ROUGH RIDER (41 page)

I’d reached for too much.

“Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve wanted to go to England,” Riley told me. “I grew up watching British sitcoms, classic episodes of
Doctor Who
. I can tell you all about Daleks and Cybermen and Ice Warriors… I can recount tales of Gallifrey and Skarro, of Davros and the Time Lords…”

“You know your stuff,” I observed.

“You present an interesting opportunity,” Riley thought aloud. “And I understand that this is a painless way to make a clean break. I can return with you and submerge myself in Great Britain, although that might set me back a little on the painting front…”

“You will have all the room you need to paint,” I whispered.

“Is that so?”

“You should see Lambert House,” I told her, recalling the estate fondly. “It stands proud and tall in the English countryside, down a long, winding road lined with beautiful trees…three stories tall with a sprawling basement and a massive attic, a thick wall all around for privacy, and magnificent gardens lining the front and the back… my cluster of orange trees bloom so brightly in the spring, growing the most delicious citrus you’ve ever tasted…”

“You paint a compelling argument,” Riley whispered. “Will I have a studio?”

“I know just the room already,” I thought wistfully. “On the west side of the house, with a great glass ceiling, where the sunlight catches just right no matter if you work at noon or sunset. The oranges and yellows of the horizon are so beautiful there, and you’ll have enough space for a small gallery in that room alone… and a raised platform for your work.”

“It sounds very beautiful,” Riley murmured, closing her eyes to picture it. “Are there any closets?”

“Several,” I answered, “clustered near the raised flooring. There’s plenty of shelving, several bookcases… and ample light. You can store absolutely anything that you need, and if it’s somehow not enough… I can always call out my contractors to install more space for you. Anything that you need.”

“You actually mean that, don’t you, Lex?”

“Absolutely.”

Riley considered this carefully, her fingertips still stroking along my bare skin.

“Can my friends come to visit sometimes?”

“I see absolutely no reason why not.”

She turned her face one last time, regarding me cautiously and carefully.

“Why me?” Riley finally asked.

I smiled. Answering that question something that didn’t require even the slightest ounce of brainpower… because I’d known the right response for a while now.

“Because you’re not like the others Riley… Your art… Your mind… The way you make me feel when I see you… I’m always left wanting more.”

“That’s a nice little speech there,” she chuckled. “Kind of convincing, too. Have you always been this silver-tongued?”

“I’ve had a lot of time to think about this.”

Riley seemed to accept that reply.

“You realize, of course,” she told me, “that in order for me to join you back abroad… I can’t just be your partner, or your girlfriend, or your friend with benefits. I need my art, Lex, and I won’t give up my business. Getting a work visa in the UK is nearly impossible. Even money can’t cut through all the red tape. It might be years before I can get the necessary paperwork, and the damage that would do… I can’t pursue my work there unless…”

“Unless you were my wife.”

“It’s not going to be that easy. I expect more from people who are asking me to make that plunge with them. You’re going to have to propose your
ass
off if you want any remote chance that I’ll agree to something this crazy. I barely know you Lex.”

“You could look me up, if you really wanted to,” I said quietly. It was all there online… My checkered history… My indiscretions…

“I guess I was just enjoying the surprises… A part of me didn’t want to know who you are,” she replied quietly.

“If you won’t look, let me tell you the most important thing.”

A faint, deviant smile crossed her lips.

“I love you, Riley.”

A
couple
of blissful afternoons later came the day that things finally came crashing down with Lex. Unaware of the things to come, I wandered into Connor’s record store with Reiko by my side, ready to answer a strange text message to drop by.

He was busy running some paperwork in the back, so Reiko and I perused some of the records. Even if he had a misguided jealousy complex, I couldn’t ignore the fact that Connor had extremely great tastes when it came to music.

Probably why he drew so much of the local talent… and the bigger names that passed through town, playing their venues. More than one legendary secret show had happened within the basement beneath this record store.

