“I see.” That didn’t really make as much sense as Mr. Evans’ duplicity. Besides, what internal fears did she have that could lead to ruin and despair?
Skye reached over and placed her hands firmly over Riley’s. “Just remember, the cards do not tell the future—they only remind us of the influences of the past. Only we can write the future.”
“Now that’s something I definitely believe.” Riley blew out a lungful of air. She then stood and Skye gave her a fierce hug.
“Write a good future, Riley,” Skye whispered in her ear.
She leaned back and looked directly into Skye’s eyes. She thought she might have seen a hint of tears. “Thanks, Skye. I will.”
It wasn’t for several minutes as they continued to walk along the line of vendors hand-in-hand that Lisa finally spoke. “So, are you okay with everything, Riley?”
Riley narrowed her eyes as she looked over at Lisa. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”
Lisa stopped cold, not meeting her eyes. “It’s just your reading was a bit intense, especially with the future being the Ten of Swords.”
Riley waved her off. “Pfft. Like Skye said, we all write our futures so I’m not worried in the least. Besides, the only person I can picture run through with a bunch of swords is the idiot suing me.”
Chapter Nine
“Boy, you’re awfully quiet today.” Caroline glanced over at Lisa as she jogged on the treadmill beside her at their fitness club.
“Wha…what?” Lisa shook her head. “Sorry, did you say something?”
Caroline laughed. “Just that you seem awfully quiet today. Is something up?”
Tuesday was their workout night. Since Susan had a late class, it worked out well. They could talk about work away from their colleagues, the parents and the kids, catch up on gossip or generally just sit around and try to solve life’s great mysteries. But Lisa’s heart really wasn’t in it tonight. She couldn’t stop thinking about Riley. Last weekend had been wonderful. But she couldn’t quite shake the odd feeling she’d had when she couldn’t remember Riley’s first name. What other things didn’t she know about her? Finally she flipped off the treadmill and turned to Caroline. “How much do you know about Riley?”
Caroline jumped off her treadmill, her arms crossed and her jaw set. “Why, did she do something? I tell you, I’m going—”
“No, no. It’s nothing like that.”
Caroline relaxed. “Okay, but if you need me to, I’ll give her the what for.”
“The what for?” Lisa laughed. “What are you—the lesbian version of a mob boss?”
“Let me know and she’ll sleep with the fishes.” Caroline lowered her voice in a terrible Marlon Brando impression.
Tears streamed out of her eyes as she doubled over with laughter. Leave it to Caroline to always cheer her up when she was in a funk. “Oh my God, Caroline, you’re going to kill me.”
“Good.” Caroline gave her head a firm nod. “Now, are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“It’s really nothing. I just met an old friend of mine at the Renaissance Festival last Sunday. You remember Skye, right?”
“Oh, yeah. How could I forget?”
“Anyway, Skye asked me what Riley’s first name was and I honestly couldn’t remember. It took me I bet almost a minute to recall it. Then I got to thinking, how much do I really know about Riley? I mean, if I couldn’t even think of her real name…”
Caroline bobbed her head as she listened. “I wouldn’t really worry about it, Lisa. I thought Riley was her first name for probably a year.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. Do you know why she goes by Riley?”
“I don’t have a clue. I always thought it was just one of her quirks and you must admit, the girl has some.”
Lisa smiled. They were adorable quirks.
“Look, Lisa, if it bothers you, just ask. Riley may not volunteer much but I’ve never known her to shy away from something when asked directly.”
She hadn’t even considered asking why Riley chose to go by her surname. Maybe the reason she didn’t know very much about Riley is that she hadn’t asked the right questions yet. “Caroline, you’re right. I feel like an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot. And it’s not all your fault. I think it’s something to do with intellectuals. Susan’s the same way. We had dated probably six months when I realized I knew more about Plato and Socrates than I did about her personally. I finally had to sit her down and I know it sounds funny, but I told her that I loved her but now I wanted to get to know her.”
