Riding Curves Page 6

  By the time he arrived, I could barely walk. I had a boulder, sharp and heavy, in my stomach and another in my throat. I hadn't cried yet, but that was only a matter of time. I was still too frozen to cry. When I thawed, there would be a flood.

  I crossed the lawn to where Aiden waited next to my parked car. I kept my eyes on the ground, trying to figure out how to keep my mouth shut so I wouldn't break the promise I had made to my father.

  When I finally looked up, the sight of Aiden broke my heart.

  "Baby, what's wrong?" He didn't move from where he stood outside the car on the driver's side. My keys were in his hand, his knuckles white from the grip he had on them.

  I shook my head. I had to pretend nothing was wrong, or that something else -- something that would end our relationship -- was wrong. Right, I would have to tell him I had found someone else or just stopped loving him.

  "Get in the car."

  He didn't quite growl the words at me, but I knew it was an order. I slid into the passenger seat and directed my gaze out the window. He got in, jabbed the keys in the ignition then tried to cover one of my hands with his.

  I pulled away. If I let him touch me, I was lost. I would ask him about Pamela, probably beg him to tell me it was all a lie and believe every last word.

  "Cece, whatever has happened, just tell me." His hand landed lightly on my shoulder, just the fingertips making any contact.

  I flinched, my skin recoiling with the heartbreak that tightened my chest.

  "Did that boy hurt you? Did he say or…"

  His voice strangled on whatever he'd been ready to add. It took me a few seconds to realize he was talking about Harold and worried that something had gone horribly wrong on my date last night.

  "No." I turned my head and looked at the key in the ignition so I wouldn't have to look at Aiden. He had no right to be concerned over what was wrong with me, not when he was the one hurting me. My mouth screwed tight, the accusation of his love affair with a married woman trying to batter its way past my lips.

  I jabbed a finger in the direction of the steering column. "Are you going to drive or should I?"

  Without another word, he started the car and pulled away from my building. He had picked a discreet hotel some thirty minutes away, the room at the far end and invisible to the nearby roads. Before the phone call from daddy, the location would have been perfect. Now it just sank the knife in my heart another inch deeper.

  Aiden put the car in park and yanked the keys from the ignition, speaking for the first time since we pulled away from my dorm building. "You're not leaving without talking to me."

  He got out of the car, taking my keys with him into the hotel room. He left the room's door open as a silent command for me to follow. I waited a good ten minutes, telling myself he would get tired and bring me my keys.

  Except there's no one I know who is more obstinate than Aiden. Before, that stubborn streak had been a positive quality. It got him out of the trailer park, into college and an ownership interest in my dad's shop. It grew the shop's reach, taking the business from a regional reputation to a national one.

  Sitting in the car, waiting for him to cave first, it meant I would have to give him another opportunity to walk all over my heart if I wanted my keys back. I got out, feet dragging, and entered the room.

  I stopped just inside and left the door open.

  Aiden stood in front of the dresser, one hand resting on it, the other cupping one of the cream-colored roses in a vase. On the dresser, near his hand, were two boxes. The bottom one -- rectangular and white with a ribbon – looked like the boxes my mom puts gift clothing in. The other was smaller and didn't come from a store -- it was etched metal, the design unrecognizable from the distance, but I'd received similar boxes from Aiden over the years.

  He seldom bought gifts for me. He made them instead, each gift one of a kind.

  I shook my head, forcing myself not to care that he'd brought me gifts and flowers. He probably had done the same for that woman. Hell, maybe the gift inside the box had been made for her and I was getting it second hand.

  Telling myself I would not cave, I closed my eyes and folded my arms across my chest. I intended to stay that way until he gave me my keys and I escaped back to my dorm room where I could cry myself into next week.

  "I guess you enjoyed your date more than you expected."

