Tori
AFTER TWEETING A link to Hard Core’s daily motivation tip, I roll back my chair and stand in front of the trainers’ desk in the corner of the gym. My first client won’t arrive for another hour, but I’ve been away from the gym for almost a week, and I’m eager to get back to my regular routine. Also, I need to be busy. Idle hands are Google’s best friends.
I print several copies of the gym’s group fitness schedule and post them on the glass doors to each of the three studios. After pinning the last one to the corkboard above the water fountain, I turn around—and gasp.
“Tori.”
“Mason.”
He’s wearing vintage Mason. The ensemble consists of a light gray suit that’s purposefully snug around the widest part of his muscular thighs, a bright white shirt, and a red silk tie. He wants to project confidence and power, but he’s always been woefully unimaginative about it.
“What are you doing here?” I ask through gritted teeth.
His smile falters at my icy tone. “Figured this would be the only way to get you to talk to me. You haven’t answered any of my calls. And Eva wouldn’t tell me where you were.”
I stride past him and stand behind the trainers’ desk. “I’ve been out of town.”
He visibly relaxes, picks up the orange on the desk, and tosses it in the air.
I want to smack him for touching my morning snack.
“Where’d you go? Anywhere fun?” he asks.
Is he kidding? The man announces he’s single and available in a radio interview and we’re supposed to chitchat as though nothing happened? Not in this lifetime. Plus, why does he have his hands on my orange? “Seeing as I’m not anyone special in your life, I don’t imagine that’s any of your concern.”
He stops tossing my orange and blows out a breath that puffs his cheeks.
I snatch my fruit back and motion for him to follow me to the staff room.
“You listened to the show,” he observes behind me.
I give him an of-course-I-did-you-nitwit sneer. “You asked me to, Mason, so I did. And it was an eye-opener.”
When the door to the staff room closes, he reaches for my hand. “It’s not what you think, baby. For whatever reason, people in this town are interested in who I’m dating. I know you hate that part of our relationship, so I was trying to throw them off your scent, so to speak.”
After sidestepping his attempt to touch me, I stare him down. He claims not to know why the local press is interested in his exploits, but he cultivates that interest with the skill of a ten-person public relations firm. Mason’s political aspirations go well beyond his current position as a Philadelphia councilman, a fact I wish I’d known before I began dating him seriously. “So you pretended not to be dating anyone to protect me?”
“Exactly. No need for me to claim you if you hate everything about being claimed.”
Claimed? ¡Mira este hijo de la Gran Puta! Sorry. I’m caught up in the moment. He’s a son of a bitch, is the gist of the point here. The man should come with a warning label: “Manufactured in a facility that processes nuts. May contain traces of asshole.” The more he talks the angrier I am with myself for dating him. How could I have disregarded the obvious? Mason’s career will always come first. “Look, I can’t begin to understand why you thought that was a good idea. Only you know that. But I do know that listening to you dismiss our relationship on air made me realize we’re going nowhere and it’s time for us to move on.”
He licks his pretty lips and massages his neck. “Tori, there’s something here. I know it. We just have to work at it a little, that’s all.”
“And by we, you mean I need to work at it, right? Because for this to work, I should be more comfortable in the public eye.” I use my fingers to tick off the list of helpful suggestions he’s made in the time we’ve dated, which weren’t helpful at all and which I now realize were largely aimed at making me a more marketable version of myself. “For this to work, I should go back to school and get a degree in nutrition counseling. For this to work, I should spend more time than I already do performing community service, preferably with organizations that you care about.”
I’m riled up now, thanks to him. I open my locker and slap my orange on the top shelf. After slamming the door shut, I spin around. “Oh, and let’s not forget that for this to work, I should be able to converse with your constituents about local politics and—”
“Okay, okay. I can see you’re worked up about this in a way I didn’t anticipate.”
I blink at him. “You expected me to be worked up about this?”
He dons a contrite expression. “I was hoping the possibility of losing me would spark something in you, make you want to be with me. Realize what’s at stake if you don’t make more of an effort to grow our relationship.”
This should hurt more, shouldn’t it? I want to be angry, but I’m too tired to care. I’m simply not invested enough in us as a couple to expend any more emotional energy on him. And oh damn, oh damn, oh damn, a small part of my spirit shrivels when I realize Carter’s lie of omission hurt me more than Mason’s machinations. “Mason, you can’t manipulate me into staying with you. You know that’s not how a relationship works.”
I’ve always known Mason wasn’t my great love. I didn’t expect to be with him forever. But he was funny and ambitious and okay, yes, good in bed. And although I was in his life, I was never really a part of it, if that makes any sense. I see now that I approached our relationship like a mediocre book I’d borrowed at the library: I enjoyed it as much as I could before its due date and was willing to return it unfinished without harboring any regrets.
“I think we got caught up in the idea of us,” I tell him.
He laughs, although his eyes are sad. “It’s a great story.”
Holy shit. Look at me. Breaking up with the guy like a boss. “Great idea. Poor execution.” I cover his hand with mine. “It was passable while it lasted, huh?”
