Affairytale : A Memoir Page 17

“Devil’s Cascade. We’re on our way back. Should be home in a few hours.”

  I had called Dylan to see how the guys only canoeing trip was, that’s when he told me about Grant—about his high wire stunt above Devil’s Cascade.

  I was on the bike path a few blocks from my house when Grant finally called. “It’s so good to be back in civilization,” he said, “with cell service and you!”

  I was instantly put back together, so lonely without him I didn’t realize how empty I was until he came back. “It’s so good to hear from you. I’ve missed you. How was your trip?”

  “It was interesting…” he trailed off, “no one got killed or lost, so it was good. We’re on our way home, we stopped at a gas station so I snuck away to call you. Dylan’s in the other car.”

  “I know, I just talked to him, and he said you have a secret dream to be like Nick Wallenda.”

  “Oh…he told you about that,” he said shamelessly.

  “Of course he did. He said it was stupid, and that if you had fallen they wouldn’t have been able to save you.”

  “No, it wasn’t like that.” He blew it off as nothing, “It was a calculated risk. I knew what I was doing. I wouldn’t have fallen. Baby, I wouldn’t risk my life, especially not now.”

  The whole thing didn’t mesh well with me. He was a chronic risk taker—aerobatics, sky diving, solo back country hiking, fire walking. Yes, fire walking. And when you find someone that feels as much a part of you as your own beating heart, losing it would be more than catastrophic. Losing him, would be the total annihilation of me.

  “Gotta go babe, we’re about to leave. When can I see you?” I heard Dylan’s voice in the background. He’d freak if he saw my number on Grant’s phone.

  “How about tomorrow night? I can work late again.” Although I hadn’t actually worked late in months.

  “Perfect. Where should we meet?”

  Dylan was close, I could hear him. “Hurry up bud, who are you talking to?”

  “Your sister,” Grant said, and my mouth fell open.

  “Yeah right,” I heard Dylan say.

  “Honey—you’re so bad,” I said. “Let’s meet at your place tonight?”

  Silence idled between us as he pondered my bold proposition. Going to his place was dangerous. If we got caught there, what would be our excuse? At least at my work or his work, we could maybe pull off the ol’ he’s buying a gift certificate for his mom thing, but at his house?

  “Do you think that’s a good idea?” He said.

  “No, but where else is there?”

  “Good point. Let’s do it. Mwah!” He kissed his lips together, then hung up the phone. Before I even had a chance to tuck my phone away, he’d already sent me a text.

  I hope U outlive me, so

  I don’t have to know what

  life is like without U.

  Really? Is he for real? How could he be so sensitive, and caring, and fun, and adorable, and…real? Men like this don’t actually exist, do they?

  Sometimes I felt like he might just be an all star player, and that I’d wake up one day to find out I was just another name on his list that I’d been duped like a hundred others before me. I could never quite get past that feeling, I didn’t know why but I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  ***

  Sneaking around at his place seemed so deceptive. So much worse than sneaking around at the yoga studio, or his work, or in my car. It took our affair to a whole new level of official. It made our time together that much more thrilling, and that much more terrifying.

  I was filled with jittery anticipation and energy. A wave of wooziness washed over me when his text chimed in.

  Honey, I miss U and can’t

  wait to sneak tonight.

  Hee-hee. :)

  I called him immediately after my last client, “I’m done, but I don’t remember where you live. That one night is kinda…foggy.”

  He gave me directions to his place and instructions on how not to get caught going there. “Make sure no one is following you, circle the block, go down a different block, look behind you. Park in the grocery store parking lot if you think you’re being followed. Don’t risk pulling in if you’re not absolutely sure.”

  His stone seriousness made my already caffeinated nerves even more jittery.

  What if Dylan stopped by his place? Or what if Levi had someone I didn’t know follow me? What if Levi started a fight?

