CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Marcus leaves, and I find myself facing Riley in the little dooryard ahead of the office trailer. I’m immediately sure I’ve read her wrong.
This, in itself, bothers me. It’s not hard for me to read women. Ever since high school, I’ve never struck out much. Bridget says it’s because I radiate confidence, which is odd because there’s so much I’m not confident about. But either way, I can tell which girls will be receptive if I say the right thing — and honestly, if they’re already into me, there’s little I can do, practically speaking, to mess things up. The decision is made. I just need to seal the deal.
But Riley? I can’t read her.
Or rather, she’s giving me something different to read.
Other girls give me fantasy, and Riley is giving me literature.
Other girls give me English language books, and she’s asking me to read in Russian.
It’s foreign. It’s different. This isn’t a bar, and we’re not trading glances down a long expanse of oak or walnut. Her unspoken question isn’t whether or not I’d like to take her to bed. My unspoken question isn’t whether she’d go if I asked.
This is something different, and as Marcus raises dust to leave us alone, I can feel the eyes of my crew upon us.
They’re going to start laughing, I know it.
I had friends who weren’t good with women. They asked me for tips, and I never knew what to say. You just talk to them. If you’re both into each other, you seal the deal.
But this, here? This must be how my awkward friends felt.
I’m sure I’ve done something stupid. I thought she was saying one thing, but now I’m certain she’s saying the other. There are fluttering nerves in my gut, but it’s more than just my job or promotion I’m fearing for. This is more primal. I’m sure all of these people around me — folks who would have me believe are simply nailing boards, placing siding, and running gutters — are actually peering at me every time I look away, gibbering.
Look at that fool. He thinks the girl wants to talk to him, and he’s about to do something stupid.
I look to Riley, careful not to look too hard. What happened between us — and by what happened I mean the night as well as the sex that capped it — was a drunken indiscretion. Never mind that we didn’t drink all that much or that the night was plenty long for those drinks to boil away and leave our heads clear. It was like that day at the creek. Riley showed something she shouldn’t have, and I was supposed to know enough to look away without taking advantage.
I don’t know why she makes me so nervous. I’ve been on a hundred dates, with or without the actual date. I’ve had many female coworkers, many attractive. I’ve even slept with a few.
But this is different.
I watch her, trying to find the line. I’ve acted. I’ve put myself out there. I asked her to stay, having (apparently wrongly) assumed she wanted to. Which would be nice if it were true because that would let us put the other night behind us. I need her not to give me up, and I’d bet she doesn’t want her father knowing she gave it to one of his grunts.
That’s all I want. To talk.
I think.
But she just stands there, dressed to the nines, covered with a lot of fabric as if she’s working hard not to be sexy. Her hair is up somehow, but not in a girlish ponytail. She’s not fooling me, but it looks like she’s trying to fool someone.
This is not a woman who wants me to touch her. I read those signals wrong, too.
And she’s not a woman who wants to talk about the … well, the thing that I assume we’re both supposed to understand never happened. I was stupid to think she’d want to discuss it. You don’t talk about things like that. You keep on keeping on, averting your eyes.
Now we’re stuck. Because I insisted she stay.
I look at Riley for a sign that I’m wrong (about being wrong; I can barely keep things straight), but she won’t return my gaze.
So I do the only thing that comes to me — show her the south quarter. But first, I have to decide what “south quarter” means because that’s not a term we use, and it’s not something we’ve designated.
“Hang on. I just need to get some paperwork.” I say it professionally. The way I’d say it to someone I’d never met. Maybe a banker, or an IRS agent.
I pace up the short flight of temporary metal stairs and begin to rummage pointlessly through the papers on my desk. I gave Marcus everything I’d prepared, so now I’m going to have to grab something random and pretend she doesn’t ask to see it and know I’m bluffing.
The door closes behind me.
I turn to see Riley with her back to the door. The blinds are drawn because I’ve only got a window AC, and it gets hot if I keep them open, so after being out in the bright sun, this feels claustrophobic, like a cave.
“We should talk,” she says.
“Just let me get these papers.”
“Not about the south quarter. Not about Stonegate Bridge.”
I turn back halfway. She’s still at the door. She looks scared, but I feel even more afraid than she looks.
She’s going to drop the hammer. She’s going to take away the chance of promotion that Marcus so recently dangled, now that he’s out of the picture and she can speak straight. I hauled ass out of that corn shack’s dirt lot without a goodbye, and after I’d recovered from the alarm of trying and failing to make my meeting, I’d thought about that. I treated her like a one-night stand. Because that’s what it was. And I’d convinced myself she understood that: We both scratched our itches, no need for more. But I’d wondered if she felt used, and now I’m looking at proof.
“What about then?” I say, pretending like a coward.
“About the other night.”
“It was a mistake,” I blurt.
Riley sighs. She sits in the chair that foremen usually sit in. She crosses her legs, probably trying to seem in charge, but I can see her age through her ruse. She’s a girl in woman’s clothing. A kid playing dress-up. Something about the thought breaks my heart because I can almost see her as she once was. I can see below her skin. I know how part of her must feel all the time because as much as she had growing up, she and I share something. A pain that most can’t know.
“Is that all it was?”
I sigh. I don’t know what answer she wants me to give.
“My father said you stuck up for me.”
My eyes narrow. That’s absolutely not what I expected her to say.
“I did?”
“He said you told him I knew the company better than anyone. That if you didn’t get the vice presidency, he should give it to me.”
“Take it,” I say.
“I don’t want it.”
“It’s your father’s company.”
“And I don’t want pity. I don’t want to get what’s not coming to me.” She gives me a demure little blink, and I wonder if there’s more to that statement than I’m seeing.
