Driving Me Wild

by Maria Benson

  I had known it wouldn’t be an enjoyable conversation when she stopped smiling. “Michael, I didn’t even think you were in touch with Aimee these days. How’d she break your heart–again?”

  “That’s really not fair.” I had stood, hoping that elevating myself over the little lady would offset my naked, vulnerable emotions. “This time she broke it on purpose. Before, she really had no clue.”

  Tisha first glanced past me to Brody, who was holding up the far wall of the kitchen. He probably knew I was counting the days until I made him pay for initiating this exchange. “You hear your friend? Still taking up for that heifer.” She frowned at the displeased look filling my eyes. “I can say it, you can’t. What made you think things would work out with her now?”

  Tisha had not been impressed by my account of the day Aimee and I had intersected at Niketown, not even when I shared how easily our conversation flowed that day.

  “You sound like a child,” she had said, shaking her head gently. “She’s not a pinup, Michael.” Her forehead wrinkled for a second. “What is it about you and your brother pursuing these women you don’t fit with? This is almost as bad as Warren and that Becca.”

  Becca, José’s mother, looked like a young Sofia Vergara back when they hooked up. While I still blamed him for not being more active in José’s life, the root of his distance from his son had to do with the nasty end to his relationship with Becca. Frankly, Warren had proven too dull and sexually conservative for a woman who went on to stints as a stripper, escort and small-time Madam.

  Warren had tried gamely to build a relationship with his son while he was in college and law school, but it had been a real trial given Becca’s habit of flaunting her vices and strings of boyfriends before him. Add in my mother’s meddling and harassing phone calls to Becca, and the situation wasn’t sustainable. When he was elected to the state senate, Warren had moved to Springfield without looking back.

  Around that time, when José was about six, I had reached out to Becca. “I just want to spend time with him,” I had said, sitting on her plaid, springy family room couch. “Whenever I’m home from college on breaks, and every summer. Nothing big, right? We can go biking, play a little ball, take in a Bulls or Bears game here and there.” I’m not certain, but I think the fact that I wanted nothing from Becca and put no expectations on her accounted for how quickly she took me up on the offer.

  I had moved past the family discussion. “Tisha, about Aimee? I wasn’t just plotting my next move. Everything just flowed that day. I was at ease, I was charming.”

  Tisha had cleared her throat and gently tapped my wrist. “So, who asked whom out?”

  I summarized the weeks of dates, my misread of the fact we had done no more than kiss gently a few times, and the disastrous night at Winthrop’s.

  Tisha had particularly enjoyed the visual of Aimee drowning me in her Merlot. “You are something else!” She went over to Brody and wedged herself beside him lovingly, her eyes on me the whole time. “What’s gotten into our boy, Brody? Michael took Aimee down the way he should have back in the day.”

  “Again,” I had said, feeling the words come a little too fast, “that’s not being fair to young Aimee. Twenty-eight-year-old Aimee can pretty much kiss my ass, but when we were kids she had too many men in her face to even see me.”

  Tisha grinned wickedly. “She had too much of something in her face, that’s for sure.”

  Brody locked eyes with me briefly before tugging on the waistband of Tisha’s pants. “Babe, really? What did Aimee ever do to you?”

  Tisha pursed her lips and swung her gaze back to me. “Excuse me for adopting you, Michael. When someone is a good friend to my husband, when they are important to him, they become important to me. So if you dislike the fact that I’m a little protective toward you, you’ll just have to get over it.”

  Cruising down the Dan Ryan Expressway now, headed to a previously scheduled networking lunch, I flashed back to that moment in Brody and Tisha’s kitchen. I had playfully jibed back and forth with the two of them after her heartfelt statement, feeling quite confident that Tisha was no more interested in rehashing details at the moment than I was.