  The sadness in his voice forced my eyes open. I met his gaze and saw my own pain reflected. It hurt too much to look at him, so I closed them again and shook my head. The date had been painful and awkward. I had expected to spend today in this room, Aiden's hands on my body, his declarations of love in my ear. He had talked about children and forever, not adultery and sex behind office doors and breaking my heart and my father's.

  "Cece, what is it?"

  The rumble of irritation made me squeeze my eyes more tightly.

  His tone gentled. "I thought I heard happiness in your voice last night, baby girl. That you wanted to come here today, to spend time with me…"

  "I know about Pamela," I whispered.

  Sorry, daddy. I couldn't keep it in. So, so sorry…but I won't let him know you told me.

  "Pamela…at the shop?"

  He sounded confused. I opened my eyes to see his face slowly hardening. I nodded.

  "Know what?" He stopped stroking the rose, his entire body frozen except for the shallow rise and fall of his chest.

  "You're fucking her," I bit out.

  His grip on the rose tightened, the petals breaking from the strain. "And you know this how?"

  God, he wasn't even going to deny it!

  I rolled my lips, anger seeping in to replace the hurt. "You can't keep the fact that you're fucking a married woman in daddy's shop secret. Everybody knows!"

  I sucked a breath in. That wasn't true. No one knew but Pamela, Aiden, daddy, and now me. But I couldn't have him knowing daddy told me.

  "So everybody knows." He released the rose, the rest of its petals littering the dresser. His hand fell to his side and he took his first step toward me. "And you believe everybody despite my telling you how crazy I am about you."

  I closed my eyes again and wrapped my arms around me in a hug.

  "Tell me, Cece. Why would I say and do those things with you if I was fucking Pamela Marks?" His voice was nearer, maybe half the distance from the dresser to me.

  I hugged my body harder, my fingers denting my disgusting flesh, flesh I'd been stupid enough to think Aiden desired. I shook my head, trying to communicate that I didn't have to understand or explain his motivation.

  The door shut next to me and then I felt his chest press lightly against the barrier of my arms.

  "Why, baby?"

  God, his voice was so gentle. Gentle and hurt, but the ache was my own, a quality I was projecting onto his tone because I didn't want to believe what that woman said was true.

  "You're not getting out of here without an answer." His arms moved until I could feel that he blocked me from moving on either side.

  I sucked a huge breath in, knowing I would need every last molecule of oxygen to spew the venom that had built inside me and that I would be speechless afterwards, no fire or fight remaining.

  "Maybe you're just like the guys in high school who wondered what Kevin saw in me, what I was hiding under my skirt. Maybe you wanted to push me toward other guys so I'd stop crushing on you or maybe the moment overtook you. Maybe you're nothing more than a selfish, manipulative asshole."

  I sucked another breath in, surprised that I could, but the words didn't want to stop once they started. I'd spent every minute from my dad's call until that second with Aiden's big body bearing down on me pondering why he had lied.

  "I'd like to think it really was that the moment overtook you or you were trying to help me in a misguided, fucked up way, and, hey, it worked. I went on two dates, I'll go on more--"

  Aiden stopped me for a heartbeat with a growl that went straight to my pussy. I shook my head, denyin
g the power he had over me.

  "I'll go on more," I repeated. "But why you did it, I don't care."

  I stopped talking and started panting, too much adrenaline coursing through my body for me to control.

  "Selfish?"

  I heard the lock on the door engage and then he stroked the back of his fingers against my cheek. My pulse rate tripled and I started to shake.

  "Manipulative…" His other hand lightly covered my hip as he continued to batter me with his deep, taunting voice. "Someone who gets what he wants…"

  The words curled warm and moist against my neck as Aiden lowered his head. His fingers moved down to my throat in a soft caress.

  "Aiden--" I couldn't say anything more than his name. My throat constricted too tightly and I couldn't stop shaking. I wanted to leave, but I wanted him to keep touching me. I'd spent weeks and all of the prior night fantasizing about him touching me again.

