The One Who Got Away

by Kristina Wright

  “Here she is,” Jeannie said. “Please let me present our head of admissions, Ms. Mira Losacek.”

  Mira tried to ignore James as she led the group to the small auditorium and watched them take their seats. He was with a young woman who didn’t look much like him, being blonde with light eyes—Mira didn’t want to stare to see exactly what color—and short. James was graying but most of his hair was full and dark, playing off his dark-brown eyes, and he was taller than she remembered.

  Mira forced herself to look away—who cared if his eyes still looked like melted chocolate? Or that his wife must be a knockout judging from his daughter.

  His wife. Mira had been waiting for him to pop the damn question for three years before she gave up. Since he had an eighteen-year-old daughter, he must have done it as soon as Mira left him—but he had asked someone else.

  Mira gave her standard “What we look for in a Raynaud student” speech, then asked for questions. A sea of hands went up. James’s hand wasn’t one of them.

  Good, all the easier to ignore him. She gave herself over to what she was there for, encouraging the students Raynaud would want to apply and doing some advance softening for those who wouldn’t get accepted.

  When no other hands went up, she smiled, thanked the groups and wished them well on the rest of their tour, and left them in Jeannie’s capable hands. She walked out as professionally as she could, trying her best not to look like she was fleeing.

  She had gotten out to the exit when she heard his voice, “Mir, wait up.”

  Taking a deep breath, she turned around, hoping her face didn’t betray what she was feeling. Damn it all—why did he have to look so good? “James.”

  “I was hoping I’d see you.”

  “Don’t know why.” She made her tone as icy as it could go. Buffalo icy. Winds blowing off the Lakes icy.

  He didn’t look perturbed. “My ex-wife wanted to be the one to take Jaime to all the schools, but this one I managed to snag. Wonder why that is?” His grin was the same as she remembered, lighting up his face, making those chocolate eyes crinkle.

  “Ex-wife?”

  His grin grew wider. “Caught that, did you?”

  She shrugged. “Just making conversation.”

  His gaze seemed to drop to her fingers. “No rings. Does that mean you’re not married?”

  “Guess so.” She turned.

  He closed the gap between them, reached past her and held the door shut.

  “Students may want in, you idiot.”

  Laughing, he let go of the door. “Have dinner with me tonight.”

  “With you and Jaime?”

  “Nope. She’s being wined and dined—well, I hope not wined, actually—by the women’s field hockey team. She’s really good.”

  Mira found herself smiling and tried to dial it back, with no luck. “We have a decent team. Never going to make the Olympics or anything, but good.”

  “Yeah, she’s really good but not stellar. Her expectations are set right, I think.” He eased Mira out of the way of some students, moving her the way he used to, his hand falling low on her back. She had thought it was a possessive thing, when she’d still believed he wanted to keep her. “Dinner? Please?”

  “I’m seeing someone.”

  “Liar.”

  She knew she was glaring.

  “You have a tell when you lie. You always have and I’ve never told you that. And I don’t plan on telling you what it is now, but you have it, and you just did it when you said you were seeing someone.” His smile was one sided, slipping up into a grin of triumph. “You’re mad at me still? That’s okay. Just have dinner with me.”

  Her brain said to say no. Her brain said to walk away without answering: that would teach him. Her brain said to— “Fine. Yes. Shut up.”

  He seemed to like the answer, even with the “shut up” part thrown in. “We’re staying at the University Motel. Or I can come to you?”

  “I’ll pick you up.” He had always driven when they’d been together; her driving would make him crazy. She smiled a little at the thought.

  “Great. Say, seven?”

  “Fine.” She pushed him away. “Go find your group. I’m not going to entertain you the rest of the day if you lose them.”

  “They were on bathroom break when I made my run for it.” He leaned in, kissed her on the cheek, and murmured, “You look fabulous, by the way,” and then he was gone, striding across the student union as if he owned it.

  She hated that she watched him until he disappeared into the auditorium.

  She arrived at his motel a little after seven and picked up the house phone, waiting as she was connected to his room. No one answered. She hung up the phone, frowning, and then felt the hackles-rising feeling she occasionally got when she was the object of scrutiny.

  She turned and saw him sitting in the bar across the lobby, a lazy smile on his face. He lifted his glass to her, and she walked over.

  “You thought I’d bailed?” He motioned the bartender over. “You still drink daiquiris?”

  “No, I’ll have a club soda.”

  “You laying off booze for a reason?”

  “Yes, I’m driving.”

  He motioned for her to sit next to him. “Why don’t we eat here?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m afraid you’re going to get pissed off at me at some point and strand me in the middle of a town I don’t know. This way, I have a short walk.”

  She laughed despite herself. “Are you planning on pissing me off?”

  “No, but the possibility is there.”

  She conceded the point with an eye roll and stopped the bartender as she sat. “Can you put some scotch in that?”

  “Wow, scotch and soda. Aren’t you all grown up?”

  “I damn well better be after all these years.” She turned to look at him. “So, I checked Jaime’s file. She may not be stellar in field hockey but her grades and extracurriculars are up there.”

