Christina and I exchanged glances. I shrugged. It was up to her.
With a sigh, she reached in her purse.“This is my last pass to the party. You can come and bring one friend only. Do not embarrass me or make me regret inviting you.”
I nodded.“What she said. And wear something other than jeans and a sci-fi movie T-shirt, please.”
Rob looked at the invite. “Dude. You need to keep her around. She is useful.”
“I’m outta here on Tuesday, so you have to enjoy me for the moment,” Christina said.
I smiled.“I am—I definitely am.”
A slow smile spread across her face.“Let’s go, then.”
“Let’s get it!” Jimmy nodded and bounced out the door.
“I may regret this,” Christina sighed.
“Just remember this was your idea, Ti-Ti.” I shut the door behind me.
11
These Things Sometimes Happen
Christina—Sunday, August 16, 11:47 a.m.
Carey already had a table on the sidewalk when Steven and I strolled up. We were a little bit late, but we didn’t seem to be able to get up out of bed and dressed in the morning without taking a little pause for the cause. This would explain the huge smiles on both our faces as we made our way down the street.
“Hey, Carey!” I called out, and when she looked up I waved. She waved back and then her mouth fell open. Not subtle at all. I could not blame her. Steven looked amazing. He could look good in a hotel towel. Hell, he did look good in a hotel towel. But today, with the dreads hanging free and his mouth curved up in a smile and the eye-twinkle going on, he was especially easy on the eyes. Not to mention the cargo shorts and navy tee showing off the bedroom physique. He was oozing the sexy today; we’d received enough admiring looks from the females on our way here for me to know he had that thing going on.
“Hey, girl!” she called back, finally closing her mouth.
We walked around the railing and she stood up. “Carey Jaymes, Steven Williams.”
“So this is Young Steven.” She was cheesing so hard, I was afraid she could chip a tooth. They shook hands enthusiastically and she took her time letting go.
I sent her a side-eye she completely ignored.“Yes. I believe that’s what I just said.This is Steven.”
He nudged me. “Be nice, Ti-Ti. Pleasure to meet you, Carey. I love your hair. It’s beautiful.”
“Yours, too.”
“Mutual natural hair care love,” I teased.
“You should let yours grow out natural,” Carey said.
“You really should.Then you wouldn’t be as spastic about it getting wet in the shower,” Steven said.
“Do tell?” Carey said, giving me the eye.
“Sit your nosy ass down,” I scolded, and turned to Steven. “So I’ll see you later?”
He leaned down and whispered in my ear. “As much as you want as soon as you want me.”
I actually had to reach back and put my hand on the table for support. Good Lord, the things he made me feel.“I was just going to have you meet me at the hotel later on.”
Carey said, “But why doesn’t he meet us back here in an hour and a half? We can all hang out.”
“Unless you have other stuff you need to do today?” I asked, giving him an out if he wanted it.
“What did I just say?” He hit me with the look.
I inhaled a deep, shaky breath. “So ninety minutes, right back here.”
He dropped a kiss on my open mouth, so full of promise it was all I could do not to drag him back to the hotel right then and there. He stepped back and let go of my hand. “See you then.” He smiled down at Carey. “I’ll look forward to talking to you some more.” He lifted one hand in a wave and headed down the street.
I sank into the chair and we both watched him walk away, going as far as leaning out over the rail to keep him in sight.
“Um-um-um, he looks just as good going as he did coming. Day-um!” Carey said.
“Amen.” I nodded, still watching.
At the end of the block he turned back around and caught me looking. He grinned before pointing at me. “Okay, I see you.”Then he disappeared around the corner.
“Christina!” Carey called out and I blinked.
“Hmm?” I righted myself in the chair and focused in on what she was saying.
“Obviously, it was a bit more than dinner.”
“Girl…” I didn’t even know where to start.
“Hold on, hold that thought.” She lifted her hand for the waiter. “Can we get two pomegranate mojitos and an appetizer platter? Thanks.” She turned back to me.“Okay, spill.”
