Thou Shalt Not(54)

She was less than a foot from me, her face getting much closer to mine.

“It depends on what’s happening,” she said, looking up into my eyes.

I wasn’t thinking about throwing her into the water anymore. Everything within me wanted to pull her tightly in and kiss her right there, in front of the pool in the house her husband bought with all the millions of dollars he had made throughout his career. Kiss her on the spot where he probably threw numerous parties. Kiss her on the lips I wished were mine, and not his.

The look in her eyes told me she wanted the same. At least I thought they did. I hadn’t been in a position where I felt like this for someone in a long time. Thankfully, my hands were around her waist or I surely would have been able to feel them get clammy, nervous, like a high school kid on his first date with the prom queen he never thought he could get.

She is calculating, remember? I thought to myself. If she hadn’t wanted it to get to this point she never would have asked you over to her house. She wants this as much as you do.

I wasn’t sure which shoulder angel was feeding me that line but whoever it was, I knew they were right.

My hands pulled her closer until her feet were between mine; our legs and waists touching.

“You have really strong shoulders,” she said. Her voice was soft and she tilted her head up toward mine when she spoke.

Do it, I told myself. Kiss her.

My heart was racing, and I could hear the beating in my ears. My hands moved up her body and found her neck. My fingers laced in her hair behind her head and I pulled her up.

Then I heard it. We both did. A loud buzzing sound was coming from the table. We both looked over and she took a step back. It was her cell phone. The vibrations immediately turned into a loud ringing.

She looked back toward me, disappointed. She closed her eyes and sighed.

“Fuck,” she said, lowering her forehead on to my chest.

My hands fell to my sides. She got over to the table quickly to silence the ringer. Her face dropped when she saw her screen.

“Fuck, fuck,” she said again, and kicked the ground before answering the phone.

There was a pause before she said, “Hi, Honey.”

Another pause, then, “Oh yeah, I guess that was a quick flight.”

Pause.

“I’m just here at the house, getting ready to go to bed.”

I still hadn’t moved from the edge of the pool, and now I wanted to jump in and bury my head underwater so I didn’t have to hear them talk. It was easy to think of Marco the asshole and want to show April she could be treated better by someone who really wasn’t an awful person. But hearing them interact made what was going on seem more real. She was still very married. And I almost kissed her in his house. God, what was happening?

“You know I have to work tomorrow,” she said, her voice going up slightly. “If I’m awake when you get here, fine. But I can’t make any promises. I’m passing out as it is.”

I walked back over toward the table, admitting to myself that she wasn’t going to come right back to where we were before the phone rang. The mood and tension and anticipation weren’t going to magically return. Marco had seen to that.

“Okay. Okay. Bye.”

She hung up and set her phone back down on the table.

“They left Detroit sooner than he said they would. Just landed.”

The airport was still an hour away, so I knew he wasn’t going to be showing up in the near future.

Unless he called from the front yard, I thought to myself. He’s probably seen my car and is waiting next to it with a lead pipe or a wrench. He didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would have a problem bludgeoning someone to death. Maybe I should just run out the back yard, dive off the dock, and try swimming home. Death by bull shark seemed more pleasant than having my brains bashed in.

“Damn pilots. Trying to get home quickly,” I said, hoping to lighten the mood that had gotten noticeably sour.

“Yeah,” was all she said.

We walked in silence back up the incline toward the house, neither of us saying a word. Neither of us had bothered saying, “I guess we should go back inside and wrap this up,” but it was obvious we both knew it was what needed to happen.

The silence was filled with “what ifs” and disappointment. I could have stopped her right there, said, “I’m not letting him ruin our moment,” and kissed her like she had never been kissed before. But, I knew it wouldn’t have had the same impact as if I had kissed her five minutes before. It was funny how things could change so quickly. You’d think after all I had been through, things changing quickly would seem normal.

I had danced on the edge, but I hadn’t crossed the line yet. I could have, but once I kissed her, there would be no turning back. You can’t kiss a married woman and then say, “Maybe we shouldn’t have done that.” You have to make sure you are all in if you let yourself do it.