  The thought of a fight between them terrified me, if it happened it would be a bloody brawl. Levi was a dirty street fighter, brutal, aggressive, and unafraid to get kicked in the head. I didn’t know what Grant was capable of. I just knew he had skills, lethal skills. I knew he had a black belt in Karate and that he’d been teaching self-defense. I’d never seen him in action and we’d never really talked about that part of his life.

  “Call me right before you get here and I’ll open the garage door,” Grant said.

  I rounded a narrow corner into the alley behind his place and saw a garage door starting to open. I checked the numbers on trim 3410, Yep. Then crept my Beetle underneath the door while it was still opening. The moment my tires rolled onto the smooth surface it began to close behind me. I sat unmoving with my shoulders lifted, cringing at the sluggish, creaking door that threatened to reveal our secret.

  When the door finally sealed to the concrete, it blackened out the remaining twilight. I could still make out his deadly male form standing in the doorway wearing nothing more than a sultry smile and faded jeans. His torso was bare, his skin free from scars or even a single blotch of ink. Unlike me, his was an unadulterated canvas. Grant was Dylan’s age, five years my elder at thirty-four, but he didn’t seem to age like a normal man would. He stayed youthful, unchanged through all the years I’d known him.

  Water dripped from the tips of his hair onto the mounds of his shoulders as I buried my face into his modest chest. He let out a pleasure filled groan as I drug my fingertips along the ridge of his back. I memorized his unique form, traced his outline, created a mental blueprint of his anatomy never wanting to forget it. He held me to his warm skin, tightening his grip arm over arm, constricting me, and his heartbeat pulsed through his lips as he welcomed me in with an adoring kiss.

  We leapt up the stairs two at a time into the security of his two bedroom condo. Then galloped like frisky teenagers into the kitchen where a bottle of Echo Domani merlot was already un-corked and breathing. He’d been waiting for me.

  On the cork, written in black Sharpie ink, it read…

  G + C

  “Aw, that’s so sweet!” I covered my heart with both hands.

  He picked up the cork, leapt onto the counter and tossed it into a large bowl on top of the cabinets, then jumped down and poured us each a shallow glass.

  “To us and the first of many glasses of wine together,” he said as we clinked the rims.

  Then without warning he picked me up with a single arm around my waist, walked me to the couch and set me on the armrest. The vice of his grip crunched the bones in my back. I hid my grimace with a fake laugh.

  “I put toothpaste and a new toothbrush in the bathroom for you.” He said as he wiggled between my legs.

  I furrowed and pushed him back. “Does my breath stink that bad?”

  “Of course not, but you can’t leave here with red-wine teeth now, can you?”

  “What if I don’t want to brush my teeth? What if I want to go home with red-wine-teeth?” I took a sip and sloshed it around, swishing it over my gums. “I like being with you. If I go home with red-wine-teeth, maybe I’ll get to come right back.”

  “Honey, we get to spend the rest of our lives together,” he said as he slid himself deeper between my legs. “I still wish we had gotten together sooner or that our lives could be longer.” His words were so sweet and surreal I couldn’t even respond.

  I wrapped my legs around him and pulled him in. The smell of the bold burgundy aroma lingered on his breath, and the scent of
his masculine skin made my eyes roll back into their sockets. I melted into him knowing full well that my clothes would pick up his scent.

  “How long do we have tonight?” He asked. Every sentence began and ended with an indelible kiss.

  “As long as you want me,” kiss, kiss, kiss, “Or until ten o’clock,” kiss, kiss, kiss.

  “How come your place is so clean?” I looked around and at the pictures of his family in dust-free frames, and the fresh vacuum lines on the carpet.

  “See, I’m not a hoarder,” he said fanning out his hand to display his organized, clean home.

  “Then how come your office is a landfill? Your mom cleans your place for you, doesn’t she?” I accused.

  He shook his head side-to-side as if to say no, while quietly saying “Yes.”

  “I knew it! Does she do your laundry too? Your dishes?”

  “Sometimes…but mostly she just irons my work shirts.”

  I shook my head, and made a few clicks with my tongue and cheek.

