Kyle stood outside the building, watching the taillights of Lauren’s cab disappear into traffic. The second time had been slow and sweet, powerful as sex seldom was.
Because it had been so honest.
He was shaken by how much the intimacy had meant to him and touched by Lauren’s trust. He guessed that this was the first time she’d spoken about Mark to anyone and the pain in her voice had told him more than he wanted to know.
He shoved his hands in his pockets and listened to the sound of the city. It was almost midnight. He should turn on his phone and check his messages; he should do some rowing and review his schedule for the next day.
Instead, Kyle went for a walk, savoring the sounds and smells of the city, haunted by the taste of a beautiful woman’s tears.
Would Lauren come and cook for him the next night? Kyle didn’t know.
It was even money that she’d wake up in the morning and decide that calling him had been a bad plan, and that coming back would be worse. She wouldn’t keep him hanging, though. That wasn’t Lauren’s way. She’d call and tell him as much, nip his expectations in the bud. He liked that about Lauren. She didn’t duck the awkward stuff. He walked and faced the fact that he was really hoping she didn’t cancel.
It was uncharacteristic.
Maybe it was intriguing because it was new. The first time.
Kyle knew that nothing lasted forever, but he hoped this interlude lasted a little bit longer than just one night. If it didn’t, though, he had another magical night with Lauren to remember.
He was sufficiently realistic to know that it was foolish to hope for a third.
Three
Lauren’s phone rang early the next morning. She was still asleep when its shrill ring startled her. She sat up so abruptly that her head spun a bit, looked at the clock, and was shocked that she’d slept soundly.
She’d had insomnia for months.
Kyle had solved that.
“Hello?” She answered without looking to see who it was.
“Good morning, dear,” her mother said, as cheerful as usual. “I’m so glad to have caught you. I tried to call last night but there was no answer. Were you out?”
“Yes, I was.” Lauren felt a twinge of guilt. She hadn’t even looked for messages but now saw the blinking red light on the answering machine.
She should get rid of it all, ditch the landline and just use her phone with its voice mail. Some clutter she could do without.
In fact, she should get rid of a whole lot of stuff in this apartment. She glanced around, formulating a plan.
“With Mark?”
Lauren winced at the hope in her mother’s voice. “No, Mom, not with Mark.”
There was a pause. “You are going to talk things through with him, aren’t you, dear?”
There was the proof that Ty hadn’t told anyone in their family about the security video. If her mother had known what had really happened, Mark would have been banished from her universe forever.
Lauren swung her legs around to sit on the side of the bed and exhaled. “I don’t think there’s any chance of us working it out, Mom.”
“But you were so in love! The wedding was perfect...”
Lauren rubbed her brow. She couldn’t go through this again. “The marriage wasn’t, Mom.”
“But I thought you were happy.”
“I was, at the wedding.” Lauren wasn’t ready to acknowledge the few doubts she’d had even on that day, the ones she’d attributed to nerves. She’d refused to see what was right in front of her.
“But?” her mom prompted.
“But it didn’t last.”
“Maybe you’re being too hard on him, dear. Mark’s been calling here, asking me to convince you to hear him out...”
“That’s because I won’t talk to him.” There was another reason to get rid of the landline. She’d already changed her cell phone number.
“Well, maybe you should.”
Frustration rose within Lauren. She wasn’t the villain and she was tired of her mom’s gentle accusations. She decided to try a little of Kyle’s favorite prescription: honesty.
“Mom, Mark was seeing someone else. I don’t know if he still is and I don’t care. I don’t think there’s much to talk about since I always thought that when you married someone, you stopped dating other people.”
“What?” Colleen McKay shrieked as she seldom did. “He was unfaithful to you?”
In a way, her outrage was exactly what Lauren needed to hear, but she still couldn’t share the full story. She closed her eyes and saw Mark and the blonde again in her mind’s eye and grimaced. That would be a little too much information for her mother. She told another little lie. “I don’t know technically, Mom, but he was dating someone else.”
Lauren hated that she was lying to her mom to keep Mark from looking really bad.
She wondered why she was protecting him at all.
It was a habit, no more than that, and one she was due to break. Kyle was right about honesty. Her mom was blaming Lauren because she didn’t have all the information, and Lauren was perpetuating the wrong idea by not telling her mom the truth.
She straightened with purpose.
“But Mark was married. To you!”
“And he took off his ring when they were together.”
Her mom gasped. “That’s outrageous. That’s wrong!”
“That’s what I thought.”
There was a pause in the conversation, then her mom cleared her throat. “Are you absolutely sure, dear? There’s no chance it’s a misunderstanding?”
Lauren was amazed by the persistence of optimism. She bit her lip and hesitated, then went for it. “There’s a video, Mom, from a security camera.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Of him with the other woman.”
Her mom spoke with care, but Lauren heard her wariness. “Married people can meet people of the opposite gender in quite innocent situations, dear.”
“But not have sex with those people.” Her mom was completely silent, a rare thing, so Lauren continued. “It was all filmed, Mom, recorded for posterity.”
