Commitment (18 page)

Riley
said nothing
,
listening
.

“But
don’t get me wrong,
” he continued. “
I
love
what I do.
I love
my life.
But after awhile, you
realize
that
a lot
of it
is
shit that was
basically
made up. Arranged
for
your
convenience.”

“This is
n’t made up,
”
Riley
said.

She kissed him, her lips soft
and warm, pressed
briefly
against his.
Shawn leaned in closer,
pulling her toward him again and
using his tongu
e to part her lips
.
A
s the
ir
kiss deepened,
he
shifted so that he was above her, his elbows on either side of her face.
Riley
opened
her legs and he pressed against her,
frustrated
that they were separated by his jeans, her leggings.
As they kissed, he moved rhythmically against her, increasingly insistent until she reached for his hand and placed it between her legs, moving her hips upward
to meet
it.

Shawn r
aised his head for a moment.
Riley looked surprised, quizzical.

“This isn’t the reason I came
tonight
, y’know
that right?
” he said.

Riley looked amused and after a f
ew
moments trying to hold it in, spluttered into laughter.

“What?” Shawn asked, confused.

She put a hand up
to
his face and he leaned into her touch.

“Are you afraid I might think you’re u
sing me for my body
?” she asked
, trying to
keep
a straight face.

Shawn shrugged.

“Well, you don’t need to worry about that,
”
she said. She squirmed beneath him and shimmied off her leggings. “
And besides, maybe
I’m using
you
for your body.
Just sayin’.
”

Shawn looked at her. “That’s not funny,” he said.

Riley looked at him, and her face grew serious. “It was a joke, though.”

“Listen,” Shawn said,
in part to change the subject
, “a
bout
that magazine, and all that mess . . .”

“I shouldn’t have called
you about something so stupid.
I didn’t mean for you to dro
p everything and come out here.
I was just . . .”

“Jealous,” Shawn finished for her.

Riley opened
her mouth as though to deny it
then shut it again. She nodded
slowly.

Shawn reached
down
again, slipping his hand into her underwear, stroking her, making a circular motion with two fingers, watching as her eyes closed and her lips parted
, feeling her getting wet and slippery
at his touch
. She exhaled and her minty, cool breath caressed his face.

“You
thought
I was doing this
to
someone else?” he said against her ear.

She nodded, opening her legs wider to make way for him.

“And this?” he
unexpectedly
slipped a finger inside her and she gasped, arching toward his hand.

“
Um hm,
”
she pulled in her lower lip.

“
If
you
knew that I was,
how
would that make you feel?” he asked, moving his thumb against her clitoris.

“I don’t know,” Riley breathed.

“Yes you do. Tell me,” he insisted. Shawn
rested his full weight on her for a moment as he
unbuttoned his jeans and lowered the zipper.

“It would . . . I wouldn’t like it,” she said, panting now.

“
Is that all?
”
he said, putting his mouth against her neck. He was tempted to make his mark there, but instead kissed her again.
“
You wouldn’t like it?
”

“I would hate it,” she admitted when he released her lips.

She looked him directly in the eye
, lightly biting his lower lip as she
helped tug
his jeans down over his hips
. She
pushed
his hand out of the way
, pulling her panties
a
side
and
guid
ing
him
toward
her.
Riley
exhaled sharply
as he entered her,
and held him in place
so he
w
ouldn’t
move
,
then
Shawn felt her nails
bite
into him,
urging
him even deeper.
For a moment he lost his train of thought.

“I would
hate
it,” she said again, this time breathing directly into
his ear, “to know that you wer
e doing this with someone else.”

She sounded so
possessive
, he almost came right then.

“Then you know just how I feel,” he managed to say.

Riley
’s
lifted her eyes to his and
blinked.

“I’m sorry,
”
she said.

