The Kissing Game (18 page)

The two glare at each other as Ted leaves the
hospital room and Robert moseys his way over to the chair next to my bed.
Sitting down, he looks at me with a kind of intolerable bleakness, as if no
amount of cheerfulness or hopefulness could turn the situation around, and I
wonder if he’s returning to the mean boss Robert I used to know. For several
long seconds, he chews on his inner lip. Next he looks over his shoulder as if
to assess whether our hospital roommate on the other side of the curtain is
sleeping or awake. The patient’s movement on the bed gives Robert his answer.

“What’s this about the bed and breakfast?”
Robert asks blatantly, but before I can answer, he continues. “Don’t tell me
you and little Teddy are…?”

“No, no. He’s just a friend.”

“A guy who takes you to a bed and breakfast is
not just your friend.”

“I’m telling you, he’s just a friend.”

Robert frowns at the sheet covering my torso.
He contemplates for several minutes before speaking again. “I think you should
come live with me after you get out of the hospital, at least for a little
while,” Robert states, all business. “And I thought I should phone your mother
and tell her what’s happened, but I didn’t have her contact information. She
might want to come out and see you. She could stay at my house.” 

“No, no. We are
not
telling my mother.
She will freak, and I don’t want her to worry.” Of course, I don’t tell him
that she can’t afford the air-fare and neither can I.

“Regardless, you should stay with me.” This
time it is more of a demand than a question.

“It’s really not necessary.”

“I insist.”

“Okay,” I reply, feeling the crashing of
mountainous seas in my stomach at the prospect of living with Robert for any
length of time. I imagine his bedroom closet full of boxed shirts.

“I promise to be a gentleman,” he says
apologetically.

“I know.”

While I wrestle with the thought of living with
Robert—my mind alternating between wondering and fantasizing—I begin to receive
a throng of visitors. Cory arrives with a book entitled
Don’t Mess with a
Redhead.
“What is the book about?” I ask him. “No idea,” he replies. “Just
thought the title was appropriate.” Todd brings me makeup and a mirror. So
sweet. And Henry brings me my desk nameplate, which used to say “Caroline” but
now says “The Carolinator.” Henry explains that it’s a variation of
“The
Terminator.”
“Am I fired?” I ask, and Henry nods. “But that’s not why I’m
giving you the name plate—it’s supposed to mean you’re an ass-kicker!” I like
the nameplate but I’m pretty sure getting shot doesn’t make me an ass-kicker.

Robert stays by my bedside almost continuously
over the next couple days while I receive visitors, drift in and out of sleep,
and get wheeled off to be tested in another part of the hospital. He only
breaks from his vigil to go home, shower, and change clothes. On the third day,
he’s gone most of the day, I assume because he’s readying his house for my
stay.

Three days after entering the hospital with a
bullet wound in my stomach, a nurse wheels me out the front door toward
Robert’s BMW. It’s one of those late bright San Francisco afternoons when the
hazy fog shields the sun but gives the impression of warmth with a stiff chill.
I stand and walk the final steps to Robert’s BMW as he rushes around to open
the door for me.

When I sit down, he looks at me as if he were a
tattered man who just found his way off some deserted island and into
civilization. Inside the car, he tells me, “I have a spare bedroom.” I’m not
sure why.

“I really don’t need to stay at your house. I’m
fine on my own.”

“We’re not going to discuss it.”

“I’m fine, you know.”

“I know.” He barely grins at me, a rare event.
“You hungry?”

“Famished.”

“Good.”

The misty sky is the color of steel as his car
trembles through the streets of San Francisco toward the marina. We pass through
Market Street, where the skyscrapers block out the light. He drives toward the
water, where the old refurbished wharf buildings lean away from the street as
if leery, and into to Robert’s neighborhood, where the trees wear happy hats of
green leaves and the houses tuck neatly next to each other. He pulls his car
into the garage, and we stride inside his house together, Robert carrying my
bag.

