Chapter Nine
Richard wants to scream. He’s been in this meeting for over an hour now, and it’s already starting to make him want to stick his head in boiling water. Mr Cook’s voice drills into his eardrums, monotonous and relentless, telling him all about the growth targets and profit projections. Richard would very much like to project his coffee into Mr Cook’s face.
They’re in some minimalist bar somewhere, all white tables and white walls, the odd plant placed here and there in some strange caricature of naturalness. There’s seven of them sitting round the table, most of the looking vaguely interesting in what Mr Cook’s saying, and then there’s Richard. He’s already had three people ask him if he’s alright this morning; he just lied and managed a smirk, telling them he had a late one last night. They don’t have to know that all he was doing was being sad and getting drunk with his PA.
He tries to nod and smile in all the right places, taking his cues from the faces of those around him. The coffee doesn’t seem to be working; he still feels as low as he felt last night, full of expensive whiskey and depressing thoughts. Still, he’s got to keep up appearances.
There’s no board games in this restaurant. There’s no laughter, apart from the smug chuckles of men who know how much richer they’ll be in two months’ time. He decides he hates them, and he hates that he’s one of them. He hates that the waiting staff are probably bitching at them behind their backs, thinking they’re all the same, lumping Richard together with these people who look around and see nothing but dollar signs. But how is Richard any better? He’s wearing the costume, reciting the lines, he’s as much a part of this façade as any of the others. He sinks a little deeper into his pit of self-loathing.
He can’t stop thinking about her.
Ever since Emma informed him, stony-faced, that she’d made the call, he’d been wallowing in regret. When the new chauffeur arrived, a woman named Julia, he’d felt an ache in his chest. There was no banter on the journeys, and although Julia seems nice, she doesn’t swear at him nearly enough. He finds himself acting the part in front of her, holding himself like a millionaire should, leaving his glasses at home and wearing contacts even though they make his eyes sting.
He listened to Lauren’s message with regret written all over his face. He very nearly did pick up the phone, tell her he’d made a mistake and that she could come over later, if she still wanted to. Instead, he deleted it. He tells Emma not to answer any of her calls.
Someone says his name and he snaps back into the room, looking up into Mr Cook’s sagging face and putting on a grin. “I’d be happy to,” he says, and they all nod approvingly.
Then they all shake hands and massage egos and file out of the restaurant to their various cars. Julia’s smile is as fake as Richard’s. “Back to your hotel, sir?” she asks, opening the door for him.
“Yes,” he sighs heavily, rather wishing it were anywhere else.
***
Lauren arrives at the restaurant two minutes after Richard leaves.
She’s not exactly stalking him, she’s just trying to put him to rights, she tells herself as she examines the schedule she demanded from Julia. She won’t go to his hotel, she probably wouldn’t get past the receptionist without being arrested, and she wants to get him out in the open, where he can’t avoid her. But, it seems, she got here far too late, because none of the suits in the bar look like Richard, and even after she’s hovered around for ten or so minutes, he hasn’t emerged. She makes herself scarce once the waiting staff start to give her menacing glares.
She heads back to the office, smiling like she hasn’t just used her lunch break to stalk her ex, and slumps back in her chair. She’ll try again tomorrow; Richard has a conference at one o’clock and she might be able to catch him as he arrives. If it were anyone else, she’d let it lie, put it to bed as another failed relationship, but she’s not letting Richard off that easy. She deserves an explanation.
What she does not expect is the call she receives later that day. She’s stopped expecting to hear Richard’s voice every time she picks up the phone, but when Emma’s high-pitched tones tinkle down the line, she nearly spits out her coffee.
“Emma?” she says, swallowing quickly, “Why are you calling?”
“Good afternoon to you too,” she says brightly. “He still loves you, if you were wondering,” she states, this time causing Lauren to spill a good helping of coffee all over her lap.
“What?” she says, “he – then why –“
“’Cause he’s an idiot, that’s why. He thinks you’re better off without him.”
“Why?” Lauren repeats, dabbing at her lap whilst gawking at the phone. “Is that why he switched chauffeurs?”
