Exposed (Free Falling) (36 page)

I nodded and let his fingers slip from mine as he climbed out of the cab after paying the driver for the ride and also
to take me to my apartment.  AJ looked back before disappearing inside.  I waved, letting him know that it was okay for him to go, but when he was gone, I fought to put my emotions into perspective.

There I sat, alone in a cab, watching the man I loved ge
tting ready to board a plane, knowing that another woman would be there to greet him when he landed.  The driver glanced at me from the rearview mirror as I brushed away the few tears I shed, realizing that this was what I chose.  By not telling AJ that I couldn’t do this, that it was over between us, I’d sealed my own fate.  Whatever happened from this point, I’d have to live with knowing that it could’ve all been avoided if I’d just had the strength to live without him.

Unfortunately
for me…that just wasn’t an option.

C
hapte
r
N
ineteen

AJ

A sense of dread accompanied the sound of the landing-gear coming into contact with the runway.  The amount of lies that I’d have to tell tonight and tomorrow
alone
would be staggering.  I could feel it.  No longer able to put it off, I exited and made my way outside to meet Kira.

Her face
lit up the second she saw me and it was harder than I thought to look her in the eyes, but I did it – faked a smile and everything.  She kissed my cheek, but I managed to turn away before she caught my lips.  I returned her embrace, surprised at how foreign it felt holding her.   I’d become accustomed to feelings Sam’s feminine curves pressed against me when we hugged.  The full breasts, hips, thighs – all of that was absent now with Kira in my arms.  It almost felt like I’d break her if I squeezed too hard.

“I missed you so much,” she said, still holding on.

“I missed you too,” I replied, wondering if Sam’s perfume was still embedded in my shirt.

Kira stepped back, smiled up at me again, and then took my hand.  We walked to her car and I already felt my palms sweating, wondering what we’d talk about while we drove to the house.

“Three more weeks and we won’t have to do this anymore!” she beamed.

I wh
ipped my head in her direction when she reminded me how quickly her time in Fairfax was coming to an end.  Soon, she’d be there with me in New York on a permanent basis.  When the polite expression slipped from my face, I turned to stare out the window instead.

“No more fast food for dinner.  No more sleeping on that awful mattress,” she added, assuming that her presence in the loft
would be a welcomed change, which was technically the way I
should’ve
felt, but…

“Oh!  And Reina and I worked on some of the wedding plans while she was here.  I’ll show you the book I made when we get to the house.  I have color swatches, a tentative guest list, and I’ve marked a few venues I
need to check out before the move.  I figured we’d come back here to get married since our families and most of our friends are all here,” she rambled, not realizing that I hadn’t heard a thing she said.  I was still stuck on the fact that, in three short weeks, my life was about to get a hell of a lot more complicated.

“Are you listening?” she asked when I failed to answer.  “Rei
na was really a big help.”

I nodded, but didn’t say anything, mostly because I didn’t want to talk about her sister
…and maybe not the wedding either.

“
She’s freaking
huge
now!” Kira added.  “The doctors say the twins are doing well, though.”

“Cool,” was about the most enthusiastic response I could give.  It sounded extremely sarcastic leaving my mouth, but Kira knew how I felt about Reina before she even brought her up.

“Are you mad just because she came out here to visit?” Kira asked.

I didn’t answer right away.  “No, but I don’t necessarily
wanna talk about her either.  I know she’s your sister and all, but…I just don’t wanna talk about her,” I repeated.

Kira looke
d straight ahead and didn’t speak again.  The tension in the car was terrible.  Still bathed in silence, we pulled into the driveway and Kira undid her seatbelt while the garage door closed.  I slung my bag over my shoulder and followed her inside.  The familiar scent and atmosphere of the home we’d shared made me feel even more uncomfortable, which I hadn’t expected.  It served as a reminder of the fact that the life I’d been living
lately
was far removed from this one.

“If you want to relax, I’ll heat dinner again,”
were the first words Kira had spoken in a while and they were said with an air of uncertainty.

That wasn’t right; she hadn’t done anything.
  I decided then that I had to change my attitude.  There was misplaced animosity that I wasn’t expecting to feel toward her, but it was definitely affecting the way I’d treated her since the second she met me at the airport.  My tone and responses were clipped, and my body language was putting her on the defense too.  Taking a deep breath, I set my bag down, deciding to put forth more of an effort. 

“Need help?”

She looked up, surprised when I made the offer, smiling a little.  “No…just relax.  I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

I nodded
, forcing myself to smile back, and took my things upstairs.  Everything was clean and neat just like always.  I sat on the edge of the bed and looked around after turning on the lamp.  Kira had packed up some of our things already, so there were boxes in the corners, but otherwise everything was in its place. 

“
What the hell are you doing
?” I said to myself, letting it sink in that in a few weeks, she’d be moving in with me and leaving her life and her job behind, while I wasn’t even sure that this was what I still wanted.  She’d already sunk time and money into the wedding, which was bad enough.  I couldn’t let her completely uproot herself to follow me – not if I wanted to be able to look at myself in the mirror later.

When Kira called out from the bottom of the stairs, letting me know that dinner was ready, I’d been sitting there pondering my dilemma for almost twenty minutes.  I had zero appetite, but I had to try to act as normal as possible.  She’d set up the table like we were having guests – all for me.  She smiled from her seat as two candles flickered between us.