Inside on his dining room table, I see he has
laid out a meal from Napoletana’s Pizza, the best pizza in San Francisco. How
did he know I love Napoletana’s Pizza? An unlit candle sits in the center,
surrounded by two wine glasses and a bowl of fruit salad. He sets my bag on the
counter and gestures toward the table.

“You ready to eat?”

“You know, I’d love to shower first,” I say.

“Can you?” he asks. “With the …” he gestures at
his stomach.

“Yeah. I’m mostly healed.”

He carries the bag for me into his bathroom and
sets it on the counter. There’s that moment of awkwardness when he says, “I’ll
just wait for you in the dining room.”

I close the door to his bathroom, which is
spacious and metallically modern, a large skylight overhead. I have my option
to sit in a Jacuzzi bath or take a shower in the stall. I opt for the shower,
being careful to avoid direct spray on the bandages on my stomach and back.
With my hair wet, I emerge from the shower. As I change my bandages, I see the
skin is pink around the stitches, but other than that, one would never know I’d
been shot. I slip on slim-fitting jeans under a silky shirt and button-up sweater.
I take time to slather extra deodorant under my arms, put a little makeup on, comb
my hair, and brush my teeth thoroughly. Looking in the mirror at my freckled
face, I say, “Why are you freaking out?”

I make sure to hang my towel neatly on the rack
and clean off the counter before I step out. Just then, Robert is striding down
the hall, and we nearly bump into each other. The narrowness of his hallway
suggests a small house, but it’s actually a palace compared to my apartment.
Pausing in the hall, Robert wears jeans too, a white t-shirt, no socks. His
hair looks stressed. He’s the epitome of sex in a dark hallway.

“How did it go?” Robert asks, looking
interested in my shower-time events. I find it impossible that someone so
beautiful could care.

“Fine.”

“Here, let me take that from you. I’ll show you
your room before we eat,” he says grabbing the bag from me.  I follow him down
his hallway a few paces before he pushes open the door. On the one side of the
room is a desk, and on the other is a bed against the wall. On the far wall, a
massive window reveals a meticulously maintained garden beyond with tightly
trimmed hedges, a rock garden, a tiled bench, and a fountain. He sets my bag
down.

“Thank you,” I say. “It’s ridiculous. I don’t
need to stay with you. I’m totally fine now.”

“Well, you saved my life,” he says, “by
standing in the way of that bullet. You should at least let me repay you by
taking care of you for a few days.” He takes a few steps towards me and reaches
for my hand while my heart feels like an automatic egg beater.
My boss is
holding my hand
. His other hand takes an electric path down the side of my
face, wiping aside a wet lock of hair.

“I promised I’d be a gentleman,” he says
forlornly while his finger takes a troubled route down the side of my neck and
traces the swoop of the neckline on my silky shirt, the tip of his skin barely
touching my own. I feel like I’m flying. He’s so tall and beautiful and perfect
standing there in front of me that I can hardly conceive it.

As he removes his hands from me and backs away,
the departure aches. He turns, and I follow him down the hall toward the dining
room, thinking our pizza is no doubt cold. I have wild thoughts as I tread, my
mind sweating with worry and smoke.

“Robert,” I say feeling as though I might choke
from lack of oxygen. He pauses and turns around in the dark hallway.

“Yeah?”

“I didn’t mean it, you know, what I said.” We
stand only a foot apart, maybe less. The darkness of the hallway puts beautiful
shadows on his face.

He narrows his gaze at me, waiting for me to
continue.

“When you came to my apartment door, and I said
‘I hated you.’ I didn’t mean it. I just wanted you to go away,” I explain,
“because Collin had a gun.”

Robert nods, doesn’t move.

“Because
I do
, you know,” I say, feeling
like a nitwit. Why can’t I get the words out? I shiver, perhaps because my hair
is wet.

“You do what?”  he asks.

“I do love you,” I say without looking at him.
I hear him exhale, and I feel naked though I’m fully clothed.

“Like a friend?” he asks, looking narrowly at
my face, his perfect eyebrows nearly touching into a concentrated frown.