  “I pay her!” He shouted before I could tease him further.

  We sat facing each other on the love seat, which I lovingly dubbed The Short Bus. It became our sacred place, the place we spent hours tangled under a warm blanket in meaningful conversation. It was where we learned about each other, where hours passed like minutes, where he became my best friend, and where I fell tragically in love with the man that had always seemed out of reach.

  That night marked the beginning of increasingly frequent visits to his place. Each successful rendezvous encouraging another. Levi put Dani to sleep three nights a week while I worked late, and I took the other four. I crammed in all my work during the day so I could rendezvous with Grant at night.

  The next time I crept back into his garage I was greeted with his hands around my face, and his eager lips on mine. He kissed me like I was his adoring wife and whispered in my ear, “Hi sexy. I have something for you,” then crushed me into him, one hand around my waist, the other holding a yellow drill.

  “You’re the sexy one.” I said then looked down at his mess, “What are you doing?”

  “I changed the locks, here’s your key,” he handed me a sharp edged shiny silver key.

  Oh. My. God. He’s giving me a key!

  I’d never gotten a key before, not even from Levi nor did I ever expect one from Grant. I stared at him in disbelief.

  “We don’t need any unexpected visitors, now do we,” he said, “and this way if you and Dani need to come here, or anytime you want to come here, you can, and you’ll be safe. Even if I’m not home.” The muscle fibers in his forearms twitched as he finished drilling in the final screws. “I’m not listed, and only a few people know where I live, so we should be extra safe.”

  “Why aren’t you listed?”

  “Just a precaution,” he set down his drill on a heap of plastic and metal, then pulled me up the stairs.

  “Where are you going to keep that key?” he asked.

  “On my key chain?”

  “Uh…no.”

  “Ummm, yes. There’s a dozen keys on there. I’m not even sure what they all are, he’ll never notice one more. If I hide it, and he finds it, that would be worse.”

  “You’re right,” he said, “You’re so smart baby.” Then he picked me up and carried me into the kitchen.

  It felt so good when he held me, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him how much it actually hurt me too, my back wasn’t getting any better.

  An open bottle of Blackstone Merlot waited on the counter, and beside it the cork. Written in black Sharpie ink, it read:

  MY LOVE,

  YOU HOLD

  THE KEY TO

  MY HEART.

  He showed it to me acting all shy-like then tossed it into the secret place beside the other.

  “How many other women have had a key?” I asked, eternally insecure about the status of my specialness.

  He tilted his head as if to say, aren’t we past being insecure about ex’s? “Just one,” he said, “my mom.”

  “Yeah right.”

  “Really. Just her.”

  I squinted at him, skeptical. “I guess that makes me the luckiest, most special woman on the planet then.”

  “Yes it does.” He squeezed me to him. I winced and held my breath as the crunching sound that only I could hear emanated from my back.

  “Aren’t you supposed to get me drunk?” I furrowed my brow, holding up my glass and showing my disapproval. “I didn’t say anything last time cause I didn’t know it was going to be chronic, but this is a pitifully cheap pour. I think I can handle one full glass. I’m a big girl.”

  “You…” He growled, “gimmie that,” then he snapped it away to top it off to the appropriate level. “There, is that better? Cause that’s all you get. You can’t go back to your house drunk or we’ll have trouble.”

  The pain was bad, I was going to need a bigger drink but I stopped short of asking him for a tumbler.

  He pulled a blanket from the dryer and we snuggled under its comforting heat squished against one another on The Short Bus.

  A dark blue, evil-looking book titled Effective Interviewing and Interrogation Techniques stared at me from the coffee table. It hid at the bottom of the pile, underneath a monolith of anatomy, chemistry to anthropology textbooks—the kind of textbooks normal people sell back to the college after they’re done. The kind that Grant kept because he’d highlighted them and kept them around for light reading at bedtime.

  “Did you use interrogation techniques to get your ex-wife to confess?” I pointed to the book.

