Commitment (64 page)

Brian gave her a sad smile and tossed back a long gulp of beer.
Having a conversation in this crowd and noise would be
close to
impossible, and for that Riley was grateful. She didn’t need to hear him say it; she could see it in his eyes.

“Are you seeing anyone?” she asked loud enough to be heard.

Brian laughed and took another gulp of beer. He leaned in, close to her ear. “You think that’ll take care of it?” he asked.

Riley said nothing.

“I think I know what will take care of it,” Brian said. He began swaying to the new song that was playing. “You want to hear
my theory
?”

Still Riley said nothing.

“I think,” Brian said, directly in her ear again, “that you should walk out of here, don’t look back. Don’t call me, or answer my calls. Or my email. Or my text messages . . .”

She pulled back and looked at him, searching his face. He was drunk, very drunk. But he meant it.

“. . . and maybe in a year,” he continued. “Or in two years, or five, we’ll run into each other on the street. And I’ll be able to hug you and kiss you on the cheek, and wish you well without feeling like someone is twisting a fucking knife in my heart.”

Blinking back the tears, Riley looked up at him and he emptied his beer bottle and shrugged, giving her a wry smile. She searched her mind and her heart for something to say, but came up empty.

“I tried,” Brian said
, serious for a moment
. “But I can’t.”

Then he was shouting across the room to one of his friends and grabbing another bottle of beer off the bar, dancing
into the crowd until he disappeared from view.

g

Shawn was in bed, watching ESPN
when she got home
on Sunday
.
The lightness she felt at seeing him more than compensated for the absolute horror of the previous evening. When Tracy had dropped her off, she had practically bolted for the elevator, saying a silent prayer that he would be home so she could lose herself in him. She didn’t care if he initiated or not, she needed him and she was not taking no for an answer this time. Whatever the hell they were working out, they would work out later. But right now, she wanted her husband.
He had a MacDonald’s bag next to him on the side table, and a glass of juice. A heap of his clothes lay on the floor.

“Been out already?” she asked dropping her overnight bag at the foot of the bed.

“Had to eat.”
Shawn pulled the covers back and Riley climbed in next to him kicking off her boots and peeling off
her
jeans and t-shirt.
Shawn watched her warily as if he didn’t know what she had planned.

“And I guess cooking some
thing was out of the question.”

She kissed him
on the cheek
, distracting him as she tried to wrestle the remote from his hand.

“So
did you free
Tibet?” Shawn
asked
, holding
the remote
just out of her reach.

Riley
smiled.
“Not quite.
But I did get to see Richard Gere.
He was a quarter mile away onstage but I did see him.
”

Shawn laughed.
“So basically, it was worth the ride down there?”

“Not even
remotely
,”
Riley
said
.
“I should have stayed home with you.”

“Yeah, you should
have,” he said half seriously.

She lurched forward unexpectedly and grabbed the remote from his fingers, tossing it acr
oss the room onto the armchair.
Then she crawled backward on all fours, lifting the sheet over her head, kissing his chest, going lower and lower, teasing him by stopping at the waistband of
his
boxers.
She felt his hands under her armpits, pulling her up.

“No,
Riley
,” he said.
“Wait
.”

“No, you wait,” she said. 

She put a hand behind his head and
pulling his head toward her,
kissed him, feeling his
resistance
dissipate
then
lessen to nothing.
Holding his arms down at his sides, the way he sometimes did to her, she kissed his neck, licked his chest, gently rolling
his nipples between her teeth.
His breath was coming in short, fast bursts and
Riley
smil
ed because her power was back.
She raised her head.
His eyes were half-closed, and he seemed to be fighting a losing battle with self-control.

“Do you want me?”

She knew the answer; it was more than physically apparent. B
ut
she wanted to hear him say it.
She
needed
to hear him say it.
Working her way down his chest again, this time she moved the waistband of his boxers lower as she went.

“Do you want me?” she asked again.

Then
unexpectedly,
he was flipping her over onto her back and
Riley
’
s mouth fell open in
surprise.

“Hell yeah,” he said.

