Afterwards

by Nia Forrester

  “Maybe I’ll take you out sometime. For a ride.”

  “You could,” Robyn said. “But what would be better would be if I could ride on my own.” She raised her eyebrows at him and grinned, knowing it was a ridiculous suggestion.

  “You’d have to get lessons first,” Chris pointed out.

  “Yeah,” Robyn sighed. “There is that. One day.”

  She removed her hand from the pink motorcycle and moved on, walking among the others, taking in the names—some she recognized like Ducati, Harley Davidson, and BMW, and others unfamiliar, like Ecosse, and Macchia Nera. They were amazing to look at, but one day, she promised herself, one day . . .

  “So you want to go fast?” Chris asked.

  “I would love to go fast.”

  Robyn knelt next to a sleek black Yamaha, its finish so shiny it resembled a dark liquid, like crude oil. If she touched it, her fingerprints would undoubtedly be left behind, but she couldn’t help herself and reached out anyway, her hand hesitating before making contact. Before she could decide whether or not to actually go through with it, Chris had crouched next to her and with a hand over hers, placed it directly atop the cool metal surface. His fingers were long and tapered, his nails neatly trimmed and short. Robyn felt calluses lightly scraping the back of her hand.

  “I’m not sure you could handle how fast I might go.”

  He stood, and extended a hand, pulling her up then walking around the edge of the room and stopping next to a silver bike, and sitting astride it.

  “This one’s my favorite. Not expensive or top-of-the-line, but it has a hell of a kick to it.”

  “What kind is it?”

  “A Ducati Streetfighter,” Chris said. “Had it about ten years now.”

  Robyn smiled. “I like that name.”

  Approaching the bike, she noticed that it had several nicks and scratches, and there seemed to have been no effort to buff them out. This one, for whatever reason, Chris wanted to remain unchanged and unembellished. He liked it just as it was, damage and all.

  “Looks like you two had a few adventures together,” she remarked.

  “A few.” Chris nodded. “We both got some battle scars.”

  “Where are yours?” she asked moving even closer.

  He took her hand again and this time placed it at the back of his head. There was a little indentation, and Robyn went behind him to look at the spot she was touching. There, just barely visible, underneath his low-cut hair was a scar about two inches in length.

  “Wow,” she said. “That must have been painful.”

  “Don’t remember the pain, but there was lots of blood,” Chris said. “I thought my brains were spilling out onto the pavement.”

  Robyn shook her head. “What is it about you men? You sound almost . . . proud when you get injured from doing something stupid.”

  “You’re the one who said you wanted to go fast,” Chris pointed out. “For someone who says she doesn’t even know how to ride, that would be pretty stupid.”

  “I would wear a helmet though,” Robyn said, leaning in to look once again at Chris’ scar. “You definitely weren’t to have gotten a gash like this one.”

  He turned to look at her and they were eye-to-eye since she was in flats and he was still sitting on the bike. Up this close he didn’t look quite as mean. Instead he looked a little tired. For a split second Robyn had the urge to put a hand at the side of his face, and the notion that had she done so, he would have liked it.

  “You want to head back to the house for coffee?” Chris asked, suddenly glancing down at his watch. “Then I’d better get you home.”

  “Okay,” Robyn said.

  She had the distinct impression he’d been planning to say something else and changed his mind. But it didn’t matter. Either way, the evening had been a good one, a nice way to cap off an already good day. And as a bonus, in this time with Chris she hadn’t thought much about her ex-husband, or her new life, in the little bedroom in her mother’s townhouse. For the first time in a very long time she felt as though it might be possible to see beyond the end of her marriage rather than dwelling inside her sadness about the loss of it.

  As they made their way back across his cobblestone courtyard, motion-sensing lights alongside the building came on one after the other, creating a path for them. At the edge of the house, Chris stepped off into the grass and held out a hand to help Robyn as she did the same. His hand grasping hers reminded her of the night when he’d gotten his migraine. His palms then had been cold and clammy, his grip frantic.

