The Misconception

by Gardner, Darlene

  He leaned closer, narrowing the gap between their faces. “I didn’t do that, either. She used my name on the registration form, hoping I’d foot the bill for her room. When it comes to sex, she thinks the man should pay.”

  Marietta didn’t reply. Even though it sounded logical, what Ryan was saying couldn’t possibly be true. Men were predisposed to stray. Hadn’t she seen enough examples of that in her life? Hadn’t her own father proved her theory?

  “I don’t know why I wasted my breath telling you that.” Ryan shook his head, sounding resigned as he leaned back in his seat. “Just do one thing for me, Marietta. Don’t tell Tracy what we talked about.”

  “Why not?” Marietta asked. “I would have thought that explanation is something you’d want her to hear.”

  “What I want,” Ryan said, “is for Tracy to ask me what happened that day and to reach her own conclusions.”

  Marietta was about to ask Ryan to expand on his reply when she caught sight of a very large man walking up the creaky steps toward them. A very large, very symmetrical man if you didn’t count the white sling encasing his left arm.

  “Jax,” she mouthed, as new questions flooded her brain.

  Across the distance, Jax grinned. The circumstances weren’t ideal and the theater was nothing more than a stage and some rickety chairs, but he was headed exactly where he wanted to be.

  With Marietta.

  Her brown-blonde hair was back in its customary bun, and she was wearing a god-awful shade of green that did unflattering things to her skin. His libido hummed to attention anyway.

  Before he could get to Marietta, however, there was the matter of the man sitting in the aisle seat.

  “Ryan, my man.” He reached their row, slapping the other man lightly on the shoulder. “Could you let me through, pal? No offense, but she’s prettier than you are.”

  “Sure thing.” Ryan stood to grant him access to the row, and Marietta scooted over one seat to make room for him.

  “What happened to your arm?” Marietta asked before he could sit down, her multi-colored eyes wide.

  Jax took his time settling into his seat, hoping he could get through the next few minutes with his secret intact.

  “Hello, Marietta.” He leaned over and kissed her. Her mouth went soft and welcoming. Her silence, he knew, would only be temporary.

  “Is it broken?” She asked the question the instant he broke off the kiss.

  Here goes, he thought. “It’s my shoulder, and it’s not broken. Just dislocated.”

  Marietta gasped. “You dislocated your shoulder selling stocks and bonds?”

  “Of course not.” Jax had a story ready, but he didn’t want to tell it. Instead, he wished he could confide that he’d instinctively stretched out his arm to break his fall when Raving Maniac had slammed him to the mat with too much gusto.

  “Then how did you do it?” The question came from Ryan, who was supposed to be his friend.

  Jax rolled his eyes. He was dying here. Didn’t Ryan realize he didn’t need this kind of pressure?

  “Jax? How did you do it?” Marietta pressed when he didn’t answer. Her eyes were soft with concern as she laid her small hand on his uninjured shoulder.

  The truth bubbled on his lips, but then he thought of how Marietta would react. He sighed aloud.

  “In the gym when I was working out,” he lied. “I tried to lift too much weight. It’s nothing. I have to wear the sling for a while, but I’ll be good as new in a couple of weeks.”

  “But—”

  “The play’s about to start,” Jax interrupted as the lights dimmed.

  He settled back in his seat and slung his good arm around her shoulder. Instead of batting it away, she turned and smiled at him. Guilt rose up in Jax like floodwater.

  Damn, he hated lying to her. But how could he tell her what he did for a living after the things she’d said about pro wrestling?

  Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if he shed the Secret Stud act and took up another. Such as the Say-No-To-Drugs Dude or the Taboo-on-Tobacco Man. He might even be able to dream up an act throwing infidelity in a bad light.

  He frowned. He wasn’t only dreaming, he was stuck.

  The UWA wasn’t about to let go of a proven crowd-pleaser. Lance Strong, the president of the organization, was determined to give the fans more of what they wanted. According to unscientific exit polls, that was to see the Secret Stud unmasked.

