Commitment (61 page)

“
Yeah, yeah we covered all that
,” Brendan said. “Let’s roll.”

Her touch reminded
Shawn
that the trickiest part of their reunion still lay ahead. He
felt a tightening in his gut
, knowing that she
would want him tonight. It had been a long time by their standards and he knew that look. But he
’d
been
unprotected when he had sex with Keisha and it would be another week or so before he knew
for sure
he was in the clear
. Until then, he had to figure out a way to avoid sex with his wife.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
With her, a week would be an eternity.

Riley
kept up a steady stream of chatter
for the entire drive
as though telling
him everything she hadn’t been able to tell him for the
last few weeks
.
She’d finally come up with an article her editor liked which was coming out in
August
, her mother was making plans to come to the city for a seminar and was stopping by for dinner a week from Thursday, she’d found a rare first edition of ‘Through the Looking Glass’ t
hat had cost her
ten
grand
and she was planning to drive up to D.C. with Tracy for a
Free Tibet March this weekend.

Shawn heard every word she said but was har
dly able to
absorb
any of it.
He w
as thinking too hard about the
Keisha
p
roblem.
The look on her face while the shuttle pulled away gave him a strange feeling. He wondered whether he might have underestimated her.

Before he had a chance to strategize about how to manage what was sure to happen when he and Riley were alone,
B
rendan was pulling up
in front of the
ir
building and saying he would keep the car for the night.

“We’ll talk tomorrow, man,” Brendan said significantly.

Shawn nodded.

He was stuck.
Riley
was waiting by the door with
Javier
for him to bring his bags in
.
Even from t
e
n feet away, he
could feel her pent up energy, her eagerness to be alone with him; a feeling he had as well
.
But if he had one ounce of decency left after what he did, he would have to use it to resist doing what came most naturally.

Upstairs, he
purposely kept his hands occupied, walking with the bags toward the bedroom rather than dropping them in the foyer as he normally might have done. But still, he
barely had time to put the
m
down
before she jumped him
, kissing him, unbuttoning his shirt, tugging at h
is jeans.
Fuck
.
She was wild in a way that
excited the crap out of him, and
always meant the sex wa
s going to be outstanding.
Already he could feel himself getting hard.
B
ut
tonight
he couldn’t
do it.
Just as she was
getting started
peeling off her tank top he
pushed her away firmly but gently
.

“
Riley
, I’m really ti
red,”
he said shaking his head.
It sounded unconvincing even to his ears.

Her shoulders sagged.
“Okay.”

“I mean, I want to, but
. . .”

“It’s okay,”
she said quickly.
“
Of course you’re tired.
Can I
get
you something
?
Something
to drink
or . . .”

She tried to walk past him but he held her arm, pulling her over to the bed
.
He pushed her
down so that
they were
laying
spoon-fashion.
He kissed the back of her neck and reached behind him to turn off the light.
In the darkness, he shed his clothes, leaving on his boxer briefs
. When she followed suit and stripped down to her underwear, pulling his arm across her, Shawn grimaced.
This was not going to be easy.

Though he could barely see her in the dark, he w
as acutely aware of how she felt – her
skin
smooth and warm – and the
light citrusy way she smelled;
and with each breath she took, her breasts pressed against his forearm. Feeling his excitement, Shawn
shifted and
put one of the pillows between them
,
pulling
her back
toward
him again.

“
Is something wrong
?
”
she
said
in the dark.

Shawn squeezed
his eyes tightly shut.
“Nah
.”

“Then
why don’t you want . .
?” her voice cracked.

Shawn swallowed. “It’s not that I don’t want to,” he said.

“Then . . .”

“
I’m just really tired
, baby
.” 

He didn’t sound any more convincing
this
time
around
either.
Turning down sex with her was so out of character it was almost comical for him to think that merely being tired would
work
as an excuse.
There had been
times
when he’d performed onstage for two hours, gone to an after-party till
three
a.m., flown home, rolled in at
eight
and
still
wanted
to
jump her bones
before she left for
work
.
Making love to her was like
air
to him—
he would have to be dead before he
c
ould pass that up.

Unless, like now, he had to pass it up for her own protection.

