Commitment (94 page)

Chris named a
few
high-profile artists, including the one Shawn had been photographed with on the cover of the tabloid so long ago.

“Let’s do it,” Shawn said.
“Make it happen.”

“Which?”

“All of them,” Shawn said.

“Okay.
So this is i
t?
You want to come back hard.

“I can’t act like I’m planning on going to ja
il, man.
That’s what I know.”

Chris nodded. “Okay.
Let’s talk details.”

After Brendan showed up, they spent another two hours at Chris office talking about
possible public engagem
e
nts that Shawn might take on.
As it grew later, t
hey toyed with the idea of going out for dinner but finally ordered in and continued strateg
izing late into the evening.
It was Brendan who finally stood up and announced that he
was bushed and had to go home.
Only then did Riley notice
that it was almost eleven p.m.
She’d been
completely absorbed in
the conversation and the planning
, she hadn’t even noticed as night fell
. 

“We should roll too,” Shawn said stretching his arms above his head and yawning.

“I got a few more things I need to t
ake care of here,” Chris said.
“Holla at me tomorrow and we’ll get the show on the road.”

“You’re not going home?” Riley asked.

Chris laughed.
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

As they headed out of the building, Shawn draped an arm across Riley’s shoulders and pulled her closer to him.

“
You want to ride with me for the radio station
stuff
tomorrow?” he asked.

Brendan had set up three morning drop-ins at local radio stations while they were in Chris’ office as part of the campaign to show t
hat Shawn was not “in hiding.”
The ground rules he’d given the program directors were that the legal issues could be alluded to but not discussed at length, that Shawn was not, under any circumstances, be subjected to calls from listeners, with or without prescreening; and that his total airtime should not exceed
fifteen
minutes.

It was an easy sell
because despite his legal troubles, his album was still in the Top
5
and
sales were holding strong.
The first drop in was at
seven
a.m. at the top-rated radio show in the
t
ri-state area and the other two closely followed so
that he would be done by nine.
Riley could vaguely recall him
having done these before.
They were something he generally left really early for, sometimes returning even before
she was out the door for work.
She’d never been particularly curious about them before.

“
I would
like that,”
she said.

“Up by six, out by six-thirty,” he warned.

“Shawn.
I think I can handle it,” she said rolling her eyes.

He brushed a finger along the side of her
nose
.
“I know you can.”

g

Riley, naked, in the bathroom crying was the first thing h
e saw when he opened his eyes.
Shawn blinked, not entirely
certain
that he was actually awake.
The time, he saw out of the corner
of his eye, was five-fifty a.m.
Riley’s
hair was wet, as though she’d just taken a shower and a pile of nightclothes
lay on the floor at her feet.
He sat up, and hearing the movement, she turned in his direction
.
U
pon seeing that he was awake,
Riley
immediately wiped her face and reached for a towel, retreating further
into
the bathroom.

“
Baby
?”

“I’
ll be out in a sec,” she said.
Her voice was thick with tears.

Shawn found her sitting on the edge of the tub,
having pulled on a pair of blue cotton
panties
.
As he stepped over t
he
nightshirt
on the floor he not
ed the bloodstains.

“You okay?” he sat next to her
and pulled her
to him.
She was shivering a little so he reached for the towel that was draped across her knees and wrapped it about her bare shoulders.

“Fin
e,” she said, trying to smile.
“It’s nothing.”

Shawn glanced at the clothes she’d shed and she followed his gaze.

“Oh
,” she gave a brief mir
thless laugh.
“I got my period
.”

Shawn nodded.
“Yo
u want me to get you something?
D’you have cramps?”

“No,” Riley
shook her head.
“I don’t have cramps.”

Shawn said nothing. Okay. No cramps.
So this was some weird mood swing thing, then.

“I just . . .” she stopped
and then she was crying again.
“I was late.
I was
really
late.
”

It took him a moment
to understand what she meant.
Then h
e waited for her to continue.

“I thought . . .” she gulped for air and sobbed, forcing words he could
n’t
make out
.

Shawn leaned in and gently turned her head so she was
looking directly
him.
“You thought . . . ?” he prompted.

“I thought I was pr
egnant,” she said.
“I was
lat
e and I was scared I might be. And then I wanted to be.
And now . . . now I’m not.” 

Then she was crying so hard it was i
mpossible for her to continue.
She turned and wrapped both arms about him, her face buried in his neck like a little kid.  Shawn
hugged her back and let her cry
, lifting her and taking her back to bed.

