Spellman Ch. 18

Sunday, August 4th, 2013

It wasn't too much later that things started to wrap up. I helped Paul and Jackie clean up the tables in the backyard and took out the trash. Once everyone else had left, I decided to ask Paul's advice about how to handle things with Riley, which necessitated telling him the whole story between us--from meeting that first night, her ghosting me, finding out we worked together, all the way to waking up in her apartment on Saturday morning after sleeping with her roommate. Jackie came into the room about halfway through my tale.

I felt a little awkward telling her about what was going on for a couple reasons--first because explaining the craziness of my recent sex life to someone I had just met that day seemed excessive, and second because she knew Thomas--but Paul assured me that if I didn't tell her then he was going to have to tell her later anyways. No secrets in that marriage. So I started over and told the story from the beginning so Jackie could have the full context.

When I was done, Paul's first question had absolutely nothing to do with either Riley or Thomas. "Dude, what about Cece?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Didn't you just ask her out?"

"I did."

"Then how did you end up sleeping with that Tiffany girl?"

"Well, that was before I asked Cece out on a date."

"But still, if you were interested in her at the time, what are you doing going around sleeping with someone else?" he asked.

"Paul, honey," Jackie interjected, "that's just how things work. Ryan and Cece haven't even been on their first date, they certainly haven't had a conversation about being exclusive, right?"

"Right," I said.

"Just seems weird to me. If you're into a girl you should just focus on her. Why screw around? You might mess up something good," Paul said.

"You're an absolute romantic, love. We've been together since we were kids and stuck it out with our one person, but you know how rare that is."

"I guess. Anyways, given all of the other landmines surrounding that situation, you should probably not have sex with Tiffany again, so at least that solves those two problems."

"Well..." I said, scratching the back of my head. "Tiffany may not be the only girl I've been sleeping with recently."

"Dude, come on."

So then I had to explain everything with Melissa and Tori as well, plus the close encounter with Emma. I decided they didn't need to know about Tessa and Serenity. Even without those two others, Paul seemed gobsmacked by my recent...promiscuity. Jackie seemed wildly entertained. I was like her own personal Reality TV show.

"I guess it should come as no surprise that my advice is to stop sleeping around and just focus on dating Cece," Paul said. "I think you two will be really good together. Melissa and Emma seemed nice, but I don't sense the connection with them that I see between you and Cece. I'll admit that part of me does like the idea of you ending back up together with your high school sweetheart, but I still say stick with Cece."

I glanced over at Jackie. "Oh don't look at me," she said. "This is none of my business. I'm just enjoying the drama. You're going to have to have a conversation with this Cece girl at some point, and probably the sooner the better, but it's your life, Ryan. You're not doing anything wrong right now. If you do want my opinion though, I think that you wait until you've had at least a few dates to have the exclusivity conversation."

"Thanks," I said. "Well, now that we've covered all of the insanity of my current sex life, what am I supposed to do about Riley? Do I tell her about Thomas? I guess I don't even know for sure if he's actually having sex with Grace. Maybe whatever flirting they're doing is fine with Riley."

"Oh, he's definitely having sex with her," Jackie said. "One of the other professors walked in on them when they forgot to lock his office door."

"Okay...but maybe they had another talk about their relationship and decided to go forward on opening it up again. I doubt Riley would have told me if they had, given how awkward things are between us already. 'Oh, by the way, my boyfriend said he's cool with me sleeping with other guys again' after all the shit with her ghosting me would probably not send the right message."

"Anything's possible," Jackie said, "but somehow I doubt that's what's going on."

"I just don't know if inserting myself into their relationship that way is the right thing for me to do. It's probably especially bad if it comes from me, given my history with Riley, and she was already upset with me yesterday because of Tiffany. It's not like I want to get together with Riley again, but she might see me trying to tell her about Thomas as messing things up between them so I can do just that."

"I would want to know, if it were me."

"Why not go through her roommate?" Paul asked.

"That might work," I said, "but I don't have her number. She said she would ask Riley for mine but I don't even know if she meant that or is she was just teasing Riley. With how upset she was yesterday, I don't know if me asking Riley for Tiffany's number would go over well. I'll just have to wait until she reaches out to me, if she ever does."

