“Let’s go inside, Nick. It’s too cold to talk here.” We took the elevator down to my hotel room. When we got to the door, I couldn’t believe it. On the doorknob was Maria’s pink hair tie. I knew that was code for “I have a guy in the room” and to get lost.
“Ha ha! I think Maria and Enrique are doing it in my room!”
Before I had a chance to call Maria and see, I heard very loudly through the door, “Yes, yes, yes, Enrique! Fuck me hard!” That answered that question.
Nick and I started cracking up and ran down the hall before they heard us. He had a room, so he suggested we go hang out there until Maria and Enrique were done. It was after midnight and I really didn’t have anywhere else to go, so I sent Maria a text:
Text me when you’re done, please!
“So…” My palms were sweaty and my heart was definitely racing.
“How about a cocktail?” Nick suggested.
At that point I was so drunk I actually thought I needed another drink. “Sure, what do you have?”
Nick was busy at the bar, pouring and mixing, and turned around and handed me a glass. One sip and I got goose bumps. It was a Sex on the Beach, my favorite drink. Not only did Nick know that, he had actually brought the ingredients to the hotel so he could make it.
“You know you’re pretty thoughtful for someone who is such an ass.”
Nick looked stunned at my response. “Why don’t you tell me how you really feel, Liz?”
“Ha! You don’t really want to know how I feel, Nick. Trust me.”
His expression softened, the arrogant ego fell away, and there he was, Nicholas Riggins, the one who broke my heart, just looking at me. His eyes so full of questions, so wanting answers that I knew I didn’t have.
“Please, Lizzy, please just talk to me. I know you don’t owe me anything, but I would be eternally grateful if you would just tell me what is on your mind, in your heart.”
“I can’t. I just can’t. I’m married and you know that. Braden is a wonderful husband and father, and I love him very much.”
“What about us?”
“Nick, there is no us, okay? What we had was a long time ago. It was great, but it’s over. It’s been over. Why can’t you see that?”
“Because it’s not. Just because you’re married doesn’t make me stop loving you.” Nick gently took my hands in his. He caressed my fingers, lingering for an extra moment on my wedding band and engagement ring. “That ring, that promise, that should be from me.”
“Um, you are a wedding, three kids, and a dog too late.”
“No, no, no.” He was shaking his head. “It’s not. It’s never too late. What we had was once in a lifetime. Our souls are connected.”
“Nick, what the hell are you talking about?”
“We are kindred spirits, separated by time and space but not by feelings. I know you still love me. I can feel it. You can deny it all you want, Lizzy, but just because you say it isn’t so doesn’t make it true.”
“Shit, Nick. You are a piece of work, you know that? You need to stop with all of this bullshit. If you’re so smart, tell me: what am I feeling right now, O Gifted One?”
“You feel scared and nervous. You are shaky and you want me to warm you up, but you’re afraid if I touch you, your true feelings will come pouring out.”
Nick walked over and put his arm around me and rubbed my arm to warm me up. I was feeling cold, shaky, and I had goose bumps. But that would have been evident to anyone.
“You have major butterflies, and it’s freaking you out because it’s exactly how you felt the first time right before I kissed you. In fact, I remember right before I kissed you that day, you were staring at my lips, just like you are now.”
Goddamnit. How could he still get to me like this? Nick was right and I hated him for it.
He slowly ran his index finger across my lips. “I’ve missed these lips so much. They are so perfect, so soft and full.”
I could feel myself letting my guard down. I had so much I could have said, but it was late, and I was exhausted and drunk. So instead, I lay down on the queen-sized bed.
It turns out he could read my mind after all because what I wanted more than anything at that moment was to sleep.
Nick took off his button-down shirt and slacks and traded them for gym shorts and a t-shirt. He climbed under the covers and spooned me. The last thing I remember was thinking how safe I felt in his arms, and then I fell asleep.
When I woke up the next morning, I had to pee like a racehorse, and my head was killing me. What did I expect after six glasses a wine, a Sex on the Beach, and no dinner?