When Connor finally popped out from the back, his eyes immediately zeroed in on me. He called his assistant over and waved his hands around animatedly, clearly telling her off under his breath.

I could imagine why, although it didn’t please me that he was so hard on her. She was helping other customers, after all.

She looked absolutely downtrodden as she returned to help a pair of punks check out some vintage material. Meanwhile, Connor waved us both over, and we followed him towards the back of the store.

Passing through the beaded curtain along the doorway behind the counter, he guided us past a couple of storage rooms and to his main office. We leaned against the wall, avoiding the various tables that were buried under spare record sheaths and mountains of paperwork, while Connor slipped around the back of his small, beaten desk.

“What kind of favor did you need?” I asked him, crossing my arms.

“Actually, I just said that to get you to come over, although I was kind of hoping that we’d be… alone…” he glanced over at Reiko guiltily.

She sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Why’s that, Connor?” I demanded, just waiting on him to fuck this up. What he did next… I could never have seen coming.

“So, I looked into this Lex of yours,” he started, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“You don’t have to say anything Connor. I already know he’s wealthy…”

“Wealthy is part of it… He’s a goddamned celebrity.”

“A celebrity?” I asked, my curiosity piquing.

“Yeah… he’s a huge deal in England, actually. He’s not just
any
soccer player, he’s basically
the
soccer player… captain of what they call the National team, sort of a football super-group that represents the entire country in the international World Cup Series.”

“Oh shit,
seriously?
” Reiko chimed in. “That’s wicked cool!” She elbowed me lightly in the ribs, a massive smile across her face. “What a fucking catch, girl!”

“I knew he played… But… The World Cup? Are you sure about this?” I asked, pensively.

“Yeah. He’s been playing with them for a couple of years now. Before then, he was in some of the major teams, so he’s what you might think of as a national icon. The audiences love him. He’s one of the best players in the world… handsome, charming… and absolutely great with the fans.”

“So, why do you care?” Reiko asked, tilting her head. “We all know that you’ve been pissed off about this guy for a few weeks… have you finally come around, or what?”

Connor’s face darkened.

“No, actually, because there’s more to it.”

“What, is he a fucking
astronaut, too?
” Reiko chuckled. “Does he play that sport on the goddamn moon?”

“No,” Connor gravely answered. “He stays relevant to pop culture for his skills, his charm… and his reputation.”

“What
kind
of reputation?” I asked.

Before he could respond, I was already dreading the answer. My stomach began to turn as he quietly hid the fact that he was
relishing
this fucking moment… that meant that, whatever I was about to learn?

It was going to be bad.

Really
bad.

“Instead of telling you, I should probably just
show
you,” Connor replied carefully, reaching for a nearby manila folder. He scattered a couple of sheets off of it, retrieving it from a nearby pile of documents, and unsheathed a stapled stack of papers before handing them to me.

As I glanced down at what I was seeing, my blood began to completely boil.

Each page was a different printout of a British tabloid cover or interior article. On every page, there was a large snapshot of Lex Lambert in a compromising position, with a sensationalist headline that put his exploits front and center:

Lightning Lex Caught with Innocent Starlet!

Lambert Throws Destructive Hotel Orgy!

Lightning Strikes Again! Now with Two Co-eds!

Lightning Lambert’s Beach Sex-capades!

Lex’s New Record: One Night, Five Dancers!

I flipped through page after page of his sexual exploits, each one more ridiculous than the last. Paparazzi shots with tasteful blurring adorned the package of files that Connor had handed me, and I could barely make it two-thirds through before I just skimmed the rest and sank to the floor.

The two of them remained silent.

Reiko took the folder from my quaking hands and skimmed through the pages, and then sighed as she set it down beside my ankle.

“Well… I guess nobody’s perfect,” she mumbled. “I’m really sorry, Riley.”

