Role Play (25 page)

“Now that
’s a view to wake up to,” I murmured, looking down at his naked back and curve of his buttocks in the shorts.

“It’s too bright
,” he murmured.

I
realized he was right about the sunlight. Checking the time, I saw it was nearly 11. A jolt of panic shot through me. “Oh, no! I can’t believe it’s so late! I have to be at work by 12:30. I can barely get out to my place and back in time.”

Victor
propped himself up on his elbow, looking adorably tousled. “Are you okay to go to work? What about your ankle?”

I
carefully stood up. A sharp twinge went through my ankle when I put weight on it. “I need to wrap it, but I think it’s okay. I really hate to call in sick when Kalisha was so cool about letting me off for the Festival.”

“You can get ready here.
I have an ace bandage. That would save some wear and tear on your ankle traveling back and forth.”

“I guess I could…”

He leaned over and snagged my red dress from the floor. “It’s wrinkled.”

“I can’t wear that
. But I do have the dress I wore yesterday. I bought that one at work.”

He grinned.
“So you decided to go to the Sanctuary at the last minute?”

Actually
I had started planning it the moment Candice suggested that I go out and get what I wanted.

But
I wasn’t going to tell him that.

“Can I take a shower?”
I asked.

“First you have to pay for your overnight stay.” He drew
me closer and kissed me. It was nothing like our passion-laden kisses at the Festival, or even last night at the Sanctuary. It was more like a girlfriend kiss, a loving morning kiss.

As
I showered, he made breakfast for us. There was French toast waiting for me when I got out. I sat down at the black granite counter and looked out at the view as I ate my French toast with maple syrup. His coffee was divine—it came from a one-cup dispenser that probably cost a fortune.

“This is the life!”
I said. “I feel like Cinderella. Only I’m still at the ball.”

“
It’s way past midnight,” Victor reminded me.

As
I took a bite, I asked, “Are you going up to your house in Connecticut or staying here for the rest of the weekend?”

He wiped his mouth.
“Staying here.”

I
looked out at the view with a sigh. “I wouldn’t want to leave if I had this place. It’s small, but it’s perfect, if you know what I mean.”

“I do.”

We ate in silence for a few minutes. I asked, “Are you leaving town this week?”

“No,
I’m not going anywhere this week.”

That familiar wall was rising
up between us. He looked preoccupied, like I had sparked some train of thought that was taking him further away from me.

“What
do you do for the airline?” I asked.

He chewed and swallowed before he answered,
“I deal with the ground services, the behind-the scenes airport systems that gets the food onto the planes, the baggage moving, and keeps the gates up and running.”

“That’s interesting. Is that why you have to go to other airports?”

“Sometimes. I’d rather travel for fun, not work. You saw how easy it is for us employees. It’s the main reason I took this job. I get to go to the places I always wanted to see. I’m thinking about going to India next.”

I
was so envious. He had the life I wanted! And he was only twenty-eight. In seven years, hopefully I would be in a much better place. But some people were lucky—they got a boost in life. It would take a lot to bring me up to his level of success.

After that
I stopped asking questions, and he stopped talking. He did give me a lingering kiss good-bye at the door, but he didn’t say anything about getting together again. It was an odd way to leave things after such an intimate night.

Maybe it was intimate, but what exactly
was it? He didn’t try to have sex with me, not even this morning when it would have been natural for a man to try, when he was waking up in bed with a woman he supposedly couldn’t keep his hands off.

I
couldn’t complain because he respected my decision to not have casual sex. But I was disappointed that
casual
sex was the only kind of sex he had.

Yet
nothing felt
casual
about the way we made love. It was all-engrossing, over-whelming passion that swept us up and dashed us both against the rocks. There was no faking that, no ignoring what happened between us.

By the time
I got to the department store, it felt like a safe haven. I knew my place there, and what I had to do. As I clocked in, I felt more like myself than I had in days.

But the second
Kalisha saw me, my boss exclaimed, “What happened to you?”

“What’s wrong?”
I asked, putting my hand to my hair.

“You look all bright-eyed and
glowy.” With a narrow look at my outfit, Kalisha added, “Isn’t that what you were wearing yesterday? Don’t tell me! The red dress worked? I
told
you that was the one.”

I
laughed and blushed. I never would have imagined sharing my personal life with my supervisor. But Kalisha seemed to like it.

And
I would take friendship in any form it came, and be grateful.

Eight hours never passed
so quickly—it was always busy in the store on the weekend. When Kalisha found out I had strained my ankle, she let me switch back to wearing my sneakers on shift. It was the only thing that got me through.

As
I limped around helping customers and stocking merchandise, I tried not to think of how badly our morning had ended, or the way he had kissed me last night at the Sanctuary. Being with him was more erotic than anything I had ever experienced before. It was like I never knew what passion was—that true desire that made two people want to dive into each other and never come up for air.

But I knew my limit, and this was it. I
would have a real relationship with him or nothing. I couldn’t do anything
casual
with Victor.

...