At his comment, I chuckle but sound more like a
gust of air. “No, not like a friend.”  In the distant front window, the fog
rolls in, the light fading as the sun sets outside. I feel the swells of blood
in my veins.

 “Like what then?” He grins and crosses his
arms in front of him, as if refusing my passage down the hall without an
answer. “Like a puppy? A pet hamster?” he asks.

“Stop,” I say. “Not like that.”

“Do you want me, though? That’s the real
question.” He takes that one last step toward me, and I instantly feel the
hallway plaster on my shoulder blades behind me. “Do you want me the way I want
you?” His lashed blue eyes look nearly dark green in the light, the vein on his
temple pluses, and his lips part slightly. His chest rises and falls swiftly
while his hands barely clasp my waist. “Ever since you walked into my office for
that first interview, your long red hair, your beautiful freckles, that blue
dress, I’ve hardly been able to think about anything else. It’s been utterly
maddening.”

            At his words, excitement knocks the
wind out of me and my hands cup his neck, feel the silkiness of his hair, but
he’s faster than I am—his lips are already touching mine and his whole body is
a powerhouse of tension combined with tenderness. He reaches around to my back,
careful to slide his hand high above my bandage while the other hand clutches the
backside of my jeans, squeezing and nudging me toward him. The electric heat of
his hands feels brilliant and I’m suddenly heady with desire. He feels so tall
and strong and stiff. He tastes like breathless moans and want. I have the urge
to wrap my leg around him, but before this thought registers, I feel his hand
slide down over the backside of my jeans, feel him lifting my leg as if to open
my thighs and wrap me around him. With my other let still planted on the floor,
I hook my leg around his thigh and hear him groan. It’s so strange to hear him
make this noise. It’s impossible, a miracle, like the discovery of heliocentric
theory that the earth revolves around the sun rather than the other way around.
Someone moans, and I think it’s me this time because I’m contemplating how
desperately I want him. I can feel him holding back, unwilling to press himself
fully against me. Finding this frustrating, I use my hands to fist the bottom
of his white t-shirt on either side of his waist and yank up. He accommodates
me by throwing up his hands and allowing me to lift it over his head and toss
it to the floor.   

            A second passes as he looks me over
as if deciding whether he’s going to have me or not. The turbulent look in his
eyes is both titillating and desperate, as if he’s on the brink of mayhem. In
that instant, I contemplate whether he’ll destroy my clothing or take it off
gently. I want him to destroy it but know he’ll be delicate because I’m
injured. Looking at the bulge in his jeans, I think,
Oh god. I’m going to
have sex with Robert
. Feeling too anxious to wait, I reach out, hook my
fingers into his jeans, and yank him toward me. Immediately, his lips are
forcible paradise on my own as his hands slide the sweater off my shoulders,
the feeling of his bare hands on my shoulders like smooth sex. And then his
fingers journey to the front of my jeans while his breathing intensifies as if
he’s just run a marathon. My own breathing almost stops as I look down and
watch his hands. I wish I could capture this moment on video to forever
remember the first time he unzipped me. It’s too unreal, too unfathomable, too
exquisite, and just as my jeans lay open and the pink of my underwear is
visible—

            DING DONG. An old-fashioned
doorbell.

            Someone’s at the door.

            Robert pauses and places a hand on
the wall above me. He leans forward, catching his breath, bowing his head, and
closing his eyes in frustration. The look on his face is murder, beheading.
“Don’t move. Whoever it is will go away,” he whispers.

            DING DONG. Knock, knock, knock.

            I tip my lips up and kiss the side
of his cheek while seizing the hook in his jeans.

            DING DONG. Knock, knock, knock.

            “Fuck!” Robert whispers. “Don’t
move.” He grabs his t-shirt off the floor and slips it on before hoofing over
to the door and swinging it open. Two men stand there wearing suits. One is
brave enough to speak to Robert who must have hunger for bloodshed in his eyes.