The Seduction of Dylan Acosta

by Nia Forrester

  “Don’t be stupid,” she said struggling. “You can’t carry me all the way back up there.”

  “Will you stop moving around? You’ll make me drop you!”

  She should have been pleased that he was carrying her. It was kind of a romantic thing to do after all, but all she felt was frustrated and foolish. He didn’t even want her along for these morning runs, hadn’t even invited her in the first place. And he never tried to speak to her, hardly even acknowledged her presence . . . Even now he seemed pissed that she’d been dumb enough to fall on the trail, all because she wasn’t paying attention.

  “Put me down!” she screamed at him.

  Mark flinched but ignored her otherwise, climbing up the incline with her still in his arms and beginning the long walk back toward the house.

  Dylan could feel the tears threatening at the backs of her eyes but blinked them away, instead looking down at her knee—which was really beginning to sting now—and her shin which was dirty and dripping blood onto Mark’s forearm.

  “Thank you. I’m sorry I yelled. I think I can walk,” she said, forcing herself to sound calm, knowing that if she didn’t he would think she was hysterical and just keep ignoring her.

  Mark paused and seemed to consider for a moment then kept walking. Dylan sighed and gave in, settling against his chest which was still heaving from the run. He was sweating as well, so much so that his shirt clung to his chest. She could smell him, a musky, masculine and not unpleasant scent; and she could feel the heat radiating from his body.

  “You don’t have to come on these runs,” he said quietly. “It’s challenging enough for me . . .”

  “Without having to worry about me being such a klutz?” she said.

  “I wasn’t going to say that. I meant it’s a hard trail for me, so I can only imagine how much more so for you. Especially since you’ve lost all that weight. You barely weigh anything, Dylan.”

  “I’ve been trying to stay in shape . . .”

  “In shape? You’re a twig.”

  She blinked back more threatened tears. “I had no idea I was so unappealing.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Stop what?”

  “Trying to pick fights. I never said you were unappealing. It’s not like we don’t fuck practically every night.”

  “Since when has that been what we do?” she asked quietly. “And since when have you talked to me this way?”

  Mark sighed. “Sorry,” he said after a moment.

  They were silent for the rest of the twenty-minute walk and Mark had begun to breathe heavily by then.

  Inside, he carried her upstairs and into the master bathroom where he put her to sit on the edge of the tub. He stripped off his shirt and went to the medicine cabinet, returning with hydrogen peroxide, bandages and tape.

  Dylan looked away and bit the inside of her cheek as he cleaned her cuts, bracing herself against the stinging of the peroxide. Mark moistened a washrag and cleaned her leg, drying it and then applying the bandages, securing them with tape.

  Watching him as he kneeled in front of her, concentrating on putting her back together, Dylan wanted to reach out and smooth a hand over his head, touching his bristly soft hair. When they were in bed, her hands were constantly all over him; on his head, on his face, his arms, buttocks and back. But right now, in the bright light of day, she was almost afraid to touch him. Their only intimacy now was in the bedroom.

  “I’ll start you a shower,” he said standing.

  Dylan waited, watching him from the edge of the tub. He was glistening with perspiration, his back muscles rippling as he reached in to turn on the water. He hadn’t been kidding; since Charlottesville they did have sex almost every night, but it still felt like they hadn’t connected in ages.

  “C’mon,” Mark said. “Get in.”

  It was only then that she realized she’d been staring at him like an idiot. Dylan stood and gasped at the discomfort in her leg. It was starting to swell; she could feel the stiffness about her knee making it difficult to put her weight on it and almost impossible to bend.

  “You okay?”

  Seeing that she could barely move without limping, Mark came over and helped her take off her shirt and sport bra, then he carefully peeled her shorts down over her hips, removing her underwear, her socks and sneakers. When she was naked, he looked at her and ran his palm lightly against her hip. She looked down and saw that he was examining the beginnings of a bruise.

  “Get in. I’ll get you something for the . . .”