Before she could object, or say anything to slow him down, he was
kissing a path down her chest and stomach
.
But he didn’t stop at her underwear
as she had done
.
He pulled
it
down and off,
bending her knees,
spread
ing her legs
and resting them on his shoulders.
T
hen she felt his tongue, hot and wet, searching and pressing and pulsing against, over, inside her. 

She tried to arch her hips but he tightened his grip, his tongue slowly stroking her, until she was moaning
unintelligibly
.
It didn’t take long before s
he was quivering, her entire body tense and just as suddenly, slackening so that it felt as though she had no muscles at all and was just a trembling mass of
sensation
.

Riley
lay still for a few moments, her head sideways on the pill
ow, eyes half-open, recovering.
She was floating away on a cloud of feeling, mindless and weightless.
T
hen Shawn
’s face
was looming over her
s
.
He’d gotten
off the bed momentarily and
she hadn’t
even f
elt it.
She smiled,
thinking how beautiful he was,
allowing
her knees
to fall apart
again as he sank between them.
She
raised her hips,
felt him nudge her thigh, an
d reached down to guide him in.
But he felt different.
Rubbery.

Riley
looked down an
d thought her heart would stop.
He was wearing a condom.
She sat up
, pulling away
as though she’d been
burned
.

“Why’
re you wearing that?” she asked, her eyes wide.

Shawn
swallowe
d.
“I just thought maybe . . .
while you were away . . .
and while I was gone,
t
hat
maybe you didn’t take your pill
.”

Riley
froze
.
He was lying.
She
knew
it because there was something
she had never seen before
in his eyes
—
not just apprehension, but
fear
.
She thought she could hear
the blood pounding in her ears.
The whole room
closed
in on them both an
d on that thing he was wearing.
Ever since
they were married
and even for quite
some time
before then,
he hadn’t worn one.
S
o why now?
Why was he wearing a condom unless . . .

Tears of comprehension sprung to her
eyes and she blinked them back
.

“
Shawn . . .
did you . . . were you . .
?
”
she didn’t know how to
complete
the question.

H
e was already shaking his head.
“Baby, I
swear to you.
It was just . . .”

“Oh my god,”
she said, not really
speaking
to him, so much as to herself.
It all made sense now, his evasions, avoidance, being nice but not wanting to touch her.
“Oh my god.”

“Baby . . .”

“
Ohmigod
!”

She didn’t
know where the sound came from.
Was that even her?
It was as though she was wa
tching herself from far away.

“You
. . . you’re fucking someone?  You’re fucking someone!”

She kicked at him and at the sheets, pushing him off her, arms flailing wild.

“
Riley
.
I swear to you, it was nothing.
It was a mistake . . .”
he approached slowly, arms extended, as though trying to talk her down from a ledge.
His chest was heaving, his eyes wide. He was scared.

She barely heard him.
She was too busy scrambling to the edge of the bed to get away from him so h
e couldn’t touch her.
If he
touched her, she would be sick.
She ran toward the bathroom and he followed,
but not close
ly
enough
. 

Riley
slammed the door in his face
and turned the lock
, leaning against it, hearing herself cry and whimper, scarcely believing what was happening.
She was sobbing and hyperventilating, gulping and feeling her heart; her heart literally ached.

“Baby, I love you,” she heard him say
on the other side of the door.
“I fucked up, but I love you . . .
Riley
. . . open the door.
Please . . .”

She stuck her fingers in her ears, knowing how childish it was but not caring,
not wanting to hear his voice.
It didn’t ma
tter how long he was out there.
She was prepared to stay in here twice as long.

g

Chapter Fourteen

Every morning when
Shawn
woke up after another uncomfortable night
on the sofa
, Brendan came out of his bedroom and on his
way to the kitchen or bathroom,
and
said the same
thing.

Go home, man.
Go home
.

But he couldn’t.
If he went home
Riley
would leave, and
if she did,
he’d have no way of knowing where she was or even how to reach her ou
tside of work.
Something told him that if she moved out of
the apartment
, it would be over.
Although right now it felt pr
etty damn close to over anyway.