  No words were required, though: Discussing Aimee with Tisha had brought back long-buried images, ones awkward enough that neither Aimee nor I had brought them up during our two-month dating stint. I saw them now: Aimee and me as teens, standing toe-to-toe as Tisha looked on. My voice raised in confusion and embarrassment as my bloody mouth involuntarily spat loose teeth. Aimee looking oddly shy, barely able to meet my eyes. Me filling the air with questions, none of which she was equipped to answer. Tisha stepping forward somberly and pulling me away as Aimee silently turned in the opposite direction.

  Gripping my steering wheel now, determined to put my new mission in life on hold long enough to get through my networking meeting, I wasn’t sure which memory was more upsetting. The shame and pain emanating from Aimee that day, or the anguish under-riding my last question to her. Why do you let them do this to you?

  CHAPTER 9

  Aimee

  Exiting the LaGuardia airport terminal, I hustled to the nearest cab line before it grew any longer. As it was a late May afternoon, there was enough sun to justify the $300 pair of black wayfarer sunglasses I had worn since arriving at O’Hare earlier in the day. Of course, it could have been raining cats and dogs and I would have still worn them; they were my best method of hiding in plain sight.

  I was traveling for legitimate business purposes, but given that I was headed to Ian’s office, there was a chance that today’s excursion might end in a booty call.

  The men weighing on my psyche were really starting to pile up–Ian, Michael, and in his own way, Todd, had all greatly complicated my life in the past few weeks. It was time to put them into their proper places: Todd as the boss with whom I could continue working, even while dodging his paranoia and judgment of my personal life; Michael, a whiny, distant voice making “sour grapes” out of a woman he simply could not have; and Ian as the sole intoxicating presence who brought me both mental and physical stimulation.

  My body hummed with excitement at the knowledge that I would see Ian today. I was traveling to his league’s corporate offices to prep some executives that Todd planned to interview for his upcoming book, but had already confirmed that Ian would be available to see me around five o’clock. It had been nearly six weeks since I had last seen him, when he had been in Chicago for a league owners’ meeting. While we texted regularly–always careful to keep messages relatively cryptic–we had only spoken once since then.

  As I occupied myself with my phone, my cab hurtling toward the headquarters of one of the most popular, iconic businesses in the world, I made myself a wobbly promise. No sex with Ian today; hooking up with him in our usually discreet locales was one thing, but getting busy in his office was like asking to be discovered and professionally burned at the stake.

  I pressed myself with another unpleasant pledge: No questions about the status of his separation from his wife, Nadine. Ian had referenced it last month as we prepared to make love, but I was already too intoxicated by lust for it to fully register. I was a big enough girl to know that if Ian and Nadine were ever going to get serious about extinguishing their dysfunctional marriage, it wouldn’t be because of anything I did. I was not one of these women who got caught up with a married man thinking I would win him over.

  Hell, I had won Ian over long before he met Nadine. When his parents strong-armed him into picking her over me–I guess my status as the illegitimate daughter of a semi-famous novelist and a junior high English teacher didn’t compare to Nadine’s Wall Street lineage–he was the one who came knocking at my back door a year later, not the other way around. No, given my mother’s frank sharing of her experience as my father’s “other woman,” before Ian took up with Nadine I had steered clear of men with so much as a serious girlfriend.

  After swiping my AMEX to pay the cabbie and signing via his S
quare device, I stepped onto the walkway leading to the front door of the high-rise that housed Ian’s place of business. The glass-and-steel building gleamed in the late-day sun, and even at this hour the natural Manhattan crowds on the sidewalk included clumps of coed sports junkies in their teams’ favorite jerseys.

  Head down, hair pulled back and trusting in the relative anonymity of my pants suit and low heels, I entered the building lobby behind two women who looked to be executives in training. After flashing the press pass Ian had procured for me last winter, I went to the appropriate elevator bank and hopped on the first available car.

  Stepping into the main reception area, a sleek and streamlined space with a prominent chrome desk shaped like the sport’s iconic ball, I finally shed my sunglasses. As images, including one of Ian’s recent press conferences, flashed on the mammoth flat screen television behind her, I stepped up to address the receptionist. Within a minute, she confirmed my itinerary for the afternoon and issued my visitor pass as my first contact, the league’s Chief Data Officer, met me at the nearest door and led me to his office.