  Strong was pushing for the unmasking to take place during the pay-per-view anniversary extravaganza, which was inconveniently scheduled after Jax’s shoulder would be healed.

  The UWA would milk all the publicity from the unmasking it could get. If the mainstream press ran a photo of Jax, there was a chance Marietta would see it. Unmasked, Jax might as well kiss goodbye his chances of becoming Marietta’s husband.

  She snuggled closer to him, and he got a whiff of shampoo. It didn’t smell of flowers, papaya or any of the other scents the shampoo industry was always promoting, but something simple and clean. Marietta’s shampoo was as straightforward as she was, as sincere as Jax didn’t have the courage to be.

  Down on the stage, the curtains parted. Tracy appeared with a male actor, both of them dressed entirely in black and white. Marietta’s sister wore a white top hat over hair that seemed to have been dipped in an ink well.

  “Why did Tracy do that to her hair?” Jax whispered to Marietta.

  “It’s a mood thing,” she answered back in a quiet voice. That made absolutely no sense to Jax. Then again, even though Tracy had always seemed sensible, she was related to Marietta.

  Nobody spoke on stage, amplifying the occasional cough and fidget from the audience. The actor next to Tracy stood deathly still. Then, very slowly, very deliberately, with slow, staccato movements, Tracy removed her hat. Just as slowly, and just as jerkily, she examined it. Bit by bit, she moved the hat toward a utilitarian pine table.

  “What’s going on?” Jax asked Marietta.

  “Tracy’s taking off her hat and laying it on the table,” she answered.

  “I can see that, but why?”

  Marietta shook her head. “This is experimental theater. Who knows why the actors do what they do?”

  Beside them, Ryan leaned forward and placed a finger to his lips. “Shhhh.”

  Jax returned his attention to the stage where Tracy was removing a wristwatch with the same frustrating slowness. He glanced at Ryan to gauge his reaction. The other man’s expression was rapt, as though Tracy were performing a slow-motion strip tease. At this rate, it’d be Christmas before the guy saw any skin.

  A long while later, with the watch finally deposited on the table, the male actor spent an agonizing amount of time loosening his tie. Jax glanced at Marietta. Her eyes appeared to be closed.

  “Are you asleep?” Jax asked close to her ear.

  She startled. “No, of course not!”

  “You can’t fool me,” Jax whispered.

  Marietta elbowed him and Ryan shushed them again. Jax supposed that was because on stage Tracy was getting into the act again. The male actor was making a pointed show of handing his tie to Tracy, who Jax supposed would deposit it on the table with the other items.

  Jax stifled an urge to stand up and yell, “Would you just put the blasted tie down?”

  Eons later, after the crew members pulled out a large white screen and shadow dancers positioned themselves behind it, Jax was already resigned to a long evening.

  He entertained himself by playing with the hair that had gotten loose from Marietta’s bun, expecting to get a slap on the hand. Instead she nestled against him, and he wondered if the craziness on stage had transferred itself to Marietta.

  The small smile she gave him heated his blood, and he was insanely glad he was sitting next to her at the worst play he’d ever attended. Even if it had taken a separated shoulder and a forced vacation from pro wrestling to get him here.

  CHROME AND MIRRORS was as far removed from Old Town Alexandria’s
quaint streets as a peacock from a skinned chicken. Whereas the rest of the community strove to keep the past alive, the nightspot resembled Jax’s idea of a future gone glimmer mad.

  Everything inside the place glinted. The chrome accents on the long, sleek bar and the solid chrome legs of the tall stools reflected off the diamond-patterned floor. Wall-to-wall mirrors enhanced the effect, nearly blinding Jax with chrome.

  He drummed his fingers on the shiny chrome of the table separating him and Ryan from Tracy and Marietta, worrying about the effects of secondhand smoke on pregnant women and their unborn babies. They were in a booth at the back of the bar, away from the handful of smokers, but still he worried.

  Across the booth, Marietta caught and held his eyes. She was different tonight, somehow softer and infinitely more approachable. He wanted her away from the smoke, but mostly he just wanted her.

