She’d asked him about it casually, but his only response was a vague reply about the poor weather and bad service at the laundry. She wondered if maybe his paranoia had begun rubbing off on her for her to suspect anything strange about that particular weekend. Maybe she was thinking too much about it. Maybe Marisa was right, he’d just kept this side of himself under wraps until then.
Marisa cleared her throat nervously as a hand landed on April’s shoulder. April consciously fought the urge to flinch under his touch.
“Why’d you have to lie to me, April?” came Brian’s brusque and commanding voice.
“Are you following me?” she asked. “How did you know we were here?”
Brian ignored the question. “Why the hell are you dressed like that?”
“Leave her alone, Brian,” said Marisa. “She doesn’t belong to you.”
“Stay out of this,” snapped Brian.
April turned in her seat to face him. His eyes were bloodshot with alcohol and his shirt and hair were in equal states of disarray. “Brian,” said April. “You’re drunk, leave us alone. I’m a grown woman for crying out loud.”
“You’re coming home with me,” said Brian.
“No,” said April. “I’m not going anywhere with you until you stop behaving like a jealous teenager.”
Brian yanked the back of the chair on which April was sitting and she felt it teetering onto two legs. Before she had a chance to react, a man’s body had wedged itself between her and Brian, stabilizing the chair before it spilled her onto the floor.
“Is there a problem here,” said the man to Brian. It was the handsome stranger who had been stealing glances at her.
“Yeah,” said Brian. “It looks like you’re the problem, buddy.”
Brian shoved the man’s shoulder, but the momentum was quickly redirected as the man sidestepped and Brian stumbled forward.
“I’m going to ask you to leave,” said the man.
Brian laughed. “Are you going to make me?”
“I’d rather not have to, but you don’t seem to be giving me much choice.”
Brian reached out once more and gripped the collar of the man’s jacket. The man’s eyes remained calm and focused and in one swift movement, he gripped Brian’s fingers and twisted his arm behind his back. Without a further backwards glance, he led Brian towards the door.
“April!” shouted Brian. “Tell this clown to…” But his voice quickly faded as they marched away. From behind, they looked like a pair of old pals, one helping the other through the crowd after too many beers.
Marisa’s wide eyes locked onto April’s. “What the heck was that? That guy was like a ninja, did you see that?”
“How do you think Brian knew we were here?” asked April, but before Marisa could answer, the guy in the suit was returning, looking unfazed.
April and Marisa watched stunned as he walked casually over to them. April gawked at the tall stranger as he came to stand at their table.
“Hi,” he said. “Are you okay?”
At that moment, April and Marisa’s friend, Tracey, returned from the bar with a fresh round of drinks. “Hey, guys,” she said, looking the handsome stranger up and down. “Did I miss anything?”
2
The man’s name was Max Connor. He explained to April that he had merely escorted Brian out and instructed the bouncers not to allow him back inside.
“Do you work here or something?” asked Marisa.
The man smiled. “Something like that.”
“I’m sorry he caused a scene,” said April. “Is he okay?”
“He’s going to wake up feeling like hell tomorrow, but they’ll take it easy on him. We called him a cab. Is he a friend of yours?” asked Max.
“My fiancé,” said April, wishing for all the world that she had had the sense to see this side of him before that had become his title.
Max nodded as though he understood all this without being told.
“Well,” he said, tipping them a salute, “I’ll leave you ladies to the rest of your evening.”
“Wait,” said Marisa. “Why don’t you join us for a drink, it’s the least we can do.”
Max smiled, “I’d love to,” he said, “but I’m about halfway through an incredibly boring meeting and if I’m not there to hurry things along, it might carry on all night.”
One more charming grin and he was gone, casually taking up his place at the table of smart men and women who now seemed to be bickering over something. His gaze caught April’s once more and in them, April sensed his regret at not being able to spend the rest of the evening with her and her friends instead.
That was your last chance, Brian, she thought, and you blew it.
“Guys,” said April. “I’m going to head home. I think I have a difficult conversation with Brian ahead of me and I’d like to get it over with.”
“Wait,” said Tracey. “Don’t go. He’ll still be drunk and you don’t know how he’ll react. Why don’t you crash on my couch tonight and face him tomorrow morning?”
“I don’t want you guys to call ladies night over early on my account,” said April.
“Girl, my buzz died the moment Brian showed up. Come on, let’s end this ladies night with a good old fashioned slumber party at Tracey’s place.”
They left Club Veil in time to see a somewhat subdued Brian being bundled into a taxi by a bouncer with forearms the size of Brian’s neck. Brian seemed to be done resisting. Instead, he wore the petulant expression of a scolded child and April caught a glimpse of his sulky face as the taxi pulled away and drove off into the night.