“I feel like the only thing between us that always works
is broken along with everything else
,” Riley said, laughing without any real mirth in her voice.

“Is that what you think?” Shawn rolled her over so that she was on her back and he was on top of her, his weight resting
on his elbows.
“That sex is the only thing that works between you and me?”

“I said the only thing that
always
works,” she corrected him.

H
e rolled away.
“
Oh, okay.
That makes me feel a lot better.”

“I told you,” she sighed.
“That’s not what I meant.”

He wanted to believe her because as far as he was concerned, for the first time in his life, the sex he had with a woman was just the ic
ing rather than the whole cake.
That was why he’d married her.  He just wasn’t sure, even now, why she’d married him.

g

When Riley left
for work,
Shawn called Mike
, getting
Keisha’s number
and writing it
on the
back of the business card of one of the industry people who
’d taken him to lunch in Texas.
He would call her
later, feel her out
,
and
make sure she didn’t have some ill s
hit planned for his ass.
But he had to remembe
r to call her from the mobile.
As far as he knew, she didn’t have his home number, so that sh
ould take care of one problem.
There
should
be no
ne of that
calling and hanging up bullshit
,
or more importantly, no calls to arrange little chit-chats with
Riley
.

Having to sit in his house scheming to keep something from his wife because of triflin’ ass Keisha made him even more
pissed off at himself
.
This shit was too strenuous.
Before Riley he hadn’t even bothered pretending he was monogamous.

Getting to where he was with her right now hadn’t been easy, and no way was he going to lose
her over chicken-head Keisha.
He
called her
around noon while watching
Sports Center.
The
TV
in the background would provide just the right air of casual conversation
that he wanted to
fabricate
.
She had
to think everything was cool.
That he was cal
ling just to shoot the breeze.
But just as he’d known she would be, she was bitter about
Riley
’s
and his
public
display of affection at the airport.

“What, you callin’ me because she didn’t give you any last night?” she asked.

“
Nah.
C’mon.
Don’t be like that.
I just wanted to thank you for being cool
about
B getting rid of
all the dancers and everything.
I wanted to tell you before you had to hear it from him with everybo
dy else but, you know how it is
. .
.
”

“
No.
How is it?”

“It’s about business, Keisha.
If I told you, you’d tell Anita, and so on, and so
forth
. . . and the next thing you know, we’d have a rebellion, people walking off, shit like that.”

“Well,
” her v
oice had softened a little bit.
“It ain’t as though I was expectin’ to be in the tour at all, so I guess I still came out ahead
.”

“Yeah . . . that’s what I was thinking.
It’s good experience for your career.
”

Career
.
That was laying it on a little thick but she was just dumb enough to
think that that’s what she had
—
a career.
Neither of them said anything for a moment, and Shawn was preparing to tell her he had to
make a meeting
when she cleared her throat.

“Anyways,” she said.
“What you
doin
’ today?”

He bit into the heel of his hand, cursing himself for not being quicker to end the conv
ersation.

“Nothing much,” h
e said, trying to sound casual.
“But the thing is, Keisha, what I told you before
. . .
me and you hanging out is just asking for trouble, y’know what I’m sayin’
?”

“Then why you call me?” she shrieked.

Shawn held the ph
one from
his ear for a second.
“To mak
e sure we’re cool, that’s all
.
”

Suddenly she wa
s laughing, a harsh ugly laugh.
The fact that he’d ever found her cute was more unbelievable
every time he
interacted with her
.

“You ain’t slick,” she said.
“You just wan’ make sure I don’t blow up your spot, school your wife on what kind of motherfucka she really married to.”

“Nah, Keisha, c’mon.
It ain’t even like that.”

“
Smooth
, you is too, too tired.
If I feel like payin’ your wife a visit, nothin’ you say, no amount of ass-kissin’ is goin’ to stop me.
That little scene at the airport was real sweet. But I wonder how sweet it would be if she knew what you was
doin
’ in Houston.
”

It was t
ime to take off the kid-gloves.

“If you fuck me, Keisha, I
will most
definitely
fuck you.
Your ass won’t be dancing anyplace but on the Hunt’s Point ho’ stroll
. . .”

“Who you tryin’ to threaten,
Negro
?”
she yelled
.
“Don’t you know I will . .
?”