Her life was busy, but at the very least, it was orderly…manageable. Now? Calling it a complete mess would be putting it lightly. Cristiano’s assault had not only violated her as a person, but because of who he was, his attack would go so far as to endanger what little security she had in her relatively new life in the city.
She loved her job at Clairvoyage, loved Vicky as her supervisor, and everything that Cristiano had done tonight would be a wrecking ball to the dreams that she had worked so hard to build.
What would happen now? Is it all over? The road to my dream… gone?
What would she do if she lost her gallery job? Go back home? Go back to a life of medical doctor expectations? Return to a passionless existence? Never.
If there was one thing that Saturday had picked up from Mark, it was that life is about passion. She discovered that living a passionless life isn’t living at all, really. She looked back up at Mark’s beautiful face, at his haunting emerald eyes staring back at her. In such a short amount of time, he had brought her so much passion, so much life. He taught her so much about herself without even meaning to.
When they had stepped into her bedroom tonight, Saturday thought she needed a release, an escape; just when she believed she knew what she wanted, he gave her what she needed, what she must have been subconsciously craving the entire time: intimacy.
She didn’t even know how badly she hungered for it until he gave it to her. And now she was gobbling it up like a starving woman who couldn’t get enough.
And just when the unshed tears in her eyes loomed once more, Mark tilted Saturday’s head up to look into her face. And when he did, the words that had been dancing on Saturday’s tongue all night came tumbling out.
“I love you,” she told him on a shaky whisper, her fear and nerves swept aside in the moment by the intensity of her emotion.
Saturday didn’t wait for his reply.
She didn’t need it; she just…needed him to know.
She turned around in his arms, snuggling her back and backside into his body. Already exhausted from what had turned out to be a long and strenuous night, Saturday’s eyes drifted close, and the last thing she felt before she was overcome by sleep were Mark’s arms tightening around her in response.
***
When Saturday woke up in the morning, Mark was gone.
No bowl of fruit by the bed. No morning kisses. No “I’ll call you tonight.” No green eyes.
Gone.
She had stretched her arms out when she woke up, unconsciously reaching for him before she even opened her eyes, but her hands found the other side of the bed empty…and cold. He hadn’t just left. His spot in the sheets was absent of his characteristic warmth; even his scent no longer lingered.
After Saturday put on her robe, she roamed around the apartment, looking for clues, anything; just some indication that he would be back…but there was no trace of him left behind.
Where did he go? Why would he leave the house?
She was puzzled and becoming increasingly irritated when she talked herself off of the edge.
It must have been some emergency. Something must have happened to make him rush out without saying goodbye. At the very least, I know he sticks to doing that.
He’ll call tonight. He always does.
And yet, 14 hours later, Mark’s call never came. The next afternoon, she called his phone, but there was no answer, no reply.
Saturday began to worry, believing that he may have been in some sort of trouble, swamped with work, something. But a few days later when Kara mentioned that she saw Mark at James’s house, sitting in the corner, sulking, Saturday finally got it.
It isn’t that Mark won’t see people; he just won’t see me.
Stupefied did not even begin to cover what Saturday felt when she heard that tidbit of information.
Forget a figurative slap to the face. What Mark had done by leaving like he had that morning was deliver a bone-crushing drop-kick to the gut. Saturday couldn’t have been more breathless and disoriented than if this were an actual physical kick. This figurative blow hurt so much… more than any physical blow ever could, because the pain permeated her whole being, cutting her to the quick from the inside out.
Saturday couldn’t help but chastise herself for missing all of the signs. Man, she had miscalculated this one!
She really thought… no, that wasn’t quite it… but rather she hoped in her heart of hearts that after all the kindness and the intimacy and the love-making, that Mark had come to fall for her the way she had fallen for him. But one mention of the “L-word” and he had disappeared in a fashion that would have put Houdini himself to shame.
Sure, he had called himself her boyfriend that night at the bar, but it probably was just a ploy to ward off the advances of Francois or any other guy there, for that matter. Possessiveness did not love make, and Saturday felt that she should have been smart enough to make the distinction. She remembered Mark’s text from one of their late-night talks: “I don’t like to get too involved in things.”
And sadly, he wasn’t lying.
***
August 7
I. Am. Humiliated. How could she? She’ll let any man put his hands on her, it seems. I watched her entertain guy after guy after guy in the bar. She has no respect for herself or for me. What happened to loyalty? I thought she was different.
I was the one who protected her before, defended her. ME!
I was the one there for her. I’ve BEEN there for her. And now, this?
I had high hopes for Saturday. Had hopes she wouldn’t turn out like all of the other bitches.
She is turning into such a disappointment…
Chapter Six
The After Life
After a breakup, a lot of women’s eating habits start to dwindle. They’re depressed; they’re lonely; they can’t keep anything down.
Not Saturday, though.
Saturday was putting things down... and picking them up… and tossing them. Every morning at 6 AM in the gym.
Saturday didn’t mourn her loss of Mark; she raged.