“Come on,” said Tracey. “Forget about him for the time being. We can watch Glee on Netflix. And by the way, there’s nothing wrong with how you’re dressed, you look amazing.”
April looked down at her dress. It ended barely above her knees. Even the cut was modest.
“I just don’t get it,” said April.
Marisa put her hand on her shoulder. “There’s nothing to get, girl. The guy is nuts. Forget about him.”
An hour later they were back at Tracey’s place with a fresh bowl of popcorn in front of them, wearing comfy clothes that Tracey had lent them. April remembered a time when ladies’ nights had ended at three in the morning after dancing for hours like the world was ending. Now it was barely eleven and she felt as if the world had ended and she was trapped in some limbo twilight version of the life she once had.
She tried to let go of these feelings while Tracey and Marisa added their commentary over the show they were watching. She even managed a smile or two, but looming in the back of her mind was the conversation she was going to have to have with Brian, and tried to compose it as best she could. She’d begin with, Why don’t you tell me what really happened that weekend you were away?
3
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Brian. He was clutching his head in his hands, sitting on the edge of the couch where she had found him sleeping when she came home. He must’ve had just enough presence of mind the night before to stumble through the door and crash land there before passing out. While he remained motionless, she went upstairs and packed her things. They were renting the house and with her gone, he’d have to either cover the rent by himself or find a smaller place. Either way, she knew she would not be spending another night there. She didn’t know where she would go just yet, but she’d work it out. What she couldn’t fit in her suitcase, she’d fetch sometime when he was at work.
She loaded her suitcase into the trunk of her car before waking him up to talk.
“Brian,” said April, “I know something happened that weekend, because ever since then you haven’t been yourself, and quite frankly, I don’t like the person you’ve become. Last night was the last straw, Brian. I’m ready to leave. So you can either tell me the truth or lie to me again while you watch me walk out the door.”
Brian’s red-rimmed eyes focused and April saw them transition from guarded, to panicked when
he realized he could no longer defend his actions, and finally to resignation.
If before there had been a time when he would have put up a fight, that time was over. He looked tired, hungover and utterly worn out by the big ugly jealousy monster that had been crawling around inside him.
“Look,” he said eventually. “There is something I need to tell you. The way I have been behaving is because I love you. Because I don’t want to lose you. Because I feel terrible for what I did and I know that if you knew the truth you would leave me. Now it looks like that’s going to happen anyway. I’m sorry.”
“Brian,” she said, more gently this time, “What did you do?”
“That weekend,” said Brian, “I didn’t go fishing in Maine.”
That came as no surprise to April. She simply nodded, urging him on.
“I met up with an old friend,” he said. He let out a shaky breathe and shut his eyes as if wincing at his own stupidity. “An old girlfriend.”
April’s heart slammed into the pit of her stomach with the force of a sledgehammer.
“Who?” she said, voice cold and blank: just the way she felt.
“Melany. From college.”
A picture of the woman floated into her mind though she had never met her in person, nor had she ever seen a photograph of the woman as far as she could remember, yet she had built up a picture of her in her mind based on Brian’s descriptions of her over the past two years: tight lips pulled down at the corners in an expression of perpetual dissatisfaction, her hair the color of greased stone and her nose sharp and upturned.
“Well?” asked April. “What happened?”
“She wanted to see me. I told her I was engaged, but I don’t know, I went anyway. We stayed at a motel outside of town and…well, she’s pregnant.”
The sledgehammer lifted and slammed into the pit of her stomach again.
“Pregnant? With your child?”
Brian shrugged his shoulders. “We were careful, but…”
Sharp, scolding laughter escaped from her. “And you were just going to pretend you didn’t have a child with another woman? You were just going to keep making me out to be the bad guy here?”
“I…I…I kept thinking, if I could do that to you, what was stopping you from doing that to me, you know?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that I loved you? That we were engaged? That we had our lives ahead of us?”
“I’m sorry,” said Brian.
April slipped her engagement ring off her finger and tossed it onto the coffee table.
“So am I, Brian. Goodbye.”
4
There is nothing much left to do, but cry and get over it, said April. As she backed out of the garage, she thought about where she might go. Check into a motel? Crash at Marisa or Tracey’s place? Drive all the way upstate to her mom’s house?
She decided to figure it out on the way. She glanced down at the dashboard—the gas was running dangerously low. Before she went anywhere, she’d have to fill up.
As she pulled into the gas station, she saw paper printouts stuck to the pumps, flapping in the breeze. SORRY CASH ONLY, said the sign. Below the bold writing was an emoticon of a sad face. She regarded the idealized expression for a moment, thinking heavy thoughts about how such a complex emotion had been dwindled down to just a circle, two dots and a downward curved semi-circle, when she finally realized she might actually have cash on her given she had drawn a bunch the night before in preparation for a wild ladies night and ended up spending very little of it after all.