  “Sort of,” he shrugged. “I knew she was cheating. But she did confess eventually.”

  “Do you ever see her anymore?”

  “Nope. I filed for divorce right after our wedding and never saw her again.” A coldness for her was evident in his voice.

  “Really? You’ve never seen her again, not even once?”

  “Not even once.”

  “Isn’t it weird that you and Dylan had your receptions in the same room on the same night—and that you became best friends and both got divorced? And, isn’t it weird that now you’re sneaking around with your best friend’s baby sister who was also there on your wedding night?”

  “It’s very weird,” he said, “but it’s even weirder that I was at your wedding too.”

  He said it so nonchalantly that it took a few seconds for me process and respond.

  “My wedding? To Levi? You were there? I never saw you.” I said.

  “I saw you,” he insisted, “passed out in your wedding dress!” He burst out laughing, then apologized, “I’m sorry baby,” then laughed again.

  Memories from my zombie wedding caused a hot flush of embarrassment to sear through me. “I looked for you, but I never saw you.”

  “Well I was there,” he said, “but you weren’t around so I went looking for you. That’s when I saw you upstairs, passed out.” He tried to hide his chuckle.

  “Grant,” I said, “Seriously, I wasn’t passed out, I just put my head down for a little rest.”

  “Uh huh,” he teased.

  “Well, maybe I was passed out a little,” I said laughing with him now. “Grant, I thought of you on my wedding night.” Instantly his jokester demeanor melted into that of a sincere gentlemen, and he smiled at me with sanguine eyes. “Did you really show up that night?” I asked.

  “Yes, of course I did.”

  “Well why didn’t you stop me then?” I yelled.

  “I wish I would have.”

  I believed in fate, in destiny, and I believed that he was mine. I leaned in for a kiss.

  “Life keeps bringing us together,” I said. “Even when I tried to get away from you, I couldn’t.”

  “I knew we were meant to be,” he said, “I’ve just been waiting for you to get free.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” I yelled again.

  He sent his warm hand up my leg and lovingly caressed my skin. “Honey, I wante
d to. So many times. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted you.” I was breathless from his confessions, then bewildered by what he said next. “Baby…we should keep a journal.”

  “What do you mean? A journal for what?” I asked, perplexed by something I never thought I’d hear from a man.

  “You know…a journal.” He continued. “So we can write about all of the things we do together—so we never forget.” He tangled his legs tighter around me, and I ascended into relationship heaven.

  “Honey, I would love to keep a journal, I’ll get one for us. I’ll get a keepsake box too, something we can put mementos in—like plane tickets and wine corks and post it notes we write to each other.”

  “That’d be perfect. You’ll have to get a really big box,” he added, making my heart swoon.

  Each time before I left his place, I went through my new dental hygiene routine. I scrubbed the red tint off my teeth and wiped the crimson tinge from my lips. I sloshed with scope and re-hydrated with the Burt’s Bee’s chapstick he’d left on the counter for me. I sniffed my clothes, I didn’t think I smelled like him.

  I stepped out of the warm bathroom and prepared for a professional frisking. He looked me over, examined my innocence, and turned me in a circle. He touched and patted whatever he wanted, then swatted my tush and said, “I’d know you were up to something.”

  His grin was intoxicating, and the few deep lines in his face coupled with a few flecks of silver in his hair reminded me of his maturity, and that he wasn’t just a handsome roaming bachelor, he was a mature man looking for true love.

  “Be safe, baby, don’t let anything happen to you,” he always said before I left. Then each time, we stood in the doorway reluctant to be apart.

  He never asked about Levi, or if I was filing for divorce, or when I was going to take off my wedding ring. He just loved me for who I was and where we were at in every moment. He waved goodbye and blew a kiss, then bent down as low as he could, until the garage door sealed shut.

  I felt lost when he was out of sight, empty and insignificant, like I was leaving my home. I belonged with him and just knowing this life, the life of my wildest dreams really did exist, made the emptiness of not having it, that much more excruciating.