"You really don't think it would go over well if you just tried to talk to her about it directly?"

"I don't know. My interactions with her have been wildly inconsistent."

"I think she deserves to know. It might be hard to hear, but you can make it clear you're just trying to help her."

"Yeah...we'll see. Hopefully Tiffany messages me and I can try that route. If not, I have a decision to make."

I thanked Paul and Jackie for their hospitality--and for their attempts to untangle my love life and this situation with Riley--then took my leave. Just as I was about to turn into my apartment complex, my phone rang with a call from Melissa.

"Hey, Melissa. What's up?"

"Want to come hang out? T and I are just about to order some pizza and watch a couple of movies."

I was getting hungry, and hanging out with the two of time was always fun, so it was an easy answer. "Sure. I'm already in the car, I'll be over there in a bit."

"Cool! See you soon!"

Tori greeted me at the door when I arrived, giving me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. "Hey! Glad you could join us."

"Thanks for the invite."

Melissa was already seated on the couch, TV remote in hand. She patted the cushion next to her. "Come here, big guy."

I sat down next to her. "So what are we watching?" I asked.

"Hatchet II," Tori said, taking a seat on the other side of me.

I groaned. Of course. Tori loved horror movies. I was not a huge fan. "I haven't seen Hatchet I, do you think I'll even be able to follow the plot?"

"Shut up," she said, giving me a playful slap on the arm.

Melissa started the movie. I did my best to pay attention, but my mind kept wandering back to everything I had discussed earlier with Paul and Jackie. Here I was, sandwiched between Tori and Melissa on the couch. Sure, right now everything was purely friendly, but did they expect the whole night to stay that way?

All I'd done was ask Cece on a date. She said it herself, just me asking her out didn't make her my girlfriend. I decided that Jackie was probably right. I'd see how things went after a few dates with Cece, and if things were going well we could have that talk about being exclusive.

I was rescued from my thoughts by a knock on the door. "I'll get it," Melissa said. "Probably the pizza guy." It was, so she paid for our food and brought the boxes back to where we were sitting on the couch, dropping them on the coffee table. "Let me go grab some plates and napkins, but we can just eat here."

I grabbed a couple slices of pepperoni to start, savoring the greasy goodness. Pizza: always a good choice. While we ate, I asked Tori and Melissa to explain exactly what had happened on Friday night at the bar.

"Oh my god," Melissa said. "It was nuts. Right after you went to the bathroom, Riley comes over and gets in Emma's face. She's shouting so Emma can hear her over the music, going on about how she needs to stop trying to seduce you, that you're a good guy and you don't need to get caught up in all of her bullshit. Of course Emma is not one to back down, so she starts yelling right back at Riley. Saying how you're a grown-ass man and can make your own decisions, that who she sleeps with is none of Riley's business, and that a boring prude like her wouldn't understand having a good time anyways."

"So then Riley says 'It's my business when you try to sleep with guys you have no business being around, like my boyfriend!'" Tori said, jumping in. "So Emma says 'Bitch he was hitting on me!' and the next thing I know Riley throws her drink on Emma and just starts screaming at her, calling her a bitch and a liar. Then Emma throws her drink, and now Melissa and I are trying to get between them before it gets out of hand, but by then the bouncer was already grabbing everyone and taking us outside."

Wow. Well, for one thing it was certainly ironic that by trying to keep Emma from sleeping with me, Riley's actions had inadvertently led to me sleeping with her roommate. I had known that Riley and Emma didn't like each other, but this new information gave everything a new twist. Riley thought that Emma had been trying to seduce her boyfriend at some point, but given what I knew about Thomas now I thought it was much more likely that he was the instigator there. Emma was built a lot like Thomas's T.A. Grace, so I could see where maybe he had a type. I was just confused where Riley fit into that, given her much more modest bust.

"Yeah, Riley's definitely still got a thing for you," Melissa said.

"Funny you should say that, because I have a lot more Riley-related issues after everything that's happened this weekend."

I explained what happened after they had left the bar, how I'd ended up sleeping with Riley's roommate, meeting Riley's boyfriend at their apartment, and then running into him and his T.A. at Paul's house.

"Are you going to tell her?" Tori asked once I finished filling them in on everything.

