Staying True - A Contemporary Romance Novel (13 page)

Women just wanted to nest. I wanted
to fly away from that nest. That nest freaked me out with all its confines and
trappings.

Now Nadia, that woman’s mystery sent
me into lustful overdrive.

That morning, I was prepping my booth
for the next client when she walked into my massage oasis looking all empowered
in her pants suit and smart makeup.

“How’s your day?” she asked.

“It’s been wonderful.” My smile
spread quicker than I could control it.

She mirrored it. “Do you have a few
minutes to chat?”

“Sure. Let me lock up the register,
and I’m all yours.”

Nadia walked out of the oasis, hands
folded behind her back, standing tall, and taking in the beauty of the place
she helped manage.

I fell in behind her, and she led me
to an elevator. “I figure we can go up to my office where there’s a little more
privacy.” Her hands remained folded behind her.

We climbed aboard the elevator and
took it up three floors to the executive offices. We passed several offices and
came to hers, a nice corner one with a big window overlooking the patio area
that contained my massage corner. My heart galloped imagining she could see my
every move from her perch.

I traced my finger across the edge of
the window railing. “We’re having our first official meeting, and I didn’t even
have a chance to prepare.” I looked up at her.

Nadia closed the door behind us and
closed the window shades to the hallway. She cleared her throat. “This is not a
meeting you could’ve prepared for.”

Panic gripped me. “Are you firing
me?”

“What?” She laughed. “I’m not going
to fire you.” She reached into her pocketbook and pulled out a checkbook. She
sat down and wrote out the check. “I just forgot to pay you last night for the
massage.”

This insulted me. Why didn’t she just
slap me across the face? “You don’t have to pay me.”

Her red fingernails glistened under
the lights as her pen scrolled across the check. “Sure I do. Otherwise I’ll be
afraid to ask you for another treatment.”

Her pen continued to dance across the
check, wiping out the romance from the night before. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Nadia ripped out the check and handed
it to me. “I trust that’s enough?”

I glanced down and handed it right
back to her. “Fifty dollars?”

“Not enough?”

“I’m not taking your money.” I folded
my arms over my chest in silent protest.

“We’re two professionals who
understand money must be exchanged for such services.”

She sounded like the president of a
company all of a sudden. Where did my sweet, flirty Nadia from the night before
go?

“Fine then.”

“Fine.”

“Well, if this is going to be a
regular treatment option for you, we should settle on an actual price that is
realistic.” I matched her tone.

She stretched her eyes and cocked her
head. “Oh, I like this side of you. The professional,” she whispered.

My tummy flipped.

“What would be reasonable?” she
asked.

“I charge a dollar a minute.”

“So, if I didn’t want to rip up this
check, I still have another forty minutes coming to me?”

Were we negotiating the price of a
new car? “You can take it all in one shot or break it up into smaller sessions.
Whatever you wish. You’re the boss.” I said this with more hurt than I meant.

Her face softened. “How about a
ten-minute treatment right now?” She removed her jacket. “Should I just slip
this shirt down a little over my shoulders?”

I walked around to the backside of
her. I helped slide the silky cream shirt off of her shoulders. Then, I brushed
her hair off to the side. “Just relax.” I would remain professional. I would
not cross the line. I would leave with my job intact. She was a client. Just a
client at this point.

She bowed her head and softened like
putty in my hands. I rubbed her neck with my thumbs, circling it, pressing it,
and feathering it. “Feeling better?”

She moaned.

I continued circling her skin with my
thumb as I traveled down to her shoulders. I gripped and kneaded them and
enjoyed watching the curvature of her spine in the small space between her skin
and her silky shirt. I could picture my tongue tracing it up and down and her
moaning and melting below me.

Nadia’s breathing deepened. It filled
the office with a rich melody that I soon fell into sync with. I rubbed her
shoulders in wide circles, leaning in closer with each angle until my lips were
just shy of her neck. She leaned into my breaths, and soon cupped her hand over
mine. “I can’t massage you if you’re trapping my hand,” I whispered.

“I can’t help myself if you keep
blowing your warm breath on my skin.” She looked up at me, seduction playing on
her eyes.