  My last meeting, with the league’s forceful, stunning Director of Public Relations, wrapped just after five. When I nonchalantly asked her to show me the Commissioner’s office, everything clicked into place. Breann, Ian’s executive secretary, was still at her desk, which provided all the opening I needed.

  Breann’s dimples formed as she smiled up at me. “Oh hi, Aimee. How are you?” I breathed a sigh of relief at her apparent recognition of me. I probably came through the office every other month on business, but wasn’t sure how much of an impression I had made.

  When I told Breann, who is that type of gorgeous sixty-year-old you can easily envision as a Miss America in her youth, about Todd’s upcoming book project and his interest in also interviewing Ian for it, she raised an eyebrow. “Hmm,” she said, reaching for her phone. “You know that man’s time is scheduled down to the nano-second.” She winked playfully. “Give me a sec, let’s see.”

  Saying my good-byes to the PR Director, I took a seat opposite Breann as she reached Ian on his cell phone.

  Breann set down her phone, her blue eyes twinkling. “He’s in a meeting with the Competition Committee, but said he was wrapping up.” She stood, nodding over her shoulder toward his massive office door. “You can go on in, he should be down momentarily. Can I get you anything?”

  I had barely popped the top on my complimentary grapefruit juice when Ian appeared in his own doorway. He still had Breann at his elbow, so his initial communication was limited to a glance and a one-word statement. “Aimee.”

  Turning to face him from my seat across from his desk, I crossed my legs and took in the sight of the man. Ian stood there in his shirt sleeves, his starched white shirt now weathered by an eventful day. His navy plaid suit pants showed not a wrinkle, though, and his hazel head of hair was as well-coiffed as ever. As he signed some forms for Breann, I admired his tall, taut figure, one far more fit than you saw on most forty-somethings. Despite his strong jaw line and steely blue eyes, though, Ian wasn’t as textbook handsome as someone like Michael Blake.

  What Ian offered over and above the pretty boy next door was power, an aura that he radiated without trying. He had an analytical, magnetic presence that attracted the loyalty of wealthy franchise owners and stirred the emotions of admiring women, present company included. He had left a strong impression on me from the opening moments of our first meeting seven years earlier, when I had been a wet-behind-the-ears ESPN marketing analyst and he was a general counsel for the league.

  “You should reschedule that dinner,” I heard Breann say as I tried to look away. “This week’s pace has been even crazier than usual.”

  “I really appreciate the extra hours you’ve put in the past few days,” Ian replied. He stepped into the office as Breann turned away. “We’ll get through this.”

  Breann’s reply wafted into the office just before Ian shut the door. “And then it’ll be something else!”

  I stood and crossed my arms as Ian strode toward me. “Doesn’t sound like you’re doing too well at protecting Breann from the latest shit storms.”

  “I didn’t see that in the job description they handed me with the contract.” He stopped an inch from me, his eyes gently but confidently sweeping up, down and across all of me. It was hard to believe Ian had been in this huge job of huge jobs for nearly three years. It seemed like just yesterday he had called me for informal advice about his contract negotiations.

  I smiled, accepting him into my arms. “You were too busy being blinded by the dollar signs,” I said, my chin resting on his shoulder as I drank in the scent of the Giorgio Armani cologne I had shipped him for his birthday.

  He held me at arm’s length, letting his lips purse in pleasure. “This job is hard, why didn’t you tell me that?” His eyes sparkled, but I sensed more sincerity than he meant to communicate.

  More than ever before, Ian was under a real media siege. The inconvenient collision of multiple star athletes’ alleged crimes–domestic abuse, assault and battery, attempted murder, drug dealing–had brought his leadership into question. From what I knew, he retained the full confidence of the league owners and Board, but Ian was human enough to feel the pins that the media continued to sink into his voodoo doll.