Her hand slipped into her purse to reach for her wallet and was met with only a couple coins, some make-up and tissue papers; nothing nearly as substantial as a purse. Then came that gut-sinking realization. Where had she left it? There was no way she was going back to the house to get it with Brian still there. Think, April, think, she told herself.
No, it couldn’t be at the house, she had put her purse down on the kitchen counter, and not taken her wallet out. Her purse was clasped shut so there was little chance it had fallen out. Where then? Tracey’s place? No, couldn’t be. Marisa had covered the taxi ride home from the Club Veil, so she hadn’t left it in the cab. The last time she had seen it was at the club. She’d probably been so flustered that she’d left it on the table. Hopefully someone had been honest enough to turn it in at the bar. The club wasn’t far from where she was, just a couple blocks. She could walk just in case her tank ran out on the way back.
It just better be there, she thought. Or else I’m moneyless, carless and practically homeless. To Club Veil then. It’s worth a shot.
***
The club looked completely different during the day. Without the night lights of the city and the strobing neon lighting up its exterior, the façade could have been that of any nondescript restaurant that she would have walked past without noticing. The rope barriers had been taken away and no bouncers guarded the door. Now arriving, she realized that she had been foolish in expecting it to be open. The doors would probably remain shut for at least another ten hours and there was no way she could wait that long. She’d probably have to phone Tracey or Marisa and bum off them for the day, but she was loathe to go to them for help again after everything they had done for her already.
Steeling herself for disappointment, she tried the door. Miraculously, it opened.
Inside, with the lights on, April felt as though she were getting a glimpse behind the scenes of the full illusion. An elderly gentleman with a bushy goatee mopped the dance floor while behind the bar, a man faced away from her, counting stock. She thought she recognized his short, dusky hair, broad shoulders and confident stance. She cleared her throat and the man at the bar spun around to see her. It was Max Connor, the handsome stranger from the night before, dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt.
“Oh hey,” he said. “It’s the damsel in distress. I was wondering when you’d be back.”
She hadn’t noticed the night before because of the dim lighting of the club, but his eyes were a deep sea green.
“Please tell me that means you found my wallet,” she said.
“Well, that depends on whether you stay for a drink or not.”
“It’s nine-thirty on a Sunday morning,” said April, although she felt like she could do with one just then.
“Is it? It feels like the end of a long Monday at work to me.” Max pinched the bridge of his nose. “Well, no matter, we have orange juice.”
“Yeah, that sounds good, actually,” said April.
Max poured freshly squeezed orange juice from a jug into two glasses and placed one on the bar in front of her as she took a seat on one of the stools. Then he reached under the bar and brought out her wallet.
“There you go,” he said. “I promise the money’s all still there. Although I can’t say I wasn’t tempted.” Max grinned.
“Oh thank goodness,” said April. “I thought it was gone forever.”
“I found it on the floor under your table, you must’ve dropped it when your fiancé tipped your chair. I tried to chase after you, but you must’ve already been on your way.”
April felt the intensity of his gaze working into her brain and took a sip of her orange juice.
“Everything okay?” asked Max.
“Is it that obvious?” She thought she had been holding it together pretty well until that point, but at that moment, she could feel all her suppressed emotions threatening to break through the surface.
“It’s just that you aren’t wearing your engagement ring today. I thought…”
He trailed off as a stifled sob escaped from her. Max lifted the hatch of the bar and moved to stand next to her, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. The feel of his touch only made the emotion harder to keep down and with nowhere else to hide her face, she pressed it against his chest and cried.
Once she had gained some composure, April pulled away from the comforting warmth radiating from his muscled chest. He smelled of oak barrels and musky co
logne.
“I’m sorry,” said April. “I don’t normally cry on the shoulders of strangers.”
“I don’t normally get cried on,” said Max, smiling warmly. “But it looks like you needed it. You know, sometimes it’s easier to open up to a stranger. Do you want to talk about it?”
“That depends,” said April. “On whether or not I can get that drink after all.”
5
Once April had finished her story, she knocked back the remainder of her whiskey. It burned the back of her throat and broiled in her belly, but after a moment it softened to just a warm glow. Deep down she relished the thought of what Brian might say if he saw her drinking whiskey at nine-thirty with a handsome stranger, but then scolded herself for her pettiness.
She felt lighter already for having unloaded her troubles, but now she was eager to change the subject. “So what about you?” she asked Max.
“What about me?”
“Well, the way you stepped in and tied Brian into knots last night…what are you? Some kind of superhero or something?”
Max laughed. “No, it just comes with the territory. I spent a couple years in the Marine Corp before this. I can’t say it was time wasted. It comes in handy when you’re dealing with angry drunks on a regular basis.”
ROMANCE: THE SHEIKH'S GAMES: A Sheikh Romance Page 92