“Yup,” Emma says, “and hell if I know. He said he’s gotta leave in a week, so he didn’t want to drag it out, or something. He doesn’t know I’m making this call.”
“I need to talk to him,” Lauren responds, trying to keep the desperation out of her voice.
“I know. I told him he was making a mistake. He told me to stop calling you,” Emma tells her, and Lauren feels a shot of anger run through her.
“Bastard,” she hisses, despite the relief she feels having learnt that he doesn’t, in fact, hate her guts. “He knows I like him, right?”
“Don’t ask me,” Emma says, not without an edge of disapproval, “you two aren’t exactly champions of communication.”
Lauren has to admit that she has a point. Neither of them had been too good at expressing actual emotions. “Okay, I really have to talk to him.”
“Yes, you do,” Emma bristles, “and that’s why I called. He’s going to dinner tomorrow night, it won’t be on your schedule because he’s being picked up by another firm. He’s due at the place at eight thirty, he’ll be there for a few hours. You might be able to catch him. And don’t tell him I told you, I’m not exactly allowed to spread his itinerary around.”
“Okay,” Lauren says, grabbing a pen and paper and scribbling down the details. Emma reads out the address to her, and she copies it carefully. “Alright, got it.”
“If you fail,” Emma says, in true spy-movie style, “I can meet you in the hotel lobby and take you up. I can’t promise he’ll let you in, though.”
“Okay,” Lauren nods, “thank you.”
“I know, I’m a saint,” she replies, “and I’m used to cleaning up his messes. He does really like you, Lauren, he’s just got it into his head that he can’t keep you and the job. Anyway, I’ll leave you to psychoanalyze him,” she sighs, and Lauren manages a laugh.
“Okay. Thanks for your help.”
“It’s what I’m here for. Oh, and Lauren?” Emma asks, her impersonation of a spy-master almost flawless.
“Yes?”
“Good luck.”
Lauren chuckles down the phone and hangs up to the sound of Emma cackling at her own joke. Looking down at the scrawled address in her hand, Lauren steels herself to confront Richard. She’s not letting him go without a fight. And God knows there’ll be a fight.
***
Richard spends the next couple of days moping, to use Emma’s word. He tells himself he only has to get through forty-eight hours before he’s on an airplane out of here, and he can forget about Lauren completely. It’s being in the same city as her that’s making this so difficult. Something like that, anyway.
He spends too many brunch times alone. He spends too much time in his hotel room, hiding from the world. He spends far too much time mulling everything over in his mind, thinking through what he could have done differently, what might have happened if he’d said this or rephrased that. It’s all Chicago’s fault, he wouldn’t be dwelling on all this if it wasn’t for the fact that Lauren’s only a few miles away. Soon, they’ll be states apart, and they can both move on with their lives.
Emma’s been acting weird. He can read her like a book, and there’s definitely something different about her, her eyes screaming that she’s up to something. He just hopes to God it’s not some kind of surprise party for him; that would be his worst nightmare. Well, apart from the one about all those spiders chasing him.
By the time Thursday evening rolls around, he knows something’s up. He feels like absolute shit and he’s dreading the dinner with God knows which rich guy, and he’s wondering if he could possibly cancel. The guy probably wouldn’t mind. He could say he’s sick, which isn’t entirely a lie. He feels sick. He could do with a good night’s sleep before they fly tomorrow, that’s a good excuse. Everything’s been finalized now, there’s no agreements left to be made, why do they need another dinner?
“Emma,” he shouts from his bed, feeling too lazy to move. “Emma!”
“What,” she replies, poking her head around his bedroom door. “I’m not getting you food again.”
“No, no, I just – can you cancel the dinner later?” he asks, looking at her sideways from the pillow.
She seems to freeze, and her eyes narrow. “Why?” she asks, “Why don’t you wanna go?”
He sits up a little, instantly suspecting something. “Why do you want me to go?”
“Because that’s where you’re scheduled to be,” she says smoothly, but he can see past it.
“Emma, what’s going on?” he says, cocking his head to one side and staring her down.
