn't seem to notice as he led them outside. As they clung together on the street – more him to her than anything –he couldn't help but see her lips as an invitation, rosy and parted to welcome him in.
"I need to get a cab back," Liz spoke quickly. The tears on her cheeks glistened in the moonlight.
It was the first time he'd ever seen her cry.
Even then, the first time, she'd never shed a tear.
In some strange, sick way, it made sense. Liz Ricarro, defender for Team Satomi. Defenders were strong, proud people. Even when something terrible happened, they were relied upon to keep cool.
She appeared as such, but to him, the truth was obvious. Alex knew far too much about the game to be fooled.
"Some people…" he clenched his fists, thinking bitterly of the young Satomi forward. "…some people just want it all. They can't treasure…"
When Liz pulled closer, Cunningham forgot the rest of his speech. Her quiet sobs muffled against his leather jacket, her lithe, but powerful frame trembled against him. He'd never seen her this way. Never felt her this way.
So small… he thought, holding her more securely.
He could have held her like that forever, but she had different plans.
"Come on…where's your car?" her soft lips pressed into his cheek, right beside his mouth.
When he looked into her eyes, he knew what she was really asking, and knew he shouldn't indulge.
"Hume?"
But when she called again, cut his eyes away from the truth.
"Down the street," he took her hand and kissed it. "Wait here. I'll pull up. "
He didn't know what he was thinking. He should have denied her – turned away for the second time that night and went about his business, but instead, there he was, speed walking towards the parking lot to get his car in hopes that he could fall back into the familiar with her.
Alex rounded the corner in his Benz with the top down. He remembered how much she had loved that on summer days, before one man single-handedly ruined them for her. Alex could see the wind blowing in her hair, and smell the salt of the ocean. It was so close he could taste it.
He unconsciously breathed a sigh of relief when he pulled up and saw her still standing there, tipsy but smiling through the pain. She made a move to unlock the passenger door, but before her hand could touch the cool metal, he got out and helped her in.
He'd always wanted to be the gentleman she'd never had.
When they finally pulled out, the wind blew in her hair and he felt her hand creep over his on the gearshift.
"Let's get a hotel," she suggested. "Like old times."
Alex nodded, even though nothing was the same. He would indulge her in that, but not the other. Not when she was so far gone.
He booked the best suite he could find so late at night– an expensive room with a balcony overlooking the sea and scattered beachfront properties. It was near impossible to take in its beauty at night, but Liz went straight for the ledge, regardless.
She was as bullheaded as always.
"Careful," Alex stood behind her and placed his hands on her hips, in an attempt – he told himself – to keep her from falling.
"Do you remember…" she spoke, and Alex was amazed at the lucidity in her speech. "The first time?"
"Mn," he grunted lazily, but what he really wanted to say was, "how could I not?"
"We had…had a balcony like this," she placed her hands over his and drew him closer. "We-we were so excited…we left the doors open…the blinds open and…"
Alex squeezed his eyes shut, remembering the feel of her bare skin under his fingertips, her smirk, and the way she made him feel like a little boy all over again.
"You were mortified," he murmured near her ear. "But…you remember what I said?"
Liz was quiet, and he felt wetness dripping on his arms when she buried her face close to him.
"I said I didn't care." he let his chin rest atop of her head. "I said it didn't matter if the whole world saw, because you were just too good to let go."
When Liz continued to keep quiet, Alex started to pull away. But at that moment, she held him still, her glassy, tear-filled eyes turned up at his face.
"What did I do?" she begged. "Why-why doesn't he say things like that anymore? Why-why doesn't he look at me like you do!"
Alex turned his face away from hers, hurt, but Liz continued, beating her fists against his chest.
"Why did he even marry me? If he wanted her-if-if he wanted her…"
She began to sob, and that time, he was the one who stayed silent. He just held her, face turned out over the balcony, taking in the way the foam of the waves licked at the sandy shore.
She cried until she was tired and limp in his arms, mumbling and barely making any sense.
"Come on," he pulled her by the hand. "Let's get you to bed."
It took every bit of restraint to undress her without lingering, to get rid of that stupid dress and heels, and then tuck her in without wanting to climb in right beside her. It made him sick to know that she'd been drowning for so long and he couldn't save her.