After I went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth, I sat on the couch and watched Nick sleep. How was it possible that I was in his hotel room at my high school reunion? He looked so peaceful sleeping there, the same slight snore I remembered from college.
He must have gotten hot during the night because his chest was now bare, and I could see it rising and falling with each breath. He looked so sweet, so innocent, so vulnerable. With the exception of a few smile lines and a thinning hairline, he really looked the same.
I closed my eyes and imagined that we were in a hotel at his fraternity formal. I pictured us having spent last night together, dancing and drinking with friends. Having the time of our lives. Coming back to the hotel late, making love all night until I fell asleep in his powerful arms. I imagined falling asleep in my “spot,” my head resting on his chest, nestled in the crook of his armpit. Falling asleep like that always made me feel so safe, so loved. With Nick, never had I felt so much pain or so much love.
My heart was hurting.
I loved Braden, but there is something about a first love that always stays with you. At least that is what I always say to myself when I still cry after listening to our song, “Wonderful Tonight.”
Nick slowly opened his eyes and didn’t seem surprised that I was sitting three feet away from him. “Good morning, sleepy head. How’s your head?” I asked.
“My head feels like someone took a sledgehammer to it.” He was laughing as he said it.
“And how is it that you didn’t even look surprised when you woke up and caught me watching you sleep?” I questioned him.
“That’s easy.” Nick sat up in the bed and ran his hand through his hair. “I wasn’t surprised to see you because I’ve dreamed of waking up with you for years. When I saw you there, I thought I was still dreaming.”
I felt sick. I wasn’t sure if it was the hangover or my emotions, but it was more than I could stomach.
“You okay, Liz? You look a little pale over there. Come lay next to me, I promise to behave.”
I walked over and sat on the edge of the bed facing Nick. I was worried about letting my guard down with him, but the room was spinning and I had to lie down. “Ugh, I don’t feel so good. The room is totally spinning and it won’t stop.”
Nick quickly got up and went into the bathroom. He came back with a cool washcloth and placed it on my forehead. He had two painkillers and a huge bottle of water in his hand.
“Here, sit up for a just a sec and take these.”
I sat up, took the painkillers, and drank a few sips of water. Closing my eyes felt so much better.
Nick was clanking around at the bar and came back with a Bloody Mary. “I know the last thing you think you need is a drink, but this will actually help. ‘Hair of the dog’ isn’t just an old wives tale. And eat this protein bar. It will help you metabolize the alcohol faster.”
Begrudgingly, I took a few bites of the peanut butter power bar and was surprised it made me feel better. Nick was doting on me and it felt good.
“Thanks, Nick. You make a very good Florence Nightingale.”
“I was thinking more like Dr. McDreamy, but I’ll take any compliment I can get from you. This is what I wish for every day,” he said.
“To play doctor to a very hungover me?” I smiled at him.
“Well, yes, to be able to take care of you,
to wake up with you every morning and spoil you every night. To show you how much I love you and care for you. I want to be with you. I would do anything to be with you, Liz. Please, just tell me, what do I have to do?”
“Seriously, Nick? Let’s see, for starters, you need to build a time machine that brings us back to when we were together. You need to not have cheated on me. You need to wave your magic wand and have it so that I never married Braden and didn’t have three kids with him. Can you do any of that, Nick?”
“So are you saying that if you weren’t married to Braden and didn’t have kids, you would want to be with me?”
“No, no, I am not saying that. I am saying you started the chain of events that brought me to where my life is today. You are the one who cheated on me. You are the one who broke my heart. If you hadn’t broken my heart, we’d probably be married right now. We’d have two kids and a house with a white picket fence and two cars.”
Nick’s eyes were getting teary. He quickly wiped them away. “Shit, Liz. Give me a second chance. I promise I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”
“I am married! What don’t you understand about that? We have three kids. We have a life together. Just because you come waltzing back into my life doesn’t undo any of it!” I was yelling by now, but I couldn’t help it.