  Dylan stepped into the shower and shut her eyes and was surprised when a moment later she felt a hand on her shoulder gently massaging. She turned and opened her eyes. Mark was in the shower with her. He extended a hand to her with a blue pill which she took without protest. Then he was bathing her, just as he had the very first time they’d been together; Dylan leaned back into his touch.

  After the shower, he dried her, checked her bandages to make sure they were still secure under the tape then lifted and deposited her into bed still wrapped in her towel. Dylan watched through a haze of sudden sleepiness as Mark dressed. The pill was beginning to take effect. Her leg was just a dull ache now, nothing more.

  “I’ll make breakfast,” Mark said.

  That was the last thing she remembered before she fell asleep.

  When Dylan awoke much later, she thought for a moment that she was in the Bronx. She could hear her mother-in-law berating Matt and the familiar sound of voices arguing good-naturedly about something or other. Then she opened her eyes and realized that she was home. When she sat up, the towel she was wearing fell away from her chest and she remembered that she had fallen asleep immediately after showering that morning.

  Swinging her left leg over the edge of the bed, Dylan was jolted by a sudden pain in her right knee. She looked down at it and saw that it was swollen to twice its normal size and the rest of her leg was marred by an angry purple bruise, from ankle to mid-thigh. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she hopped on the left leg, making her way toward the dresser, leaning against it to get herself some underwear.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  She looked over her shoulder to see face Mark, standing at their bedroom door, an angry scowl on his face.

  “Getting dressed,” she said, her voice a croak.

  In a few short strides he was next to her, scooping her back up and putting her on the edge of their bed. Then he was looking through her underwear, pulling a pair out along with a tank and lightweight lounging pants. Dylan didn’t object when he came over and carefully helped her get the underwear and pants on, then pulled the tank over her head.

  “I don’t like the look of that leg,” he said. “We ‘re going to the urgent care center in town.”

  “I thought I heard your Mom and Matt,” she said ignoring his suggestion.

  “Yes,” Mark said waving a hand dismissively. “I told them we couldn’t make it for Sunday dinner, so everyone came here. We’ll go over to the urgent care before we eat. I don’t think it should be looking this bad unless you dislocated something.”

  Dylan didn’t listen to the rest of what he said. She was still stuck on the part where he said his entire family had schlepped all the way to Westchester County just because she couldn’t make it to Sunday dinner, in spite of everything, in spite of all they were being dragged into.

  Suddenly she was crying, hot, silent tears blazing a path down her cheeks. She didn’t deserve these people, this family.

  “It’s okay,” Mark said soothingly. “Let me get you another pain pill. Then we’ll go get this checked out. Maybe it’s just a bad sprain.”

  “No,” she said grasping his shirt. “No . . .” Then she buried her face in his chest, holding on tight, not able to put into words all she felt for him, for all of them.

  The young woman who checked them in at the urgent care center seemed unable to keep her eyes off Mark as he stood in front of her, filling out the forms that she’d handed to him
on a clipboard. Dylan watched as she watched him, her eyes travelling from his face to his arms and chest and back again. She was used to women looking at her husband and only now wondered at the fact that she had never really felt threatened by it. Even Patricia felt like a low level threat at best; random women like this not at all.

  Ever since they’d gotten married, she had felt assured of his feelings for her. What she was insecure about was whether she could possibly live up to them. And now, with this mess with Ray, she’d proven that she couldn’t.

  “Dylan. Allergic to any medications?” he asked looking over his shoulder at her now.

  “No. None that I know of.”

  Mark returned to the task of filling out the forms. The young woman at the desk looked at her, and Dylan knew she was not mistaken; the look in her eyes said everything: you don’t deserve him. Everyone knew who Mark was of course, and thanks to the New York dailies, they knew who she was as well; the stupid trampy wife who was cuckolding him with his teammate.

  “How long will it be?” Mark asked when he handed the young woman the forms. “Before someone can see my wife, I mean. She’s in a little bit of pain.”