I clenched my fists, opening and closing them repeatedly. “I can’t believe I trusted him so implicitly,” I spat out between my grinding teeth. “How could I be such a goddamn idiot?”

“You’re not an idiot, sweetie,” Reiko tried to comfort me. She placed a hand on my shoulder and rubbed it lightly. “You just trust people. You take them at their word sometimes. And, to be fair, that guy is
hella
hot. It’s no wonder you’re just finding out about this now.”

“Why?” I asked nobody in particular, scraping the heels to my shoes across the tile. “I knew his name. Why didn’t I bother to even remotely check on him?”

“Google is a beautiful thing,” Connor commented dryly. “I’m just glad I looked into this before it got any more serious.”

I flashed him an ugly stare, and Reiko immediately took in a quick breath of air.

“Connor,” she mentioned, “now’s not a good–”

“You didn’t do this because you were looking out for me,” I accused him, rising up the length of the wall and stepping towards him. “You did this because you’re jealous of him. We all know you’ve got a huge crush on me. I get it. You’re pissy that I found someone else. You’ve been passive-aggressive over Lex for weeks.”

“Wait, Riley–” He tried to blurt out.

“No. Fuck it all. You
love
that he’s got these fucking skeletons in his closet. It takes him out of the running so that, what, you can swoop right in and rescue me when I need you? What kind of white knight bullshit were you thinking?”

“Riley,” Reiko tried to intervene. “I think you’re being a bit hard on him–”

“Stay out of this, Reiko,” I commanded her before turning back to him. Connor simply stood there, seated on the edge of the desk and staring at me with sadness staining his eyes.

“Of course I’m fucking mad that this has happened. But I’m angrier still with
you
.
You
didn’t bring this to my attention out of the kindness of your heart, and we all know it. You did this to get a leg up on him.

“Well, spoiler alert, Connor. You’re a good guy, but I’m not into you. I’ve
never
been into you. And I never will
be. You’re like a brother to me. You know this. How many times do I have to tell you?”

Connor swallowed, and rose up from his desk. He turned around and faced the large David Bowie poster up behind his desk – the single piece of decoration in his office.

“Please go,” he half-croaked.

“Connor…” Reiko whispered after him.

“I need to be alone,” he insisted miserably. “When you go, please tell Tiana to lock up and excuse herself for the day. I’ll give her a full shift’s pay.”

I grunted my approval of that response, reaching down to snatch up the folder of revelations into Lex’s past. As I stood up, I noticed that neither of them had budged an inch.

“Are you coming, Reiko?”

She didn’t turn away from him.

“Reiko?”

“No, I… go ahead without me,” she spoke.

I suppressed a deep, angry sigh, and passed down the hallway and towards the front. Tiana had just finished ringing up the two punks, and they were traipsing back out of the store, leaving just us.

I relayed the message to her, and she avoided eye contact with me. It seemed that she’d probably heard some of the exclamations from the back, so I shook my head bitterly and let her lock me outside as she flipped the
Open
sign around.

By the time the streetcar got me to the end of my street, the sun was already beginning to set on the horizon. I called ahead to a Chinese takeout place further up the road, and stepped in to pay and take my dinner home with me.

I was expecting Lex for the evening, like usual. He had told me he would be running a little later than usual, as he was training harder today for his upcoming football season.

He always loved to fuck me on training days.

Tonight, was going to be a little different than what he expected.

It was an hour later that he walked through the door to my apartment. I’d just wrapped up dinner and cleaned up the place, and I was perched comfortably on the couch in front of the TV when he let himself in.

“Ello, Riley,” he chuckled to himself as he stepped into the living room. His expression fell as he took in my glaring face, and his gaze shifted to the stack of pages on the corner of my coffee table.

From his angle, he undoubtedly recognized the top sheet… and that explained why he turned to me with a careful, fearful look.

“Riley, I think we should talk–”

I cut him off, leaping up from my seat.