  His smile was easy and sweet. “She’s a great kid. I thought when her mom and I divorced that we would ruin her, but she’s dealt with it better than Linda or I have.”

  “When did you divorce?”

  “About four years ago.” He sipped his drink—scotch also from the look of it. “We drifted apart. Or maybe we didn’t drift at all. Maybe we just bored each other.” He sighed and it had the sound of a longstanding frustration, as if he wished he really did know why he and this Linda had broken up.

  “People change.” She sipped her drink, reminding herself to go easy, no matter how much she wanted to throw it back and feel the rush of calm—why was she so nervous? She had left him, not the other way around.

  “I should have changed.”

  “For her, you mean?”

  He shook his head. “For you. Before you left me, you wanted to get married and I…” He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and studied her, his gaze so appraising she wasn’t sure what he was looking for. “I loved you so much. I never loved Linda that way.”

  “Didn’t stop you from proposing to her. So I guess it pays to be her.” She played with the ice in her glass, tipping the glass slightly back and forth, until he stopped her.

  “I’m serious. I never loved her—never loved anyone—the way I loved you.” He began to move his finger over her hand, tracing patterns the way he’d used to in bed. “I can’t regret Linda because together we have Jaime, and I love her more than anything. So maybe in that sense it was meant to be. But not forever, you know? Not the love of my life.”

  She eased her hand out from under his, tried not to let him see how much his touch had moved her. “I have always thought the love of your life was you.”

  He surprised her by laughing out loud. “You never would have said that before.”

  “I sure wouldn’t have.” She laughed softly. “Life is a great teacher. So is loss. Why mince words?”

  “Why indeed. In the spirit of not mincing words, I want you to
know something. I came here to get you back.”

  She let her eyebrows rise. “What?”

  “That was pretty basic English, but if I really need to rephrase it, I will.”

  “Maybe ‘why’ is the better question.”

  “Because I was an idiot.”

  “Well on that you’ll get no argument from me.” She leaned against the back of the bar stool. “You really thought one trip here, one short little meeting, maybe dinner, and we would be all hot and heavy again?”

  He smiled and looked pointedly at the hand he had been tracing his nonsense symbols on. “You liked having me touch you. Just now and earlier, in the student union, when I did this.” He slid his hand between her and the stool, letting it settle on the small of her back, radiating an astonishing amount of heat—it wasn’t right that he could still do this to her.

  She’d had other men since she left him. Plenty of them. Why in the hell had none of them moved her the way he did?

  She leaned forward, trying to break the connection, but he followed her, his hand never leaving her back.

  She felt the tingle in her belly she’d always felt when she was around him, knew he would find her wet and ready if they went up to his room and—

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit.

  “Why would I want to get back with you?” Good. Turn this back on him—she shouldn’t be thinking about how her belly felt like butterflies had taken up residence in it, or that she wanted him to lean her over the bar and—

  “Because you love me.”

  “I don’t love your ego.”

  He laughed. “You love that I keep you on your toes. You always have. I love that, too.”

  She reached behind her and grabbed his hand, pulling it off her back. “Yes, you loved it so much you wouldn’t put a ring on it.”

  “You scared the crap out of me, Mir. I got lost in you. Nothing else mattered when we were together.”

  “Those are arguments for marrying someone, not against. Tell me something that actually makes sense.”

  He grabbed his glass, sipped his drink almost angrily, then put it back with what looked like great care. “I had plans. I had ambition. I was afraid if I was with you, I would forget them.”

  “Well, I hope your plans and ambition kept you warm.”

  “They did. At first. I was important—still am, I suppose. I married a woman who would never make me question what was the most important thing in my life: my work.”

  “You know, when men have midlife crises like this, they usually go for someone really young and flashy.”

  “Linda was flashy. Where do you think Jaime gets her looks from? But she gets her brains from me. She and her mom don’t have much to talk about because Jaime tends to care about more than the latest gossip rags.” He met Mira’s eyes. “She’s like us that way. Smart. Deep.”

  “Wow, aren’t we wonderful?” The words didn’t come out as snotty as she meant them to because she was liking what he was saying. She was liking it way too much.

  “I have an opportunity for a job in Maryland. It’s a lateral assignment, and that’s okay because I’m ready to quit pushing so hard. But I won’t take it if you don’t want me to.” He met her eyes, stilled fingers she hadn’t realized she was drumming on the bar. “Mir, tell me what you want.”

  “It’s been twenty years, James.”

  “It’s been nineteen years and five months.” He leaned in. “And four days. And I’ve missed you every single bit of that time.” She wasn’t sure what to say; she always knew what to say.

  “Mir, do you want me here?”

  “I hated you.” The words came out almost strangled; it was a truth she’d held back for so long. Hate was counterproductive. Hate made you live in the past and she had moved on. She had forgotten him.

  Only she hadn’t. Not the way he smiled, or the way his eyes crinkled, even if they crinkled more than before. The way his hand felt on hers. The way his lips would feel.

  He sighed. “I hated myself more than a little, too. It just took me a long time to realize that I had made the wrong thing a priority. Even after I left Linda, I wanted to believe that my job, doing what felt good, what made me seem important, was more vital than finding you and letting you know how I felt.”