Mason throws his head back and laughs. “I’d tell you not to change, but somehow I don’t think that’s necessary. You’ll make the right guy very lucky someday.”
I take his hand and squeeze it. “Take care of yourself.”
“You do the same, Tori.”
He pivots and strolls away, stopping a few times to shake the hands of gym members who recognize him. With Mason, everything’s a performance. Before he descends the stairs, he meets my gaze and gives me a warm smile. As he disappears from view, I take a long, cleansing breath, the weight of our tenuous relationship no longer bringing me down. Unfortunately, Mason’s departure frees me to think about other things, other people.
One person, specifically.
The computer looms in my peripheral vision. I can almost hear it calling me. Tori, come play with me. You know you want to.
It’s post-Aruba day three, and I repeat the mantra that has kept me sane thus far. I will not Google him. I will not Google him. I will not Google him.
But I’m weak. So annoyingly weak. And I can’t help myself. I scramble back to the desk and type in his name. My jaw drops at the images that appear with each click. The man staring back at me is not the man I met in Aruba. Well, he is and he isn’t. Now that I know who he is, I can see that this is a different version of the man who sat next to me on the plane.
I don’t care what Eva thinks. There are a million reasons why I wouldn’t have made the connection. This guy’s hair is fuller, his cheeks are clean-shaven, and he’s about forty pounds heavier.
Take someone out of their natural environment and they’re bound to look different. Happens all the time. Like those optical illusions where a guy playing a banjo is hidden in an elderly woman’s face. At least for me the hidden image is only obvious after someone points it out. Now that I know Carter’s secret, I can see that he’s Carter Stone through and through.
Someone clears his throat, and I look up to find none other than the man whose thumbnail-sized images cover the computer screen like wallpaper. Oh my God. Can’t I get a break today?
He’s still sporting a beard, but it’s neatly trimmed, and he’s thinned out his mustache. His eyes, although as arresting as ever, continue to be surrounded by a supporting cast of dark circles. The royal blue baseball cap he wore on the plane sits atop his head, a small section of hair escaping its hold and falling over his right eye.
Memories from our time in Aruba flash in my head, a montage of funny, ridiculous, and sexy moments that make me long for Carter Williamson’s return. Where’s that guy?
I really don’t know what to do. There’s no guide for dealing with someone who befriended you on vacation and neglected to tell you that he’s a major Hollywood actor. Carter doesn’t owe me anything. The human condition doesn’t guarantee that every person you encounter will be straight with you. But I assumed he was—being straight with me, that is—and knowing I was wrong about that hurts.
And if I’m being honest with myself, I felt small and insignificant, someone he’d decided he could play around with because he had nothing better to do. I don’t know how I’ll react or what I’ll say. I guess I’ll just see how this goes.
“Tori,” he says in a low voice.
“How’d you get in here, Mr. Stone? This is a members-only area.”
Apparently, my brain has decided to activate my all-business mode.
His eyes widen when I greet him by his stage name. “I told them I was interested in touring the facility. Ditched my tour guide in the bathroom, so I don’t have a lot of time. Tori, if I could just have a few minutes?”
I lean to the left, looking beyond him, and am relieved to see my ten o’clock appointment, Maureen Dowling. “Sorry, Mr. Stone. You’ve caught me at a bad time. I have a client to train.”
“Another time, then. I need to explain. And I’d like to try to convince you to give me a second chance.”
I stand and motion for Maureen to begin her warm-up on the treadmill, and then I gather the internal strength to resist him. “Carter . . . Mr. Stone, there’s nothing we really need to say to each other, so don’t bother. We had a fun time in Aruba up until . . . Anyway, I think it’s best if we leave it at that. We’re good. Really.” I give him a full smile to prove my point, but it gets weaker the longer he stares at it.
“Just like that?” he says.
He asked the same question on the beach when I told him I’d get over Mason. Yes, it must be just like that, because if being with my ex was a crash course in dating in the public eye, doing anything with Carter would be like embarking on a PhD in an even more demanding field.
Carter Williamson would have had a shot. Carter Stone most certainly does not. “Yeah, it’s just like that. Like I said, Siempre pa’lante. Nunca patras.”
He swallows hard, as though he’s preparing his vocal cords to speak, but he doesn’t say anything.
His tour guide, a teenager we hired to swipe IDs at the front desk for the summer, skids to a halt by the trainers’ desk. “Mr. Williamson,” he says between pants. “Thought I lost you there.”
Williamson. Is that even his real name? Or is it a fictitious name he uses with unsuspecting women he meets on vacation? It’s a potent reminder that I have no idea what his end game was, and given who he is, I really don’t care to be enlightened.
This man belongs in my past.
“Mr. Williamson was just leaving, Darryl.”
Carter tilts his head at me and presses his lips together before saying, “Take care of yourself, Tori.”
“Yeah,” is all I’m able to muster in response.
Brilliant, Tori. Just brilliant.
What I should have said was, “Have a nice life, Carter, and please, please, please stay out of mine.”