  Tonight his hand was warm, his hold firm and reassuring. Looking down at their joined hands, Robyn took in the tattoos running all the way up both his strong and sinewy arms and disappearing under the sleeves of his shirt. With one last stolen glance, she just made out an ankh, a fire-breathing dragon and the name Christine with a date underneath. Though he’d described himself as having been “young and dumb” Robyn somehow knew that each and every one of the images Chris inked into his skin likely meant something more than a pretty picture. He may have been young, but she sincerely doubted he’d ever been dumb.

  Chris released her hand when they were back at the patio where their meal had been set, and Robyn felt a momentary stab of regret at the loss of contact. The strong hold of a masculine hand was something she missed. Curtis always held her hand when they were out, even if just in the grocery store. Less so, toward the end, in those last three years. Only now, in retrospect did she think about that, all the little things she should have noticed, the road signs leading to the end of their marriage.

  A more perceptive woman might have wondered at the gradual loss of things like the hand-holding. But strangely, Robyn hadn’t. She should have known that while sex was a need for men—one they wouldn’t readily relinquish even under the worst of circumstances—hand-holding was something else altogether, it was a sign of affection, something they did only if they wanted to. When Curtis stopped holding her hand, she should have known.

  “Hey. You alright?”

  Robyn looked up, realizing that she was standing at the table, staring off into space while Chris waited for her to take her seat. He was even holding the chair for her. Smiling, she lowered herself into it.

  When the staff brought out their coffee, with it was a plate of delicate Italian biscuits, some dusted with powdered sugar, others encrusted with the thinnest slivers of walnut. Robyn tasted each one, savoring every bite, closing her eyes to concentrate on the taste. When she opened them again, Chris was looking at her.

  She blushed and raised the coffee cup to her lips.

  “Aren’t you having any?” she asked, indicating the biscuits.

  Chris shook his head. “Trying to stay away from sugar.”

  “Because of the migraines?”

  He shrugged noncommittally, clearly not wanting to talk about it.

  “I think I told you my brother gets migraines,” Robyn said, hoping to break down his reluctance. “So he has lots of dietary restrictions as well. To help manage them.”

  Still Chris said nothing. She was comfortable with silence, but when he did it, she found herself reaching, stretching, fighting for something to say to break it.

  “Did you tell Frank Casey to hire me?” she asked.

  If he was going to take her home soon, it would be her last chance to broach the subject, and she wanted to know. At the end of the day, it wouldn’t matter because she was going to take the job anyway—it would be insane not to—but she needed to know on what terms, and whether her indebtedness to Chris went far deeper than she knew.

  “Why? You don’t think you deserve it?”

  “I do. But he spent scarcely ten minutes with me.”

  “So?”

  “It doesn’t usually happen like that,” Robyn said. “Your company is a very difficult one to break into. Offers like the one he gave me happen after a series of interviews, not after one that didn’t even take fifteen minutes.”

  “Maybe you’re
just that good,” Chris shrugged.

  Robyn gave him a look.

  “You don’t think you are?”

  She considered for a moment. She never used to have this degree of self-doubt. Her confidence was not easily shaken but over this past year, it hadn’t just been shaken, it was shattered.

  “I know I’m good at what I do. And in six months I’ll be the most valuable member of Frank Casey’s team.”

  “So what’s your beef then?” Chris said, his eyes fixed on hers.

  “No beef. I just . . .”

  “If you don’t believe in you, why should anyone else?”

  “I told you, I do believe in myself,” Robyn said, rankled.

  “Then take the job, and prove it.”

  Taking one last long sip of her coffee, Robyn finally nodded.

  When she emptied her cup, Chris stood and she followed suit. He led her through the house and toward the foyer, signaling that their time together was over.