“Wow, that actually worked?”
“Yep. And I’ll tell you what, there was a lot more there than I could have ever dreamed. It just made me love her even more.”
Lisa could feel the weight lifting from her shoulders. Maybe she had been blowing everything out of proportion with the entire forgotten name issue. It wasn’t as if Riley was deliberately hiding anything. Hadn’t she been forthright with anything she had asked? And as Caroline said, Riley was an intellectual. That was such a huge part of her and hadn’t she shared that right from the beginning? How much of her private life had she shared with Riley? Not that much more when she thought about it. She had only mentioned in passing the loss of Jessie. She hadn’t told Riley about the last few months of her life, how helpless she felt watching Jessie quickly slipping away. Plus it was early in their relationship. They had only been together about a month. This was one of the drawbacks to her full-throttle approach to romance.
Still, she wasn’t ready yet to profess her love to Riley as Caroline had to Susan. If she were completely honest with herself she was falling for Riley. But she wasn’t quite there yet—at least she didn’t think so. And she didn’t want to scare Riley away. She could almost picture it too—here she blurts out her undying love to Riley and nothing but silence. Cricket… cricket… cricket. A shiver ran up her spine. So, until she was completely sure, she wouldn’t cross that bridge.
* * *
Riley stared up at the wall clock in her office for the fifth time in as many minutes. Where the hell was Grace? They were supposed to meet with the University’s lawyer in less than a half hour. Grace was always on time, if not early. Just as she was about to pull out her cell, Grace came busting through the door, gasping for breath.
“I’m sorry, doc. I’m sorry. I know I’m late.”
“Okay, we should really head over to the Office of General Counsel. Trust me, that’s the last thing we need to be late for.”
Grace let out a long, low grown and dropped her head, her mop of dreads falling over her eyes like a great hairy waterfall. “Just shoot me now.”
“It’s not going to be that bad. Just tell them everything you know.” She paused a moment considering that. This was Grace she was talking to after all. “On second thought, just answer their questions—don’t elaborate.”
* * *
During her free hour Lisa sat behind her desk with her feet kicked up, tapping her cell phone against her head. She had barely slept last night, replaying Caroline’s words through her head. If there was something she wanted to know about Riley, she should simply ask her. Now that she had set her mind to do just that, she couldn’t reach Riley. It was an odd day indeed when they didn’t talk at least twice, and she had grown accustomed to giving her a quick call on her break. They would spend a few moments catching each other up on the day’s events but just hearing Riley’s voice was the highlight—that and whatever crazy thing Riley’s assistant had done. But today it looked as if she was out of luck.
Just as she was about hit redial one last time, her cell blared the special ring tone she had programmed for Riley, nearly sending her tipping over backwards in her chair and her cell crashing to the floor. She bailed from her chair and dove after her phone under her desk as it played the theme to Indiana Jones. “Hey, you still there Riley?”
Riley laughed on the other end. “Yes, I’m still here but what have you been doing? It sounds like you’ve been
running a marathon.”
She relaxed back into her chair, her heart still galloping—but maybe that had more to do with finally getting Riley on the phone than her exertions. “No, no, nothing like that. I just dropped my phone on the floor when you called. I tried calling earlier.”
Riley groaned. “Yeah. Believe me, I’d much rather have been talking to you. The morning couldn’t have been much worse than when Pope Innocent IV issued the papal bull Ad extirpanda in 1252 authorizing torture during the Medieval Inquisition.”
Lisa immediately sat up straight. Riley was shifting into professor mode. That couldn’t be good. “Why, what’s wrong.”
“Oh, just lawyers. I’ll tell you what, Shakespeare certainly had it right in Henry VI—‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.’”
“I take it you met with the lawyers today.”
“Three long, grueling hours. The only one who seemed to have any fun was Grace. By the end I thought she could have driven the lawyer to jump out the window.”