“What about your wife? Don’t you love her?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. All I know is that the day I got married, I kept looking at the door, hoping and praying, thinking that maybe, just maybe, you would show up at the church. You know, like in the movie The Graduate, that you’d tell me you still loved me and not to marry her.”
“Nick, stop, just stop. This is insanity. This gets crazier by the moment. I’m married, you’re married, I have kids, and you’re going to have a baby soon.”
Tears fell from Nick’s face. “Nicole lost the baby. She doesn’t want to try anymore. That was her fifth miscarriage. She said she’s done, that maybe she just isn’t meant to be a mom.”
“Oh, Nick. I am so sorry.” I took Nick’s hands in mine and then gently wiped away his tears.
“I need you so badly, Liz. He sat on the couch and pulled me onto his lap. He kissed me so softly at first. I kissed him back. He tasted sweet, and his tears were salty. He ran his thumb down the side of my neck; Nick remembered how sensitive it was. I felt my body relax. I could feel myself giving into my primal desires. I wanted to be there, to feel wanted. I had dreamt of being with Nick again in my deepest slumber, in my most honest moments.
I felt relaxed, something I had not felt with Braden in a long time. Nick buried his face in my neck and smelled my hair.
“Mmm, Lizzy, you smell amazing.” He kissed my ear tenderly. He knew that kissing my neck and ear would be the beginning of the end for me. No matter what, it was the secret to my undoing. Like taking an eraser to a chalkboard, a few swipes and it was done.
My nipples were getting hard, and my panties were more than moist. Nick continued to kiss and caress my neck, then my ears. He blew into them and sent shivers down my spine. I could feel his hardness against my leg. Very slowly I started moving up and down on his muscular leg. He cupped my face in his hands. “Liz, you are so beautiful.”
He kissed me slowly, surely, parting my lips with his tongue. All the hunger and desire I had suppressed for so long was released in that kiss. I chewed on his lower lip. I didn’t want to let go.
He rubbed his hands up and down my sides, moving slowly near my breasts. His thumbs inched in closer to my nipples each time he’d pass them. Nick reached around and slowly undid my bra. I lifted my arms, and he slowly peeled off my dress. Neither one of us said a thing. No words were needed.
Nick stared at me for a moment and gazed at my breasts. “You are gorgeous, Liz.” He said it, and he meant it.
There I was, in nothing more than black lace panties, sitting on the lap of my long lost love. He kissed me quickly and then stood up, holding me. Nick carried me over to the bed and put me down gingerly like a sleeping baby.
Nick gently lay on top of me. We both still had on our underwear, and I was relieved we weren’t going too fast. I looked up at him and was mesmerized. Could this really be happening? Nicholas Riggins, my college sweetheart, at my high school reunion, about to make love to me.
He kissed my ear again and accidentally knocked out my earring. He grabbed it off the bed. “Hey, you don’t want to lose that.” Nick handed me my diamond earring, the ones that beautiful Betty had given me all those years ago.
And there it was.
Suddenly, the room was caving in on me, and her words were echoing through the hollow walls. “Just because something is shiny and new doesn’t mean it’s anything worth having. True beauty, true love, comes from the inside out, and never, ever the other way around.”
Oh my God! This is what she had meant! Nick was the diamond. I held the earring tightly in my hand and got up quickly. Nick looked confused.
“Where are you going, Lizzy?”
I could barely breathe. I didn’t know how I would explain how his sucking on my ear just saved my marriage. I quickly put on my dress and smoothed out my hair. “I have to go, Nick.” My voice was shaky.
“What? What the hell just happened here? I love you, Liz. Let me make love to you, make you feel the way you deserve to feel.”
“Nick, I know it may seem hard to believe, but I love Braden. I really do. Somewhere along the way, I lost sight of that, and I just came this close to throwing it all away. I’m sorry to hurry off like this, but I have to go.”
Nick stood up with tears in his eyes; he looked so sad. He leaned in for a hug, and I didn’t resist. I knew he understood that I was leaving, this time for good.
