Going the Distance (9 page)

“
Little Red Riding Hood
. I’m supposed to have the kids perform it at the end of the year. Thirty children in
Little Red Riding Hood
.” She came to stand beside him at the desk.

“How’s that going to work?”

“Beats the hell out of me, Jarek.”

“Sorry about your tree.”

She rested her head against his shoulder and he put his arm around her, wishing he hadn’t had the impulse. Consoling somebody, caring when they were hurt—that wasn’t his thing. He didn’t want it to be. So he took his arm back and she took the hint and walked to the door.

“Let’s go back. Thanks for helping me clean up.”

He exited ahead of her as she locked up, and he said good-bye when they got to her building, but he didn’t walk her up, and he didn’t kiss her good night. He made his way back to his cold, empty apartment alone, feet squishing in his shoes, contemplating the weather and a whole host of other things. He didn’t understand the news so he didn’t watch it, didn’t know that the blue skies had planned to open up and rain down tonight. He didn’t know about her tree. Didn’t want to know.

He took a second shower to clean the paint off his hands and the mud off his ankles, and grabbed a beer and sat on the couch in the dark, thinking about her orgasm and wondering what had happened to make it different. He’d done all that stuff to her before, but this time something had changed.

And then it hit him. He knew what had been different. He knew absolutely, positively what it would take to make her come so hard she forgot the name of every other man. And he knew with terrifyingly equal certainty that he couldn’t do it.

T
HE
N
EXT
D
AY
Olivia and Ritchie ate lunch in her classroom, and when they finished they were invited over to the mah-jongg room. Of course Ritchie wouldn’t know what that meant, but Olivia accepted immediately, dragging him across the courtyard where they sat side-by-side and watched four of the older teachers play a game they couldn’t understand.

Olivia was happy to be there because she’d finally been included in something, and Ritchie was happy because Honor was there. The two of them whispered quietly as Olivia watched the game, hopelessly confused. Her mind drifted and she told herself not to dwell on Jarek’s sudden coldness the night before. The way he’d gone from soft and supportive to hard and remote in the span of a single second. She told herself she was just being emotional because of the tree thing, and last night she’d lain in bed and tried to imagine new ways to make trees until she’d fallen asleep.

Apparently Jarek had told Ritchie about the tree snafu, because Ritchie had called her today and invited himself over for lunch under the pretense of discussing new trees, but Olivia knew better. He was there for Honor. And she didn’t mind. At least she got to participate in something, even if it was only as a spectator.

A couple of the older teachers sat at another table, where they folded the origami cranes that hung in strings from the ceiling in several of the classrooms. They noticed Olivia watching and awkwardly invited her over, showing her with painstaking care and slowness how to fold the paper. Olivia knew how to say “I’m sorry” in Mandarin and that’s really all she said, repeating the words for every wrong fold and accidental crease, until someone told her to shut up.

At the end of the lunch hour she had a misshapen paper bird that everyone laughed at, and Ritchie had Honor’s phone number. He’d invited her to the bar tonight to welcome the visiting workers, but she’d declined, blaming her poor English¸ though it was perfectly fine.

“They think you’re so dreamy,” Olivia teased as she walked him to the school gates that opened onto the street. “They tell me all the time.”

He blushed. “Shut up.”

“They like your glasses. They think you look like Superman.”

“You’re coming tonight, right?”

“Yeah. I’m supposed to be.”

“Cool. Oh, hey, look.”

She followed his gaze over her shoulder to see Jarek and Dale headed their way carrying bottles of iced tea, likely the remnants of their lunch. They exchanged greetings and Olivia wished Jarek weren’t wearing sunglasses because his face was stony and impassive again, and she didn’t have a clue what he was thinking.

“Long time, Olivia,” Dale said.

“How are you, Dale?”

“Good. Living the life. You coming tonight?”

“I think so.”

“It’s a nice bar. You been?” He drank his iced tea and watched her.

“No. It’s across from that electronics store, right?”

“That’s the one. Jarek will show you.”

“I’ll meet you there,” Jarek interjected.

The obvious brush-off stung, but she just shrugged. “Fine.” She used the word on purpose, and was rewarded when the muscle in his jaw ticked.

“Meet her?” Dale scoffed. “Walk her over, idiot. We’re not heading out until nine.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I can find it.” She was grateful when the lunch bell rang. “Time for phonics. See you later.”

She started to duck back through the gates but Jarek snagged the sleeve of her T-shirt. “I’ll walk you,” he said, voice flat. “Nine o’clock, okay?”

She looked up into the cold, reflective stare of his glasses. “Fine.”

