No Turning Back (The Traveler) (5 page)

Taylor dashed into the back to warn Gary, who was organizing boxes of records and CDs in the back of the store.

“Gary, the girl from earlier just walked in with Melissa.”

Gary looked at him and paused, perplexed over what Taylor was telling him.

“What?”

“You know, the blonde who bought this ugly shirt from you this morning. Well, she just walked in with Melissa, and she’s still wearing the shirt.”

“Do they know each other?”

“I don’t know, but they walked in together,” Taylor informed him. “And I’m sure Melissa recognizes the shirt.”

Gary nodded and thought about what to do. “Okay, well, I don’t know what’s going on, so I’ll just play it cool. You walk back out, and I’ll come out only if Melissa asks for me.”

Taylor nodded back.

As soon as Taylor returned to the cash register out front, Melissa and Valerie were waiting for him.

“Hey, is Gary in the back? I need to speak to him for a minute,” Melissa asked civilly. She was gorgeous with dark-brown hair, a radiant smile and beige safari shorts, a white tank top and sandals over her perfectly tanned skinned from a summer vacation in Negril, Jamaica. She made Valerie look like an eye-candy cheerleader in an attention-getting shirt that was obviously too tight for her.

Taylor and the other staff members responded curiously.

Okay, he just needs to find out what’s going on,
Taylor told himself.
If anyone can handle this, it’s Gary.
He had witnessed his friend work magic with aggravated women before.

“All right, I’ll go back and let him know.”

Gary walked out a few minutes behind Taylor, careful to keep his cool.

“Hey, what’s going on? I see you made it over today a little earlier than expected,” he commented. It was only after three. He didn’t expect to hear from or see Melissa until closing time. He didn’t acknowledge Valerie at all. She still had a great set of twins in his company tee, but that was about it. Nothing else about her could stand up next to Melissa’s bounty. It was a no-brainer for a sporting man. So Gary acted as if he never met the other girl.

“I guess we’re
all
into surprises today,” Melissa commented, throwing the first barb.

Gary maintained his innocence with a grin and said, “Yeah, I guess so.”

It was another game of poker for him. He would never show her his hand.

“So, I see you met my friend Valerie today.”

It was the question that everyone was waiting for, but Gary blew it off like a gnat. “Yeah, she even bought one of our T-shirts, as you can see.”

Melissa acknowledged his flippant response to her question and went on the attack. “Oh, don’t even give me that,” she snapped. “I heard you tried to ask her out.”

Gary didn’t want a dramatic scene inside of his store, but there was nothing he could do. A few customers milled around looking at CDs and grinning as they eavesdropped.

“Is that what she told you?” Gary asked. He planned to make Valerie explain herself, point for point.

If she wants to play it that way, then I’ll make her play it to the courtroom of public opinion,
he plotted.

As expected, Valerie spoke up to defend her story. “Yeah, you did.”

Oh, boy, here we go again,
Taylor thought to himself beside his friend and behind the register. He held back his grin while awaiting the fireworks in his own poker face. Another Gary Stevens escapade was unfolding in front of him.

Gary remained calm and asked Valerie, “What exactly did I say?”

“You said if I was ever downtown or whatever to call you up and we could hang out. And you gave me your number.”

Melissa pulled out his business card with his cell phone number written on the back.

“And then you told her about your loft?” she added.

Aw, man, this is terrible!
Taylor thought.
He’s not swindling his way out of this one.

Gary’s staff members realized it as well. So did his customers, who had front-row seats to the drama. Nevertheless, Gary maintained an iron focus under pressure. It was a gift that he had used often. Nothing seemed to rattle him. He held a concentrated poker face and evoked the age-old, battleground-tested strategy employed by men everywhere:
Deny, deny, deny.

“Yeah, I asked her if she wanted to help promote my company T-shirts, since she liked them so much,” he stated. “Then I asked her if she could do party promotions for my events. I even told her to invite her boyfriend out. And I said we have some great new locations here downtown. You even said so yourself,” he appealed to Melissa.