“I don’t even know where to start,” I admitted out loud.
“Why don’t you start with how you ended up naked with Young Steven?”
“Who said anything about naked?”
“So now I’m stupid? You shower with your clothes on? Did I not just see the look he gave you, the juicy kiss? Steam is still rising off your hot ass.”
I sighed. “What can I tell you? These things sometimes happen.”
“Not to you—not in years. Are you rebounding?”
“Probably.”
“Does he know you’re in major rebound mode?”
“Oh! I forgot that you don’t know the tale. Let me give you the quick and dirty version of how Jayson Day became Jay / David.” I launched into an abbreviated version of the tale. Even as I was telling it, I couldn’t believe how off-the-wall it sounded.
Carey felt the same way.“So who the hell is he exactly?”
“Beyond a married man with children, I don’t know.”
“Do you even know if that’s true?”
Huh. I hadn’t thought about it.Truthfully, once he spun his tale—what was I supposed to do with that? It no longer mattered whether he was married, a spy, a technician, a father. He was no longer who I thought he was and definitely not my fi-ancé.“I honestly don’t know.”
She paused while the waiter set down our drinks and ap-petizers.“Well, do you think you should get an explanation?”
“To what end? I mean, there’s nowhere to go once someone tells you their entire life is a lie. I’m done.” Saying it out loud, I realized it was true. I had nothing else to say to Jay / David and didn’t feel I needed to hear anything else out of him.
She lifted her glass in a toast.“On to the next, then. Is that where Young Steven comes in?”
“Oh no—this is just a fling,” I reassured her, or myself. “There’s no future here.We’re just having fun.”
“Christina, be careful. You two have a chemistry that’s obvious. Just make sure that he knows it’s just a fling.”
“He knows. He’s the one who came up with the term ‘fling.’ I didn’t know what to call it.”
“All right,” Carey warned. “I’m just going to say for the record that Young Steven doesn’t look at you like a man who’s having a fling.”
“Carey—believe me. We have gone over this. He starts an intensive master’s/PhD program next week. He has goals and plans and no time for some thrice-spurned, burned-out older chick from way across the country.”
“Is that what you are now? Thrice spurned and burned out?”
I shrugged.“I kinda am.” How depressing was that?
“Christina.” She reached across the table to touch my hand.
I squeezed back. “I know…this too shall pass. Enough about me.What’s going on with you and Bryan?”
Now she was the one who looked sad.“Well, it’s not getting better. How sober do you need to be when Steven shows up?”
“Oh—uh, it’s a three-mojito story?”
“Definitely.”
“Steven is ever so resourceful. He’ll pour us into cabs if he has to. Drink up and start talking.”
“Shouldn’t I be lifting your spirits?”
“I’ll be okay.”
Carey pursed her lips. “I forgot, you’ve got Young Steven to, um—elevate your mood.”
�
��Now, now—don’t be hatin’.”
“No hate, but brunch is on you.”
We settled in to catch up.
12
Someday Maybe, but Not Today
Steven—Tuesday, August 17, 7:24 p.m.
Sitting in the airport lounge across from Christina, I was still debating whether I should really just let her go.Yeah, yeah…I know what we agreed, but that was five days ago. It seemed like a whirlwind and a lifetime ago.
For the past five days we had spent twenty-two out of every twenty-four hours together. And it never got old, awkward, or uncomfortable.The very cool thing about Christina: She remained the same person, no matter where we went or who we were around. And I liked who that person was. Straightforward, funny, complicated, and sexy as hell.
We talked a lot. About any and every thing. She told me about her ex-fiancés, and my regard for her grew. She had been reckless with her heart, but she was a survivor. I felt honored to be spending time with her.