“Nothing at all,” she says, and that’s the biggest lie he’s heard since Mr Cook said he was looking forward to working with Richard. “I just think it’s a little short notice to cancel, is all.”
“What have you planned?” he asks, because he sees a hint of something else in her eyes, and he’s got to dig it out.
“Nothing,” she responds, but Richard won’t let it drop.
“You know I’ll keep asking,” he reminds her, “I know something’s up, you might as well tell me now. I won’t give up. Besides, you know you want to tell me.” That’ll get her, he knows it will.
She lets out a long sigh, and he knows he’s won. He watches her slump down in the armchair she’s claimed as her own, and shuffles to the edge of the bed, waiting for her to talk.
“Okay,” she says. “Lauren was gonna try to talk to you. At the restaurant. I gave her the time and the address.”
“You – you told her – ”
“I’m sorry, alright!” she snaps, “You two need to just fucking talk to each other!”
“That’s none of your business!” he growls, shocked that she’d stick her nose in like that. Not that she hasn’t before.
“You are my business!” she replies, scowling. “Anyone can see you’re miserable without her!”
“I’m fine,” he lies, badly, and she rolls her eyes at him like he knew she would.
“Look, whether you want her or not, you need to at least apologize,” Emma reasons, “you showed her up in front of her company, and you left her with no explanation. Doesn’t she at least deserve that?”
He opens his mouth to respond, to prove Emma wrong, but all he can do is let out a sigh. As much as he hates to admit it, she’s right. “Fine. Tell her to come here.”
Emma glowers at him. “I’ll invite her over, nicely,” she corrects, “and I’ll cancel your damn dinner.”
“You’re too good to me,” he says weakly, and she throws him a small yet disapproving smile as she sweeps out of the room. He flops back on to the bed, worries flooding his mind once again. What will he possibly say to her? Sorry seems to be the only thing he can think of.
He fumes at Emma for interfering, for altering his poorly-executed plan, but at the same time, his chest squeezes at the thought of seeing Lauren again. Perhaps this time, he’ll get to say goodbye properly. Or, she might just walk out on him. That’s a definite possibility.
With no idea when Emma might have told her to come, he jumps off the bed and tries to comb his hair into less of a bed-dwelling mess and yanks his pajamas off. He throws on a vaguely clean t-shirt and some jeans, hoping he doesn’t look like he’s been moping for four days over losing her.
When she knocks on the door, he jumps out of his skin. He glances at the window at the far end of the room, wondering if plummeting to his death would really be so bad. Nevertheless, Emma’s head pokes around the door-frame and urges him forward. With a huff and a flutter in his stomach, he opens the door.
He looks the same as he always did at the end of a day; scruffy and tired, his eyelids drooping as he gazes at her. She musters her meanest glare; she hates that she’s been dragged over to his hotel again, she hates that he was contemptuous enough to make Emma call her instead of being brave and doing it himself. She hates that he even put her in this situation in the first place, instead of simply telling her what he was feeling at the time. Still, she can’t ignore the warmth that touches her cheeks when he smiles at her.
“Hey,” he says, like this is just another date, and Lauren huffs at him, pushing past him and into his room. “Uh, I’m glad you came.”
“Oh, I’m sure you are,” she scathes, turning to face him and crossing her arms. “So. Why have you cut me out since Sunday?”
He bites his lip, closing the door and resting his back against it. “I – didn’t want things to end badly,” he says, then winces, probably because that’s one of the stupidest things she’s heard him say. “I thought if I cut you off after Sunday, it’d end nice and neatly and not…messily.” Like it has now.
“Right,” she replies, not the slightest bit convinced. “You thought you’d just stop returning my calls, and I’d give up, yeah?”
“Well…” he says, his eyes darting around the room in search of an answer, “yeah. Kinda.”
“So, what, you don’t like me? You want me to leave you alone?” she demands, taking a step towards him.
“No,” he says quietly, “I want, like, the opposite of that. I just didn’t wanna fall in love with you and then have to leave you.”