I ignored the warning bells ringing
in my ears. I bypassed the red flags waving me away from her lips. I couldn’t
help myself. I leaned down and kissed her. She pressed her lips into mine with
a hunger she had kept hidden the night before. I swiveled around to her front
and straddled her. I couldn’t kiss her hard enough. She raked her fingers
through my hair and pulled me to her. My body pulsed against her with each pass
of her tongue through my lips. I sealed my hands around her shoulders and
rocked against her.

“We have to stop,” she whispered into
my mouth.

“No,” I said, kissing her harder.
“Why would you want to stop?”

She pushed back from me and cupped my
face in her hands. “I should tell you something.” Dread circled the spokes of
her eyes.

I knew before she could say it. “You
have a girlfriend.”

“No,” she said, pulling in her lower
lip. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Then what?”

Nadia hesitated, drawing a deep
breath. “I’ve got a wife.”

Chapter Eleven

Nadia

We agreed to be friends.

After I explained the whole messy
story to Ruby about Jessica, she asked me, “Do you love her?”

“I care about her.”

Ruby arched her eye at me. “Do you
love her?”

“I don’t want her life to be ruined
by what she did.”

“You’re not answering my question.”
Her eyes bore into mine.

“I don’t know.” I paused and took in
the empathy on Ruby’s delicate face. “I’m angry.”

She stepped closer to me. Her hair
was a mess from my fingers just half an hour prior. “You have every right to
be.”

“I don’t do this,” I whispered. “Go
around kissing other women. I don’t want you to think I’m like that.”

“I don’t judge.” Ruby slipped off her
light sweater and swung it over her shoulder. “I’m sure what you’re dealing
with must be hard.”

“So hard.” My breath caught. Her eyes
were so soft and caring and offered the perfect place to take up refuge. “It’s
been over a year. I’ve gotten used to living alone now and getting along
without her. We’ve grown so far apart.”

“Do you visit her?” She ran her
finger up and down her arm. God how I wished it were my arm.

“At first, I used to visit her daily.
It’s a terrible place.”

“I can just imagine.” Ruby hugged
herself.

“People stare. I have to talk to her
through Plexiglas. Armed guards watch us out of the corners of their eyes. And,
we have nothing to talk about anymore. We sit in awkward silence, playing with
our fingernails and shifting in our seats a few hundred times. It’s awful.”

“How often do you go now?”

“I visit her when I go back to
Connecticut. That’s only every other week or so now.”

“I don’t know that I’d be able to go
in there at all. So kudos to you.”

“It’s strained our marriage, as you
can imagine.”

Ruby stretched her eyes.
“Relationships are hard enough, right?”

“Even when they’re good, they’re
hard.” We lingered on a stare. “She told me to think of her time in jail as a
soldier’s deployment. We went into this committed to the notion that the time
away will strengthen our love.” I bowed my head. “I’m looking forward to the
day she’s released so we can go back to what we used to have with each other.”

Ruby counseled me that afternoon,
assuring me that my feelings were justified. She swept out of my office with
all of her grace, leaving me breathless and even more curious and intrigued.

As the weeks sped by, we spent lots
of time together. I liked having her in my life. I liked walking into work and
seeing her smiling face. I liked looking down on her from my office and
watching her in her element. I liked stopping by and handing her a coffee and
embracing each other in a friendly hug. I liked when we met at the end of a
long day and enjoyed a drink together at the bar. We’d share laughs, we’d share
tales of our day, and we’d share stories. I loved hearing about her grampa. She
adored him, and to me that just spoke volumes about her character. “He’s my
life,” she’d say.

My grandparents lived across the
country, and I had only seen them five times in my life. We’d meet at various
funerals for distant cousins or third generation aunts or uncles. They didn’t
hug me. They simply nodded, smiled, and carried on their boring conversation
about politics and their flights into Connecticut. “I’m actually a little
envious of that.”

“I owe him everything. He’s blessed
me over and over again.”

“I’d love to meet him one day.”

“You’re welcome to join us on any
Sunday. We go to ten o’clock mass at Saint Mary’s in Providence, eat some
brunch, and then head over to his senior center for some Wii.”