We went to a music industry party, brunch with her friends, a visit to her office, another visit to my apartment to hang out with the roommates, back to dinner with Chef David, and dancing again. It was all so effortless.There was a flow and symmetry to our togetherness that was instantly addictive. Speaking of addictive—the bed game was ridiculous. Chemistry kicked up another forty degrees. How often did all of that come together? I had spent time with a woman or two in my life, and nothing had ever felt like this.
Just looking at her now in jeans and a T-shirt, I felt the attraction. Did she really not feel it?
“Steven,” she said in the voice that I now knew meant she was serious about something.
“What?”
“You have to just go.You have to get up and walk away.We agreed.”
“I know we agreed. I just can’t remember why right now. Why did we decide we can’t be together?”
“I live there, you live here. I just got out of my third failed engagement.You have a master’s and a PhD to obtain.You are twenty-six, I am thirty-two. Do you need any more reasons?”
“What if we just stay in touch, be friends, see what develops later on?”
“That’s just going to make it harder.You know that.”
I did know that. “Okay, okay—just answer me one thing honestly.”
“Just one thing.”
“Did it feel like just a fling to you, or did it feel like the start of something?”
The fact that she couldn’t or wouldn’t look me in the eye told me what I needed to know.
“What difference does it make?”
“You said you’d answer honestly.”
“Honestly, I’ve never had a fling before, so I don’t know. Maybe this is what one feels like.”
“Cop-out.”
“Best I can do.”
“Not by a long stretch, Christina Brinsley.You can do better in your sleep with one hand behind your back. In fact, you did … just this morning.”
She closed her eyes.“Low. Okay, listen. Maybe…”
“Maybe?”
“Maybe…if things were different I would give it a try, but it’s not fair to you or to me right now. Neither one of us can put in the time and attention we deserve to make this into something. So let’s just cut it off here. It’s already hard enough.”
So she did feel something.“Is this where you give me the speech about ‘if this was another time and another place’?”
“No.This is where I say… someday you’ll look back and realize that I am right.”
“Someday maybe…but not today. Today it just feels like you are running away.”
“That’s because I am.”
I had to know one other thing.“Did you feel like this be-fore…with them?”
“I don’t know what I felt. I don’t know what I’m feeling. I don’t know how much is you and me, how much is rebound, how much is just lust. I don’t know anything right now.That’s why we made the pact, the promise, whatever it was.”
We sat in stony silence for another moment or two.
She leaned toward me.“C’mon, Steven. No fuss, no muss. Right?”
I knew when to give up, but I didn’t have to like it. “Right.”
A few more minutes passed before she checked her watch. “Now stand up, kiss me good-bye, and walk away.”
“I’m not going to beg you.”
“I don’t want you to. I really don’t. I’m not sure I wouldn’t give in. Don’t put me through that.” For the first time since we’d been together, she looked tortured. I definitely did not want to be the cause of her distress. She had been through enough.
“Okay.We agreed. My bad. It is what it is.”
“Don’t be bitter.”
“Now that’s funny coming from you.”
“Don’t be ugly either.”
“Yes, ma’am.We’ll do this your way.” I put my hand behind her neck, leaned down, and kissed her with all the emotion I wanted to display but wouldn’t. Her lips clung to mine when I finally lifted my head.
“Wow.That did not help.”
Wasn’t supposed to. I took a step backwards.“You’re gonna miss me, Ti-Ti.You really are.” I took one step backwards and then another.
I was only a few steps back when I heard her. She quietly said,“Dammit, I know.”
I nodded, pivoted, and walked away quickly without looking back. I knew she stood watching me. I really wanted to glance back for one last look. But what would it change? This was what we agreed to do. Maybe someday I would think it was for the best. For now, I just needed to keep walking.
13
Nobody Gave Me Anything on a Silver Platter
Christina—Tuesday, August 17, 8:17 p.m.
The flight heading east had gone by in a quick blur.The flight back home, not so much. Sometime after the first half hour, I found myself fighting fatigue. It was a mental tired though, the kind that sleep can’t solve. I set my iPod to an unobtrusive instrumental jazz mix, closed my eyes, and just let the thoughts run free. My mind was a jumbled mess and there was a vague ache in my heart that I couldn’t pin down.