At that, she feels a burst of happiness in her chest. Her gaze softens a little. “So, are you? In love with me.”
His gaze drops to the floor. “Maybe a little.”
She moves closer to him, reaching out to take his hand. “Well maybe I’m a little in love with you too.”
His face brightens. He leans towards her, close enough that she can feel his breath across her face. “Really?” he says softly.
She replies with a kiss, a touch of her lips against his that quickly develops into something firmer, something more wanting. His hands move to her hips and she lets her handbag fall to the floor, cupping his face and pressing him up against the door.
He pulls away from her a little, gasping for breath. “But what about me leaving? You can’t leave work, and – and –”
“Shut up,” she growls, kissing him harder, biting into his bottom lip before he can spout any more of his stupid reasoning. She relishes the way he moans when her teeth graze his skin, the way his hips jerk forward when she snakes a hand down between them to press between his thighs.
“We can’t be together though,” he breathes as he pushes her jacket from her shoulders. It thumps to the floor, leaving him free to mouth at her collarbone, peeking out from under her blouse.
“We’ll work it out,” she replies, kicking off her heels and popping open the button of his jeans.
“I guess there’s – ah – there’s Skype and stuff, right?” he says, fumbling to push down his pants and groaning as she gets a hand inside his boxers. He’s already half-hard, his dick twitching when she curls her fingers around it and strokes down its length. The way he cries out is enough to make her throb inside her underwear.
She yanks his boxers down until his cock springs free, giving her room to start to stroke him, feeling the delicate skin under her fingers, the way it becomes firmer with each pump of her fist. “Yeah,” she nods, “Skype is good. That could work.”
“And – and I get to fly around a lot, I could – God – come and see you,” he says as he finally gets her blouse open and drops his head to her chest, pushing down her bra and taking a pink nipple into his mouth. Lauren hears herself cry out, her hand jumping to his hair and yanking hard enough to make him moan against her skin. “Like – once a month, at least,” he says between breasts, making her giggle when he grins up at her.
She lets go of his cock when the position gets a little awkward, and he whines, sounding close to begging. “You gotta – do something, Lauren,” he stammers, moving back up to her ear and biting at the lobe. “I don’t even care, I just – want you.”
In the time they’ve had together, she’s learned quite a bit about what Richard likes, and he’s not too picky. There’s no time for careful planning, though, so she simply presses his hand to her skirt, fumbling for the zip at the back. He quickly begins to rub at her through her underwear, and she curses herself for not wearing something a little sexier than relatively old panties and a very much not matching bra. “I’m wearing ugly underwear,” she warns him as he yanks at her skirt, and he looks up at her.
“Oh, well, no sex for you, then,” he shrugs, a smile dancing behind his eyes. “You only get a dick like this if you only ever wear nice underwear, all the time, every day,” he says, and she gives his head a soft smack.
“Shut up and sit down,” she chides, nodding towards the chair in the corner. He tuts, but scampers over to the chair anyway, grabbing a condom on the way. He sits himself down and begins to jerk himself slowly, his pants somewhere around his knees. She pulls them off for him along with his socks, then positions herself in his lap, kissing him hard to distract him from the potential of her knee in his balls.
Wrapping her fingers around his cock once again, she helps him open his shirt and begins to kiss down his chest, running her fingers through the light brown hairs. He pants underneath her, unsure of what to do with his hands until he seems to get it and place one on her hips, the other creeping between her thighs to massage her clit.
She sighs into his skin at the sensation, letting herself go limp and simply feeling the growing pleasure across her hips. She very nearly stays there, happy with getting each other off slowly, until she remembers that this is Richard’s last day here, and they can’t waste any time. Kissing him once again, she pushes herself up on her knees and fumbles for Richard’s cock. Right on cue, he rolls the condom over it, then helps her line it up before she sinks down, the head pushing inside of her to the tune of Richard’s groans.
Savoring every inch of him, she takes her time, lifting herself off later and later until she’s sitting in his lap, rolling her hips slowly. He feels so good, especially when he starts to rub her clit in time with her hips.