“I mean, what’s going on here?” he asked. “Your friend went all out of her way to get herself one of my T-shirts, even
paying
for it. Then she put it all on right out in front of us, like a big show or something, all while I was speaking to my mother on the phone.”

Taylor was impressed. Gary had successfully returned the volley back to Melissa. Had Valerie attempted to set him up?

“You didn’t tell me about any parties,” Melissa responded weakly.

“You told me you’re not into parties anymore,” he reminded her. “But I run a record store. Parties sell music. They go together. It’s business. Just look at all of the fliers we have at the front of the store.”

There was a loaded table of Louisville area promotions near the front entrance.

Melissa looked to her tall friend to validate it all.

Valerie said, “He only started talking about parties after I had told him I had a boyfriend.”

“That’s not true,” Gary objected calmly. “I asked her about modeling and party promotions immediately. That’s the only reason I grabbed my card.”

Even Taylor and the staff members could vouch for him on that point. They began to nod and agree in unison, remembering everything.

Valerie had made the crucial mistake that Gary anticipated. Her facts were out of sync, which wrecked her credibility. To add to his argument, Gary looked up and pointed above his cash register to the panoramic video camera.

He asked Melissa, “Do I need to pull out the tape in my security camera to show you? I mean, this is ludicrous.”

Valerie tried in vain to defend herself. “Yeah, but once we got outside—”

Gary shrugged and eyed Melissa cynically before her friend could even finish her sentence. No more explanation was needed. Valerie’s accusations were meritless.

Melissa suddenly seemed embarrassed by it all. She looked down and shook her head, taking a deep breath. “Okay, this is all—” She stopped and raised her palms in defeat. “I’m sorry,” she muttered.

Taylor grinned and thought,
Un-fucking-believable! This guy is amazing!

Valerie paused and felt humiliated. She realized that she was outmatched. Gary had covered all of his tracks, and there was no way that she could win in a public debate with him.

“You know what …” she started and stopped. She was tempted to call him an asshole, but her allegations and ire were pointless.

Gary did his math and said, “Okay, I see what this is now. You sent her over here on purpose to try and get a rise out of me.”

He walked away toward the store entrance as if gravely disappointed. Melissa followed behind him and right out of the store, feeling guilty and busted. She needed to explain herself.

Gary turned and faced her on the sidewalk on 4th Street. He asked her, “Why would you do that? What kind of friend are you? You sent her over here to act like a
flirt
just to see what I would do?”

Gary didn’t feel like wasting more of his energy on the feeble argument. He said, “You know what? That’s why my mom is so particular about the girls I choose to go out with. Now I don’t even know if I want you to meet her.”

Melissa felt crushed. “Gary, I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I’m just tired of getting involved with guys who play around.”

“So you send your girlfriend over here to test me? We haven’t even started officially dating yet. So what are you planning to do for an encore?”

“Well, what do you call last night?” she shot back at him. She didn’t care if pedestrians overheard her either. Her feelings were hurt and she was confused about everything. She just knew that Gary was a playboy who liked to sleep around, and she wanted to prove it.

Gary answered, “I call it a sleepover. What do you call it? I mean, did I miss something here?” Obviously, they were not on the same page. What did Melissa want from him?

She took another breath and confessed, “Gary, I have a lot of trust issues that I’m still working on after breaking off with Kevin. I mean, I was just really hurt by him.”

“Yeah, well, maybe you should work on healing before you decide to sleep with another guy,” he advised her. “Because life goes on, and I don’t plan to pay for what Kevin did. I’m not him.”

Two older women in their fifties passed them by and took an extra look.

“Mmmph,” one of the older women grunted. “He sure told her the truth.”

Melissa didn’t know what else to say. She looked straight into Gary’s tie-dyed T-shirt and then up into his eyes to see if he had it in him to forgive her.

“So you don’t trust me know?” Her voice cracked with raw emotion.

Gary looked into her dark-brown eyes and lovely tanned face and felt sorry for both of them. Melissa had trust issues, and he had issues with commitment. So they had nowhere positive to go. He admitted as much to her.

