Page 10

But the morning after was another story.

Brax got up first and left the room, to avoid waking her up, and went into the guest bathroom and took a shower.

He had his phone with him, which he put on the shower shelf, and turned on what he called his morning wakeup music. Always the same easy-pop tunes, elevator kind of music, with no variations.

Except that one of those tunes, Christopher Cross singing the Bacharach/Sager-penned Best That You Can Do song, stopped him cold. He stood underneath the thick showerhead as the water battered his body and he splayed his hands against the shower wall. That song, those words, caused him to face the full reality of the situation for the first time since last night:

“Once in your life

you find her.

Someone that turns your heart around.

And next thing you know -

you’re closing down the town.

Wake up and it’s still with you.

Even though you left her way ‘cross town.

Wondering to yourself, hey,

what have I found?

When you get caught between the moon

and New York City.

I know it’s crazy,

but it’s true.

When you get caught between the moon

and New York City:

The best that you can do;

The best that you can do,

is fall in love.”

And that was when his heart began to pound. He’d always loved her ever since he saw her again and she was all grown up. But he’d never gone all the way with her before. Not ever. That was the difference. What on earth were they going to do about it? Neither one of them were ready to go down that road, especially not him, but he took them down there. His damn overworked libido took her there! And the guilt was kicking his ass.

He finished showering quickly, got out, dressed, and made his way in the kitchen: as far away from her, and the scene of his crime, as he could get.

By the time Roni woke up, showered and dressed, Brax was in her kitchen with his reading glasses on as he drank coffee and thumbed through what looked like fifty text messages from his various senior executives and plant managers. A strike was brewing at his Belgium plant and they could not reach any tangible agreement with the unions to stop it. But when he looked up and saw that Roni had entered the kitchen and was sitting at the center island fully dressed in a perfectly tailored-to-her-body pantsuit, her trademark heels, and her perfectly groomed afro, and those shades she loved to wear even indoors, his body reacted and he went hard. Which upset him again. Now that he’d had her, how in the world was he going to keep his hands off of her?

He decided on deflection. “I thought I told you not to go into work this morning. Or any other mornings in this town.”

“I wear a uniform to work remember? I’m not going to work. I already emailed my resignation.”

Brax was pleased to hear that. “You did?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“A few minutes ago.”

He could tell it was still a very sore subject for her. “So why are you so decked down if you aren’t going to work?”

Roni looked at him. He wore the same suit he had on last night, but it still looked good on him. He was always decked down too, if you asked her. “A few of my friends want to take me out to lunch. They heard about what happened.”

Brax glanced at the time on his phone. He had been so engrossed in his text messages that he didn’t realize it was almost noon. “Female friends?” he asked her as he continued to look down at his messages.

Roni stared at him so hard that he could feel her stare. He looked up at her.

She was staring at him for a reason. Why would he need to know what sex her friends were? It was true that they’d gone there. That overnight they made love not once, not twice, but three full and complete times before they finally fell asleep. They didn’t even try to discuss it at all because they both knew it changed nothing. There would be no confessions of love. No confessions of compromises. No promises on Brax’s part to be committed to her and no promises on her part to be committed to him. None of that. But then why, Roni wondered, was he acting as if all of that had taken place already?

When her stare wouldn’t quit, he held out his hands, including the one holding his phone. “What?” he asked her.

“Why would it all of a sudden matter to you if my friends are male or female?”

Brax understood entirely what she meant, but he wasn’t ready to go there. “What are you trying to say?”

“You never asked me the sex of my friends whenever I went out with them before. Just as I never ask you who you go out with. That’s how it goes with us. What’s changed?”

Everything , Brax wanted to say, but he knew that would only be partly true. His desire for her was already high, but now it was through the roof. That part had definitely changed. But he knew he could never commit the way she wanted. He could never be that hero she needed. He would only break her heart in the end just as his father loved his mother totally but broke her heart over and over and over again. Roni was tough, but she was fragile too. Unlike his mother, who stayed in the marriage and allowed the maltreatment, one heartbreak would be too much for Roni. “I’ve always been concerned about you,” was the best answer Brax could come up with. “That’s always been there. After last night . . .” He started it, but he didn’t finish it.

But Roni wasn’t letting him off the hook. Her only hope was that he didn’t lie to her and claim he was a changed man. She knew him too well for that. “After last night what, Brax?”

“Last night was different, Roni, I can’t pretend that it wasn’t.”

Roni frowned. “Of course it was different. We . . .” Now it was her time to not go there. “It was different. But are we different? Is that what you’re saying? That you’re different?” That you’re ready to be in a committed relationship with me? was what she wanted to add, but didn’t.