“God, that feels – that’s just –” he babbles, his brows furrowed with concentration but his mouth open with pleasure. “I wish I didn’t have to leave.”
“Don’t say shit like that,” she breathes, then starts to bounce herself in his lap a little faster, the obscene sound of slapping skin filling the room. “You – fuck – you’re not leaving for good.”
“No, but – but I won’t be – ah – be here for a while, I’ve got – uh, meetings, to go to,” he says, but it’s drowned out by Lauren’s moans as he starts to pick up his pace on her clit.
“Fuck the fucking meetings,” she tells him, coherent sentences becoming more and more difficult each time he hits that spot, just right, “tell them you’re – too busy fucking your amazing and beautiful girlfriend.”
“I have another girlfriend?” he asks, breathing a smile at her.
“Fuck you!” she laughs, shoving at his chest, then almost doubling over as her orgasm boils, the white-hot heat building inside her and bursting out in the form of shudders and moans. As she clenches around him, he starts to come, too, their ragged breaths twisting together like thread. She falls forward, riding out her high, pressed close to his chest and panting into his neck.
“Shit,” he breathes, his dick still nestled inside her and his hand still caught between her legs. “We’ve gotta do that again tonight.”
“I need to get back to work,” she says as she realizes that the world doesn’t stop to let them have sex, “God, they’ll be wondering what happened.”
“It’s past five,” he tells her after a glance at the clock on the wall, “there’s really no point. You wouldn’t get any work done.”
“I’ve gotta get my stuff, though –” She begins to climb off him, but he hugs her close.
“No, you don’t. Everything important is in your handbag, everything else will still be there in the morning.”
As much as it pains her to admit it, he has a point. “I mean – I guess I could stay for a little while longer.”
“Stay the whole night?” he offers, eyes wide. “Please? We’ll set an alarm this time so you won’t be late for work.”
She knows she should say no. Does she want him this much? As she looks at him, a disheveled mess in an armchair, she decides that the answer is yes, yes, she does want him this much. “Okay,” she says eventually. “I guess we better make tonight count.”
A flash of sadness crosses his face as he looks at her. “I really wish I could stay,” he says, stroking a hand down her hip gently.
“I wish you could, too,” she replies, burying her face in his neck. He smells of sweat and faint cologne and something that’s just inherently Richard. She wants to be able to smell it every day; she wants to bottle it up and store it away for times when he’s not with her. It looks like there might be quite a lot of those times.
They make the most of the night. They fuck until they can hardly move, their limbs aching and their bodies coated in sweat, ordering room service at some point in the evening when their energy needs replenishing. Lauren sits in a loose sweater of Richard’s as they eat, wishing every night could be like this, wishing they could be talking about future dates and tomorrow’s plans rather than avoiding thinking about what’s yet to come at all. Instead, they try to laugh as much as possible, leaving the sadness for the morning.
Lauren grumpily informs Richard that he’s forgiven for the four days of hell he put her through, and Richard replies that he’s forgiven her for stalking him for said four days. As they reminisce, though, it feels like a goodbye, like they’re striving for some kind of closure, and Lauren hates it. When it looks like Richard has tears in his eyes, Lauren pushes him down on the bed and restarts the sex marathon; they’ve got no time for tears, not yet, anyway.
They spend the night alternating between fucking and talking, and eventually sleeping. Lauren savors the way Richard’s arms feel when they’re wrapped around her, how his dick feels inside of her, how his lips feel when they’re tracing across her skin. Over the weeks they’d spent together, she’d become so used to falling asleep with someone else’s breaths in her ear, someone else’s warmth around her, that it’s strange to know that she’s got months of sleeping alone ahead of her.
Once the sex is over and they lie together, slowly drifting off in each other’s arms, it becomes harder to ignore the future, the reality that in the morning, she’ll have to leave him for who knows how long. As much as she’s said that she’ll try to keep the relationship alive, she’s not sure whether she’ll be able to survive off nothing but video calls and text messages.
Her only other long-distance relationship crashed and burned, and she’d hate to see this one go the same way. She’s beginning to understand why Richard wanted to break things off before they got too painful – before they got like this.