He took my face in his hands and held it delicately, like a fine piece of china. “Listen to me, Liz. I love you, I never stopped loving you, and I will never stop loving you. I will never forgive myself for hurting you and for letting you go. But if you’ve made up your mind to be with Braden, if he’s what you really want, I won’t try to stop you.”
Tears were streaming down my face; I wasn’t sure how much more emotion I could handle. “I love you too, Nick. I will always love you, but my heart belongs to Braden now. And for the record, I forgave you a long time ago; it’s time you forgive yourself.”
I leaned in and kissed Nick. He kissed me back, softly, lovingly, like he didn’t want to let go. We both knew it would be the last time we’d ever kiss.
My heart hurt. It hurt for what was, for what wasn’t, and for what would never be. Nick was my first true love, the man I had thought I would marry. I guess I should consider myself lucky. Some women never find a love like that in their lifetime and I had the lucky—or not so lucky—privilege of having it twice.
Choosing between two men that you love is like being in a crazy dream in which you’re running down a long dark hallway and having to choose between two doors. You could open one door and find yourself in the depths of hell, and the other could lead to fields of flowers. The truth is that once you pick, the other door closes. There is no going back, and for some people, that might be a fate worse than death.
I chose the right door; I’d just forgotten to lock the other one, and when I looked back, I saw a shadow of something that wasn’t really there. Lucky for me, my door—Braden’s door—was still open.
I wiped away my tears with the back of my hand. I hugged him once more and touched his cheek, memorizing every detail of that moment. I wanted time to stand still. I knew it would be the last time I would ever see Nicholas. It felt like saying goodbye, much like I had felt at Gabby’s funeral. It was so hard to grasp the concept of the finality of it.
We hugged one more time, and I walked out of his hotel room. But this time… I didn’t look back.
JULIA
The weeks flew by, and Ty and I were at the point where we talked on the phone every day, even if it was just for a few minutes. That was, until he had to go to Europe for work for two weeks.
He texted me daily, and we talked a few times, but I missed hearing his voice every day. The day he returned, I was thrilled to see his number pop up on my phone.
“Hey, baby. How’s my girl?”
“I’m good, baby. I’ve missed you. How was your trip? How are you?”
“Great, and I’ll be even better when you say you can meet me tomorrow night. I miss you so much; I need to see you.”
“Wait, isn’t your wife dying to see you after you’ve been out of town for so long?”
“She went to her sister’s in Oregon and won’t be back until Sunday.”
“Lucky us. Aaron is out of town again, and I’m sure my sister will let Arielle sleep over.”
“Awesome! Let’s meet at the hotel at seven. I’ll call right now to get a reservation and text you the room number. Oh, and wear something comfy.”
“Okay, how come?”
“I want to give you a full body massage before we make love. And I want to introduce you to tantric sex. Have you ever had an orgasm that went on for five minutes?”
“Oh my God, no, but that sounds amazing!”
“Perfect. Can’t wait to see you, Julia.”
“Me neither, Ty. See you tomorrow.”
After I hung up the phone, I just sat in my chair smiling. I unconsciously tilted my hips up thinking of being with Ty and all the wonderful ways he made me feel.
That night, Arielle and I watched TV in my bed. She fell asleep on her side facing me, her beautiful curls fanned around her precious face. Her lips made a little O and her eyes fluttered. She must have been dreaming. I hoped they were sweet dreams. One of the reasons I married Aaron was that my biological clock was ticking like a time bomb. I had longed to be a mommy for years before Arielle was born. I always knew I’d have a little girl, or at least I had hoped I would. She was everything I had dreamed of and more.
Aaron didn’t like when Arielle slept with us. He said she kicked him and he couldn’t sleep. She never kicked me, but maybe it was because I wrapped my arms around her so tight she couldn’t move. Like she was back in my womb, surrounded by everything that was there to nourish and protect her. She was my heart and soul, and I loved her more than anyone or anything in the whole world.
Sex and the Social Network Page 25