Struck By You: Players (10 page)

After class, she exited the studio rather quickly. By the time I was out of the shower and on my way out she was nowhere around. I asked the receptionist if she was still in the building but she said Riley had gone home already.
That’s that I guess
.

I drove around the city for a bit to clear my head, trying to make sense of what just happened. She made the rules and it was clear on Friday that she had every intention of following them.

     Still, I wanted to see her –  there was nothing to discuss. We had an understanding and it was none of my business she was sleeping with her boss.

I ended parking in front of her building and stayed in my car for a while trying to decide what I should do.
Fuck it!

I called her from the intercom and she picked up right away.

“Riley, it’s Mason, you busy?”

     “I’m heading out shortly, but I have a few minutes. Come up,” she said. She sounded calm and her usual happy self.

     She opened the door wearing a blue knee-length dress and a black mid-length coat, and she had her hair up in a French bun. She looked stunning.

“Hi” she said walking away and went into the kitchen.

“Hey,” I replied, closing the door behind me. “Where are you going?” I asked following her.

“Lunch date,” she said.

“Paul?”

She looked into my eyes and smiled. “Actually no, I’m meeting some of my friends –  haven’t seen them in a while.”

I suddenly felt relief. “What’s your schedule like this week?”

“I work tomorrow night, Wednesday day and night, Thursday night and Friday day. How come?” she asked.

“Just wondering when we could hook up,” I said and I had a sinking feeling this was over.

She rested herself on the counter looking down at the ground and sighed.

“Uh, I don’t know, later I guess,” she said looking up at me.

I swallowed and my chest felt heavy. “Alright, I’ll see you later then, text me when you’re available,” I said turning to leave.

“Next time, don’t pick up your phone,” she said.

I stopped dead on my tracks and anger came over me. I turned around to look at her again. She was angry as well, I could see it in her eyes.

“Perhaps you could fuck people I don’t know,” I retorted.

“That’s none of your business!” she yelled.

“I know, I got it!” I yelled back.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then she left the kitchen and grabbed her purse from the foyer table.
“I have to go,” she said reaching for the door.

“How long will you be?”

“Couple of hours, maybe less,” she said.

“Can I stay here?”

“Suit yourself,” she said and walked out.

She came back three hours later, still looking impeccable so I knew she wasn’t lying to me. I was sitting on her couch watching TV, watched her take her shoes and coat off but did not greet me. I turned the TV off and sat there contemplating what to do. Should I leave? Should I ask her to go out with me for a bit to smooth things over, or do I do what I always do and seduce her? I was lost. For some reason my chest felt heavy again.

“Sorry I took so long, I haven’t seen the girls for a while,” she said sitting beside me.

     “I’m sorry I picked up the phone,” I replied.

“Yeah me too, I really didn’t need to hear that,” she said, and I realized she was hurt. Fact was, I did it on purpose because I was so angry at the time.

“I’ve missed you,” I whispered and kissed her shoulder.

She closed her eyes and tilted her head to the side so I could kiss her neck and it no longer felt difficult to breathe.

We made love for hours after that. Nothing had changed between us and it became clear to me that we could make this work.

After a late dinner, we sat on her couch and watched a movie on cable. The movie was about a young woman who fell in love with her professor whom she knew was married. He claimed he was unhappy and that he would divorce his wife but after a while, his wife became pregnant and he chose not to leave. The young girl found out she too was pregnant about a month after and ended up committing suicide.

When the ending credits began to roll, I looked over at Riley and she was crying. I laughed at her. “It’s just a movie Riley.”

She got up abruptly and ran to the bathroom.

I ran after her but she closed the door in my face. “What the fuck Riley, open the door,” I said.

“Go home Mason,” she said. She was still crying.

“No, open the door!” I yelled.

She unlocked it and I went in. She went down on the floor with her knees against her chest and her head down,  crying.

     “Christ Riley, what’s going on with you, why are you so upset?”

“Just go home Mason, I’m okay, just brought back some bad memories, that’s all,” she said looking up at me with tears rolling down her face.

“C’mon,” I said picking her up off the floor and took her to bed.

I laid her down and put the sheets over her. I got into bed with her and put my arm around her letting her head rest on my chest, a position we were used to by now.

“Talk to me. Believe it or not I am a good listener, it’s my job,” I joked.

She giggled a bit and kissed my chest. She took a deep breath and started talking. “When I was 19, I met this man in university. He was wonderful, beautiful and powerful; he was in his mid-thirties at the time. We started out with a sexual relationship, nothing more. Like I said he was older and he was new to me, experienced, certainly not a boy,” she began.

“This went on for a good six months. Then on my second year, we got closer. He wanted to spend time with me, took me places, trips…it was wonderful. We had dated for close to two years when he asked me to move in with him. He bought a place close to the campus and I moved in. He travelled a lot so I never had suspicions about him –  he was just perfect. After about three months of living together, I started getting weird phone calls – hang-ups –  I felt I was being watched and followed. I told him about it but he said it was all in my head. So one day I got a text message from an anonymous number with the message “He is married”. I showed him and he swore it wasn’t true, that it was probably someone playing a prank. I was head over heels for him so I believed him. A week later he took me to Niagara Falls and proposed, and I happily accepted.