They lay together, his arms wrapped about her waist.

“You wanted to be?” he whispered.

She nodded, her shoulders heaving as she cried.

Shawn
wasn’t sure
he was ready, but knowing that she would have wanted to be pregnant made him unexpectedly ecstatic. She never stopped surprising him.

“It . . . it would have been rotten timing, I know,” she said, her voice small. “But I was starting to think about it and I . . . don’t know. I started getting excited
at the idea. Stupid, I know
.”

She turned around in his arms so that she was facing him. Shawn traced a finger down the center of her forehead, over her nose and down her chin, under her neck. When he got to her chest, he cupped one of her breasts, swollen and full. He imagined what she would look like pregnant and swollen with his baby, and was immediately aroused.
He lowered his head to kiss her breasts, cupping them in his hands.

“No baby, not stupid at all,” he said and he raised his head, pressing his lips to hers.

g

There was something about having her there while he was in his ele
ment.
Like the first time s
he saw him perform live in L.A.
Shawn liked
watching
Riley watch him; liked reading the expressions that crossed her face as she listened to him and
saw
the way
others reacted to what he said.

She was in the sound booth with him at HOT 97’s morning show, and had been introduced by the deejays
to the audience and described
as “
K
Smooth
’s beautiful wife, Riley Gardner
who has a hip, downtow
n
chick vibe going on.”
When they asked her what she was up to lately she’d coolly responded that she was on sabbatical from
Power to the People
and working on a couple of
independent
writing projects.
 

Now she was sitting back on a swivel chair, her feet folded beneath her Indian-style, her head cocked to one side, listening as he responded t
o the softballs lobbed at him.
Then, in a clever sidestepping of the real issue
s
of
infidelity and
the rape charge, one of the deejays asked
whether recent events had given him any insight about how to
handle the pressures his
career
exerted
on his
marriage
.

Shawn took a deep breath.
It was a question he had to be prepared for, since it was likely to be asked over and over again.

“T
o be honest with you,” he said.
“I
f I’m guilty of
any
thing, it’s
forg
e
t
ting
what’s important to me
for a minute
.
I was wro
ng.
What’s important to me is my wife, my life with her and
the futu
re we want to build together.
Everything else runs a distant second to that.”

Riley’s eyes met his and held.
For about five seconds there was silence until one of the deejays spoke. 

“I wish y’all were in here with us,
” he said with mock solemnity.
“‘Cause I’m ‘bout ready to break out the Kleenex, and I ain’t lying.”

“Black on blac
k love,” his sidekick piped in.
“It’s a beautiful thing.”

Everyone in the studio laughed. 

“Speaking of
beautiful things.
Let’s check out this joint from K
Smooth
.
The title track on his
CD
“Fire Next Time.””

They
headed home to have
breakfast when they were done, Brendan joining the
m for coffee, waffles and eggs.
He was checking his phone with one hand, shoveling in scrambled eggs with the other. 

“I got some email about you on the radio earlier,” he said, his mouth full.

Riley turned from away from the counter where she’d been adding creamer to her coffee and Shawn looked up expectantly.

“MTV wants you to consider making an appearance
at the awards.
Both of you.”

Shawn shook his head. “Nah.
I might do it but Riley . . .”

“Why not?” she shrugged.

Shawn looked a
t her, shaking his head again. “Nah,” he said again.
“That’s not some radio thing that people for
get overnight.
That’s national.”

“As is the
magazine spread and interview.
At this point, I’d say the cat’s out of the bag,” Riley pointed out.

“You’d do that?” he asked.
“I thought you hated that shit.”

“It’s your job.
And it’s an experience, right?”

“We don’t kn
ow what might be going on then.
Trial, or . . .?”

“So we make it con
tingent,” Brendan said quickly.
He definitely liked the idea, Shawn noted sourly.

S
hawn bit down on his lower lip.
At this point, they were right; Riley was already
no longe
r a purely private person.
His
long ago wish that he could keep her completely to himself and shield her from the prying eyes
of
strangers
an
d the press seemed stupid now.
She was in the thick of it, and he’d been the one to drag her there with
his bullshit
.
To save what they had, he was forced to expose it to the world, submit it for their inspection and have the
m confirm that it was genuine.

“You sure you’re okay with this
?” he asked searching her face.
If he saw even the scarcest hint of a reservation, they wouldn’t do it.