  “Thanks for dinner,” Robyn said, as he unlocked his front door. “And the door-to-door service was nice as well. I hope you don’t catch too much traffic driving back.”

  “Rick will drive you,” Chris said.

  And it was then that Robyn saw the black Lincoln Town Car idling at the front of the house, just at the foot of the flagstone steps that led from the circular driveway.

  “Oh,” she said. “I thought . . .”

  “I have a lot of work to catch up on, so . . .”

  “Oh,” she said again.

  “But I’m glad you . . .”

  “Of course,” Robyn cut him off. “Thanks for inviting me.”

  She considered giving him a hug but decided against it, instead making her way down the steps. Before she reached the bottom, the driver got out of the car and came around to open her door for her.

  She slid inside and glanced up.

  Chris was standing at the open door of his house, which from her vantage point, sitting in the car, looked enormous. He gave her a half-smile, and raised his hand in a brief wave. By the time the driver got in and Robyn turned to look at the house again, Chris had shut the door and was gone.

  6

  Chris could hear her voice, drawing closer, lilting and animated, but he couldn’t tell who she was speaking to. Robyn seldom had reason to come to this floor but when she did, he only knew because he heard her voice, exchanging pleasantries with people in the office or laughing with the girl at reception whose name he could never remember. This was Robyn’s sixth week on the job and she had not once stuck her head into his office to say ‘hello’ like she had the day when she’d first met with Frank. Now that she was a Scaife Enterprises employee, Robyn seemed to have adopted the same distance and caution where he was concerned that just about everyone else at the company did.

  Since dinner that night at his place, the only contact they’d had was a message thanking him again, and then another when she accepted the contract and began the new job with Frank. Chris listened to her voicemail messages more than once before deleting them.

  “Are you listening to me?”

  Brought back to the here-and-now, Chris looked at the woman sitting across from his desk. Wearing a white long-sleeved organza blouse and skin-tight black leather pants, her neck was festooned with a necklaces and in her ears were two-carat diamond studs.

  Sheryl was still fine as hell, he had to give her that. Though pushing thirty-five she could easily go toe-to-toe with women a decade younger in the game of masculine attention. And just like the day he’d first met her, almost seventeen years ago, her hair was long and pin-straight. And like then, she wore it simply, with a part down the middle and falling in dark, sleek sheets on either side of her perfectly oval-shaped face. The only thing that stopped Sheryl from being beautiful instead of merely attractive was that she had a very ugly attitude.

  She licked her burgundy-stained lips and twisted them, her head cocked to one side.

  And she wore way too much make-up. There was that as well.

  “You ain’ listen to one word I said, did you?” she demanded.

  “No, I listened to them all,” Chris said looking her over impassively. “You’re getting married.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s what you came all the way down here to tell me?” he asked. “What? You want my congratulations? Well, congratulations. And tell your man he has my condolences.”

  Sheryl blinked at him. “Whatever, Chris. You know why I’m here,” Sheryl said.

  Her voice was what he liked to think of as Ghetto-Twang—hard, harsh and like a nail across a chalkboard when he wasn’t in the mood to hear it. Which was basically always.

  They stared at each other for long moments until Chris rose from his chair and went to shut the door to his office. As he did, he glimpsed Robyn near the end of the hall, wearing a dress the color of sea-foam, which complemented her nut-brown complexion. Just as he shut the door, she turned and glimpsed him, her face for a brief second lighting up as though she was about to say something.

  “No I don’t. So why are you here, Sheryl?” Chris asked.

  Instead of returning to his chair he perched on the edge of his desk, directly in front of her. From that position, they were no longer eye to eye, and she had to look up at him, which he preferred.

  He waited but she said nothing.

  “Even if I get married, your son’s gon’ need what he need.”

  It would have been almost disappointing if Sheryl hadn’t brought the conversation around to money eventually. Hell, it had been years and no matter where they began, their little chats always ended up at the same place: dollars and cents. Chris almost felt like yawning.