  So how had he ended up sitting next to Ryan instead of beside Marietta? He liked Ryan a lot, but their side of the booth was so full, it’d be grounds for assault and battery if either of them moved an elbow.

  “You were great, Trace.” Ryan reiterated what had become a familiar refrain since Insignificant? had come to a merciful end. “I especially liked the way you picked up that penny during the shadow dance.”

  Tracy glanced up at Ryan and just as quickly looked away. Considering heat had risen off the two of them the last time Jax had seen them together, he wondered why she was keeping her distance. She’d practically dragged Marietta into her side of the booth.

  “You knew I was picking up a penny?” Tracy asked.

  “Of course,” Ryan said. “It was obvious.”

  No, Jax thought, it wasn’t. He’d thought she lost a contact lens. Either that or she was in the early stages of keeling over from boredom.

  “Speaking of obvious, how about the meaning of the play?” Jax asked, fishing for information. In truth, he had no idea what message the actors had been trying to get across.

  A smile shadowed Tracy’s mouth. “I wasn’t sure the audience would get it, but I’m glad you did, Jax.”

  “I’d love to hear your take on it,” Marietta said, an impish grin on her face.

  Uh-oh. “It’s a very simple concept,” Jax hedged, “but difficult to grasp.”

  “Exactly!” Tracy nodded and waited for him to continue.

  “About, uh, insignificance,” Jax finished.

  “The significance of insignificance, to be exact,” Tracy said. “We were trying to get across that every item, no matter how small, has significance.”

  “Right,” Jax said, finally understanding. Sort of.

  Marietta’s laughing eyes met his, signaling she knew he hadn’t a clue what the play was about before Tracy told him. He winked at her, and her eyes laughed harder.

  “I thought it was very clever,” Ryan said.

  Tracy squired in her seat. She fiddled with the skinny straw in her gin and tonic. Time to lighten the atmosphere with a joke, Jax thought.

  “Speaking of clever, here’s one for you,” Jax said. “What would you do if a five-hundred pound gorilla sat in front of you during a play?”

  Ryan was already starting to grin, reminding Jax of one of the reasons he liked him so much.

  “What?” Ryan asked. A pleasant surprise. When Jax was telling a joke, most people were silent.

  “Miss most of the play.”

  Ryan laughed so hard he slapped his thigh, then he slapped Jax’s, which, after all, was only an inch or so from his. Jax joined in on the laughter, wondering how Tracy had ever let a great guy like Ryan go.

  A short, burly man appeared at their table, glaring at Marietta. Jax and Ryan stopped laughing.

  “You’re that sex professor, aren’t you? Dalrumple something or other,” the man said in an overly loud voice. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to reveal more dark hair than was atop his head. His jaw was beefy, his mouth slack with drink. While he waited for her answer, he swayed.

  “It’s Dr. Dalrymple,” Marietta corrected, holding her chin high. “And I’m a biologist specializing in matters related to sex and evolution.”

  “You have the damn stupidest ideas I’ve ever heard,” the man spit out. “What do they call you? A bio-dummy?”

  “Hey, watch your mouth.” Jax’s temper spiraled like a tornado. He usually left his aggression in the ring, but damn if he didn’t want to pound the other man’s face. “You owe the lady an apology.”

  “The bitch owes me an apology,” the man shouted. “Where do you get off telling pregnant women they don’t need a man around? Huh? What right do you have talking fucking nonsense like that?”

  “It’s not nonsense—,” Marietta began.

  Jax cut her off by rising to his feet and standing chest to chin with the smaller man. The man’s eyes traveled upward and filled with fear. Jax nearly growled.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” Jax asked in a low, menacing tone. “You owe the lady an apology.”

  Nobody, and he meant nobody, was going to call the woman he loved a bitch. The thought stopped Jax cold, and his knees nearly buckled. The woman he loved.

  He loved Marietta.

  He supposed he should have recognized the signs, starting with that lightning bolt that had struck him through the heart the first time they’d been together. But, as infuriating as Marietta was, the bolt had been easy to dismiss.