Shawn closed his eyes and began moving
, thrusting deeper
inside
her, his
face buried in her neck,
finally
allowing himself not to think, just feel.

g

He
was awakened at
almost three-forty
by the sound of a car horn
blaring
from the street below
.
Riley
was
still aslee
p, her head resting on his arm.
Shawn slowly
pulled free
and sat up.
It was cold so h
e pulled the comforter up and over
her
shoulders
.
He
yawned, listening to
the distant soun
d of police sirens,
voices in the street
and the wind.
He wanted nothing more than to stay exactly where he was
b
ut he had to be back
for
two
show
s
in
Phoenix, and then
on to
Salt Lake City.
Four shows, three interviews, one music video
shoot
and he would be back in New York.

He sat on the edge of the bed watching her sleep for a few minutes more before
getting dressed. As he left, first
checking to make sure the door had locked behind him
, he grabbed the photo of Riley and Brian from the sofa table and dumped it in a trash can at t
he curb underneath a greasy bag
of what smelled like leftover Chinese food
. 

If Tiny had been responsible for the horn that woke Shawn up, he d
idn’t say and Shawn didn’t ask.
He
was still in the SUV outside, wide
awake and listening to Z-100.
In the proud tradition of the ghetto, Tiny’s nickname was pure irony, because he was by far the biggest dude Shawn
had ever met
.
Three hundred
and fifty
pounds of
pure
brawn.
He was a former professional football player who’d suffered a torn ACL, th
e
most dreaded
of
caree
r-ending injuries
. Since then, he’d worked for dozens of celebrities, finally settling into a position as personal
“
body man
”
for Chris Scaife.

Chris was the most powerful producer and record executive in hip-hop, a
close
friend a
nd perennial rival of Shawn’s.
Brendan had called him when Shawn announced his plan to travel solo to New York, and asked that someone shadow him for the evening and return him safely
to the airport in the morning.

Shawn had worked with Tiny only when he was with Chris, and was surprised when he insisted on sitting outside
Riley
’s apartment, no matter how long the wait. No doubt Chris made it more than worth his while
to be this thorough
.

“A’ight
Big Man
, let’s roll,” Shawn said as he slid into the passenger seat.

On the radio, the Isley Brothers were singing ‘Footsteps in the Dark.’ Shawn smiled.

“Straight to the airport?”
Tiny asked.

“Straight to the airport,” Shawn confirmed.

“She must be something,” Tiny said, pulling
away from
the
curb.
“For you
to
come all this way and jet back in
a few hours
.”

“She is,” Shawn said,
and then after a second or two.
“How ‘bout you?  You married, man?”

“Fifteen years in November.
N
othing
like it.”

Shawn looke
d at him, interested now.
“For real?”

“If it’s the right woman, yeah.”

Shawn laughed.
“But that’s the tricky part.”

“Not for me
,” Tiny
said shaking his head
.
“I knew when I met her that that was the way it was supposed to be, and I haven’t regretted it since.”

Shawn didn’t think he’d always known that was “the way it was supposed to be” with
Riley
.
At first his visits were about
trying to get her out of his system
. He kept
telling himself with each
trip
to New York that this was probably the last time,
that this time
she would be boring or
the sex would have gotten old
or
that she would
pressure him for more
than he was prepared to give. But it never happened.

Instead, each
encounter
opened a new door revealing something about her that pulled him in
even
deeper.
She made him
think, she made him laugh and sometimes she even made him forget that his life was
so
far from normal
that
even a trip alo
ne to
7-Eleven was out of the question
.

It was a reli
e
f when he
’d
finally accepted that he
might
never satisfy his curiosity
about her
.
And that was okay,
as
long as
she would be
his wife
.
It was funny how quickly he’d gotten used to the idea of being
married
, although to hear Brendan tell it, he didn’t understand ex
actly what he was getting into.

When Shawn told him about the ring and the proposal, he’d been
quiet
for about a minute and then finally managed a piece of advice.

Y’know man, it ain’t just
Riley
who’ll b
e on lockdown.
You ready for
all
that?

I’ll think about that part later
, Shawn had said.

Brendan looked at him
, his face
expressionless
.
That’
s the dumbest shit I ever heard.

And he still hadn’t thought about
“that part.”
Although, he had to be doing okay because t
he last time he’d even thought about messing
around
with anybody besides Riley
was
Stephanie
in Pittsburgh and even then
he’d been
perfectly capable of walking away
without feeling like he was missing
much
.