I cringed. “I haven’t been involved
in a spiritual ceremony since—”

“Since your wedding?”

“Yes. Since my wedding.”

Ruby draped her hand over my arm.
“Come with us.”

“No. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t want to
intrude.”

“My grampa would love it. The more
the merrier.”

“I’m not religious. I wouldn’t know
what to do. How to act.”

“It isn’t some wacky place where we
perform rituals. We simply walk down the center aisle all the way to the front
row, shift to the left, and sit directly in front of the priest’s pulpit.
That’s where Grampa insists we sit.”

“I’m a heretic. I don’t belong in
church.”

“It’s a shame,” she doled out. “My
grampa would love you.”

That next Sunday, Shawna invited me
out to breakfast. I showered and met her in the lobby. She wore a conservative
blue dress and flat shoes. A goofy smile spread across her face.

“What are you up to?”

“Just get in the car.” She pulled
down on the ill-fitted dress. “This thing is giving me a wedge from hell.”

“Where are you taking me to
breakfast?”

She sighed before dropping into the
front seat of her car. “St. Mary’s.”

My heart leapt. I climbed into the
passenger seat. “Did she put you up to this?”

Shawna simply rolled her eyes on the
start of the engine and sped off.

A grin, too large to be hidden,
etched itself on my face for the entire drive.

* *

We walked into the church. Music
filled the large space decorated in stained glass windows and large murals
depicting the Stations of the Cross. It smelled like incense and furniture
polish. Elderly women with blue-tinted hair and flowery blouses and men in blue
blazers and ties tied too tightly sat in pews with their heads bowed. Parents
pointed their fingers and glared warnings at their fidgety children. Babies
cried. Candles burned. And the sun filtered in through the ceiling slits.

I spotted Ruby and her grandfather in
the front row just where she said they’d be. Her blonde mane flowed behind her.
Tiny twists on either side pinned her hair back. She wore a baby blue shirt.
Her grandfather wore a gray oxford sweater. His hair was steel gray and wiry.
He sat still, staring up at the altar.

We walked up the aisle, and Shawna’s
shoes clacked on the granite floor. She hung her head in reverence. “Why is
everyone looking at us?” she muttered.

“No one is looking at us.” I scanned
the aisles and willed people to stop staring. I even shot a few bold older
people dirty looks. “Just keep walking to the front,” I said to her.

She groaned and trudged onward.

As we closed in, Ruby turned over her
shoulder with a satisfied smile on her face. Her eyes flickered with intensity.
I unraveled at the sight of her. My heart thumped. My breath cut short. My legs
turned to jelly, and I hardly noticed Shawna’s clacking anymore.

Ruby stood and tilted her head in a
way much too sexy for a church setting. She waved to us both. I entered the
pew, and she wrapped me into her arms. “I knew you would come,” she whispered.

“I feel very out of place.” My lips
flushed up against her ears. She smelled delicate and lively.

“Let me introduce you to Grampa.” She
squeezed me and pulled away.

I glanced over at him. He continued
to sit still, staring ahead, a bit of moisture brimming on his eyelids.

She cradled her hand on his shoulder.
“Grampa, meet my friends Nadia and Shawna.”

He looked up, stared at me, and then
broke into a sprightly smile as if we hadn’t seen each other since the days of
the Titanic. He climbed to his feet, and with the strength of a twenty-year-old
man, he pulled me into his arms and squeezed me. “Nadia. What a lovely name you
have.” His voice bounced off of the high ceilings. Our pew neighbors smiled and
nodded at us.

He pulled away and held my hands in
his and swung. He smiled, like all of his youth had just reappeared and we were
soaking up the sun on a beach in Malibu amidst a backdrop of sailboats and
pelicans. Even his wrinkles faded and his nose and ears shrunk in size compared
to his large spirit. He smelled like he’d taken a soak in laundry detergent.

Her grampa motioned to the seat where
Ruby had been sitting. “Here, sweet Nadia, you sit next to me.”

I sat on command.

“And you can call me John.”

