Commitment (30 page)

Brendan looked over at Shawn, as though expecting him to intercede but Shawn just shrugged.

“We can take care of b
usiness later,” he said.
“Holla
at me in an hour.”

Riley
climbed under the covers and unzipped her jeans, tugging them off and tossing them across the room onto the sofa in the corner.
Shawn shut the curtains.
The room became dim, although not quite dark.

“My wife’s undressing, B.”

Brendan shook his head and sigh
ed.
“C’mon man, we have to take care of this shit, for real.”

“One hour,” Shawn said again. 

He sat on the edge of the bed and began unlacing his boots, so Brendan headed for the door.

“A’ight,” he said reluctantly.
“But definitely at eight.”

When they were alone, Shawn peeled of
f his shirt and shed his jeans.
Riley
held the covers back for him so he could crawl in next to her.

“
How tired are you?”
he asked, his mouth pressed against her forehead.

“I’m not used to these ea
rl
y mornings like you are Shawn.”
S
he turned away from hi
m and snuggled into the pillow.
“Especially not on a Saturday.”

“C’mon
,
we have this big bed, no
neighbors to worry about
when you start making your noises.”

Riley
laughed.
“When I do what?”

“You know,
mak
e those sounds you make . . .” H
e emitted a guttural moan,
and
Riley
lifted a pillow over her head,
swatting
him with it.

“I don’t
make that sound.
You
make that sound.”

“I can’t he
lp it,” he said,
lowering his voice
.
“You just take me there
. .
.”

Riley
turned to find his mouth in the dark, the tip of her tongue
just barely
touching his.
They
still
could
n’t
keep their hands off each other;
that much hadn’t changed
.
So she should have known better - sleeping right now was out of the question.

g

Shawn was fully dressed
when she woke up
,
wearing one of what she liked to think of as his “public appearance outfits” – extra baggy jeans, oversized designer t-shirt with
label
prominently displayed, and shin-high bo
ots with the laces hanging out.
Subtle, it
definitely
was not.
Riley
couldn’t understand it herself, but peopl
e seemed to eat that image up.
He was on
his mobile
phone, with Brendan sitting ne
arby, his feet up on the table.
Riley
reached for the shirt that Shawn had
shed
earlier and pulled it over her head, getting out of bed
and heading for the bathroom.
They were
so engrossed in their own thing
neither of them even se
emed to notice that she was up.
Her entire relationship with Shawn seemed to consist of one or the other of them getting out of bed to go somewhere, leaving the other behind.

She brushed her teeth and washed her face, running wet fingers through her hair to
make it look more presentable.
If she had her way, this was all the grooming she would be doing today, but something told her she’d have no such luck.
Only when she switched on the lamps after coming out of the bathroom did Shawn and Brendan
realize she was awake. They
squinted at the sudden light and looked over at her.

“I was just talki
ng to the realtor,” Shawn said.
“You want to go
check out the condo
today?”

“How can we look at the
apartment
today
if you have to be at
that thing
?
What time will you be done?
”

“I meant you.
By yourself.
Or ask Tracy to go with you.”

“Shawn.
You promised.
”

“I have to go to
a
radio station after,
Riley
.
I told you about that.”

“Then we’ll see the
condo
tomorrow.
You want to buy a place
for that kind of money
without even looking at it?”

Shawn shrugged.
“If you like it, then it’s cool with me.
Just make sure I got a spot for my music.
”

Before he even finished
his sentence
,
Riley
was shaking her head.

He was throwing her into the deep end a
nd telling her to sink or swim.
He wasn’t kidding either, that’s what was so scar
y.
If she liked it, he
would
be cool with it, no questions asked.

“No.
Cancel the realtor.
You have to at least
see
it, Shawn.
I’m not the one who wa
nts to move in the first place.
We could live at my place in Flushing and I’d be perfectly fine with that.”

“Who wants to live in a tiny hole in Flushing when they can live
on Central Park West
?
” Shawn said looking at Brendan for confirmation.

“Keep me out of it,” Brendan said,
going to look
out
the window at nothing in particular.

“And why would you even make
an
appointment without telling me first?”
Riley
demanded
.

“Because I kno
w you don’t want
to come to this thing with me.”

