20. No Spinning the Block
no spinning the block
julian
I could have sent a regret to Sabrina and returned the twenty thousand. That was the clean move, and a week ago I'd have made it without thinking.
I still planned to return her donation, but I came to her winning auction date anyway.
Because I’d been told by multiple people at this point that Sabrina had cornered Alyssa in the corridor.
I didn't know word for word what was said, but I knew enough. And I’d decided I was going to sit across from this woman one last time and make two things permanent: that whatever we'd had was over, and that she would never put Alyssa's name in her mouth again.
I’d been straight with Sabrina from the start, the way I was with every woman I’d been with: here’s what I can offer, here’s what I can’t.
She said she understood, and I believed her because she carried herself like a woman who was uninterested in the performance of romance.
We were similar in that way, I thought. So I broke my own rule with her.
That once it’s done, it’s done. No spinning the block.
With every other woman, we’d ended it clean, and months later we could be polite in a room.
I’d circled back with Sabrina a few times.
I was wrong about what she was feeling. That's on me for not looking more carefully. Her silence about wanting more hadn’t been agreement. It was strategy.
The pattern would be a few weeks of sleeping together. An ending that was mine to deliver. Months of nothing. Then she’d reappear. Stop by places I happened to be, with a reason. A run-in that wasn't a run-in. We’d sleep together again. Then end it again.
Months ago I’d ended it permanently. Yet her pattern continued.
It didn’t seem dramatic. Just her maintaining polite contact.
I responded enough to be decent. I didn’t want to be cold to a woman I’d slept with.
I own that part. I should have cut all contact, with no exceptions, instead of managing the distance and hoping she'd eventually take the hint.
That was a failure on my part, and I don't make excuses for it.
She’d figured out early that the Gala was a room she could engineer. Bid on a bachelor, the bachelor has to take you to dinner, and suddenly he’s sitting with her at a candlelit dinner, doing the thing he’s never once offered to do on his own.
I sat across from her and watched her perform. Every laugh calibrated. “You're quiet tonight,” she said. Practiced smile in place. “Everything okay?”
“Long week.”
“You work too hard, Julian. You need someone to help you relax.” There was an invitation under it, the hook I was supposed to catch and pull.
“I need to be straight with you,” I said, setting down my fork. “What we had is over. I told you that months ago. I’m telling you again because you haven’t absorbed it.”
Her smile got brighter. “You say that periodically, Julian. You always come back around.”
“Not anymore.”
“What changed?”
“I'm in a different place. I want you to know that clearly so there's no confusion going forward.”
“A different place.” She repeated it slowly. “Because of work. Your family. What exactly has you in such a different place that you're ending three years of us over appetizers.”
Three years. As if a string of disconnected weeks added up to three years of anything but recurrence. She wasn’t wrong about the time. She was wrong about what it meant.
“This isn’t a negotiation. I’m telling you this out of respect. It’s finished.”
She took a delicate sip and set her glass down.
“You know what I think? I think you’re running scared.
Something got under your skin and you’re doing what you always do.
Pulling back, making distance, telling yourself you don’t want what you want.
” She leaned in. “But I know you. I know what you actually need.”
Then she dropped her voice to a sensual register. “I’m not wearing anything under this dress. We could skip dessert. Go back to your place. Let me remind you why we work so well together.”
I looked at her, and felt pity. Genuine, uncomfortable pity I didn't want to feel because it was condescending and she didn't deserve condescension.
But it was there anyway, because what she was offering, the practiced seduction, used to feel like enough.
I hadn't known what I was missing, so I couldn't miss it.
Now I knew.
Suddenly, my phone buzzed.
ALYSSA
Question. Am I obligated to sing at karaoke or do I have a right to remain silent?
Everyone sings. That’s the rule. You've got a great voice, you'll be fine
ALYSSA
So YOU'RE singing then?
No. I'm exempt.
ALYSSA
Figures. I'll allow it but only because you're cute when you're being a hypocrite.
I couldn’t help the grin that got loose. When I looked up, Sabrina was watching me with a scowl on her face.
I set my phone down. I'd sat there and let her run her whole performance, because I wanted to see if she'd bring it up herself. If there was a version of this woman who'd say: I owe your friend an apology.
She wasn't going to. She was going to sit there and play seductress with a man she'd tried to humiliate a woman over, and never mention it. So I'd raise it myself.
“I know what you said to her at the gala.”
She smiled, then went still. “I don't know what you're—”
“I'm talking about Alyssa. I know you accosted her.” I kept my voice level. “I'm not going to ask you to confirm it. I'm telling you it's the last conversation about her you and I are ever going to have.”
For a second she did the recovery. The graceful pivot, the of course, that was nothing, girl talk. I watched her reach for it.
And then she didn't reach for it. Three years of practiced calm came off her face all at once.
“You danced with her.” It came out low and shaking.
“Do you know how that looked? I bid twenty thousand dollars on you. Again. Years I have sat in that room and watched you shake hands and work donors and you have never once asked me to dance. Not one time. And then some — ” she caught it, almost, then didn't — “some grasping little widow with a kid walks in off the street and you cross the entire floor for her in front of everyone I know.”
There it was.
“That's what this is about? You put your hands on her.
A lawyer. You should be very glad you're sitting across from me right now and not standing in front of a judge on an assault charge, because she could've made that call, and she didn't. That was her being generous. I wouldn't count on it twice.”
I leaned in. “Let me make sure you hear me, because I'm only saying this once.
You're going to stay away from her. You're not going to speak to her, speak about her, show up where she is, or so much as look in her direction. You will not say her name to a friend, a stranger, or a soul in this town.” My voice dropped.
“And if I hear that you did? If I hear you even sneezed in her direction? I will make sure every door that is open for ‘Bree the Brand’ in this region closes. Are we clear?”
She didn't answer.
“I asked if we're clear.”
The look she gave me then was one I’d never seen on her, and it made me understand, all at once, how badly I’d underestimated what I’d allowed in my orbit. She held it too long. Then she caught herself, dabbed the corner of her mouth with her napkin, and reassembled her smile in one fluid motion.
“Yes. Clear. Of course. I apologize. That was beneath me. You’re right to defend your friend. I wish her nothing but the best.” She straightened. “There’s no comparison to be made, Julian. Truly. Could we just finish dinner.”
For a second she just looked like a woman alone at a table, and although it was necessary, I didn't feel proud of myself. I had no more words for her, so I asked for the check.
She continued her meal and tried small talk for a few minutes while I waited for the check to arrive. I didn’t perform politeness, because politeness would have been engagement. I signed the check before the waiter set the pen down, and stood.
“Stay and finish your meal. Good night.” Then I left her with the rest of the dessert and the rest of the night.
I got in my car and did what I should have done before. I texted Glory.
Effective immediately. Sabrina West is persona non grata at any WadeHouse property or event. Not even as a plus-one substitution.
Any attempt by her to contact me should be refused.
Refund her auction bid by Friday. Paperwork to me to sign.
Confirm.
GLORY
On it Mr. Wade.