Commitment (70 page)

To
night, Chris was on the roster.
Whenever
she
met
him
, it was always at some high
-profile restaurant or hot-spo
t
-
of
-
the moment
he’d chosen
.
So if
they had plans
,
Riley
tried to dress accordingly, wearing outfits that
were
suited to his
status
—
t
he
designer stuff
that Tracy h
ad browbeaten her into getting.
Th
is time th
ey were eating at one of Xander Hausen’s places, an overpriced soul
food restaurant in Midtown.
Chris offered to come by the condo to pick her up, but
as always
Riley
told him she’d meet him there.

She spotte
d him as soon as she walked in.
He
was already seated and eating
appetizers when she got there.
The
maître d
led her to the table and he barely looked up as she sat, so engrossed
was
he in his catfish fingers.

“Thanks for waiting,”
Riley
laughed.

“H
ungry as hell,” Chris said.
“I went the whole day
without eating and
didn’t even realize
it
until I got here and
smell
ed
the food.”

“No, that’s okay.
I’m sure you’re really busy.
”

Riley
picked up the menu, scannin
g it for something interesting.
Two months ago she would have died first than share a meal alone with Chri
s.
But as he liked to
say—and it was true—
the
y’d gotten “beyond the bullshit
.”

“I spoke to your man today,” Chris said conversationally.

Riley
resisted the urge to drop the menu and grab him by the collar, begging for
information
.
Instead, she very coolly lowered it and looked at Chris who was smiling at her in a way that made it clear he knew she was only pretending to be casual.

“What’d he say?”

“Basically?” Chris said, painfully s
lowly.
“He told me to keep my
hands to myself.”

Riley
smiled.
“In those words too, I’m sure.”

Chris shrugged.

Riley
waited, but Chris said nothing more. 

“You to
ld him we were having dinner?”

“
Can’t have it looking
like I’m tryin
g
to move in on his woman.”

“So you’re not?
Trying to move in on me.”

She’d been nursing her cu
r
iosity on that point for weeks.
Chris Scaife did not strike her as the kind o
f man who had female ‘friends’.
It didn’t take a genius to see that he was just
a notch
above thinking all women should be barefoot and pregnant.
And he did have a tendency to make suggestive comments. The problem was she could never decide whether he was serious or teasing.

“Why?
You want me to?” Chris raised his eyes
from his food to meet hers
.

Riley
smiled.
“No.
I just wanted to make sure we’re on the same page.”

“We’re on the same page,” he
confirmed
.

“Then, why?” she asked.
“Why’re you so nice to me?
I was never really that nice to you.”

Chri
s wrinkled his brow and nodded. “True.
You never
were.
But I know how that is.
I’m everything you don’t want
Smooth
to be.”

Riley
took a sip of her water
to hide her surprise at how astute he was.

“Everything I
thought
you were is what I didn’t want him to be,” she said finally.

“So what else did you guys say about me?” Riley asked casually.

“He miss
es
you.”

“He said
that?”

Chris
looked at her
.
“He
didn’t
need to say it,
Riley
.”

The waiter came over and
Riley
ordered the catfish and cornbread platter, and Chris got a fried pork sandwich with a side of greens.

“So what did he
actually
say?”

Chris
looked at her. “
You need to just go ahead and call him yourself.”

“Fine.”
Riley
leaned back. 

“Oh, you
’re
mad now?”

“I’m not mad
.
It’s just that you’re the best inf
ormation I have,” she admitted.
“Y’know
I saw him in the newspaper?
That’s how I
get
a lot of
my news about Shawn now—
t
he same way as the rest of the country.”

Chris said nothing.

“Did you know about Keisha?”
Riley
asked
suddenly
.

Chris
looked at her
. 

“Did you?”

Chris nodded slowly.
“I heard a little somethin’.”

“Did Brendan know
too
?”

“
Riley
.
If B knew, you really think he
should’ve
told you?”