Every morning, regardless of when she went to bed, she woke up and went running and lifting and… well, just about everything… in the gym.
She hit her boxing bag in kickboxing class, wishing she could envision it as Mark (as Kara suggested), but she just couldn’t; she loved him too much. The thought disturbed her, actually, because as much as she still wished to save Mark from harm, Mark certainly didn’t seem to mind hurting her.
When it finally sunk in that he wanted nothing to do with her anymore, Saturday had stopped the calls, the text messages, everything.
I mean, how much clearer could the message be? He doesn’t want to see me. Period.
Still, the wounds on her heart were fresh. It had been two months since their last night together… and the pain still hadn’t dulled.
It was more than just the gym that took up Saturday’s time, however. She threw herself into everything she could think of: taking double shifts at the restaurant, visiting old friends, even calling her parents more than the customary weekly call they shared.
She kept her mind and body occupied at all times to keep them both off of Mark.
Kara was now dating James, visiting his loft regularly, and every lucky (or unlucky) once in a while, she would come across Mark. Kara offered to knee him in the balls as a favor to Saturday, but Saturday hesitantly (very hesitantly) turned her down.
After Mark had walked away (after the biggest proclamation of her LIFE), Saturday decided that she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how badly he hurt her. Better to let him think that she didn’t give two shits about him anymore.
God, how she wished that she didn’t.
Besides… Saturday didn’t need Kara to fight her battles for her. Saturday was pretty sure that she might be able to kick his callous ass at this point. Saturday had always led a pretty healthy lifestyle, but after the “break-up that never was,” she was FI
T; she was toned in places she didn’t even know could be toned.
Angry gym sessions at the butt-crack of dawn will do that for you.
Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months; late summer quickly turned into fall and the weather in the city got too cold for running. All of Saturday’s workouts had been relegated to indoors, and Saturday was starting to feel the twinges of Cabin Fever. She wanted to go out, get out of her tiny apartment, the claustrophobia-inducing gym, the demanding Greenhouse. Even at the Clairvoyage gallery, which she loved, she begun to feel like the walls were closing in on her.
Saturday had worried every hour of every day for a month that what happened at the Thrill with Cristiano would come back to bite her in her now very shapely ass… but things were fortunately all quiet on the home front. Vicky was her usual self, thankfully. Saturday finally figured that Cristiano couldn’t tell on Saturday for what her “boyfriend” had done without telling on himself. Saturday felt safe in that knowledge… at least for now.
When Saturday night arrived…for the first time in a long while, Saturday had nothing to do. She had exhausted almost all of her options. Her friends, coworkers…even Kara were all occupied.
Kara was with James, Francois had been rebuffed, and she wouldn’t even think about “he who shall not be named.”
She didn’t even have work to do or cover that night. Francois, sweet and guileless Francois, had actually reached out to her on multiple occasions, including that night (despite the Mark run-in at the bar), wanting to get together for drinks or even coffee, but Saturday always quickly declined those offers.
After Francois’ confession and Kara’s possible show of interest in him at the bar, Saturday began eschewing any involvement with him that could be misconstrued. No one-on-one meetings. No alone time.
Embarrassingly enough, Saturday still had not addressed the subject of Francois with Kara. She had just wanted to forget that the attack, her “declaration,” the entire night… ever existed. Her friendship with Kara had managed to emerge from it unscathed, and Saturday wanted to keep it that way.
Moreover, Saturday had no urge to be involved in any way that was remotely romantic with a man right now. She hoped poor Francois would understand. Regardless of any new developments in their relationship with one another, he had always been a true friend to her.
The fun forecast for the entire evening looked bleak. Saturday thought about her last resort. She maintained a friendly, but rather distant relationship with coworkers from the restaurant and gallery. She picked up her phone, ready to dial a few phone numbers when she remembered why she couldn’t call her colleagues.
Saturday did not want her life to ever become the subject of either company’s daily fodder. No, thanks.
Inspiration hit suddenly. Saturday got up, grabbed her purse and headed west to make a trip to her favorite neighborhood bookstore. She figured that she might as well make the evening productive, focus on the one constant band-aid in her life, the one constant joy: painting.
Saturday figured that scanning a bit of the art history section might give her the artistic inspiration that she needed for her next work. She perused the shelves of the Impressionist art period, looking to do just that.
She was caught off guard when a tall man with deep copper hair reached for a book on the same shelf. Saturday briefly looked at him out of the corner of her eye and then looked around the rest of the aisle, puzzled.
No one every came to this section but her: EVER.
Why would anyone come? It was an aisle specifically for the art nerds, all five of them in this neighborhood.
Copper Head picked the book up and out of the shelf, opened it and read it as he stood. They both stood there in the aisle, reading from their respective books for the next couple of minutes.
“So… nothing better to do on a Saturday night?” he said, his face still focused on the book’s page. Saturday turned around and looked both ways down the aisle again.
Surely he can’t be talking to me. Or is he crazy and talking to himself? Shit. Just my luck. Only I would find a looney in the least visited aisle of one of the most obscure bookstores in the city.