  I placed my hands to his chest, inhaling deeply. “You wouldn’t have wanted the job if it wasn’t hard. It’s why you longed for it your entire career.” Ian had put in twenty years in working for or with the league administration, serving most recently as general counsel before ascending to the mountaintop. I was proud to have helped coach him through the process of marketing himself as the most recent Commissioner vacancy had neared.

  “Well,” Ian said now, his hands finding my hips. “The only question right now is whether your surprise visit makes my life easier or not.” He pulled me close, intoxicating me again with the smell of his cologne, with his natural scent. “Never mind, I have my answer. I have missed you.”

  His words warming my heart, I lay my head against his chest.

  “So,” he said, “does Todd really want to interview me for this book?” When I admitted that the request was more than a ruse, that Todd really would appreciate having The Commissioner on the record about the value of hiring a diverse workforce, Ian chuckled. “Am I supposed to do this out of the kindness of my heart?” He had never been a big fan of Todd’s punditry.

  As I playfully encouraged Ian to view this as his good deed for the month, he placed a finger to my lips. “Todd treating you okay these days?”

  I inhaled, butterflies fluttering in my stomach. “We’re getting along okay. He is acting a little funny, though, talking about the danger of any of his employees getting involved with others in the sports business.” I nearly pulled him in for a kiss, but thought better of it.

  Ian tightened his grip on my waist. “I have no idea who he’s worried about on that score.”

  Retiring to the nearest couch, Ian and I spoke in hushed tones about the need to be discreet. As a public figure he didn’t need the complications of being caught in adultery, and as a paycheck-to-paycheck professional I couldn’t afford to get fired by Todd. Running a hand through his hair, Ian retrieved his smart phone. “Looks like my calendar is clear until I meet a couple of the clubs’ General Managers for dinner at 7. They want their face time, my assurances that I can help keep their owners in line.” He smiled at the sight of my grin. “Yeah, as if.”

  I did the math of his stated calendar, guessing that the commute for his driver to get him to dinner would be less than thirty minutes. “What are you saying, we can hang out here for another hour? Wouldn’t that look suspicious to prying eyes?”

  Ian stared toward the window at the opposite corner of his office, where a large flat screen like the one in the lobby mutely portrayed highlights of league games and events. “To be honest,” he said, peering out at the view of the Manhattan skyline, “we have more privacy here than we
would just about anywhere. When Breann leaves each night, she locks me in here. Anyone shows up and sees that, they assume I’ve gone home unless I’ve summoned them. In which case I show up in Breann’s suite to let them in.”

  I turned to him, embracing once again. “So it’s like that.”

  “It is.” He took my hips in hand again, his grip more forceful and amorous this time. “Where can we take a week’s getaway and not worry about being recognized?”

  I smiled ruefully. “Any Third World country should do. You know, those with basic survival and not sports obsessions on their minds.”

  Ian’s mouth was a straight line, but his gaze was warm. “Romance amidst political rebellions, civil wars and threats of beheadings? If you’re there, sign me up.”

  I slapped his chest. “Stop it. As if you’re so deeply invested in me.”

  He lifted my chin gently. “I was.”

  I looked away. “And then you weren’t.”

  “Aimee,” he said, his eyes racing to find mine, “don’t rewind on me, please.”

  I cut him with a skeptical stare. “Anytime you talk like there’s anything serious here, Ian, you force me to rewind. Okay?”

  He frowned, but twirled a couple strands of my hair around one of his pointer fingers. “There is something serious here. You’re the one who confirmed that. Do you realize my anniversary is next week?”

  I nodded, nearly shamed by the fact Ian had dropped between us. “Of course.” Not long after his appointment as Commissioner and within days of the birth of his first child, he had been diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer. For a guy who had led a relatively charmed life–Ivy League educations, an upper-middle-class, functional two-parent home, and a series of jobs which had ensured access to New York’s most beautiful and ambitious women–the sudden health crisis had initially bowled Ian over.