He kept reliving that morning and thinking of how he coul
d have done things differently.
Lik
e just out
and out lied.
That had
always
been
the plan if confronted with something like a phone call from Keisha, or a chance encounter between Keisha and
Riley
at some industry party.

Deny, deny, deny
.

But
she came in earlier than expected, and he was caught off guard when she crawled into bed with him like that, and
wasn’t thinking of what it would look like for him to wear a condom when he
’d hadn’t done that for months.
Wasn’t thinking about much of anything other than getting close to her again.
And
most of all
,
he hadn’t counted on what it would feel
like to
try to
lie to her to her face. Looking into her eyes, seeing the hurt and confusion had rendered him pretty close to speechless and he quite literally could not lie. Not to her.

Even though there
was no point in replaying the same old tape in his head, he couldn’t
help himself.
Riley
had been
coming on so strong
,
eager to get
closer to him
for days
and
he’d fought every natural impulse he had and pushed her away. So while she was in D.C. he bought the condoms, planning to construct an elabor
ate tale if forced to use them.

But in the moment, it was clear that there was no
story she would have believed even if he’d had the guts to tell it.
She’d looked right through him and saw the truth.
A fucking condom. It had to be the all-time dumbest shit he’d ever done.

“You still here?”

Shawn barely looked up.
Brendan was coming out of his kitchen, a bowl of
milk
in one hand, the
box of Cap’n Crunch in the other. Shawn sat up an
d made room for him on the sofa then
watched as Brendan turned on the television and started flipping channels.

“So
what
’d
Tracy say when you talked to her last night?”

Brendan was already digging his spoon into his bowl of cereal staring at the screen.

“I told y
ou, Tracy’s not giving up jack.
I asked her point blank.”

“And what
’d
she say?”

Brendan looked at him.  “She said, ‘I’m not giving up jack’.”

Shawn doubted Tracy had used those words, but he
got
the point.
Brendan was getting tired of him asking.

“So she didn’t say anything about a divorce or anything like that?”

“How man
y times I got to tell you, man?
You need to
go home.
Talk to your wife
.” Brendan shrugged.
“In a way
this
might work out better because the shit was bound to come out one way or another.”

“Oh,
this might work out
better
?
” Shawn said.
“I didn’t realize till just now it was a good thing my marriage getting fucked up.”

“Look,” Brendan said holding his spoon up at him
, milk dripping onto his wrist.
“You did this shit to yourself.
Ain’t nobody feelin’ sorry for your ass.”

“Thanks, man.
Nice lookin’ out.”

“I tried to look out.
Before yo
u sent Keisha that plane ticket
who was it that told you to hold up? Who told you to watch yo
urself when she was pushing. .
?”

“A’ight, a’ight . . . but
if you could
find out from Tracy if . . .”

“Shawn.
I
told you.
Tracy is not stupid.
She knows that whatever she tells me, she might as well be hollerin’ at you, so she doesn’t tell me
squat
.”

“I bet she’s happy this shit
happened,”
Shawn said bitterly.
“Probably offered to drive
Riley
to the courthouse the day she heard.”

“Shit.
What would
you
tell her?
You
been married
six
months, man.
”

Shawn held up a hand.
“Yeah, okay . . .
whatever.”

Brendan shrug
ged.
“See what I’m saying?
Y
ou don’t listen.
That’s what I been telling you.
Bottom line?
You were ready for
Riley
to be married to you, but you weren’t r
eady to be married to her
.”

“That’s real deep, man.
”

“
I told you what you have to do.
Go home.
Talk to her.
And if I was you I’d be trying to come up with some real groveling type shit.”

Shawn leaned back.
It wasn’t just that he didn’t want
Riley
to move out if he went home.
He also d
idn’t know what to say to her.
‘I’m sorry’ was about the only thing that came to mind and t
hat just didn’t seem to cut it.
If this was another woman, he might buy her something expensive; s
omething that would dazzle her.
But
knowing Riley,
jewelry at a tim
e like this would
send her over the edge
.