“When were you planning on telling me that you’re publicly known as a womanizing asshole?” I demanded to know, throwing the stapled stack of papers into his face. “Or that you’ve been caught fucking your way across the tabloids for years?”

With the reflexes of a trained athlete, Lex snatched the fluttering pack of papers from the air, flipping backwards and forwards between the pages.

“I can explain,” Lex stiffly offered.

“I seriously doubt that.”

“If you’ll give me a moment–”

“You know, I knew there was more to you, but I never expected this,” I bitterly told him. “And here it is. How many sex scandals have you been a part of?”

“You tell me,” he said sharply. “You appear to have done your research. What I’m wondering is why you’ve dug this all up
now
, of all times…”

“I
didn’t
,” I defiantly exclaimed.

“Then how…?”

“My friends. They look out for me. They pulled you up online and dug up all this crap on you. What the
hell
, Lex? What else have you been hiding from me?”

“I enjoy my privacy, and last I remember you didn’t care about my past,” he wearily answered.

“Certain things you reveal to the strangers you whisk up into your arms,” I angrily rebutted. “Such as the fact that you’ve fucked your way across half of the United Kingdom. Or that you’re apparently a World Cup player?”

He paused with a groan.

“Do you even know what that means?”

“Of course I do, Lex. I
did my research
, remember? I looked up how big a deal that was. You led me to believe that you were just some football player on some rinky-dink team in England.”

Lex’s eyes instantly flared into rage.

“Excuse me, what the fuck did you just say?”

If I wasn’t so bitterly angry, and with the moral high ground solidly beneath my feet, I might have been intimidated. His eyes were wild with fury, and he took a menacing step towards me, and another, until he was so close that I could practically feel the heat pumping off of his body.

“Don’t you dare –
dare
– insult my sport, my place in it, or the teams that I’ve had the privilege of representing.”

“Oh,
boo the fuck hoo
,” I mocked him. “You think you’re such hot shit? Well, maybe you are. Maybe I would have taken you a bit more seriously if you’d been honest with me, instead of pretending to blend in as some minor football player with some money in the bank having a little fun on vacation.”

“I’m a big fucking deal back home, alright? Is that what you want to hear? I can’t take a shit without some arse paparazzi taking a picture through my window. I’m angling for a contract that will put my face on every piece of merchandising beneath the Patrovo Corporation.”

“The Patro –
what now
?”

“The corporation that owns a third of the country,” Lex snarled. “I’m here to get away from that life – to keep myself out of trouble. I’ll be considered as their corporate mascot for the year. It’s a twenty-million pound sponsorship… and I’m facing a rival who can rip it all away from beneath me.”

“Aren’t you already rich?” I snapped. “Why is it that the greedy just keep getting greedier?”

“I’m beloved by the English populace,” Lex responded, glaring down at me. “I’m a cultural icon. But it’s not just that… I’m one of the best fucking players in the world. I’ve been world-class material for
years
. And now I
deserve
this. It’s not about the money. Do you think Michael Jordan cares about the money? This is about immortality.
This sponsorship is my reward.
”

“Your reward for
what
, exactly? Kicking a ball around better than the other guys? Keeping your pants down so often that you’re in dozens of tabloid issues? Making a complete fucking fool of yourself?”

Lex advanced, and I pressed my back up against the wall. I bitterly returned his furious glare, letting a sly smile cross my lips.

“You could have had everything Riley. I’d have given you
everything
. I thought you were different.”

“I am different! Do you think that’s what I’m after? Your money?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Lex began, but I cut him off.

“I didn’t even know who you were until today. You’re
not
the only badass in the room. Dozens of galleries carry my art. I drew the attention of one of the most legendary museum curators in the world. I’m an accomplished, award-winning, decorated painter about to hit world-class… in my
mid-twenties.
I’ve got
decades
ahead of me to hone and sharpen my craft and all it takes is for
one
painting to take off at auction, and everything I’ve ever touched will be priceless.”