  The pressure of his body against the shield of my arms slowly increased until I dropped my hands to my side and let his broad chest crush against my breasts. He continued stroking my throat and my hip, his mouth leisurely tracking toward mine.

  "What I want," he started, a rough edge to his words. "Is you, fucking me one last time. We'll make it our good-bye, little girl."

  A sob left me, but I didn't tell him no, didn't push at him. Tears streaming down my face, I let him lead me to the bed and undress me, my eyes shut the entire time. I heard his clothes fall to the floor then felt the slight give of the mattress as he climbed onto the bed. His body resting alongside mine, he stroked my cheek again.

  "Your keys are in the top left dresser drawer if you want to leave."

  I licked my lips once as I fought to bring the tremors running through down to the level of a small quake. I was wet, aching -- didn't want to leave before I felt him inside me one last time. That would finish it for me, knowing he could fuck me at a time like this when he had been exposed.

  Aiden didn't offer to let me leave again. He kissed his way down my side, stopping for a few, delicious moments to suckle my breasts while his hand worked to ensure that my pussy was drenched and ready for him. When he had me so wet my arousal leaked onto the mattress, he pushed my thighs apart and settled his face between them.

  I continued to keep my eyes shut, wet moans exploding from me as he grasped my labia to thumb and lick me until I squirmed and my hands reached down for him. He shook them away, not allowing me to stroke his hair or knot my fingers in it.

  How could he do this? How could he suckle at my clit as if he worshipped the damn thing but not let me touch him, not offer the barest excuse for what he'd done with Pamela? I tried to get angry, bashed my thoughts against the facts over and over, but his sweet kisses and soft touch persistently erased the anger like gently lapping waves erode the beach.

  Crying his name, I came.

  He rolled from me and I could tell by the way the mattress dented that he was sitting up. I kept my eyes closed, my lips growing raw from my biting at them as I waited for him to roll on a condom or tell me to leave.

  He did neither, just placed my clothes on the bed and went into the bathroom while I dressed and left.

  ********************

  Daddy had his surgery the following week. I knew I would have to visit soon. I didn't want to talk to either of my parents. Daddy might want to discuss his conversation with Pamela, and my mother might ask me whatever became of the weekend at the lake house. So I mostly stuck to email and kept any calls short.

  Three weeks after the surgery, just as I had foolishly started thinking I might get over Aiden and relented to a third date with Harold, my mom called with bad news. Money had been embezzled from the shop.

  A lot of money. More money than we could afford to lose.

  "Who did this, mom?" I asked, trying to process the information. All the operating capital was gone and a large portion of my father's retirement account.

  "That bimbo your fa--" She interrupted herself with a slight cough and I guessed that my dad was in the room with her. "But don't worry about tuition or anything, sweetie."

  "I can take a student loan until you get the money back." A dreadful thought popped into my head. "You will be able to get it back, right?"

  "We hope, but Aiden doesn't want you taking out a loan." A quiver ran through my mother's voice and I knew she wanted to cry. From the sound of her voice, she had already cried over this mess for hours. "He's covering the missing capital, too. It will be okay, sweetie."

  I choked on the knowledge that the man I had called a manipulative asshole and accused of fucking Pamela Marks intended to pay my last semester of school. "I'll take a loan, mom. Aiden can't pay--"

  "It's already paid, Cecelia. He insisted it be done before we broke the news to you."

  I sighed, not the least surprised. "I'll pay him back, but tell me how this happened."

  "She kept making what looked like processing errors. Aiden corrected her a dozen times over, even wrote her up the next to last time, about ten days before your father's surgery."

  I stopped listening for a few seconds. Had Marks been trying to create discord between my dad and Aiden as part of her plan?

  "…her last processing error was a whopper and then she skipped town," my mother continued. "She wasn't even married, can you believe that! Made up a husband and two children and a bunch of sh -- lies about him being out of work and the youngest child having asthma."

  My mom continued venting until my father took the phone away and asked her for an ice pack for his knee.

  "Hey, sunbeam."