“She won’t even take my calls,” Shawn said.

“
That’s why you have to go home.
You want her to get
used to not having you around?
Wake up one day and say to herself, ‘This isn’t so bad.’?”

Shawn looked
up.
He hadn’t thought of that.
And between Tracy and her mother, he was sure she was alre
ady thinking along those lines.
As far as he knew, she might be already moving her stuff out, looking at apartments.
It wasn’t as though she didn’t now have the financial means to make that happen in short order if she wanted to.

“Maybe I can go to her job, catch her coming
out for lunch
.”

Brendan looked at him.
“You sure you want to do th
at, man?
It could get ugly
.”

Shawn laughed.
“I got a better chance out on the street than in room with just the two of us.”

Brendan thought about it for a second and nod
ded his agreement.
“You might be right.”

It took him
thirty
minutes to shower and dress, then Shawn took a cab over to
the magazine’s offices
on Chambers Street
,
but once he got t
here he had no idea what to do.
He loitered on the curb for a few minutes but people r
ecognized him and kept staring.
Then he noticed two girls across the street pointing excitedly and he knew he had to get inside
if he didn’t want a crowd to gather
.

Power to the People
was housed in an old red brick building on the more picturesque side of Chambers, near Chinatown where some of th
e roads were still cobblestone.
This particular building was familiar to Shawn because it had a unique painted ceiling and semi-circular staircase that made it a fa
vorite location for music
video directors.

The guard at the front desk looked at him when he entered with
a complete lack of recognition.
Then Shawn realized that based on what he was wearing
—
baggy jeans, Timberlands and a mo
ck turtleneck two sizes too big—
the guy was probably going to be suspicious if he just hung out, looking like he was casing the joint.

“‘
Exc
use me, man
,” he leaned on the front desk.
“What floor is
Power to the People
?”

“Fourth,” the guard looked him over, his eyes betraying that he was thinking precisely what Shawn had
suspected he would.
“
May
I call someone for you?”

“Nah.
I’m meeting someone for lunch.
I just thought she’d be down here.”

The guard picked up the phone.
“I can call her down for you.
What’s her name?”

Shawn hesitated.
“
Riley
Gardner.”

“Oh,
I know
Riley
. . .” the
guard started dia
ling before Shawn could object.
An
d he got her with relative ease—
something Shawn had not been a
ble to accomplish in two weeks.
“Your name sir?”

This time Shawn didn’t hesit
ate.
“Brendan Cole,” he said.
No way would she come down for him.

The guard exchanged a few more words with
Riley
and then hung up.
“She’s on her way.”

If she would come down for Brendan, that meant she
was at least open to listening.
She had to know that if Brendan came to see her, it could only be about him. 

When she got off the elevator, Shawn was waiting, leaning
on the wall opposite its doors.
A look of surprise and then resignation cr
ossed her face.
She stepped off and
looked at him, saying nothing.
He’d been so focused on getting her to come downstairs, on seeing her, that he’d completely forgotten to think of something to say once she was in front of him.

“
Riley
. . .” he began.

“Outside,” she cut him off, heading for the exit.

Once on the curb, in
the sunlight, he felt exposed.
Tongue-tied. 

“Who?” she asked quietly. 

She was tense, her spine straight and rigid
.
W
earing a black sweater and black wide-legged pants that seemed
to swallow her slender frame.
Her arms crossed in front of her only exacerbated the effect.
She looked lost.

“
Nobody,” Shawn said.
“Nobody you need to worry about.”

Riley gave a sad smile.
“After you’ve already screwed her you’re telling me I don’t
need
to worry about
it
?
Who is it
, Shawn
?”

“Keisha.
She’s a
dancer who . . .”

Her face opened up as though
she’d just realized something. “At Xander’s.
She was at the music video party.”

Shawn nodded.

“That long?” her voice broke.

To see
tears rising to her eyes
caused
his heart to clench as though someone had reached into his chest and dug their fingers into it
.
He
instinctively
reached out to her but she stepped back as though he’d lunged for her throat.