“There’s plenty more when you finish.  I figured you’d be going back for seconds since you haven’t had a home-cooked meal in so long.”

Or so she thought
.

Forcing yet another smile, I reached for my fork. I placed a wedge of potato in my mouth, only to look up and find Kira staring at me.

“You sure everything’s okay?” she asked.  “You seem…I don’t know…distracted?  Are you stressed about the meeting tomorrow?” She was genuinely concerned.

I shook my head.  “No, the meeting’s not really a bi
g deal.  I just have to be present.”

She tried to smile, but I got the feeling she was worried.  “Is it something else then?”

I almost confessed right then and there – that’s how heavy my heart was.  My stomach turned and I acknowledged again that I wasn’t cut out for this lifestyle.  “Everything’s fine,” I lied, continuing to chew.  “The food’s good, though.”

She nodded, accepting my compliment
with a smile, and finally started eating from her plate.  There were very few words exchanged between us, making for one extremely awkward ‘welcome home’ dinner.  I accepted the blame for that one-hundred percent.

Kira collected the dishes and I went up to shower, using that time to detox as much as possible.  Naturally, my thoughts drifted to Sam – wondering what she was doing, hoping she knew that
this visit was strictly work-related.  Sure, I was sharing a space with Kira, but that was merely a default arrangement.  I couldn’t very well come into town and go to a hotel instead of the house I was still technically paying the mortgage on.  But I was dead-set against being intimate with Kira.  Not just now, but while Sam and I were involved. Period.
That
I couldn’t do.  It was bad enough that I was stringing Kira along emotionally.  It’d be on a whole different level of douchebaggery to be sleeping with them both at the same time.

I turned off the water and dressed quickly in the bedroom while Kira finished up in the kitchen.  I put my phone in the pocket of my sweats so I could sneak away to
make a call as soon as the coast was clear.  As if the universe was answering my silent prayer for just a few minutes of solitude to talk to Sam, Kira came in and gave me the out that I needed.

“Be back
in a few.  I’m gonna go shower, too.” She smiled and then took her robe into the bathroom with her.  As soon as I heard the water turn on, I raced down the stairs to the living room with the phone already ringing.

“Hey,” Sam
answered, trying to hide how happy she was to hear from me.

“Told you
I’d call,” I replied just above a whisper.  She giggled quietly and I found myself wishing I could’ve been sitting there beside her.

“You
did
say that, but I honestly didn’t believe you,” she admitted with another soft laugh.

“Why not?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said dismissively.  “But either way, I’m glad you made good on your word.  How was the flight?”

I sat back
and sighed.  “Fine.  No problems.”

“Good.”

We were plunged into silence after she replied, so I decided to pick up where our conversation left off before we got caught up in my office.  “I know I already apologized, but…I really am sorry for not calling those few days.  It – ”

“Don’t even w
orry about it,” she interrupted.  “I get it.”

I smiled.  “But I’m glad you came to see me today.”

She hesitated, which made me look down at my phone to make sure the call hadn’t dropped.  “Yeah…me too,” she finally answered.

Did she really think I was
gonna let that go? 

“What was
that
about?” I asked, casually, leaning deeper into the couch.

She sighed heavily into the phone and confirmed my suspicions; something
was
wrong.  “Can I be honest with you about something?” she asked.

I frowned at the question.  “Of course you can.  What is it?”

She released another breath before going on.  “Okay…..soooo…..what would you say if I told you that my reason for coming to your job today wasn’t what you thought it was?”

I stared at the gold-framed mirror hanging above the fireplace, expressionless.  “I’d ask what your real reason was,” I replied, running through a mental list of possibilities while I waited.

She was silent on the other end for quite some time.  When she finally did speak, she had my complete, undivided attention.  “The truth is…you weren’t the only one who needed to do some thinking these past few days,” she began.  “I did quite a bit of soul-searching myself.”

Realizing that this conversation could go one of two ways
, I asked, “And what’d you come up with?”

“
Well…” she breathed.  “What I came up with and what happened are two totally different things.”

I kept my eyes on the mirror and said nothing.

“My plan was to end things between us today, AJ.” 

We both sat silently for a while.  Unsure of what
her
thoughts were, mine drifted back over our encounter earlier that day.  At some point, she’d gone from having her heart set on that being the last time we spoke or saw one another, to being hemmed up on my desk with her legs spread.  Clearly something got lost in translation.  Now
I
was confused.

“I didn’t realize that’s what you had in mind.”

She actually laughed a little.  “Yeah…clearly things didn’t exactly go like I meant for them to.”

I sat
quietly , imagining what would’ve happened if she’d come into my office and stuck to her guns.  “So…what now?” I asked.  As hard as it was to add the second part of that question, I had to.  “Is that still what you want to do?”

Sam took a deep breath and it felt like it took an hour for her to respond.  “I may not like the situation, but I’m obviously not going anywhere…..I
can’t
,” she added, almost sounding ashamed.

M
y heart wrenched at the idea of her feeling like this was her rightful place in my life. 

“I’
m gonna fix this,” I promised, although neither one of us had a clue at the time what that meant.  All I knew was I hated the idea of her sitting by twiddling her thumbs while I kept her in limbo.  A decision would have to be made – one way or another.

The sound of Kira walking around upstairs meant that I should end the call.

“I have to go, but first thing Saturday morning, I’m coming to see you so we can talk,” I promised.

Sam didn’t say much else, just
replied with a solemn, “Okay,” just before the line went silent.