Commitment

by Forrester, Nia

  But as much as she wanted him, she couldn’t make herself forget that he’d hurt her in a way she never believed she could hurt. For the first couple of weeks after she found out about Keisha, she awoke each morning mildly surprised that she had not expired during the night from the great, aching maw in her chest. For two weeks, there was not a waking moment that was not marred by the thought of Shawn with another woman. She tormented herself with mental images of him naked and entwined in someone else’s legs, kissing someone else’s mouth, touching her breasts. And not just “someone else” but someone that Riley had seen, whose attractiveness Riley could vouch for.

  And when it became unbearable, she would resolve to pack all her things and leave for good. But in the end, all she ever did was cry herself to sleep because she knew she wouldn’t leave; she couldn’t stand the thought of never seeing him again. So all in all, it was better not to be alone, better to be out with people as much as she could.

  Tonight, Chris was on the roster. Whenever she met him, it was always at some high-profile restaurant or hot-spot-of-the moment he’d chosen. So if they had plans, Riley tried to dress accordingly, wearing outfits that were suited to his status—the designer stuff that Tracy had browbeaten her into getting. This time they 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 spotted 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.

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

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

  Riley picked up the menu, scanning it for something interesting. Two months ago she would have died first than share a meal alone with Chris. But as he liked to say—and it was true—they’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 slowly. “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 told him we were having dinner?”

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

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

  She’d been nursing her curiosity on that point for weeks. Chris Scaife did not strike her as the kind of 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.”

  Chris 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 misses 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 information 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—the 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?”

  She 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 because you’re not in this game. You don’t tour with Smooth, you don’t go to 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 what are you saying?”

  “That sooner or later 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.”

  Everyone was telling her that lately. Even Lorna. But it sounded 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 to be repackaged and remarketed. It was more information than she’d ever wanted to know about the process of star-making, but she liked listening 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 listener 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 hesitated a moment before taking it. “Brendan?”

  “Hey, Riley. What’s up?”

  “Nothing. How’s . . . how’s Shawn?”

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

  “Sure. Why? Doesn’t he want me to?”

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

  “No.” She wasn’t prepared.

  “A’ight. Just wanted to make 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 everything packed and ready in the car so she could leave work and head straight for the airport. No sense taking chances tr
ying 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 under normal circumstances. She walked through the terminal grateful that she hadn’t checked any bags, and headed for the exit. If Brendan was late, she’d take a shuttle; she 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 from 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.

  “C’mere,” he said impatiently, when she didn’t move right away.

  Riley put her bag down and went to him. He met her half way and wrapped his arms about her. He felt so good, so warm, and so familiar. He ran a hand across her forehead, as though brushing hair away, and pressed his lips there. A driver got out of the car and collected her bag, putting it in the back. The entire ride to the hotel, she rested her head on his shoulder but neither of them spoke.

  Shawn stopped at the front desk to talk to a clerk and came back with a key, handing it to her and taking her bag.

  “What’s this?” Riley looked at him. “I thought you were already staying here.”

  “I am. But that’s the key to your suite.”

  It took her a moment to understand what he’d said. Your suite.

  “So we’re not . . .”

  “I got you your own spot.”

  She bit in her lower lip. “Okay.”

  “It’s down the hall from mine,” he said, as though that made things better.

  Riley sighed. “I said, that’s fine.”

  On the elevator ride up, he gave her a run-down of the next day’s activities, in pretty much the same way she’d heard Brendan do for him on so many occasions. She had a nine a.m. appointment with a stylist who was going to take her shopping and help her with whatever the hell it was stylists helped people with. And at one she was sitting with him at a photo-op, no interview. And then the rest of the afternoon was hers while he went to look over some storyboards for a music video and record some radio station promotion spots. At ten-thirty p.m., a car would be downstairs to take her to the party where he would already be waiting. The whole production felt like a business trip.

  “Nine might be a little early for me,” Riley said dully.

  “It’s the only time she had available,” Shawn said. “Sorry. We can cancel if . . .”

  “Nope. I’ll do it.”

  No one was going to be able to say she didn’t perform her wifely duties. If she had to meet the frigging stylist at nine, then so be it.

  He left her bag on the floor of her suite and looked at her as impassively as if he were the bellboy waiting to fulfill a guest request.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said dully.

  “G’night.”

  He’d turned to walk away but she stopped him.

  “I heard about the lawsuit from Chris,” she said. “That thing with Mike and Darryl? What’s going on with that?”

  It was a cheap shot. As she had hoped it would, his carefully crafted mask of hospitality cracked a little at the mention of Chris and the subtle reference to time she’d spent with him. Shawn’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly and a slight tension appeared in his jaw. At least she could still make him jealous. Small victory.