  Still, he should have realized he was in the market for more than a baby when he’d moved next door to her, when he’d laid awake remembering the exhilaration of making love to her, when he’d found himself admiring a brain that thoroughly confounded him. When he hadn’t been interested in any of those come-hither women he used to find desirable.

  “Come on, man.” The pleading voice seemed to come from a great distance, and it took Jax a moment to realize the smaller man was speaking. “You can’t agree with that shit—”

  Jax recovered his bearings and glared.

  “I mean that stuff she says,” the man amended. “She’s telling our women we have no more control than animals.”

  At the moment, Jax’s control was stretched so tight he wished he were an animal. Then he’d have an excuse to tear into the man.

  “Dr. Dalrymple is not only brilliant, she’s spent years researching her ideas and forming her opinions. She deserves respect, and you’re going to give it to her. Right. Now.”

  The man appeared about to say something else, then apparently thought better of it.

  “I’m sor. . . sorry,” he stammered an apology and disappeared into the crowd.

  Jax’s insides shook with the discovery he’d just made. He looked down at Marietta, wondering if she could figure out he loved her by his awed expression. “You okay?”

  Her face was white, and she looked as shaken as he felt. She shouldn’t be here in this semi-smoky bar with the professor-bashing patrons.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he told Marietta.

  She nodded.

  “Sorry to cut the evening short,” Jax told Ryan and Tracy as he helped Marietta out of the booth. Despite the apology, a roomful of pro wrestlers intent on committing carnage couldn’t have stopped him from leaving with the woman he loved.

  “Go.” Ryan barely refrained from helping Jax along with a push. All evening, he’d been plotting to get Tracy alone. The perfect opportunity had presented itself, and he meant to seize it. “Go, and don’t worry about us.”

  Jax and Marietta uttered a couple of quick good nights, and then they were gone. Ryan’s eagerness at getting Tracy alone wasn’t reflected in her drawn, unhappy face. She looked at the salt-and-pepper shakers, at her nearly empty glass, at the vacant space in the booth across from him. Anywhere but at him. Disappointment descended over Ryan like the curtain at the end of a play.

  “I really should be going too.” Tracy started to scoot across the booth.

  Ryan’s disappointment turned to panic. She couldn’t leave. Not when they were so close to putting things right again. Not when his happines
s would disappear with her. His hand shot out, trapping hers beneath it. She immediately stilled.

  “Please don’t leave, Trace.” His voice was pleading and so soft he barely recognized it. “At least, not until you tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” she said automatically.

  “I was married to you for fourteen months. I know you well enough to tell when something’s wrong.”

  He looked down at the small, long-fingered hand under his, remembering how she’d once used it to transport him to the dizzying heights of passion. Now she drew her hand away and clenched it in her lap, breaking their connection.

  “This isn’t working, Ryan.” Her eyes finally rose, and they looked sad.

  He made himself ask the next question. “What’s not working?”

  “This. . . friendship.” She indicated the two of them with the sweep of her hand. “I tried, but I can’t do it anymore. I can’t be your friend.”

  A fist clenched his heart and squeezed. “Is it something I did? I tried not to push you. I tried to give you space.”

  “It’s nothing you did.” Tracy shook her head, misery evident in her eyes. “It’s just that. . . Well, it’s too hard. We’ve been lovers, Ryan. I can’t be around you without remembering how good it was to be with you that way.”

  Hope leaped in Ryan, brighter than a flaming torch. He’d taken more cold showers in the past month than in the rest of his life combined, but it was paying off. By not touching Tracy, he’d shown her how difficult it was to live without his touch.

  “Then be with me,” he said simply.

  “What?” Her head snapped up.

  “We can be lovers again, Tracy, if that’s what you want. It’s what I want.”

  He saw her swallow, saw her consider the possibility, saw her reject it. “I can’t.”

  “Why? Why can’t you?” He pounded the table, caught himself, uncurled his fingers. “We’re not divorced yet. You said yourself you still want me.”

  “I do,” she cried, and tears shimmered in her eyes. “I do still want you, but that doesn’t mean wanting you is smart. It doesn’t mean wanting you is right.”