She lies awake for far too long, trying to calculate exactly how many days it’ll be before she can see him again and weighing the number up against the number of days she thinks she can get through before she bursts. It’s going to be difficult, she decides, it’s going to be something they both have to work for, and God knows they’re already working enough anyway. She reckons she could do it, though. Just about.
***
Richard feels his heart sink through the mattress and right down to the ground floor when Lauren’s alarm goes off the next morning. He groans out loud, feeling her shift and tightening his grip on her. He won’t let her leave that easy.
He lets her reach out and shut off the alarm before he pulls her against him, pressing his lips to her neck and whispering, “Just five more minutes.”
“I can’t,” she replies, shifting to face him. “You know I would if I could, but I really, really can’t.” She kisses him then, slow and sleepy, letting him dip his tongue inside her mouth briefly before she pulls away.
“We could just quit work altogether,” he says, grazing his knuckles over her cheek. “We could just run away and live in a cave.”
“There’d be no Wi-Fi, though,” she reasons, “how would you order takeout?”
“Good point,” he sighs, “we could always just forage for berries.”
She laughs, pecking him on the nose. “You’d be dead within a week, babe.”
“Rude,” he says indignantly, poking her in the stomach. “I could farm mushrooms, or something.”
“Okay, well you keep working on that plan,” she says, pushing herself up onto her elbows, “in the meantime, I need to go to work.”
He shuffles closer to her each time she moves away, hearing her giggles ring out like wind chimes as he starts to tickle her, digging his fingers into her sides and feeling her squirm. “If I tickle you to insanity, you’ll have to stay,” he reasons as she shrieks with laughter and bats at his hands.
“Stop!” she squeaks, pushing his hands back towards him and giggling into the pillow. “I really do need to go, now.”
With a whine of disappointment, he lets her climb out of bed and towards her pile of clothes. He savors this last look at her body, the sweep of her hips and the bounce of her ass as she walks. He’d quite like to wake up to this every morning.
He’d protest more if he thinks it would change anything, but Lauren’s always been the same; once she’s decided she’s going to do something, she’ll do it, no question about it. She’s going to leave Richard alone whether he likes it or not. So, he just watches her from the bed, drinking in his last look, smiling when she wiggles her ass at him as she pulls her skirt back on.
“Just one more kiss?” he asks, reaching out to her. She sighs at him, buttoning her blouse quickly, but wanders back over to the bed and sits down beside him, running her fingers through his hair. “Please?” He gives her his best puppy dog eyes.
“You’re adorable,” she tells him, leaning down to peck him on the lips. As she does so, he sits up, pushing his lips into hers and draping his body over her.
“Now you can’t leave,” he says as he cuddles her tight, her back to his chest and his nose in her neck. “I’ve got you forever.”
She turns her head to meet his lips, kissing him hard, and he can tell that this is the last one. He decides to make the most of it, turning her towards him and cupping her face, dreading the moment when she starts to pull away.
It has to arrive, though. He mourns the loss of her lips when she finally pushes him back, tries to chase her with his mouth. “I’ll see you – soon,” she says with a nod, like she’s damn well gonna see him soon or there’ll be consequences.
“As soon as I’m done in LA – and then Dubai – I’ll come back, I swear.” As he says it, it becomes more difficult to bear. She throws him a pained look, wrestling with her heels.
“You better,” she says, but then she’s heading for the door, and he feels the reality of all this hit him.
“God, I’m gonna miss you,” he calls, a tightness in his throat that wasn’t there before. He told himself he wouldn’t cry if she didn’t cry, but that promise turns out to be quite difficult to keep.
“I’ll miss you too,” she says, looking back at him with a sadness creeping into her usually stormy expression. She opens the door and steps out of it, throwing him a last smile before she disappears. Richard watches the door close, then collapses back down on the bed again, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes.
His flight is late afternoon; he has nowhere to be before then. He won’t need long to pack – he barely unpacked in the first place – so he just rolls over and tries to go back to sleep. It’s much more difficult, now that she’s not there.