“But how could you know that?” Her mom sounded bewildered. “Where was it filmed?”
She might as well tell it all now. “In the corridor to the restrooms at Flatiron Five. On a Friday night, when the club is open.” Lauren traced the floral pattern on her sheets with a fingertip. “He went out with his buddies every Friday night, Mom. I thought they went drinking, but he did something else, evidently.”
“And that’s why Tyler won’t say anything about it,” her mom concluded, then her voice rose. “How dare Mark call here as if he was the wounded party?” she fumed. “Why, the next time he’s so audacious as to ask me to help him convince you to talk to him, he’ll get more than he bargains for.”
Lauren found herself smiling. “I bet he will.”
“Your father will be livid. You should have told us, dear.”
“I didn’t find out until the day I decided he was going to move out. And I always thought that marriage was a sacred trust: that’s what you taught me. It just seemed wrong to tell everyone what he’d done.”
“No, dear, what’s wrong is what he did.” Colleen was calm in a way that Lauren knew was dangerous. “There’s no doubt then, and you absolutely made the right choice. Thank goodness you hadn’t started a family yet.” She took a fortifying breath. “We’re just going to have to do something about this.”
Now Lauren was wary. “Do? Like what?”
“Well, you’re going to need someone to talk to, dear.”
“Mom! I can take care of this myself.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Lauren. This is what families are for. We support each other when we need to. Were you out with your girlfriends last night? Or are you already dating?”
“Um...”
“I hope you are dating, whether you want to tell me about it or not. It’s always better to get back in the pool as soon
as possible, and you can’t let one bad apple spoil your perspective about the whole bushel.”
Lauren didn’t comment on her mother’s mixed metaphors. She knew the sentiment was well-intended. In fact, she smiled at the reaction she might get if she told her mother all of the truth. She wasn’t dating, just having sport-sex with Ty’s business partner.
Again.
She’d made enough waves for one day, though.
“There are lots of good men in this world, decent men who will appreciate a woman like you,” her mom continued.
“Please don’t make it a mission to find me one,” Lauren said but her request fell on deaf ears.
“I’m going to call Katelyn to come and see you today.”
“She might be busy. She and Jared just got home from Bali...”
“She’s closest,” her mom interrupted firmly. “She may have to become un-busy.” Her mom’s voice brightened in a way that warned Lauren. “And she might have some suggestions for you.”
“Suggestions?”
“Tyler and Amy’s wedding is just two months away, Lauren. They’re not letting me help much with the planning, so I have lots of time to find you a date. You can’t possibly come to the wedding alone. I can just imagine what Maureen will have to say about it.”
“No! No, please, Mom!” Lauren cried but it was too late. Her mom was gone, launched on a new mission, and there was nothing Lauren could do about it. She even called back, but the line was busy.
She couldn’t even work out all the ramifications of this conversation, not without a serious hit of caffeine. It was time to prioritize: coffee, shower, work, Katelyn, then whatever had been stirred up as a result of her honesty.
And the bonus was another evening with Kyle at the end of it all.
That was enough incentive to make her ready to face the challenges of the day. Lauren went into the kitchen and made herself a pot of coffee. She was rummaging in the drawer for a spoon to stir her coffee when she found the bottle opener.
It was always there, of course, but she didn’t usually pay attention to it.
It was turquoise and marked with the logo of a beach bar in Santa Cruz that served Corona and fish tacos. Lauren wondered if it was still there. She stared at the logo, remembering standing on its threshold, toes in the sand, her first glimpse of Kyle.
She immediately noticed the blond guy at the bar, because he was a serious hunk. Tanned and fit. She’d seen him around and watched him surf the day before. He wasn’t drinking, just chatting with the owner. It wasn’t busy yet, and there was no one else to look at but him.
Lauren looked.
Oh, she remembered.
She fingered the bottle opener, recalling the very instant that Kyle had turned and noticed her, the jolt that had gone through her when he smiled at her, and the way she had quivered way down there. The whole world had stopped, except for her heart, which had been pounding as if she’d run a mile.
When he’d beckoned, there’d been nothing else to do but walk toward him.
Lauren dropped the bottle opener back in the drawer, found the spoon she needed, and made herself a coffee. Twelve years was a long time. She wasn’t the naive good girl now that she’d been then. She knew better than to expect anything from Kyle beyond what he could give.
But she couldn’t dismiss the memory of those few days, much less the last night of her vacation, and how Kyle Stuyvesant had completely shaken her world.
* * *
On Thursday, Kyle was filled with restless energy at work. The evening before had been great with Lauren, but he was worried by how much he was looking forward to a second night of her company. It wasn’t just the sex, although that had been awesome. It was the conversation, the trust, the intimacy. It was fresh and new and different, which made it—and her—addictive.
On the other hand, he knew he was flirting with disaster. This couldn’t end anywhere good. Either Lauren would continue to use him for sex, then end it abruptly—kind of following his own pattern—and he would be a complete wreck, or she’d develop expectations and he’d have to lay out the truth, and watch as he broke her heart.