“Okay, John,” I said, shifting on the
hard wooden seat in search of a comfortable spot.

He turned to Shawna and welcomed her
with the same lively hug. “Aren’t you a beautiful thing,” he said.

Shawna’s eyes twinkled. “It’s a
pleasure, sir. Ruby talks so much about you.”

“You sit on the other side of me.
Come on,” he said pulling her across the space in front of him.

“Now listen,” he said loudly,
shifting from me to Shawna. “Some people call me Aura. Other people call me Jack.
And some call me John.”

“I can barely remember one name, and
you want me to remember three?” Shawna asked, her smile playful.

He laughed so hard he started to
cough. His whole face lit up. His eyes watered. His hands trembled when he
clapped them in obvious joy over his three names. “I’ll let you pick one.
Though, I must tell you now, that I love John the most. And you know why?”

“Tell me.” Shawna placed her hand
over his.

“Well, I’ll tell you. It’s because
that’s the name my wife called me. She couldn’t pronounce Aura, and Jack didn’t
sound right to her, so she decided she’d call me John. She just plucked that
name right out of thin air.”

Ruby tapped my leg. I looked up into
her watery blue eyes, and she winked at me. Then, she placed her hand on my leg
and just left it there for the entire forty-five minute mass. For the first
time in my life, I prayed mass would last forever. I didn’t shift. I didn’t
flinch. I didn’t care that I was a married woman sitting in a church pew in
between a girl I wanted to wrap myself around and her grampa. Everything just
felt right.

“Your grampa is adorable,” I
whispered.

She flaunted a victorious smile
before releasing me with a nod.

Later, we went to breakfast, and he
filled us in on everything hockey. I knew nothing of hockey other than a puck,
skates, and ice were involved. He recounted games from the seventies, and the
star-studded wins thanks to the talents of players he rattled off like I would
talk about event planning checklists.

After breakfast, we went to the
senior center.

“Watch this,” Ruby said, taking my
hand in hers and leading me towards the main sitting area where oxygen tanks,
mixed nuts, and cans of ginger ale ruled.

As soon as this man walked out of the
bathroom and towards his friends, they all brightened. Their cheeks blushed,
and their eyes glowed. He was the man of the hour, the celebrity, the one
everyone wanted to claim as their friend for the day. He happened to also be
the only man in the room.

One lady with a French knot in her
hair grabbed his hand and kissed it. Grampa pulled it back. Then another curled
up to his side and whispered something in his ear. They shared a giggle, and
then, yet, another woman stole him away by handing him the Wii control.

“These women fight for my grampa each
week.”

We sat and watched him beat this lady
in Wii bowling. She blushed and bantered with him, nudging him whenever he
knocked a pin down. Ruby rolled her eyes. “Same thing every week. He could have
his pick here.”

“Yet he chooses none?” I asked.

“These women aren’t his type. He
likes them younger than this.”

When the game ended, the lady
insisted on another round, but he turned her down. “I want to play against
Nadia or Shawna now.”

Ruby pushed me towards him. “Well, go
on. Don’t keep the young man waiting too long or else he might conjure up a way
to beat you.”

Did he ever beat me! I tried. I
really tried. But this man, he had powers.

He beat a competitive Shawna, too.
She whizzed her arm back like she was tossing a full-fledged professional
bowling ball down a genuine bowling alley.

Later, we relaxed in a circle of
folding chairs, sipping Earl Gray tea. He piped up again, sitting tall in his
chair and telling us stories.

“I moved to America when I was nine.
We lived on this small farm. There were twelve of us. The farmhouse fit us all
perfectly. It sat on two hundred forty acres. We had forty cows, and three
horses. We raised chickens and grew all of our own food. We didn’t have a
grocery store closer than one hundred miles. So, we grew vegetables and canned
them in our basement. We’d bury them in sand to keep them cool and preserved.”

“Tell them about the fire,” Ruby
said.

“Oh, the fire.” He nodded his head up
and down. “There was this big blizzard.” His voice bellowed loudly. “Everything
was frozen. I went out to the barn to get some tools for a project in the
farmhouse, and when I looked up at the roof, I saw a shingle on fire.”