“Thank you,” she says.
“For what?”
“For telling him that. I’m trying to be that person.”
“Be what person?”
“The person I need to be.”
Riley sounds like she’s attended a self-help seminar. I’m not sure where to take this, but I can see she’s not angry. At least not on the surface. Maybe I did read her right. My heart, which continues to thud in my ears and make me dizzy, isn’t positive.
“Okay,” I tell her. “You’re welcome.”
A tiny smile. I can tell how much it’s costing her to break through the harsh facade. “How am I doing?”
“You look very professional.”
Something in the way I say it seems to bother her. She sits up straighter.
“What’s that mean?”
“Nothing. I mean that you look professional.”
“Is professional good?”
“Yes. Sure.” I don’t know what to say beyond that. I feel like I’m being tested.
“What happened,” she says. “That can’t happen again.”
“Okay.”
“This company is … ” She sighs. “It’s my legacy, I guess.”
“Of course.”
“But my dad doesn’t believe I can run it. Not really. I think he wants to believe me, but to him, I’m still just his little girl.”
“Sure.”
“I’m serious, Brandon.”
“I know you are.” But already my mood is changing. I read her right, all right … but now she’s talking herself into changing her mind. And she’s doing it without my permission. And at my expense. I was right that she didn’t want to deny what happened between us across the board, but wrong in believing she wanted to fully face it. What she wants is to change it. She wants to talk it out so she can convince herself that I’m the bad guy. Or at least the guy. She did nothing to initiate our encounter; that’s what she’s trying to say here. It was all me. Now she’s dressing me down, making sure I understand that I can’t come at her again with a raging erection because she’ll turn it down in a straight faced, disapproving way. Because she’s a businesswoman. Which my testimonial helped her father to believe, after I plowed her in the back of a pickup.
I force my anger down. I’m overreacting. She doesn’t mean that at all.
“I should apologize,” she says.
“Don’t apologize.”
“That first day. By the creek. It wasn’t fair for me to put that on you.”
“You didn’t put anything on me.”
“I might have given you the wrong idea.”
“You didn’t give me any ideas,” I say, now glancing around the office, wanting this to be over. I don’t know why I asked her to stay. I feel stupid. Was I really that dumb and naive? She’s Mason’s daughter. She’s a shark, from blood to cartilage.
“I’d just come home,” she says. “I was missing my friends. That’s all. You know how it is.”
“I don’t know how it is,” I tell her, “seeing as I didn’t go to college.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh. Of course not.”
She looks at me for a few seconds. Then she goes on.
“It wasn’t a good idea, and we both know it, Brandon.”
“Having sex in the back of my truck?”
She seems to blush. “The whole night.”
“I thought it was perfectly professional.”
“This isn’t good for you either.”
I laugh. “It was plenty good for me. And for you, too, judging by the way you — ”
“How would my father react if he knew?”
“Did you tell him?”
“Of course not.”
“Who did you tell?”
“Nobody!”
“Not even Phoebe?”
She looks away.
“I see. So you didn’t tell anyone at all.”
“You told your sister!”
“I needed her to give us a jump! And to give you a ride home so I could make a meeting with your father! One I missed, thanks to you!”
“Thanks to me?”
“My dick wasn’t in anyone else that night, Riley!”
Her face is more hurt than angry. But then the anger percolates back, and she says, “Yes. You missed the meeting. My father came home plenty pissed. I’ll bet he really gave it to you, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Enough that it probably seemed like he was going to fire you. Certainly not consider you for the vice presidency. Or did you leave that little chat feeling confident? Shack up with the boss’s daughter, miss a meeting, and still stand on top of the world? That’s how it seemed, right?”
I kind of grunt, unsure where she’s going, the hair on the back of my neck standing tall. “So what?”
“He said you were a drunk. Did you know that’s how he thinks of you?”
Now she’s trying to jab me. I’m definitely not a drunk. I go on binges here and there, but they’re isolated. I’ve always been to work on time, always. I’ve never shown up drunk. I’ve never carried a bender past a weekend. Bar girls have been my only casualties, and they all went home happy.
“Marcus came here because of me! I told him to give you another chance!”
My head cocks. Only for a second; I don’t want to give her a point. But I can’t stop my curiosity. I expected her to keep our secret, if she could, but this is strange. She seemed cowed and angry when I left her, and she’s seemed latently angry since, if not overtly angry like now. In my rush and desperation, I’ll admit I came off as an asshole. I can’t really blame her for resenting me. So why go above and beyond?
“Why?”
“Because you deserve it!”
I’ve failed to keep the surprise from my face. Now her eyes look wet. This is how Bridget gets when she’s frustrated. Saying the wrong thing to a crying woman is like making the wrong move around a nervous dog. I’m suddenly sure I’m about to be bitten.
“Why?”
“Oh, fuck off, Brandon,” she says, turning, standing, wiping at her eyes in a way she probably thinks I can’t see.
“Why?” I repeat.
“Why did you tell him what you said, about me?”
“I guess because you deserve it.”
We stare at each other like two fighters squaring off. The distance between us feels a thousand miles away, but still I want to go to her. I’m sure she’d hit me if I approached, but I still want to do it. I can’t not do it.
“It didn’t happen,” she says. “And it won’t happen again.”
“Of course.” I mean it, but now I feel humbled, punched, weak. I’m genuinely agreeing, but mostly saying what she needs to hear. What will make her stop being hurt, stop being angry.
I don’t want her to hate me. A while ago, I didn’t care. But now I do. A lot.
“I have to go,” she says.
“I’ll drive you.”
But she’s already out the door, pulling a phone from her purse to make a call.