He was discarding his own rules, fast, and it only made sense to be worried about the consequences.
He knew how he felt about Lauren.
He also knew that it wasn’t the nature of people to change.
Therefore, it was a fact that he couldn’t make her happy over the long term, given his aversion to commitment and her very natural urge for it.
He had a bad feeling that it was only a matter of time before she got the same ideas that all woman eventually got, and Kyle had only increased the possibility of that by confessing his own feelings.
It could happen tonight.
He’d realized as much on his walk and hadn’t slept as a result.
Less than twenty-four hours after Lauren had called him, and Kyle was a mess.
He suspected it would get worse. He should bail, right this minute, cancel tonight and say something to make sure she never called him again.
But it was Lauren. He couldn’t call it off. He wanted all he could get, the consequences be damned. Kyle was in for the duration, caught like a fly in a spider’s web, but not wanting to escape if it meant sacrificing one minute with Lauren.
If that wasn’t fucked, he didn’t know what was.
Worse, his partners knew it. They smelled it on him as soon as he arrived at F5, and circled like hyenas stalking their kill. Damon gave him a hard time in the weight room about being off his game, and Kyle knew that was just the beginning.
“You didn’t sleep,” Cassie said, matching her pace to his on the way to the rock wall. They taught a climbing class together on Thursday mornings. There were eight members gathered and waiting for them at the base of the wall, and the morning sunlight made the fake rock look almost real. “Those baby blues are puffy. What’s her name?”
“Indigestion,” Kyle said grimly.
Cassie laughed. “You? Mr. Broiled fish, rice, and grilled veggies? If that gives you indigestion, you’d better call your doctor.”
“I indulged last night,” Kyle lied, because it was the only way to stop her interrogation.
“In?”
“Mexican. A friend from California was in town.”
“Aha!” She harnessed up, humming Wish they all could be California girls under her breath. “Is it true about their tans?”
“Yes,” Kyle said because it was expected of him. “No bikini lines. I checked.”
“Thoroughly?”
“Of course.”
“And tonight?”
Kyle shook his head. “Got to mix it up.”
She laughed and he dared to think he had convinced her but his phone rang. He glanced at the caller name, saw it was Lauren, and his heart skipped right on cue. “Got to take this,” he said to excuse himself.
“Because it’s her,” Cassie whispered, her eyes dancing. “Maybe she’ll change your mind about tonight.”
“Maybe not,” Kyle countered.
“Maybe we’ll have another wedding to attend,” Cassie said from behind him but he ignored her.
He walked a bit so that no one could eavesdrop. “Hey,” he said by way of greeting. “Calling to bail?”
“You should be so lucky,” Lauren said.
Just the sound of her voice made him smile and he was glad he had his back to the observant Cassie. “I thought I was lucky when you didn’t bail.”
“I haven’t cooked for you yet.”
Kyle grinned. “Can you cook?”
“Some. I get by but it’s not fancy.”
“That’s okay.”
“But in the interest of ensuring that no one dies, I thought I’d find out whether you had allergies.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Well?”
“I have none.”
“Preferences?”
“I hate peanut butter sandwiches, whether they have jelly or not. And I’m not such a fan of bo
logna, either.”
Lauren made a sound of exasperation. “I’m not a great cook, but I can do a little better than sandwiches.”
“Then we’re golden.”
“But no wine, because it’s Thursday, and minimum fat, because you’re getting old.”
“Hey!” Kyle protested. “Thirty-four is not old!”
“Slow then, you’re getting slow,” she teased and he knew he was grinning like an idiot.
He dropped his voice. “I thought you liked slow.” He chuckled then, because he could almost hear her blushing. It was easy to imagine how that flush would spread over her cheeks and down to her breasts, and how sparkly her eyes would get. The mental image prompted a reaction he should have anticipated.
If there was any mercy in this world, Cassie wouldn’t notice.
“I do.” Lauren’s voice was husky in a way that made Kyle want to just ditch the next eight hours of his day and get to the good part. “How is it that you graduated at the same time as Ty but are two years older?”
“Motivation.”
“Motivation?”
“Ty wanted to get out of college and launch his career. He was through there so fast that he left heads spinning in Admin. He took a full load of courses and petitioned to take more. Since he aced everything, they agreed. He took summer credits and never paused to take a breath.” Kyle shrugged. “Or admire the view.”
“While your motivation was...?”
“To stay in college as long as possible. I thought it was the ideal life. Heaven on earth. I changed majors twice and was thinking of doing it a third time, but Ty came up with the idea for F5. It wasn’t called that then, of course.”
“And you liked the idea enough to change your motivation.”
“I loved it! If anything, it sounded more perfect than college.” Kyle smiled in recollection. “Ty didn’t believe me. I think he thought I couldn’t commit to anything, which isn’t unreasonable given the evidence at hand.”
“But not true. You’re committed to F5.”
“Absolutely. But that’s now. He had his doubts then, so I told him I’d graduate the same time as he did. After that, I was doing the full course load plus a few extras, although they weren’t so happy to give me permission as Ty, thanks to my academic record.”
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