Commitment (23 page)

Riley
shrugged.
“Why not?”

“Huh.
That was easy.
I know you never want to ask him for anything, so I have to say, I’m completely surprised
by
how cool you’re being about this
.
”

“I don’t know that he’ll be able to do anything but I’m happy to ask.  And besides, it’s not for me.”

Tracy grabbed her should
er.
“
But you mustn’t tell him that.
Or he won’t try as hard.”

Riley
laughed.
“Fine, I won’t tell him that.”

Bikram yoga
had
just the kind of intensity
Riley
was craving.
The temperature in the room was somewhere between ninety-five and one hundred degrees, so the towel s
he brought along was essential.
There were twenty-six poses in all, and by the time class was done, she always felt as though she’d been to a spinning class, and it didn’t hurt that her pores were completely clear after all the sweating
either.
She’d expected that she would use this time to think, but even that was difficult; she was unable to think about anything besides the
poses and the unrelenting heat.

Next to her, Tracy moved fluidly
through her own routine, her face focused, her eyes starin
g off into the middle distance.
Riley
blinked and stretched then lowered into Downward Facing Dog, surprised to suddenly find herself on her back looking up into the faces of Tracy and the Derek, the instructor, other faces from the class on the fringes.

“A
re you okay?” Tracy was asking.
She sounded so far away.

Riley
blinked.
“Of course I’m okay,” she said, annoyed.

“You fainted,” Derek explained.
“You were out for about
three
minutes
.”

“I’m fine,”
Riley
said, trying to sit up.

“Nope.
Give it a
sec
.” Derek pressed a hand firmly on
her sternum, keeping her down.
“A little help someone?”

They carried her out into
the
hallway where it was so much cooler,
Riley
almost shivered.

“Water, please,” Derek said.

Someone produced a bottle of
water and he opened it, holding it to
Riley
’s lips.
She took it from him and guzzled.

“Drinking last night?” Derek asked.

“W
ine.
A
few
glasses.”

“A
h.
You’re probably
just
a little d
ehydrated for Bikram,” he said.
He helped her sit
up and pat her on the shoulder.
“Sit here for a fe
w minutes then hit the showers.
A cool shower.”

He winked at her and squeezed her shoulder before returning to the class.

“Thanks.”
Riley
drank the rest of
the water and looked at Tracy.
“How humiliating.”

Tracy smiled.
“I always drink about a gallon of wat
er the night before,” she said.
But she was looking at
Riley
searchingly, inquisitively.

“What?”

“When you were out, you said ‘Brian’ a couple of times.”

Riley
put her face in her hands.
“Oh my god, that’s even more embarrassing.”

“So what’s that about?” Tracy asked softly, sitting next to her.

“I’ve been thinking about that
a lot
lately
.
About how everything went down.
I just still feel
terrible about it
.
Especially now since I’m
. . .
” She stopped abruptly.

Tracy looked at her expectantly. “Since you’re what?”

Riley
shrugged.

“Since y
ou’re about to get married.
”

Riley
looked away.
That was precisely
what she’d been about to say.
But she hadn’t made that decision
, h
ad she?

Tracy sighed deeply.
“
Riley
, you know I would never tell you what to do,” she began.

“Bu
t you’re about to, aren’t you?”

“
Y
es,” Tracy nodded. “I’m about to.
You
can’t do this. Not like this. Not so soon.
I mean, who
is
he anyway?
Do you
even
know who he
is
,
Riley
?”

“That did
n’t seem to bother you when you wanted me to get you tickets to Streisand.”

“S
treisand tickets are one thing.
T
rying to marry my best friend is another.”

“You were the one who said you could see that he loves me
,
”
Riley said, her voice quiet.

Tracy nodded. “I believe he does.”

“So what’s the
. . .
?”

“
Riley
. N
either
of us is
dumb
enough to believe that’s the only important thing when it comes to
marriage
.
Right?”

Riley
nodded.
“You sound like my mother.”

“You already talked to Lorna about this?”

“Sort of,”
Riley
didn’t look at her. “I told her
that he proposed;
that’s all.”

“And
that was
probably
plenty enough for her to be able to
tel
l how much you want to say yes.
Just like I can tell.”