  “They settled,” he said.

  “Oh. Good,” Riley said. She hoisted her bag onto the bed and pretended to be busy with it. “So I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

  She turned and showed him her back, hearing, rather than seeing him leave the room. When he was gone, she sat on the edge of the bed, and covered her face with her hands, sobbing from exhaustion and disappointment until all she had energy to do was pull back the covers, kick off her shoes and go to sleep.

  g

  Chapter Sixteen

  Shawn paced his suite, trying to get comfortable. He had a strange tension about his neck and shoulders that seemed to have come out of nowhere. Maybe he could call downstairs and have them find him a masseuse. Someone who could pound the kinks out of his muscles and leave him begging for nothing more than a hot shower and his warm bed. But he already knew that nothing would make him relax, not with Riley just three doors down the hall.

  He wondered whether she was sleeping. She looked tired at the airport and hadn’t even breathed a word of complaint when he told her about all the stuff Brendan had planned for her the next day. She even agreed to take the morning appointment with Nadine.

  Shawn undressed and turned on the shower. He would work out the kinks in his neck this way, and try to get out of his mind the look on her face at the airport. She just stood there, looking at him, like she was pleased to see him. But that was all; ‘pleased.’ It was a polite emotion; nothing like it used to be between them. He had to ask her to come to him, and she had. But when he hugged her, she was stiff.

  As the water cascaded over his head, he thought about that night back home when he’d finally accepted that he should find someplace else to live, at least temporarily. After a screaming match that he’d hoped would exorcize Keisha from their relationship, he’d grabbed Riley and kissed her. At first she responded, but when he tried to undress her, she had turned to stone. Shawn had felt her hold her breath, like she was prepared to endure him touching her. Endure it. She didn’t want it, but she would have gone through with it if he’d persisted. But he couldn’t. He wanted her, but he needed her to want him too.

  The very next day, he told Brendan that all those West Coast events he’d been holding off on were a go. Arista wanted to talk to him and he could take some meetings in their office out there. Shawn accepted the invitations. He was prepared to stay in L.A. as long as necessary.

  Within a couple weeks, he was right here in this hotel, installed in a perfectly nice suite, pretending his life hadn’t turned to shit. But he had to admit, for someone who had lost everything that mattered, he’d been remarkably productive. All day, every day, he worked on getting the deal with Arista done. And every night, he went out to clubs or parties, and stayed out until he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer.

  Sometimes he drank too much, or smoked too much, and a couple times he’d slept eighteen hours straight from sheer exhaustion. But it was all welcome, because he discovered something very important—if he kept moving at all times, always going somewhere, or doing something or talking to someone, he might not think about his wife. He could forget.

  So that’s what he’d done; he kept moving. And when the partying got old, he got a trainer and went to the gym instead. That produced the welcome feeling of exhaustion as well, but with collateral benefits. He stopped smoking bud. He even felt good a lot of the time.

  It all worked just so long as he didn’t talk to her or see her. So what he did was leave voicemail messages. He could communicate with her without having to hear the distance and the withdrawal in her voice.

  Shawn got out of the shower and toweled dry. But now she was here. Wi
thin reach, but feeling even further away. He’d been hearing from Brendan that she was spending a lot of time with Chris, and so he called him to find out what the deal was. To Shawn’s surprise, Chris had copped to it right away, admitting that they were hanging out sometimes.

  I think you know me, Smooth. I wouldn’t move in on your woman, Chris said. I wouldn’t do you like that.

  Gone were the days when he could have called her himself, or gotten all hotheaded and told Chris to back the hell off. So he had to approach the situation with a little more levelheadedness.

  She’s not just my woman, Chris, he’d said. She’s my wife. She’s everything. You need to respect that.

  He’d lost his right to interfere directly with her friendships so instead he’d done it indirectly; getting Brendan to ask her to come out to L.A. for the launch of his label. It would get her away from Chris, and give him a chance to see whether they had a shot.

  The separate suite was something he felt he needed. Because if she was in the same room, same bed it would be way too difficult to lie next to her and not touch. And if he did touch and she rejected him . . . Still, as he pulled on his sweats and prepared to go to sleep himself, Shawn felt equally tormented by the knowledge that she was only a few hundred feet away, and for all the good it did him, she may as well be back in New York.

  g

  “She’s going to leave me, B.”

  Brendan looked up from his Blackberry and shook his head exasperated.

  “You’ve been saying that for weeks. If she was leaving, she’d be gone. If she was leaving, she wouldn’t be here in L.A.”

  Shawn shook his head. “You don’t know Riley. This is exactly what she would do. She would come to L.A. and analyze the situation, see how she feels about me, and then she would go back home and file for divorce and move back to Flushing like nothing ever happened.”