“So?”

“So you
’ll be here with nothing to do.
The least you can do is look at the place we might live at.”

“
Wow. Assume much?” Riley said. “
How do you know I won’t have anything
to do?
J
ust
because I’m not with you doesn’t mean I can’t think of anything to do with myself.”

“You don’t want to go look at the condo,
fine
.
We’ll buy it without seeing it.”

He turned away from her, starting to dial out a number on
his
mobile phone.
Riley
watched him stubbornly for a moment then sighed.

“Okay, fine.
I’ll
go
look at the stupid condo.
Give me the realtor’s number.”

Shawn handed
a business card
over his head without looking back at her and she snatched it from his fingers, heading for the bathroom to get showered and dressed.

“I should be back around
ten
tonight,” Shawn called after her.

“Fine
.
Me too
.”

Riley
shut the bathroom door and turned on the shower, allowing the water to run unt
il the entire room was steamy.
She shed
the shirt
and tested the
temperature before getting in.
She’d only been standing under the warm jet of water for about a minute when she heard the door open and Shawn pulled back the glass door.

“I’ll see you tonight, okay?”

“Okay,
”
she said sourly.

“Okay?” he asked again.
He leaned forward and kissed her on the collarbone getting the front of his shirt damp in the process. The kiss melted away every ounce of her earlier irritation, damn him.

“
Yes, o
kay,” she smiled.

“A’ight,” he turned and left, the half open bathroom door letting in a stream of cold air that made her shiver.

g

Although
Riley
may have found it intimidating to go look at a
multi-million dollar
condo that by herself she would never be able to afford
,
Tracy d
id not share the same concerns.
She
pulled up
at the hotel in her BMW
convertible
an hour after
Riley
called her, and they
headed
off int
o the afternoon traffic.
Tracy’s
hair
was
pulled back into a ponytail with a Pucci scarf and
she
was wearing a blue blazer, white oxford and chinos with loafers.

“You look
like a Connecticut socialite,
Riley
commented dryly.

Tracy whipped
her head around.
“I do, right?
That’s the look I was going for.”

“You’re crazy,”
Riley
laughed.
“What the hell for?”

“I just knew you were goi
ng to show up looking like that
.”
Tracy inclined her head in the direction of
Riley
’s black wide-legged pants and white t-shirt
.
“
S
o I had to try to raise our profile a little bit.”

“I’m sure t
his woman coul
dn’t care less what we wear
.
All she wants to know is that we can afford to buy the damn place.”

“Why am I getting the feeling you don’t want to do this at all?”

“Well let’s see.
Maybe because I don’t want to do this at all?”

Trac
y shook her head in disbelief.

“Y’know what
Riley
?
If you remember, I wasn’t exactly one hundred percent in favor of you gett
ing married in the first place.
But even I can see that buying a kick-ass Manhattan townhouse is one of the perks of walking down the aisle with someone
who calls himself
‘K
Smooth
’.”

“It’s
not a townhouse, it’s a condo.
And I didn’t marry him for ‘perks’,”
Riley
said.

“Yeah, yeah.
But does that mean you can’t enjoy the
m?”

“But I like it in Flushing.
It’s a
real
neighborhood, with
real
people
.
”

“And what does your husband say about the ‘real neighborhood with the real people’?”

“Stop calling him that.
You only do it to make me crazy.”

Tracy laughed.
“Why isn’t he doing this with you anyway?”

“Some
promotional
thing.”

“So when’s he going to look at it?”

Riley
shrugged.
“Maybe not till we move in.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.
He says h
e’ll go with whatever I decide.”

“
T
he decorati
ng too?”

“I don’t know, Tracy.
And I don’t care.
I like where I live now.
And since he spends so much time on the road anyway, I don’t see why I can’t stay
there
.
”

Tr
acy put a hand on her shoulder.

“
Riley
?
Maybe this is something you should have discussed before you started packing boxes.”

“Yeah, I know.
But when he gets swept up in one of his big ideas, it’s impossible to get
him to think of anything else.
Besides, h
e hates the Flushing apartment.
He associates it with Brian
, although he tries to pretend that’s not the reason he doesn’t like it
.”