"I think I have to, right? I'd want to know if I was being cheated on. Wouldn't you?"

"Definitely," Melissa said. She looked ready to go punch Thomas right in the dick. It made sense, given her history with a cheating boyfriend.

"I guess you just need to figure out what your response will be, depending on if she takes it well or not," Tori said.

"If she doesn't believe me then that's her thing to deal with," I said. "At least I'll have tried to do the right thing. If she does, I guess I'll just try to be supportive? I don't really think it's my place to be very involved in the aftermath. I'm probably the worst person to be involved, actually. I'm still hoping that Tiffany will call or text me so I can go through her."

"What will you do if she wants another shot with you when things blow up with her boyfriend?" Tori asked. "I agree with Melissa, she's definitely still into you."

"It doesn't matter," I said with a shake of my head. "That ship has sailed. We had one nice night while I was in a really weird place emotionally. I think it's best to just leave that in the past. Right now I'm just focused on us having a good working relationship for this school year."

"If you say so."

We finished eating and Tori put on the next movie. Thankfully, this one wasn't horror. Unfortunately, she had picked Hunger Games.

"They're fun books," Tori said in her defense after I voiced my displeasure at her movie selection. "Second movie comes out soon. I want a refresher."

"Just know that I'm not going to go see it with you in the theater," I said.

"That's fine, M will go with me."

The petite blonde nodded her agreement. Tori started the movie, despite my protests. I only gave the movie a small portion of my attention. Eventually Melissa noticed my distracted state. She snuggled up to me and leaned in close to whisper in my ear.

"If you do come see the movie in theaters with us, we can just pretend we're teenagers and use it as an opportunity to make out in the dark for a few hours." She nibbled on my earlobe to give her words a bit more emphasis. "We can practice right now," she said, climbing onto my lap. Melissa kissed me deeply, her tongue tickling the roof of my mouth before retreating. I grabbed her ass, one tight cheek in each hand, and pulled her close. It didn't take long for me to get hard, and as soon as she felt it Melissa started to grind herself on me. After a few minutes of dry humping, she lifted her hips and went to start unbuttoning my pants.

"It's getting late," I said. "I should probably get going."

"Are you serious?" Melissa asked, giving me an incredulous stare.

"Yeah. I'm sorry, but I need to be up early and it's been a long day."

"Okay..." she said, sliding off my lap.

"I'm sorry," I said again. I gave her a quick kiss. "I just kind of hit a wall. I don't want to start something I can't finish."

"It's fine."

I stood up from the couch and adjusted myself, which was more than a little difficult given the state making out with Melissa had put me in. "Thanks for inviting me over tonight. I had fun. I'll see you two tomorrow."

"Yeah, see you tomorrow, Ryan," Tori said.

"Goodnight," Melissa said.

I showed myself out before I said or did anything stupid. By the time I made it down the stairs and to my car I had already beaten myself up mentally. What was wrong with me? There was no reason for me to cut things off with Melissa so suddenly. I had already decided that it didn't make sense to even have a conversation about being exclusive with Cece until we had been on a few dates.

So why did I feel so guilty when Melissa tried to take things to the next level? I hadn't felt any guilt or remorse when we were just kissing, but as soon as she started to undo my pants it felt like a ghost had grabbed me by the throat. I knew it wasn't cheating. Cece and I weren't in a relationship. Maybe I was just feeling overly sensitive to the concept because of everything with Riley and Thomas.

I drove home, wrestling with those thoughts the whole time. It's possible that what I really needed was to just get out of my own head. I was second guessing myself too often.

After getting home and going through my nighttime routine, I climbed into bed and did my best to settle down all of the thoughts bouncing around inside my skull. It took a long time before I was able to get to sleep.

Monday, August 5th, 2013

I'm not sure why I felt so nervous picking up Cece. Things had been great on Saturday. Nothing had really changed. The only difference was that now I was all in my head about things.

Cece didn't seem to be feeling any nervousness or awkwardness around me. She slid into the passenger seat of my car and flashed me a brilliant smile. "Good morning! How was hanging out with Paul yesterday?"

"Good morning to you too," I said as I pulled away from her house. "It was...good."