  I dug my nails into my palm, knowing what he was about to ask and wanting to cry because I knew I would agree to the request.

  "I feel just awful believing…" He trailed off.

  "I know daddy. I feel awful, too."

  "He doesn't have to know…" He groaned, the sound wet and miserable.

  "No, he doesn't," I agreed, the memory of those same words passing my lips during my last visit to the lake house when Aiden worried our relationship would hurt my dad. Certain I was seconds away from bursting into tears, I made a hasty good-bye and hung up.

  Aiden didn't have to know -- but I did.

  ********************

  My heart didn't heal. Not by Thanksgiving, when I made up a fake, critical project that kept me from coming home. Not by Christmas when I said I was spending it with Harold's family, even though I had backed out of that third date and never spoke to him again. Certainly not by late January when my mother slipped in news of Aiden's current girlfriend in our weekly conversation, or in February when he had a different new girlfriend.

  I cried alone in my dorm room all the weekends I was supposed to go home. Somehow, I managed not to cry through the interview that landed me my first job two states away.

  I cried at graduation, but almost everyone with ovaries was crying and even a few of the male graduates and fathers. And I cried as my parents drove away from campus believing that I really did have to show up a week early at my new job and that I really would come home for a couple of days before the summer was up.

  Returning to my dorm room, vision blurred and the salt of my tears coating my tongue, I almost sat down on a small package someone had left on my bed. I pushed it up by my pillow and grabbed the box of tissues on my bookshelf.

  When I could finally see straight, I plucked the yellow Post-it note stuck to the top of the package.

  Sorry! J

  I frowned, wondering what my now ex-roommate Josephine had to apologize for. Looking at the plain brown wrapping paper, the first thing I noticed was the date. Two weeks old. I looked at the return address -- my dad's shop.

  I scratched at the tape, not wanting to open it and find a present from one of the other worker's at my dad's work who merely forgot to put his name on the package. I didn't really want to open it and find something from Aiden, either. I wanted the box to magically disappear and take the memory of its existence with it.

  That wa
sn't going to happen, so I pulled the package to my chest and just held it for a few minutes. The box of tissues was empty. If I started crying all over again, it would be me and my sleeve.

  "It's not Aiden," I whispered to the empty room as I peeled the tape away, my chest hurting from his absence at the graduation ceremony. I repeated the assurance again as I unrolled the brown paper.

  Then I saw the metal box the plain brown paper had covered and knew that I was wrong. I didn't need a return address, didn't need a card with his name on it. The last thing I had looked at before leaving that hotel room so many months ago was the small metal box sitting atop the other gift box on the dresser. It had hurt so bad seeing the acid-etched butterflies as I left. It hurt a hundred times worse seeing them again in my dorm room.

  I lifted the lid, pretending to myself that I really was admiring the smooth edges of the box until I was ready to look inside. Silk colored the same creamy white as the roses that day cushioned a metal pin shaped as a butterfly.

  A flutterby…

  I put the box with its pin untouched on the floor and returned to crying.

  ********************

  It took a few more hours, but I finally pulled myself off the bed and loaded my car. That fuck in the hotel room hadn't been our good-bye. And I wouldn't let the pin be our good-bye, either.

  I didn't reach Aiden's house until a few minutes past 8 pm. Then I spent another fifteen minutes staring at the purple PT Cruiser in the drive. Another girlfriend, probably. He'd had at least two flings since the start of the year. Only maybe this one wasn't a fling, maybe she was permanent.

  Closing my eyes, I took a few slow breaths, reconciling myself to the fact I was about to be humiliated in front of a woman I didn't know. She might never realize it, either. But I wouldn't wait for her car to leave the drive, didn't want the confirmation of whether or not it remained overnight.

  Grabbing the metal box, I went up to Aiden's door and knocked. He opened without looking, then froze when he saw me.

  "This is unexpected, Cecelia." He looked at the box in my hand. Taking a step back, he gestured for me to come inside.