  “And he’ll keep getting what he needs,” he said.

  “And when me and Andre get married . . .”

  “I got other stuff to do, Sheryl. What exactly are you tryin’ to say?”

  He knew what she was trying to say, but he just wanted to hear her say it. Sheryl was one of two women he had kids with. Their son, who Sheryl had insisted on naming Chris Junior—but preferred at age fifteen to be called ‘Deuce’—was his firstborn. His other two kids, Jasmin and Kaden were nine and five. Their mother, Karen, was less high-maintenance than Sheryl, but no less of an annoyance.

  “I want to know if I get married you gon’ lower my allowance,” Sheryl said leaning forward. She opened her eyes slightly wider as though challenging him, daring him to say ‘yes’.

  “What do you think?” Chris asked. “You gettin’ married to a grown-ass man. He can’t support you?”

  “He does just fine, thank you. But not everyone can afford to pay Westchester money for the Westchester lifestyle, and . . .”

  “So you marryin’ the wrong dude, and that’s on you,” Chris said. “Don’t he know how much you cost?”

  “How much I cost?” Sheryl said. “What you tryin’ to . . ?”

  “If he don’t know, he can call me,” Chris said. “I can tell him about the house note, the charge cards, the car. . .”

  “None of which need to be any of your damn business if you would just give me the house, buy me the car, and settle up with a lump sum. You ain’t foolin’ nobody. You like holding all them strings, Chris. Just because you can.”

  “If I gave you a lump sum, you would spend it in a year, Sheryl. And then come back with your hand out. This way, I can control the cost.”

  “No, you want to control me,” she said, her voice contemptuous. “You get off on that shit.”

  Chris looked her over, his eyes skipping past her face and down to her chest and eventually to her legs. “And you get off, too, let’s not forget.”

  “Just because we fuck occasionally don’t mean nothin’ to me,” Sheryl said. “And you know damn well it don’t mean nothin’ to you. So pay me my money, and let me go.”

  “Your money?” Chris asked, bemused. “You really think of it like that, don’t you? I’m the one in here seven days a week, bustin’ my ass, Sheryl. Me. All you do is
lay on your back. And by the way, you tell your son about this . . . wedding plan you got cookin’?”

  “Yes. And he’s our son, Chris. Not just mine. He likes Andre. He’s excited as a matter of fact. Thinks maybe he has a shot at having a Daddy for a change.”

  Chris let the insult pass. There was no denying that while he provided amply for his kids, he was not their ‘Daddy’.

  “So let Andre man up and take care of you too, then,” he said. “I’m not about to shell out money to support you and your man when my only obligation is to my kid.”

  Sheryl’s defiant look dissolved for a moment. “Maybe that’s your only obligation, Chris, but don’t you just want to do what’s right? Just this one time? I mean . . .”

  “Do what’s right?” he stood, so that he was towering above her. “Ain’t that somethin’ coming from you, Miss Holes-in-the-Condom.”

  “I told you I didn’t do that shit!” Sheryl said, her voice a bitter hiss. “It’s been sixteen years. Why can’t you just. . ?”

  “What? Forgive you? Forget it?”

  “It is what it is, Chris. We got a son, and you so obsessed with getting back at me, you punishin’ him!”

  “I’m not punishing him. He has everything he needs and most of what he wants.”

  “You really think, that don’t you?”

  Sheryl stood so they were inches apart.

  Whenever she was this close to him, Chris had the conflicting impulses of wanting to fuck her, and wanting to fuck her up. And since he would never hit a woman, he often wound up doing the former. The last time had been about a month earlier, when he stopped by to drop off a new laptop for Deuce. His son was at football practice and Sheryl was alone in the house, drinking a generous glass of pinot, wearing only a form-fitting black, sheer maxi-dress, which was practically an invitation since she knew good and well he was coming over and that she would be alone when he got there.