  “Shouldn’t be too long,” the young woman said, her tone betraying that she couldn’t care less about Dylan’s pain. She had bleached blonde hair with the dark roots beginning to show, and black fingernail polish.

  While they waited for the doctor, Mark sat next to her, one arm at the back of her chair, the other hand running lightly up and down her thigh. The pain of her injury was worth it to have Mark this attentive again.

  After waiting another half hour to see the doctor, Dylan was diagnosed with a collateral ligament tear and ordered to ice and elevate the knee, and if possible stay in bed. For the time being, her trail running days were over, which meant that in all likelihood, she could not run with Mark again before his suspension was over. Dylan knew that meant that what little time they spent together outside of bed would be further shortened.

  She was given crutches and her knee professionally wrapped, but Mark insisted on carrying her out to the car and once home, back into the house. Everyone was waiting for them to start the Sunday meal and made a huge fuss about Dylan having to use crutches, bustling around to make sure she was comfortable before they could all sit down to eat.

  Much later when she and Mark were alone again, instead of leaving her and retreating to his den, he instead watched television in their bedroom. Dylan, sitting next to him with a magazine, pretended not to notice that this was a divergence from his recent habit of coming to bed only to have sex with her and going off alone once again.

  Dylan watched anxiously as Cindy made her way across the restaurant, headed in her direction. She was dressed casually, in a black blouse and dark-wash jeans, but as always looked chic and well put-together. The large sunglasses she wore obscured her eyes, so it was impossible to read her expression.

  Dylan had been expecting her call for at least a week, ever since the pictures surfaced, but it was only last night that it had finally come. She had been in bed, where Mark had insisted she remain since she’d taken the fall on the trail, when her phone rang. Seeing Cindy’s name flash across the console had made her heart begin pounding. She fully expected to be told off. She probably deserved it, having not made the call herself, as anyone who was innocent of what was being said would have done.

  But Dylan had been too preoccupied with Mark and her in-laws to handle anyone else’s anger or disappointment and with each passing day, she kept telling herself she would call Cindy, but never had.

  “You and I need to talk,” Cindy had said almost immediately. “And I don’t think it’s a conversation we should have over the phone.”

  “Of course,” Dylan said right away, feeling her chest tighten.

  She could only imagine the other woman’s feelings. What might she feel toward a woman who was photographed with Mark in the way she had been with Ray? And when Cindy suggested that they meet for lunch at a place in Manhattan, Dylan hadn’t wanted to mention her injured knee. If anyone should incur the inconvenience, it should be her.

  Mark hadn’t liked the idea of her going all the way into the city just for a lunch with Cindy with her knee still bound, but agreed so long as she took a car and driver. And of course, though he hadn’t said it, he knew that there was a reckoning with Ray’s wife that would have to be faced, sooner or later.

  Now, as she approached the table, Cindy removed her sunglasses and glanced down at Dylan’s leg, propped up on a chair next to hers.

  “Oh,” she said. “I hadn’t realized. Please, don’t get up.”

  Dylan swallowed and nodded. “Cindy . . .”

  “What happened?” Cindy sat and put her Prada purse on the table next to her and indicated Dylan’s leg.

  “I was running on a trail near our house and took a spill,” she explained, dismissively, not wanting to talk about her own injury when Cindy was clearly the wronged party in this scenario.

  “I’m so sorry,” Cindy said, sounding perfectly sincere. “It looks pretty painful.”

  Dylan shook her head “A little uncomfortable, that’s all.”

  “So . . .”

  Dylan tried to read Cindy’s face and thought for a moment the other woman looked apologetic. But surely that couldn’t be right.

  “I wanted to call you sooner,” Cindy said.

  “Me too,” Dylan interjected. “Cindy, I hope you know that . . .”

  Cindy reached out and covered Dylan’s hand with hers for a moment to silence her, then removed it.

  “Dylan, don’t,” she said, her voice firm. “You’re about to apologize for something for which no apology is necessary.”