When I got home from work late on Sunday night, I limped straight up to the roof. Looking at the skyline of the city bright with lights, I picked out the low dip over the east village, nearly at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge, where Victor lived.

He was probably there right now.
Unless he was out with someone else.

Candice was
on the roof drinking a beer with a few of the other roommates. “I think that dress is a repeat,” she said.

I
pulled out a bit of the red dress from my bag. “It worked. My boss helped me pick it out yesterday.”

Candice’s eyes lit up.
“I saw you didn’t come home last night, and I wondered… tell me!”
I settled into a folding chair next to Candice looking out at the skyline. At Victor’s place, it felt like we were inside the view, surrounded by buildings. Here, the city was barely out of reach on the other side of the river.

“He was all over me at first,
” I said, “but then I found out he was there with someone else. A terrible blond woman who was drinking too much.”

“Sounds awful.”
My expression fell. “It got worse. After I ran out, my sister’s old boyfriend grabbed me and tried to get me to tell him where Lola is living now.”

“Honey, are you okay?”
Candice asked.

The concern in her voice
made the whole thing wash over me again with a sick feeling.

“I’ve known him for
a long time, but he went crazy. He hurt me.” I showed Candice the fresh scabs on my knees and the bandage on my ankle. “He would have hurt me more but Victor stopped him. You should have seen him. Victor carried me all the way to his place, blocks and blocks. It was like we were both possessed.”

“And you made love all night,” Candice finished.  She must have seen the doubtful expression on my face. “Or did you?”

“I told him that I didn’t want to have casual sex. But after Dick attacked me… I didn’t want to leave his place, and he didn’t want me to go. So we cuddled all night.”

“Cuddled?”
She gave me a hard look. “That is
so
romantic. Nothing like a near-death experience to wake a body up.”

I
t was true. I was not in my right mind last night, and I ventured to guess that Victor wasn’t either.

“Yeah, well, in the cold light of day, things defin
itely looked different,” I said. “On his side. As soon as I started asking him what he was going to do today and what’s up with his work, he shut right down.” I sighed. “I think I am just a booty call.”

“
You weren’t last night,” Candice pointed out.

I
sat back and put my foot up on the rickety table to elevate it. I had tomorrow off, so it would give my aching ankle a chance to recover. That many hours standing up had taken a toll.

Right now, all
I wanted to do was sit with my new friends and enjoy my beer.

I knew exactly where I stood with Victor, and that was
nowhere
. If he wanted a relationship, he knew where to find me. I had gotten one text from him today, close to dinner time, asking how my ankle was. I had replied:
Doing okay. I should get through the day.
And after that, nothing. Not a word.

After a night like last night.

He was keeping his distance from me. Otherwise he would have texted more. He had done the bare minimum that human decency demanded, and that was it.

I
had no idea when I would see him next. Would I see him again? I wouldn’t track him down again like I did last night. I couldn’t stand having to drag him away from another date.

“I feel like I’m not good enough for him,”
I sighed.

“Don’t you
ever
say that! You should bite your tongue before you say that.” Candice smacked the back of my hand. “You’re good enough for any man, Sierra.”

“This one is complicated. He has casual sex with girls like me who he meets in fetish clubs.”
I laughed when Candice’s eyebrows went right to the top of her forehead. “I was following my sister! I was worried about her.”

“I would have pegged you for vanilla all the way,” Candice said.

“Not so much anymore,” I admitted. “But Victor doesn’t take me seriously because of the way we met. He’s never taken me out on a real date. I haven’t met any of his friends. He probably saves that for potential girlfriends while I got slotted into the slut category.”

“Well, honey, it’s up to you what you want to do.”

I nodded. “I’ve already decided. If he doesn’t care about me the same way, then I don’t want him.”

Chapter
23

Victor

I was in agony. I should have confessed this morning, but Sierra woke up talking about my
amazing
view and kept right on gushing through breakfast about my
amazing
life. I lied to her face. Along with different kinds of evasions of truth I usually justified as “not really lies” even though they most definitely
were
lies.

I
was caught in a nightmare of my own making. I should have told her. But I couldn’t form the words. I couldn’t face the slow disbelief that would spread across her face, and the disdain and disgust that would follow.

I needed more time, to figure out how to
say it. Suddenly I knew why people broke up by text message. They didn’t want to see
that
look. That look of shock and pain.

Beating
my head with my own hands, I paced all day, trying to figure a way out of this mess.

My feelings had grown beyond desire, beyond passion for Sierra. As a kid, I had learned
I couldn’t trust the women I was closest to, not my grandmother, not my sister. They let me down every time.

But last night I felt such deep
trust for Sierra, such simple comfort in her arms. I was sure that she cared about
me.
She was holding
me
.

She understood me, and saw the real me through the lies. She had been through hard things, too. I could tell.
It was like we were made for each other.

I
regretted that I hadn’t told her the truth weeks ago, blurted it out when she came to see my place that first time, or at Festival when we were so close. Maybe then she would have understood. I could have helped her look for a place and helped her move, and shown her I was a good guy in spite of everything.