S
he sighed.
“Maybe not. I don’t know.
It
’s
just
so humiliating.
”

Chris nodded
“I know what you
’re saying
.
But you don’t understand
b
ecause
you
’re not in this game
.
You don’t
tour with
Smooth
, you don’t go t
o the promotional events,
shit, and
you
don’t even go to the
concerts
.
If you did, you’d know what
it’s
like.
Bitc
. . . I mean, women
at those shows come on strong
, y’know what I’m saying
?
Slipping up like he did?
Occupational hazard.
”

Riley
rolled her eyes.
“Sorry. Not buying it. I mean,
what am I supposed to do, just accept that he’ll cheat on me because they’re some pushy women out there?”

“I wouldn’t say all that.”

“Then wha
t are you saying?”

“That sooner or late
r you need to let that shit go.
Let
it
go or let the brother move on.
That simple.
Right now, you got him hanging. Married, but not married . . . I mean, that’s messed up.
”

Everyo
ne was telling her that lately. Even Lorna.
But it s
ounded
much
simpler than it was.

While they ate,
Riley
let Chris talk about
a
lawsuit
that the gun manufacturers had filed against Mike and Darryl for the use of their name,
and the intricacies of how Glock would have t
o be repackaged and remarketed.
It was more information than she’d ever wanted to know about the process of star-making, but she liked listenin
g to Chris talk about his work.
She could hear in
his voice how much he loved it.

She’d heard the same tone from Shawn when he was talking about his
shows
and
his rhymes,
but the truth was, she couldn’t remember ever having listened to him as closely as
she was listening to Chris now.
Maybe Keisha had been a good l
istener as well as a good lay.
It made her chest constrict to think of it.

After dinner, when they were trying to figure out whether to go get dessert someplace
else
, Chris’ mobile rang and he talked for a few minutes before
Riley
realized Brendan
was on the other end
.
Shawn was probably right there
too.
She wondered if he was thinking about her;
if he knew she was with Chris.
Then Chris handed her the phone.

“It’s B,” he said.

Riley
hesit
ated a moment before taking it.
“Bren
dan?”

“Hey,
Riley
.
What’s up?”

“Nothing.
How’s . . .
h
ow’s Shawn?”

“He’s good.
You still flying o
ut here this weekend?”

“Sure.
Why?
Doesn’t he want me to?”

“
Riley
.
Of cour
se he wants you to.
You want to talk to him?”

“No.”  She wasn’t prepared.

“A’ight.
Just wanted to m
ake sure you were still coming.
Gimme Chris again.”

Riley
handed the phone back and waited for Chris’ conversation to be over, and when it was, she told him she just wanted to go home.

g

Friday
came
too soon and not soon enough.
Riley
was taking an
eight-thirty
flight out of LaGuardia and had everythin
g packed and ready in the car so she could
leave work and
head straight for the airport.
No sense taking ch
ances trying to run home first.
Riley
drifted through the morning, doing all the
routine
things that would suck
up as much time as possible—
filing, cleaning her desk
and
re-reading
what she’d written
over the last couple of weeks.
There was no way she was going to be able to focus enough to manage much more than that.

During the long flight, she tried to sleep, but whenever she drifted off, she would jerk awake minutes later, frustrated and unrested.
When the plane
finally
landed at LAX,
she
was
beyond
exhausted.
It was
past two
a.m. East Coast time, and even she would have been
asleep
by
then
unde
r normal circumstances
.
She walked through the te
rminal
grateful
that
she hadn’t
checked
any bags
,
and headed for the exit
.
If
Brendan
was
late
, she’d take a shuttle; s
he was too
worn out
to
stand
around waiting for anyone.
Outside it only took
her a second to spot her ride.

Shawn was leaning against a black Lincoln
SUV
, scanning the crowd of people exiting fr
om another door closer to him.
His hands were in the pockets of his baggy cargo
shorts
and he
was
searching
the crowd
.
The shorts
were
the
same tattered
ones he’d worn almost
every day
on their honeymoon in Jamaica. She watched him for a moment, noting the worry on his face, then
walked
in his direction
, and was only a few
feet away when he noticed her.
The lines on his forehead
smoothed
and he smiled,
opening his arms.
She stopped, not only surprised that he was there at all,
but that he wanted to hug her.
The sight of him
—
and with his arms outstretched for her was like having a
vise removed from her heart.
It took
every ounce of self-control
not to
throw herself into his arms
.