Olivia didn’t really know if Jarek did jealous, but she dressed up all the same, in tight dark jeans, boots with heels, and a top cut low enough to show some cleavage. It was hidden beneath her black leather jacket, and if he noticed anything different about her, he didn’t say so when she met him downstairs at nine o’clock on the dot. Since that first night when he’d been deliberately late, he’d been on time for everything. Just as well, since as far as she knew he didn’t have her phone number and couldn’t call to say he’d been delayed.

He jerked his chin in some asshole-ish way of greeting, and she said hey and looked past him, like she couldn’t care less. The bar was close to the city center, which wasn’t far since Lazhou wasn’t big. They walked in silence for a few minutes, until Jarek sighed and gripped her shoulder, pushing her to the inside of the sidewalk so he was closer to the curb.

“Everyone asked what happened to my tree,” Olivia volunteered when she started feeling awkward.

There was a second where she didn’t think he’d respond, then he looked down at her. “Oh yeah? What’d you say?”

“That I sold it.”

He smiled in spite of himself. “Well done.”

More silence.

“Are these new people nice?”

“Yeah, nice enough. I only met a couple.”

“Did they approve your work?”

They waited for a light to change and a group of young men passed by, looking Olivia from head to toe appreciatively. Jarek noticed and clenched his fist, but didn’t touch her. “It’s not really mine to approve.” They started walking again. “They’re looking at structural stuff, electrical. The door frames aren’t as important.”

“But you make furniture too, right?”

“Some. I’ll make more later, when it’s ready to go in.”

“Does it take a long time?”

“Depends on what I’m making.”

“Thanks for being specific.”

He sighed and tugged open the door to the bar so she could step through. Smoking indoors was permitted, and the room was hot and dim. She shrugged out of her jacket and easily spotted the table of white men, one middle-aged woman looking out of place among them, Ritchie, Dale and Brant seated on one side.

“Hey!” the men called as she and Jarek approached.

She bent down to hug Ritchie and was pretty certain Dale looked down her shirt. “Hey,” she said. She smiled at the newcomers. “I’m Olivia.”

“Olivia,” Brant said, and went around the table making introductions as she dutifully shook hands and said hello. He did the same for Jarek, identifying him as the carpenter for the few people he hadn’t already met.

“What do you do, Olivia?” Carolyn, the electrical inspector, asked.

Dale spoke up before she could answer. “She’s Jarek’s girlfriend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Jarek said coldly, voice raised over the noise of the bar. Of course the room chose that moment to take a collective breath, and the words rang out, a humiliating denial that hung in the air for what felt like an eternity.

Then Olivia pasted on a smile and aimed it at the newcomers. “That’s right,” she said, pulling out her seat and sitting down. “I’m not. So feel free to hit on me.”

Everybody laughed, the uncomfortable spell broken, and Jarek looked at her oddly when he sat down beside her. She kept the smile in place and struck up a conversation with Marcus, the geologist or geographer or something, and let herself enjoy the company of people who didn’t hate her, and didn’t resent her, and weren’t afraid to talk to her.

Jarek saw Olivia put on her coat at twelve twenty. She’d had two beers and had started to yawn thirty minutes ago. He glanced around the table; everyone else seemed perfectly content to drink until closing, but he knew she had class at nine o’clock the next morning, and entertaining six-year-olds was a lot harder than pouring concrete.

She stood up and they booed her, but she just laughed good-naturedly and waved good night, telling him he didn’t have to leave early, she’d get a cab. Jarek ignored her and pulled on his own jacket, pretending not to notice Dale’s appraising stare. Olivia hadn’t said a word to him in three hours, conversing with every single other person like a normal human being, like the woman she’d probably been before she came to China.

He followed her through the bar and outside into the clean, cool night air. “That’s a fucking relief,” he said, pulling in a deep breath. “I can’t get used to the smoke.”

“Yeah.” She was looking down the street for a cab, but Lazhou shops closed early, and traffic was sparse.

“Let’s just walk,” he said, reaching for her wrist.

She pulled her hand away. “Let’s not.”

“What’s going on?”

She waved at a cab, but it drove by, occupied. She muttered something under her breath that Jarek didn’t catch. “Let’s just walk,” he repeated.

“I don’t want to walk with you.” She had her back to him, ramrod straight, as she waited for another cab.

He sighed. “Oliv—”

“Just go back inside, Jarek.”

“I don’t want to go back inside.”

“Then do something else. But don’t talk to me and don’t touch me and don’t get in this cab when it stops.”

A cab had approached, blinker flashing, and was now stopped on the other side of the intersection as the driver waited for the light to change.