Alex turned toward Liz one last time before digging through her purse to find her cell phone. He scrolled through the saved numbers until he found the name he despised – decked out in pretty pink text with an electronic heart beside it. Reluctantly, Alex dialed and listened to the phone ring six times before anyone answered.
"Liz, do you have any idea what time it is?"
The young forward's voice sounded husky, and when Alex concentrated, he could hear the soft whisper of a female in the background.
"It's Alex." Alex tried to keep the anger out of his tone. He sounded monotonous, bored.
"Alex…?" there was a shuffling. "What's wrong?"
Alex scowled. Although Liz's interest was asking, he couldn't detect a hint of concern in his voice. It sounded as if he was simply going through the motions.
"I'm with your wife."
"My w…Wait—what? She told me she was staying with Amy this weekend—
"—look," Alex pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't know. I'm just telling you I saw her at a bar. She was in a lousy state, so I booked her a room at the Hilton. Swing by and pick her up in the morning, will you?"
There was more of the female voice on the other end, and then a quiet sigh.
"Yeah, sure thing," he sounded bored. "….thanks for looking after her, man. I owe you one. But ah…"
Alex was ready to hang up the phone, but there was an awkward pause.
"What?"
"…you think…" the young forward hushed his voice. "…you think she knows anything? I mean ah…she say anything?"
Alex let silence settle between them and squeezed the pink phone tightly in his fist.
"I don't know what you're talking about," He flipped it shut and resisted the urge to throw it at the wall. He had such nerve!
Liz stirred on the bed behind him and Alex went to her side. She reeked of booze and her hand hung off the side of the bed as she snoozed. Carefully, he pulled the sheets up around her shoulders and stroked tangled, wavy strands of red hair from her face. Her brow furrowed for a moment, but then she relaxed, her lips tweaking upward in a slight smile. He wanted to smile then, but couldn't.
"Ta…takeshi…" Liz murmured.
And there it was.
Like having cold water splashed on his face, but his whole body radiated with the chill. Alex recoiled and snatched his keys from the table. He'd had enough.
.
.
.
In the end, he didn't remember the ride home, but in bed; he couldn't get her face out of his mind. He piled on blankets, but his feet felt cold, as if he was standing at the shoreline. Briefly, he contemplated calling someone – anyone for a romp to clear his head, but with all honesty, felt he couldn't trust his voice.
Alex had lived by himself for years, but somehow that night, he felt more alone than ever. He closed his eyes and tried to picture the redhead's warmth beside him, but instead, he saw images of her morning after, of her waking alone and dazed, humiliated as she apologized and "her darling hubby" tried to hurry her along.
The thoughts made his stomach churn, and he could no longer push them down. Barefoot and still a bit tipsy, he descended the spiral staircase, lower and lower until he reached the wine cellar. The dim room relaxed him, and he scanned rows and rows of vintage labels until he found the one he wanted.
Next to a bottle of Château Margaux 2004 was a Rene Barbier Mediterranean Red. It was a decent, cheap red wine, and certainly didn't belong next to a bottle that had cost him over $11,000. And yet, there it was. There it was, because it was her favorite, and when he'd tried to impress her with the Margaux, she'd spit it all over the front of his white dress shirt.
Any other girl would have swooned. They'd have leapt into bed with him in an instant, but the money didn't mean shit to her. She bought the Barbier and brought it to his place, insisting he put it in the cellar. It was fine wine blasphemy, but for her, he did it. For her, he knew he would do anything.
Smiling, Alex pulled a large, expensive wine glass from one of the shelves and poured the Barbier in slowly.
He wanted her to wake up. As he poured, he imagined Liz rising from her hotel bed and finally seeing the truth. She would call him, run to him, anything, and put the last few years of her life behind her. He would forget it all if she would.
Alex scoffed to himself.
Bullshit. It was all bullshit.
She would never leave him. Of course not.
With a hint of a smile still on his lips, Alex tilted the glass up to the light and drank until he saw the sea.
AN: This was such a random one-shot, but I liked the idea and wanted to run with it. Lol, why do I enjoy making Liz so OOC? :) I think I want to make a longer story out of it, but I'm going to finish WTIWO first.