Brax wished to God he could say that he had changed. That he was this new man. He wanted her in every way possible. He loved her in every way possible. But they both knew he was like a forty-three year old kid on an agonizingly long road trip. He wasn’t there yet. They both doubted if he would ever be there yet.

Brax was about to speak, although he wasn’t at all sure what he was going to say, when his phone began ringing. Roni could see the large-lettered name pop up on his Caller ID. The name of Jessica. And to both of them it was just a perfect metaphor for their reality. Especially for Brax. Just seeing that name that he allowed a female to put in his phone while he was waiting for Roni to come to dinner last night made clear that nothing had truly changed between them. At least not where it mattered.

“Aren’t you going to answer it?” Roni asked him.

“No. I don’t even know her. Just somebody I was talking to last night. She’s just another female to me.”

“Aren’t they all?”

Brax knew it was true, but he still didn’t like her throwing it in his face. And then the phone finally stopped ringing. “I’ll say this and then I’m through with it,” he said to her in that voice she knew he used on his employees. “I don’t regret what happened last night.”

Roni didn’t expect him to say that, and to say it so firmly. “Why don’t you?”

“Because it needed to be done. Unrequited lust is just as bad as unrequited love. Unrequited means something that’s not returned or rewarded. A waste of time, in other words. I don’t like anything unrequited.”

They stared at each other. What about love , Roni wanted to ask. He talked about lust. What about love? Was her love for him returned and rewarded? Was his love for her? They never spoke of it, and even Roni wasn’t ready to put it all on the line like that either.

“Are you sorry what happened?” Brax asked her.

Roni hesitated, but she answered. “I don’t like unrequited things in my life no more than you do. So, no, I’m not sorry it happened. But it does give me some clarity.”

This interested Brax. “Clarity about what?”

“I’ll be thirty in a few weeks. The age that takes you from just being a grown woman, to a grown-ass woman. A grownup. It’s high time I get on with my life too.”

Brax’s heart dropped. One day he could very well lose her to another man because of his inability to control his need for a different kind of speed. Because he was beginning to realize that Roni wasn’t the only adrenalin junkie in that room. He was one too. Only his rush didn’t come from chasing bad guys and putting them in their place, but his rush came from variety in his bed, even though variety, at the end of the day, was another word for fear. After what happened to his brother, he was terrified of commitment and that still hadn’t wavered. He might lose Roni to another man, but at least he’d still be in her life. If they became committed, he was afraid he could lose her forever. And that was a thought he could not abide.

He wanted Roni above any woman alive. He’d take her all day long. He just wouldn’t know how to keep her when he got her. That was the problem.

But he could see that she had the same concern in her eyes too. She was worried that if they continued down the path they started down last night, he was going to break her heart. That their decision last night was going to ruin their great relationship forevermore. It was the fear of his life too. He couldn’t lose Roni. He just couldn’t. “Even if that happens,” he said to her in response to her statement about getting on with her life, “I’ll still be around. We’ll still be great pals, don’t worry. That’ll never change.”

Pals ? That word struck a chord with Roni. Was that all they were ever going to be? Just pals? Even after last night ?

She knew he was a grown-ass man who was so commitment-phobic that telling her he loved her when he thought she was asleep stunned him shitless. But after last night she somehow expected more from him. Not a full-blown commitment. That would have been too much for even her to handle. But at least an I’ll try to do better by you. I’ll try to work on myself to see if we can make something of our super-strong connection. I’ll try to see if we can be more than just pals. He would at least try. But she couldn’t even get that out of him.

But who was she kidding? It was Braxton McCrae she was talking about. No woman alive was ever going to hold his attention long enough to get him to any altar, and definitely not to any happily ever after. Not even her. And despite last night, which started as the worst night of her life and ended as the best night of her life, she had to face facts once again. Braxton McCrae, no matter how much she wanted to make it so, was never going to change.

When she still seemed unsettled to him, he took it a step further. “Although I failed to do so last night, I’m still going to keep my word to your mother and stay away from you. At least in that way ,” he said with a smile, “which I know was what she meant.”

A part of Roni was still deflated. Why wouldn’t he even try to make it work? Did he not love her enough? Was that it? She knew he loved her above any other woman he fooled around with, but that wasn’t saying much. He probably didn’t love any of those other women at all.

And although she didn’t smile; and although she wasn’t going to pretend that it didn’t hurt, she was at least grateful he didn’t promise her things that wasn’t in his DNA to deliver. At least he didn’t lie to her. “And I promise to keep my hands off of you too,” she said bluntly.

But Brax was taken aback by her pledge. “Who said that was the issue?” he asked, and both of them laughed.

He raised his cup of coffee. “To the greatest friendship ever,” he said.

And although both of them wanted more, much more, they both knew it was for the best.

At least for now.

Roni picked up an empty glass, another metaphor, and toasted to whatever they could cling onto.