“Tell me what’s bothering you, please.” He jammed his hands in his pockets and tried to keep his voice neutral. He had a pretty damn good idea what was bothering her, but she’d seemed in good spirits in the bar, even if she had given him the cold shoulder. He’d almost started to believe he’d imagined the hurt look on her face when he shouted to the whole world that she wasn’t his girlfriend. Which she wasn’t.

“I know I’m not your girlfriend,” she said, turning to look at him. Psychically sucker punching him when he saw the tears in her eyes. “And I
know
I’ve never done anything to suggest I thought I was. But it was really fucking humiliating to have you announce it to the bar, when everyone at the site knows we’re sleeping together. And it was really fucking humiliating to sit there for three hours and see them exchange little looks, like how I’m desperate or stupid or something, following you around when you don’t fucking want me.”

“I didn’t—”

The cab rolled up and he reached for the door, but she slapped his hand away, hard. “Don’t get in this cab, Jarek. Don’t come over. Don’t call me—Oh wait, you can’t, right? Because you’ve never bothered to ask for my number. Just as well.”

She got in and slammed the door, keeping her eyes averted as she gave the driver her address and they pulled away.

He cursed and ran a hand through his hair, flagging down the cab that trailed the first, giving the driver a hundred
kuai
extra if he drove fast, which the guy was more than happy to do. Jarek spoke approximately nine words of Mandarin, none of which were Olivia’s address, which he didn’t even know, if he were being honest, instead of the dick he usually was. He gave the guy directions and they got to the cold, concrete building a minute ahead of her.

He leaned against the green door and watched Olivia pay her driver, saying good night in Mandarin before climbing out and waving. She turned and froze when she saw him.

He held up his hands in surrender before she could curse at him some more. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

She fumbled in her purse for her keys, avoiding his gaze. “I don’t care.”

“I’m really sorry, Olivia. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“Well, you did.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I regretted it as soon as I said it. I didn’t know it bothered you so much or I would have taken it back right away.”

She found the keys and elbowed her way past him, unlocking the door. “There’s nothing to take back. You’re right. I’m not your girlfriend. I don’t know anything about you, and tonight I realized I don’t want to.”

He could see tear tracks on her cheeks, shimmering in the moonlight. He had hurt a lot of people in his life, but he’d never felt bad about it. Until now. “Let me up.” He ignored her efforts to close the door in his face and followed her up the stairs, keeping his hands to himself. He waited while she unlocked both doors, knowing it was pretty much impossible for her to close them if he wouldn’t let her, which he wouldn’t. She must have recognized the futility, too, because she didn’t try. She stalked into her room and hurled her purse on the bed, partially unzipping her jacket before remembering how low cut that damn shirt was and deciding to keep it on.

He locked both doors behind him and gave her a challenging look, but she just stared back, stone-faced. She might be kind and pretty, but she was really fucking hurt and angry, and he deserved all of it. All because she’d put her head on his shoulder and he’d put his arm around her, even though they’d done far more intimate things. She was just the only woman he’d put his arm around in a really long time, and he was a really shitty person.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated.

“I heard you. It doesn’t matter.”

“I’ll go back to the bar and tell them, if it’ll make you feel better.”

“It won’t. But you should go back anyway.”

She was standing stiffly against the wall between the bedroom and the office, and he saw the moment she rested against it, tired and sad, even though she tried not to let it show.

“I’ll do whatever you ask. Just don’t tell me to go.”

She laughed humorlessly. “I don’t know what to ask you, Jarek. Every time I ask you something, you refuse to answer.”

He swallowed thickly. He was afraid of this. “Ask me anything.”

“What’s your middle name?”

“Andrew.”

She looked at him sharply, surprised. “When’s your birthday?”

“January thirty-first.”

“Have you ever been married?”

“No.” He approached her and she watched warily, not moving. He unzipped her jacket the rest of the way and pushed it down her shoulders, then tossed it behind him toward the table.

“Don’t,” she whispered, with no real venom.

“Ask me something else.”

“What’s your favorite food?”

“Lasagna.” He kissed her, softly, lingering.

“When’d you lose your virginity?”

“Sixteen. With Stacey.”

“Why’d you break up?”

He traced her lower lip with his tongue, felt her breath on his cheek, smelling faintly of beer. “I enlisted. Moved away.”

“Where’d you go?”

He knelt at her feet and slipped off the boots with the pointy heels that had made his dick take notice when she’d exited the building earlier that night. The ones he’d wanted to haul off and hurl at the kids who’d ogled her at the intersection. “Lots of places. Iraq. Afghanistan. Angola. More.”