  Dylan looked at her, surprised. Cindy didn’t know her very well. How could she be so sure there was nothing to apologize for?

  As though she’d read her mind Cindy smiled.

  “Dylan, I’ve known Ray since we were fourteen. We’ve been married for sixteen years. This is not my first trip to this particular carnival with him.”

  Dylan knew she must look confused, but before she could speak the waiter had come to take their drink orders. Dylan requested a lemonade and Cindy a mojito.

  “I need the alcohol,” she joked when they were alone again.

  “But what it must have looked like to you,” Dylan said.

  “It looked like my husband doing what he always does,” Cindy said, her voice a little bitter. “Exercising his considerable charm to convince a woman that he needs to be saved from his terrible life as the most famous man in baseball.”

  Dylan said nothing, shocked by both Cindy’s words and tone.

  “Dylan,” she sighed. “Since the third year of our marriage, Ray has never been faithful. Most of the time he restricts his conquests to women who clearly have more to gain than lose from the relationship—if that’s what you want to call them. But occasionally, he displays a stunning lack of judgment and . . .” she broke off and shook her head.

  “But Cindy, I hope you know I would never . . .”

  Cindy waved away her explanation. “I don’t know whether you would or not, honestly. But I do know that Ray is almost always the instigator of these things.”

  “No,” Dylan said grabbing her hand. “It’s important to me that you know that I would never have done anything to compromise your marriage or my own.”

  Cindy laughed. Her face looked tired suddenly, under all that make-up. “My marriage is a compromise,” she said. “And it has been for a very long time.”

  “I’m so . . .”

  “Stop saying you’re sorry,” Cindy said, looking directly at her again. “I can’t stand hearing it. It makes me feel pathetic. Do you know why I don’t go to those little gatherings at Pedro Lima’s house?”

  Dylan shook her head.

  “I know the other Dominican wives like to say it’s because I think I’m too good for them. But that’s not it. I don’t go because my husband’s behavior with women humiliates me.
And somehow it’s worse when I’m among people from my own community than when I’m with the likes of Stephanie Alfieri. Who has many humiliations of her own to contend with.”

  Dylan said nothing, and presently the waiter returned with their drinks and for a few moments they were occupied with considering what to order for lunch.

  “And then there’s Lauren,” Cindy said, her voice hard.

  Dylan looked up, remembering that when they were in Palm Springs, Cindy had tried to broach the subject of Lauren when Ray interrupted them.

  “Ray and Lauren have been sleeping together on and off for at least five years,” Cindy said.

  Stunned, Dylan’s mouth literally fell open.

  “Yes, I know,” Cindy said. “Her husband, poor man. He lies to himself about it, just like I did at first. And I wonder sometimes whether he just simply allows it . . .” she stared off into the middle distance.

  “I would never have thought . . .”

  Cindy shrugged. “We’re one dysfunctional little family, aren’t we? And when someone new comes, it throws our crazy little system into chaos. Lauren probably befriended you because she saw Ray’s interest in you.”

  Dylan thought back to Lauren’s campaign after the party at the Limas’ house to get her to go shopping and out to lunch, the constant phone calls . . . her little warning, that Ray was likely to make her “feel special” just to get at Mark.

  “Do the guys talk about this stuff?” Dylan asked, her mouth dry.

  When she was in Palm Springs and Mark wanted her to go home, he said he didn’t have time to explain it to her, but that she should just do as he asked. She always assumed his insistence was about jealousy alone. But now she was wondering what he’d heard.

  Cindy shrugged. “I don’t know. But before Lauren, Ray had other . . . fixations. And like I said, he didn’t always show the best judgment. Wives of his teammates are not off-limits, as you know.”

  “And no one ever did anything about it?” Dylan asked, incredulous. “I mean, they all seem to get along fine.”

  “Well someone did something about it,” Cindy smiled, taking a sip of her drink. “Mark did, didn’t he?”