"Why the long pause?"

"We had a good time. Met his wife, who is great. Watched some baseball. Even met a guy who was apparently a fan of mine, which was nice but a little weird. There was just an awkward encounter in there that's been bothering me."

"Okay, hold on. Few things. First, what do you mean the guy was a fan of yours?"

"I guess I never mentioned it to you either. Paul was annoyed with me too. I played football in college. He also went to Stanford, a long time back, and is a huge football fan."

"That's so cool, I can't believe you hadn't told me that! Why is it so weird for him to be a fan?"

"Because it's not like I was a star or anything. I was a career backup. I only started three games, when our actual starting quarterback was injured."

"Well I still think it's really cool."

"Thanks. It was a great time. I knew I was never going to be a pro, but I was able to play the game for four more years than most people, and I got a free education from a fantastic school out of it."

"What was the awkward encounter?"

I sighed. "I knew one of the other people there. He's the boyfriend of one of the teachers at Spellman."

"So?"

"He was there with another woman."

Cece's face twisted into a scowl. "So he's cheating on her?"

I nodded. "Looks that way," I said.

"Are you going to tell her?"

"I think I have to, but I'm not looking forward to it."

"You should definitely tell her."

I parked and we got out of the car, meeting Paul at the front door of the gym.

"Cece!" Paul said as soon as we walked up. "Did this guy tell you that he played quarterback in college?"

She laughed. "Just now in the car, actually."

"I'm amazed that he somehow forgot to tell us. Usually a guy would lead with that, especially if he's trying to impress a girl. I guess it worked out fine, though. I hear you two are going on a date this week."

"We are," she said, blushing.

"I swear, Paul, you might as well be an old lady with how much you love gossiping. Sorry," I said, turning to Cece, "if I knew he was going to make a big deal out of it I wouldn't have told him."

"It's fine. I figured you would. It's just two people going on a date, not a big deal."

The three of us went inside to start our workouts. Though she had her admirers as always, no one approached Cece this morning, which I'm sure she was happy about. Part of me was a bit disappointed that I didn't get to play fake-boyfriend again, though.

Cece gave me a quick kiss when I dropped her off. "See you tomorrow," she said, before giving me my favorite view of the day as she walked to her door.

I drove to Spellman for my last day of prep before students showed up on Tuesday, dreading the conversation I knew I had to have with Riley. My hopes that Tiffany would text me so I could go through her instead had come up empty, so now it was my responsibility alone. I couldn't decide if it would be best to get it out of the way early, or wait until the end of the day.

Riley wasn't in her classroom when I first went to check, so I settled in at my desk. I spent a couple hours sending out emails trying to find people who would be willing to help sponsor our classroom library. I had managed to scrounge up a few books last week, but nowhere near as many as I would like to have.

There was a knock at my door. "Come in!" I yelled. The door opened and Emma stepped into my classroom.

"Hey, Ryan."

"Emma, hey. What's up?"

She walked over to my desk and sat on the edge. "I just wanted to apologize for how everything went down on Saturday night."

"Don't worry about it. I think we all got a bit out of hand. I know I definitely had too much to drink. Tori and Melissa told me about what happened with Riley."

"I don't get that girl," Emma said, shaking her head. "She came at me like I was trying to steal her man. She's hated me ever since the staff picnic last summer when she thought I was hitting on her boyfriend. I wasn't, by the way. He was hitting on me. I didn't even know he was her boyfriend."

"Yeah, I believe you," I said.

"Anyways, I'm still sorry. I know I was pushing things really hard. Everyone was way too drunk because I was setting the pace. I was just really trying to make it as easy as possible for us to hook up, and it backfired."

"I get it. I was right there with you, but to be honest, I think it's probably for the best that we didn't actually get to that point."

"You do?"

"Yeah. Look, Emma, we still haven't gotten to know each other very well yet, but you seem like a ton of fun. I'm really looking forward to hanging out more. But I think it's probably a good idea for me to avoid sleeping with the women I'm going to be working with."

"What about Melissa and Tori?"

"I'm not sure how much longer that's going to be going on either, to be honest. It's still early, but I asked someone out, someone I don't work with, and if things go well there then I'm definitely not going to be sleeping with anyone else."