Saturday closed her book and reached out to put it back in its place on the shelf. Copper Head turned a page, his face buried in the book.
“I said… nothing else to do on a Saturday night?” and then he smiled, never turning from his book, a small dimple appearing in his cheek above the hairline on his jaw.
Saturday had no choice but to laugh, her mouth open and smiling as she simultaneously turned toward him and dropped her own book back on the shelf.
Saturday decided to play along. She crossed her arms over her midsection.
She affected a prim and proper tone. “No, I don’t, actually. I have no friends and no life. I’m a geeky, artsy-fartsy chick who decided to take a casual stroll though the geekiest place I could find. And voila! I wound up here.”
He chuckled, closing his book, turning towards her and propping his elbow on the closest shelf. Saturday could get a good look at him now, his black t-shirt and deep gray slacks fitting well on his athletically lean frame. He had good height, about 6” 1’, she’d say, almost as tall as “him.”
He sported light facial hair, which consisted of a sandy brown mustache with a nice dusting of hair along his entire jaw.
Hmmm… this guy’s Matt Bomer out of his suit.
His hair was pushed back like Matt’s usually was, too, as if he had just run his hands through it. His blue-grey eyes were playful as they stared back at her.
“I could ask you the same thing,” Saturday teased.
“Me?” he said, placing a hand on his chest, an innocent look on his handsome face.
“I just… (he shrugged nonchalantly)… happen to enjoy art and all that it has to offer.”
“Oh, really?”
“Mmm hmmm.” He nodded.
“Wow,” Saturday remarked. “That is… the lamest excuse I’ve ever heard.”
Copper Head laughed out loud then. “If you wanted to come over and bother me,” Saturday continued, “you should have just done that right off of the bat.”
“I didn’t come over here for that.”
“Suuuure. Of course,” Saturday mocked. “You’re just here because you love art.”
“I do.”
“And why do you love art?”
Copper Head placed a hand in his back pocket. “Because it’s my job.”
He leaned closer, handing Saturday a small rectangular piece of paper. A business card.
“I’m a graffiti artist,” he said, placing his arm back on the bookcase.
Oh. Saturday dropped her head down not only to look at the card, but also to hide the embarrassment that she knew was showing on her face. She glanced at the name on the card. Axe Cunningham.
Interesting name… interesting guy.
He was certainly the most neatly groomed graffiti artist that Saturday had ever seen. She took a quick peek up at him and then at the arm on which he was leaning. There was a giant black and very intricate tattoo peeking out from the edge of his shirtsleeve.
Well, well, well. Guess there really is always a little more to a person than what meets the eye.
Saturday smiled to herself. She flicked his card with her opposite hand and then extended the card back to him.
“Well…sounds like it’s working out well for you…(she leaned in closer, whispering)…but I don’t associate with criminals.”
Copper Head’s laugh was long and deep in a way that sent a pleasant chill through Saturday.
“Oh, I’m a criminal…” he said then, “…just not in the way that you’re thinking. Hell, my art is probably the most legitimate thing about me.” He smiled wickedly. He then headed over to the Help Desk, picked up a pen and wrote something on the back of his card. He walked over, handing the card back to Saturday.
“If you ever want to get into some trouble…” he remarked.
Saturday glanced up
quickly at him, shocked at his choice of words and how close they hit to home. She turned the card over after he handed it to her. Copper Head had written his cell phone number on the back.
He gave her a beautiful smile, retrieved a brown bomber jacket nearby and then started walking away.
Still flummoxed from his statement, Saturday shook her head to clear it and called after him from where she stood.
“I’m Saturday… by the way.”
He turned around briefly, giving her a knowing smirk.
“I know,” he responded… and then he disappeared around a bookshelf, out of sight.
Saturday didn’t move, sincerely stumped by what he could possibly mean… when she noticed her outfit. She was still in her service uniform from the restaurant, with her nametag still attached to her shirtfront.
Saturday again shook her head at her increasing paranoia.
I’m losing it. Get an effin’ grip, Saturday.
That eerie feeling she had been having lately of being watched just wasn’t shaking loose. She had assumed before that it was a lack of sleep that was throwing her senses off, making her prickly and nervous when she shouldn’t be. Despite her hectic schedule, she really had been getting the sleep she needed these days…well, now that Mark’s calls and texts were no longer a late-night distraction.
So, what is it?
If Saturday was being honest with herself, none of her senses had been quite right since Mark had entered her life. He had spun her entire world topsy-turvy and left her dazed and disoriented. Even at this moment, she was more confused than when she stepped foot into the bookstore tonight.
She looked down at Axe’s business card. When she first noticed how close he was to her in the aisle, she could’ve sworn that he came over to talk to her.
She became agitated immediately when he entered her periphery. The thought of some random guy, or any guy for that matter, trying to approach her was unnerving and unwelcome, at best, but she had been surprisingly relaxed talking to this guy. Pleased, even.
Behind the Blindfold: A Sexy Mystery Duet Page 8