You know that feeling you get when you suspect you have really screwed something up? Yep, that’s what it was.
Christina, you’re being melodramatic and stupid.
Maybe I was, but in the past seven years I’d been through three fiancés and now an ill-timed fling with my deliveryman. The look on his face as he backed away from me was one I wouldn’t soon forget. I never wanted to be responsible for making a person look like that, like they weren’t good enough and there was nothing they could do about it.
That really wasn’t my intent. I’d intended to spare both of us a lot of drama and heartache. Hell, I’d intended to just go to dinner with him and go about my life. I couldn’t justify why I let it go on, knowing both of us were going too far too fast. But I hadn’t felt that good in ages. Not just physically but mentally. There was an energy between me and Steven that buoyed me and made me feel like the world was an exciting place where exciting things were waiting right around the corner.And whatever those things were, I could handle them, especially with a man like him by my side.
I hadn’t felt that way, supercharged by life, since I left for college. College was an escape from my mother’s clinginess and my brothers’ overprotectiveness. With my father dying when I was so young, my mother and brothers always felt they had to overcompensate and fill that void. But they never understood that I wanted to feel the void and learn how to live with the empty space instead of filling it with substitutes.
Growing up, I was the girl everything came easily to. Or so it seemed. I worked my ass off for every A, to make head cheerleader, to be fourth in my class, to get that full tuition scholarship to Berkeley and the internship at the Chronicle. Graduate school, then the job at Valiant. I started out writing four-line commentaries as filler on the Web pages. From the outside looking in, I get that it looked easy.
No, I never had to worry about whether the bills we
re paid or where my next meal came from, and I recognized that for the blessing it was. But nobody gave me anything on a silver platter. I was taught that if you worked hard and you really wanted it, eventually you would reap the rewards.
Funny how that didn’t seem to work in my private life. Cedric was my college sweetheart. He was literally the boy next door in my coed dorm. He was your all-around good guy. Smart, ambitious, and good-looking in a generically handsome way. We came from similar socio-economic backgrounds and had the same goals. We understood each other. We were friends first. He was taking forever to make a move, so I nudged him along. And though it wasn’t all magic and moonbeams, it was nice and exactly what I expected. Things moved very quickly after that.We went from friends to fiancés in no time flat. Everyone loved Cedric. He was articulate, steady; you knew what you were getting with Cedric. Or so I thought. He was the very last person I thought would hurt or betray me. But he did. When he announced that he married someone else in the middle of our engagement, I was angry at him, of course, but I was livid with myself that I hadn’t even noticed that anything was wrong. It took months before I even thought about dating again, let alone letting it get serious.
When Perry came along, he was like a balm to my wounded spirit. He said all the right things, liked all the things I liked, and was by far the easiest man to get along with in the world. He was flashy and spontaneous and went with his heart instead of his head. We had ridiculous arguments, we agreed on nothing but the fact that we were committed to each other. There were days where he felt more like a good friend than a lover, but I counted that as a positive. He was Cedric’s polar opposite. I never knew what to expect from Perry from one day to the next. But the unpredictability was exciting…right up until it bit me in the ass. Again, I was left to wonder what signs I’d missed and why.
Jay/David was supposed to be one who proved (to me and everyone else) that I could get it right. I took my time with him, I was cautious and watchful. The chemistry was there; we had fun together. Jay/David was steady but not dull. He laughed a lot and was great for delivering the grand gesture. He was about the thirty-six roses on a Wednesday afternoon for no reason. Spontaneous trips to Napa just because. Proposing in the middle of a Golden State Warriors game on the jumbotron. That was Jay/David. And I just realized while looking back that that was all I knew to be 100 percent true about him. For all I knew everything else was fabricated.
Sweet Little Lies Page 7