“The anonymous text messages continued, the sense of me being followed continued. But I chose to ignore it and planned my wedding. My parents got me a gorgeous wedding dress, I had the hall picked out, a huge guest list. We had the wedding date set for a week before my twenty-second  birthday. So, a few days before my wedding day I was in the middle of a lecture when this woman with two little kids barged in and began calling me names of all sorts. She told me she and Jason had been married for almost eight years and that I was nothing but a whore and a homewrecker. She even showed me their marriage certificate and pictures. Turned out she was telling the truth and she had hired a private detective to follow him and me. His trips were never business trips – he was actually going home, living a double life.

“I had to take a leave of absence and went back to finish my BA part-time. He was forced to resign as head of the Psych department due to his indiscretion with a student. I moved in with my sister for a while to get back on my feet and that’s how I ended up working where I work. He’s the reason I didn’t go on with school,” she said.

“I understand.”

“After that, I swore to myself I would never get attached. So I started living my life, like you, no regrets, no commitments and I like it that way – it’s easy and I don’t get hurt,” she said.

“The other day, when you started crying after we had sex, what happened, did I do something to remind you?” I asked.

“I don’t want to talk about that Mason, it’s not necessary,” she said wrapping her arm around my chest.

“Tell me.”

“No, there’s no need.”

“Goddammit Riley, I tell you private stuff all the time, you owe me an explanation for that.”

She sighed. “Because from the moment I met you, something about you reminds me of him and it terrifies me. The way you looked at me that day scared me.”

I knew exactly what she was talking about and the truth was, I loved watching her. I got lost in her eyes and I felt so close to her, a feeling I’ve never had with another woman.

I didn’t leave her place until Wednesday afternoon. I was out of it and out of touch with the world, because I started to turn my off my phone when I was with her.

     As soon as I got in my car to leave, I turned my phone back on and the messages began to pour in. I had a call-back from the law firm I interviewed asking me to come in on Friday again. As soon as I fired up my engine, I had an incoming call from my brother.

     “Hey Tanner.”

“Where are you disappearing to these days?” he began. “You go off the grid and no one can find you, so what the fuck Mason, where have you been? Even mom has been asking.”

“Just around, don’t worry about it.”

“Alright, don’t tell me, eventually I will find out,” he said.

“What do you want Tanner?”

“That was a wild party last weekend, I was thinking we should do it again this weekend but in a bigger scale, what do you think?”

“Can’t, I have plans.”

“Fuck off, cancel them,” he said.

“No, I’ll see you around,” and I hung up.

I had one day to pull this together so I rushed home to make some phone calls.

Chapter 13

    
P
aul greeted me with a deep kiss as soon as I walked in his office Wednesday night.

“I’ve missed you,” he whispered. “Can’t stop thinking about you,” he said kissing me deeper. He stopped and looked into my eyes. “Did you miss me?” he asked.

     “Yes,” I lied.

“I have something for you,” he said leaving me to get something from his suit jacket. “I saw it and I thought of you,” he said presenting me a little black velvet jewelry box. I opened it and inside were a pair of teardrop earrings fully surrounded by red-white and black diamonds on a white gold setting. They were gorgeous and looked expensive.

“They’re gorgeous Paul but I can’t accept this, it’s too much,” I said.

     “Nonsense, they wouldn’t look good on anyone but you. I won’t take them back,” he said.

I smiled. “Thank you,” I said and wrapped my arms around him.

     We were together both nights, and planned on getting together on Sunday, his only day off at his house.

     The week went by fast. I arrived at the spa for Friday morning yoga earlier than usual. I was in the studio waiting for my students when I got a text from Mason.

Don’t leave after class, I can’t come right now, but I will be there at 11:15 sharp. I’ll be waiting outside.

I smiled to myself thinking about how cryptic he was sometimes.

Like he promised, he was outside by his car right at 11:15. He was wearing a dark grey suit, custom tailored, with a blue striped tie and he looked beautiful in it.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

He looked into my eyes and smiled and for the first time since I met him, he put his arms around my waist and kissed me in public. A very long deep kiss. It was so deep and passionate, people were whistling at us from across the street. When he finally let me go, I was in a daze and my heart beat a mile a minute.

He opened the car door for me. “If you have any plans this weekend, I suggest you cancel them immediately,” he said.

 “Where are we going?” I asked.

“It’s a surprise,” he said and closed the door.
     “I have nothing to wear other than what you see Mason,” I said when I realized were entering the airport.

“I’ve taken care of it, you just need your driver’s license,” he said.

We parked the car and made our way to domestic departures – wherever we were going was within Canada. He had two medium stackable black luggage with him.

“Plane leaves in an hour,” he said as we rushed through the doors to check in.

He had us booked in a flight going to St. John’s, Newfoundland.

“Okay so yes, we’re going to Newfoundland, and I’ve booked us a room in a seaside bed and breakfast. I’ve got dinner reservations at the very best places today and tomorrow and we come back Sunday afternoon.”

“You’re nuts,” I said punching him lightly on the stomach.