  “It’s probably good you did. Four years ago I really was seeing someone.”

  “You left him, too, huh?”

  She nodded. “After he asked me to marry him and I couldn’t say yes.”

  “Because of me.”

  She hated that he didn’t even make it a question. She hated that he was right. She hated what that said about her, the kind of woman who could never move on. “Because of me,” she finally said. And wasn’t that the truth, after all? She was the one who had never moved on even though she had moved away. She was the one who had never forgotten him.

  Or maybe…she wasn’t. Maybe he was telling the truth: he had thought about her all this time.

  She studied him. “You’re important—you’re fixed fine for money, I take it?”

  He nodded.

  “Then the drink’s on you.” She stood up.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m leaving.” She smiled, and for once the smile didn’t feel full of old anger and pain and longing. “What are you doing?”

  “You want me to come with you?” He looked seriously confused at this point. “I need you to tell me what you want.”

  “No, you don’t. Move here if you want to see how I feel. Don’t, if you need a sure thing. Because I’m not going to be that. Not after twenty years apart.” She leaned in and kissed his cheek the way he had done to her earlier. “You look fabulous, too, by the way.”

  Then she pulled away, turned on her heel, and went home.

  She didn’t hear from him that night, or in the weeks that followed, so she pushed the brief sharp pain away and went back to her life. One day she saw Jaime on campus and smiled at the girl but didn’t stop to talk, and Jaime didn’t seem to know Mira was anyone that might have been important to her.

  She pushed thoughts of James out of her mind and stayed in her office the rest of the day, letting work divert her, until she packed it in and drove home.

  As she pulled into her driveway, she saw James sitting on her front step, kicked back, a reader in his hand. He closed it and smiled at her, then stood up.

  She got out of the car and walked to him.

  “So I moved.” He pointed at a car parked across the streets. “Commuting to Maryland from Virginia is a bitch.”

  “You could have lived in Maryland, Mister ‘I’m so much smarter than my ex.’”

  He laughed. “But I wanted to be close to Jaime.” He drew her in. “And to you.”

  “I’ve gotten married. Sorry.” She tried to keep a straight face and failed.

  “Where is your new groom? I’ll fight him for you.”

  She let him draw her up the stairs, smiled as he took the key from her and opened the door. “Mr. Traditionalist?”

  “I want to stake my claim for this mythical rival.”

  She closed the door and leaned against it. “Unfortunately for me, you have no rival.”

  He moved closer. “No?”

  “Nope.” She felt a lightness she didn’t expect, a…happiness she’d given up on at some point.

  He had moved here not knowing if she’d take him back. As gestures went, that was big. Even if his daughter was here, too. It still counted for a hell of a lot.

  “Do you wish you didn’t love me?” He drew her jacket off, took her purse and put it on the table near the door.

  “My answer tonight might be different than my answer a few weeks ago.”

  He reached behind her and locked the door. “Good.” He began to unbutton her blouse.

  She stopped him. “I’m older.”

  “So am I, toots. Now, move those hands and let me look at you.”

  She let her hands fall, and he made short work of the buttons and pushed her blouse off.
Reaching around her, he unhooked her bra and let it fall too. Then he just stared.

  “I thought I had made you better in my mind, you know? But I didn’t.” He unfastened her pants, and let them pool, eased off her panties and knelt down, his tongue finding her clit.

  “You haven’t even kissed me, James.” The last part came out a little breathy since he was doing amazing things where he was using his mouth.

  “You want me to stop?” he asked, as he pulled away.

  “I’m an idiot. Forget I said anything.”

  He laughed and went back to work, his tongue sliding around and then over her clit, his fingers kneading her rear, and then he moved them around and up, one, then two, then—

  Her legs didn’t want to support her, so she slid down, and he eased her back, her clothing partially protecting her from the hard tile of her entryway. She forgot about how cold the floor was as he kept licking and sucking and then she was gone, calling out loudly, suddenly glad she didn’t share any walls in this house.

  He kissed his way up her body, stopping at her breasts, taking first one nipple, then the other in his mouth, going back and forth, murmuring how he’d missed his girls. When he finally found her mouth, she was feeling the cold easing through her clothing.

  He pulled away and said, “Please, god, tell me you have a bed. I’m too old for this.”

  Laughing, she nodded, and they helped each other up, and he followed her to her bedroom.

  He nodded to the bed. “Lie down.”

  “But you’re fully dressed. And I’ve done very little work here.”

  “You did the heavy lifting when you left me. Now it’s my turn to put in a little effort.”

  “I think I love that thought.” She lay back on the bed, resting on her elbows as she watched him take off his clothes.

  “You didn’t want me to make this sexy, did you?”

  She laughed and shook her head.

  “Good. Because I’m pretty sure that’ll be your department next time we do this.”

  “Oh, you want a striptease, do you?”

  “I’m a guy. You’re the love of my life who is still so damn sexy it hurts. The question is ludicrous.” He walked over to her and smiled as she reached out for his cock, as she played with it, making it harder than it already was. “I want a lot of stripteases from you, woman.”