Lisa could picture Riley rolling her eyes. “I’d love to hear all about it but I’ve got to get going in a minute. Tell you what, why don’t you come over tonight and tell me everything? I’ll even fix dinner.”
Riley perked up on the other end. “I think I’ll take you up on that.”
“Great. Just come right over after work.” She then paused and lowered her voice. “Or maybe even stop at your place first and grab a change of clothes.”
“A change of clothes, huh?” Riley’s voice lowered also. “And why would I need that?”
“You never know but trust me, it will be worth it.”
With that, she hung up and interlocked her fingers behind her head while she kicked back with a smile. She could barely wait now for the day to end so she could meet Riley. And with those thoughts dancing through her mind, having Riley bring a change of clothes would definitely be worth it.
* * *
Riley couldn’t get home fast enough. She had barely listened to her audiobook all the way up I-96 and several times had to slow her truck back down to a respectable eighty. Lisa’s invitation couldn’t have come on a better day either. The interview with the University’s lawyer had gone poorly. Grace may be a genius but she still sometimes wished she wasn’t also completely insane.
The situation was bad enough without Grace’s unique speech patterns and worldview. The more the lawyer struggled to understand what Grace was trying to say, stopping her every other sentence to translate, the more Grace became frustrated, which only exacerbated the problem. The real straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back—or a whole herd of camels for that matter—was when Grace yelled out, “Holy shitballs, Batman,” right in the middle of the interview, broke into medieval French with a string of what she was sure called into question both the lawyer’s and Joshua Evans’s parentage and how they should both try procreating with themselves. If it hadn’t been so serious, she would have laughed.
And if that weren’t bad enough, she had spent the rest of the afternoon calming down poor Bill Hastings. How he had ever become the Department Chair with his inability to cope with stress was beyond her.
She raced into her house, and stuffed a change of clothes in her overnight bag as fast as possible and sprinted back out the door. Fifteen minutes later she pulled up in front of Lisa’s place. The moment she climbed out of her truck she heard a strange boing, rattle, rattle come from behind the house. With her overnight bag slung over her shoulder, she headed up the walk toward the sound, now the unmistakable whop, whop, whop of a basketball hitting the cement quickly followed by a loud swoosh. Just as she rounded the corner, Lisa charged toward the basket at the end of the small court in her backyard on her long, muscular legs—one, two, three steps—and in one fluid movement jumped up and dunked the ball.
“Wow, that was amazing.” Riley dropped her bag to the ground and clapped.
Lisa snatched up the ball on the rebound and gave a deep bow. “Thank you, thank you.”
“I couldn’t do that if my life depended on it.”
Lisa was breathing hard. “It’s really not that hard. Just takes practice. Here, you try.” She quickly passed Riley the ball.
Riley tried to catch it but ended up fumbling it instead, jamming her middle finger in the process. Shaking her hand and wincing, she shook her head. “See, I told you. I’m not good at things like this.”
“Oh, come on. You can’t be that bad.” Lisa had retrieved the loose ball and passed it back slowly to Riley. “Just give it a try. Concentrate and shoot it at the basket.”
Her finger still throbbing, Riley dribbled the ball, concentrating hard not to let it get away from her. Finally, she looked up, cocked her arm and took a shot. The ball sailed through the air in a great arc toward the basket…then past the basket…then right over the fence into the neighbor’s yard. “Damn.”
“Huh.” Lisa stood there, watching where her basketball had disappeared. “I guess I was wrong…you are that bad.” She laughed uproariously.
“I told you. I told you I’m not good at things like this.” She gestured to the fence.
“And I’ll never doubt you again.” Still laughing, Lisa came over and wrapped her arm around Riley, pulling her in tight.
“I’m sorry.” From the feel of it, her face had to be flaming red by now. “What about your ball?”
“Don’t worry about it.” Lisa held up a finger. “Just wait.”
Sure enough, a young voice carried over the fence. “Did you lose your ball, Miss Sorenson?”