“Let’s just get real here, Melissa. This is definitely not heading in the right direction. I mean, as you know, I like girls. There’s no doubt about that. And you obviously like attractive guys who other girls like. So you’ll always have trust issues unless you go out with someone who no one else likes. And that’s not me. I’m sorry.”

Gary couldn’t believe his own voice. He was actually being truthful instead of playing her. But she obviously wanted a commitment; a decision Gary wasn’t willing to grant her.

He looked back into the store through the window at his friend Taylor, who was manning the phone line. And he decided to play an honest matchmaker.

He said, “If you were to go out with my friend Taylor, he would worship the ground you walked on. You could marry him next
week
and would never have to worry about him,” he joked. “He’s just that loyal. But if you continue to fall for guys like me … I mean, you’ll just end up scheming more ridiculous plans like this one, because you can never trust us,” he leveled with her. “You’ll only get hurt.’’

It was one of the few moments where Gary’s full maturity was on display. But he felt he had to say it. He felt he owed it to Melissa. She was that eager for truth.

Melissa’s heart pounded and she could feel her voice quiver. “What are you trying to say?” she asked him. “You don’t even want to give us a chance now, while you try and set up with your
friend
?”

She was offended. Taylor was cute and nice, but not in her league. Gary hadn’t been there either until he charmed and seduced her. She blamed that on her moment of weakness. She was rebounding from a hurtful breakup and Gary seized upon her vulnerable moment. But now she
saw his real potential. He could even be bluntly honest with her, which attracted her more. He wasn’t all fun and games after all—he had some real substance to him. So how dare he shoot her down?

Gary looked into her passionate eyes and said, “What else do you want me to say? I mean, you’re still a great-looking girl, and I like you a lot. But I seriously don’t know how long it’ll last. And it has nothing to do with you, that’s just how I am. I mean, I’ve always been that way. I don’t last very long in relationships.”

Melissa stared at him in frustration. She said, “Gary, how long are you gonna continue to do that? Don’t you know when to hold on to something good?”

She surely felt attractive enough to keep him long-term.

Gary answered, “Yeah, good for today, but what about for tomorrow? As soon as a girl starts acting like you are right now, then bam, all of the fun is gone.”

Melissa stood there on the sidewalk, trying earnestly to change his outlook. “Well, just think about your parents for a minute, Gary. A real relationship is a great thing to have. It’s how we all grow into caring and loving adults.”

She was really pouring on the love sauce, but she obviously had a lot more to learn about him. So Gary cut her sentimental philandering short.

“Actually, I’ve never met my father,” he told her. “And my mother never told me much about him. Maybe my old man is commitment-phobia-prone as I am.” He always had his own ideas about his missing-in-action father, so family commitment never appealed to him.

“Well, maybe you should think seriously about breaking that cycle,” Melissa insisted. She was pressing hard to keep something going with him. However, Gary figured it was more about her ego than her genuine interest. She clearly didn’t like to lose. He could also predict her control issues. That was what her insecurities were all about, her inability to govern hard-at-play men.

Just as Gary began to deny her, Taylor interrupted them on the sidewalk while standing inside the entrance doorway.

“Gary,” he addressed with a thoughtful pause, “you really need to take this phone call.”

Gary read the urgency in Taylor’s eyes. He looked back to Melissa, pleading there on the sidewalk with him, and said, “Excuse me for a minute.”

As soon as he reentered the store, Taylor’s expression was stoic. “It’s about your mother.”

Gary stopped and questioned him for clarity. “My mother? Well, what …?” He rushed over to the cordless phone behind the register to answer the awaiting call.

“Hello?”

“Gary Stevens?”

“Yeah, this is Gary Stevens.”

He listened to the grave news as Taylor watched his face and body language. Gary suddenly froze, looking stunned, speechless. All that moved was his chest from deep breathing, which accelerated.

“I’m on my way,” he responded abruptly and hung up the phone. “Joyce, Stephanie, you guys run the store and call Raymond in to manage. I have an emergency to take care of,” he told his staff members. “Taylor, I need you to drive,” he informed his friend.

He trotted straight for the front door, Taylor quick-stepping behind.