“I love him,
”
Riley
said simply.
She looked at Tracy and shrugged. “
There. I’ve said it.
So i
f you can tell me how to make that go away, I’m all ears.”

“Do you want it to go away?” Tracy asked.

Riley said nothing.
Of course she didn’t.
Loving Shawn was terrifying and unexpected and defied
all
common sense
but she most definitely did not want it to go away.

Tracy sighed.
“Let’s go get some breakfast
before you pass out again
.”

Harambe was crowded with the usual Sunday cast of characters – writers and dancers and assorted artsy types, eating croi
ssant and drinking cappuccino.
Riley
and Tracy usually ordered the full breakfast,
with
pancakes and eggs scrambled with cheese
and a ham steak on the side, but the tension had robbed them of their appetite.
Riley
got
an
a
mericano with a low fat muffin and Tracy stuck to green tea.

“
I’m just scared for you,”
she
said
.
“That you’ll get hurt. That he’ll take you for granted, or treat
you like some oiled-
down video hoochie
, or cheat on you or beat you.”

“So basically, all of the stereotypes about rappers,”
Riley
said
bitterly
.

“Ye
s,” Tracy nodded. “I admit it.
I’m prejudiced.
And let’s face it,
Riley
, stereotypes don’t come from nowhere.”

“If I do this, Tracy, you can’t be waiting in the wings to
say
you told me so at the first sign of trouble.”

“I won’t.
But
you have to let me
catch my breath for a minute
.
My best friend,
my sister
. . .
” Tracy reached across the table and grabbed
Riley
’s hand. “
. . .
is about to get married to a man I don’t know at all. A man she barely knows herself.”

“I haven’t made that decision,”
Riley
said quietly.

Tracy
smiled sadly.
“Oh
yes
you have
.”

Riley didn’t deny it.

“Just promise me one thing,” Tracy said.

“What is it?”

“That you won’t buy a Cadillac Escalade.”

“
No
chrome rims?”
R
iley asked
with mock seriousness.

“And
no
chinchilla seat covers,” Tracy added
, shaking her head
.

They both laughed.

“If he hurts you, you tell him, I will
hunt him down and
personally
kill
his ass,” Tracy said.

“Well.
I think I’ll wait to share that until he gets you the Streisand tickets.”

Tracy smiled.
“Good idea.”

g

Shawn wasn’t in the suite when she got back so
Riley
crawled into bed wit
h her laptop and turned on CNN.
The hotel
wasn’t home,
but there
was a certain reassurance to
seeing his shirt thrown over the back of a chair, a pair of his boots peeking out of the closet.
He was gone, but only for the
moment.
For a change, she had tangible evidence that he would
be
back
.
Her own clothes were stil
l stuffed into her duffle bag.

On a whim, she shoved aside her laptop and began the task of pulling things out and putting them on hangers, folding others and placing them in the cedar ches
t of drawers alongside Shawn’s.
Near the bottom of the duffle was
the blue box.
She’d brought it along telling herself that it was because she didn’t want to leave so expensive a piece of jewelry in her apartment while she was away.

She took it out of the box now and turned it over in her fingers.
It
was
the most exquisite
thing she had ever been given
,
spa
rkling like a star in her hand
.
Riley
inhaled and literally held her breath while sliding it onto the
index finger of her left hand. It fit perfectly.
She extended her arm and surveyed it from different angles, trying to get used to the sight
of it.
If she wanted it, this w
ould be hers.
But more impo
rtantly, Shawn would be hers, a
nd
there was no question that
she wanted him.

She kept the ring on her finger even after she was done putting her clothes away and resumed her work on the laptop, testing how it might feel to wear it all t
he time.
After a few minutes, she didn’t even remember it was there and her fingers moved as nimbly across the keyboard as
they
always had.
H
alfway
through
the
outline of an
article
she was proposing for the
March
issue
,
she heard the d
oor to the suite.

It was Shawn and Brendan dressed as though they’d been to the gym, but the grass and mud stains on their sweats told her they’d
instead
been outside.

“Did you guys get into a
street
fight or something?”

“
F
ootball.
Prospect
Park,”
Brendan explained, collapsing on the sofa. Shawn dived
into
bed and
Riley
put
her
laptop aside, making room for his head
on her lap
.