“That’s the neighbor’s girl. She’s a real sweetheart.” Lisa then cupped her hand to her mouth and yelled back. “Sorry about that, Sarah. Can you toss it back over?”
“Okay, Miss Sorenson. Stand back.”
The ball flew back over the fence. Lisa caught it easily on the second bounce. “Thank you, Sarah. Give your mom my best.”
“Okay, Miss Sorenson.” With that, the sound of quick footfalls ran away from the fence.
“Wow, I think my neighbor’s kid would have just kept the ball.”
“With a shot like that, I can see why.” Lisa nudged her in the ribs with her elbow. “Haven’t you ever shot a basket before?”
This was one drawback to being such a driven and highly focused person—if something interested her, she gave it her all until she mastered it. If something didn’t interest her, then it didn’t even register. Basketball was the latter. Finally she just shook her head again. “Sorry, I’m afraid I haven’t.”
Lisa stared at her aghast. “How can any red-blooded, all-American, flag waving—”
“Girl-loving?”
“Yes, girl-loving—thank you…” Lisa flashed her a devious little smile. “…girl-loving, lesbian with even half a pulse have never shot a basket before? It’s sacrilege, it’s unnatural, it’s…it’s…it’s downright criminal. You should be flogged.”
“Flogged, huh? Now at least that’s something I know something about. Anthropologically speaking, in medieval Britain—”
“Riley, you’re hopeless. What am I going to do with you?”
Riley cocked her eyebrow. “I could think of a couple of things as long as it doesn’t involve”—she nodded to the basketball in Lisa’s hands—“what do you call that thing again, a volleyball?”
Lisa grabbed her chest over her heart and gasped. “A volleyball? A volleyball? You wound me.”
They laughed in unison. Riley was glad Lisa had invited her over. Just what she needed. She could forget all about everything going on at the college. Even lobbing basketballs into the neighbor’s yard was preferable to that. If it were up to her she wouldn’t mind lobbing Mr. Evans somewhere too. Maybe off a very tall, very steep cliff—jagged rocks at the bottom optional.
“Here, try one more time.” Lisa stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Riley from the back, holding the basketball out in front of both of them.
Riley swallowed. How was she supposed to concentrate on anything with Li
sa’s arms around her? Her legs were growing weaker as she felt Lisa’s warm breath against the back of her neck. She closed her eyes and leaned back into her, a soft moan rising up her throat.
Lisa leaned even closer. “Um…Riley, you’re going to have to have your eyes open.”
“Oh, yeah, right.” Riley could feel her cheeks growing crimson. She wouldn’t be surprised if she launched the basketball over the house this time with the way her body was firing. With every bit of concentration she could muster, she forced herself to focus on only the basket and the ball and not Lisa’s taut, long body pressed against hers. She swallowed. Just think about the basket. Just think about the basket.
“Okay, now just hold up the ball in your hands like this.” Lisa lifted up the ball, lining up for a shot, her arms brushing slowly up the sides of Riley’s body.
Riley swallowed again, this time her mouth completely dry. Her heart fluttered. Just think about the basket. Just think about the basket. Oh, who was she trying to kid? She couldn’t think about the basket or anything else for that matter with Lisa’s arms brushing so intimately up her sides.
Lisa breathed into Riley’s right ear, her lips only millimeters away. “Line up your shot, aim for the top of the square on the backboard over the basket and shoot.” She tipped the ball into Riley’s hands and lowered her hands to Riley’s hips.
Riley could feel the heat pouring off her body now and she didn’t think it had anything to do with shooting a basket. She took a deep breath, still feeling Lisa’s hands so gently on her hips. She never would have believed that basketball could be so arousing. Maybe that was why so many lesbians liked it. Hell, if it felt like this all the time, get her season tickets to all the games. Before she could think anymore about anything besides the ball, she lifted her hands, took aim and fired. This time it sailed right off the backboard and swooshed through the net.
Lisa jumped up and down, wrapping her arms tightly around Riley. “You did it! I knew you could.”
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