February 1975
My car won't start. I turn the key again and pray the old Ford will spring to life. Nothing. Not even the steady 'ding ding ding' of the idiot warning that tells me the keys are still in the ignition. I glance down at my watch. Thirty-seven minutes past midnight. No one in their right mind is still in the library that closed a few hours ago. Except- there was the bashful young man who reminded me it was so late. He must work here because he was tidying things up when he found me in my cubicle upstairs. I look around the parking lot for another car and sigh. He must walk.
What a way to start the week. It's only Monday and I'm already looking down a dark road until the weekend and the damn weekend only gets darker. AJ's wedding is this weekend. If he wasn't marrying my best friend I could blow it off, spend the time doing laundry, or finally getting my apartment in some semblance of order. I knock on the closed door to the library, praying that librarian is still here.
After a moment he appears in the doorway, looking quizzically at me with shockingly deep brown eyes.
"Can I help you?" He asks softly, sounding nervous until he clears his throat.
"I hope so." I begin as I look back towards my car. "I can't get my car to start. Must have left my lights on when I arrived, I was hoping you could jump me-"
He chuckles, a warm playful sound that brings life into his features. "As tempting as that offer is, I'm sorry." His eyes twinkle in merriment and his amusement trumps his shyness. "I don't have a car."
"Damn." I toss my hair back over my shoulders and sigh. "Do you have a phone?"
He smiles at me a moment longer than courtesy allows. Shaking himself out of wherever he's gone, the librarian nods and ushers me back into the library. "Sure, right over here." He sits on the desk next to me, twirling his keys lazily in one hand as I dial.
I let the phone ring eight times at Del's before I remember he's out of town this weekend. There's no answer at Elaine's. She must be sleeping over at AJ's tonight and I'll sleep in the library before I call there. After Elaine I'm stumped. Del's little sister has a car, but I don't dare call her. We're barely on speaking terms. I set the phone down and he gives me the same quizical expression.
"Only two friends?" He asks gently. "Or your boyfriend has two numbers."
"I don't know if you read the society pages, but my boyfriend is marrying someone else on Saturday." The bitterness in my tone is entirely lost on me. "My best friend actually. So yes, that narrows down my acquaintances a little."
He brushes off my sarcasm with another shy smile. It's really a sweet personality trait of his. "I'd offer you a lift home, but we've already covered my lack of a car. Can I walk you home?"
"It's a bit of a walk from here." I fold my arms across my chest and try to think of something to do.
"You don't live nearby?" He wonders as he shuts off the lights and leads me towards the door.
"No." I reply with a tiny smile of my own. AJ didn't even know where I lived, but it's strangely easy to admit it to this stranger. "I have a flat by the trains. It's a bit loud, but."
"You're barely there anyway." He finishes for me as he locks the door to the library behind us. He stops at the sidewalk and holds out his hands in a gesture of confusion. "Where to mademoiselle? Perhaps a hotel?"
Tossing my bag over my shoulder I sigh in frustration. "If I stay in a hotel tonight I won't be able to eat for a week. Just point me towards the railroad yard and I'll be fine."
"It's over eight miles." He reminds me with a concerned look at my feet. "You're going to walk it at night in those shoes?"
He might have a point about my heels. They're certainly not suited for this kind of hike. "Have any better ideas?"
Pausing a moment, he clears his throat nervously and points down the road. "I know we haven't even introduced ourselves, but I happen to have a car at my apartment. If you don't mind a bit of a walk we might be able to get yours going again."
"You don't have to do that for me." Shaking my head I start to protest. "You've already done your good deed by letting my use the phone. You don't even know me."
He grins and starts to walk down the street as he quotes a brief biography of me. "Olivia Blake, third year law student, first in your class at Stanford, currently the favored recruit for Massey-Greysolon."
I grab his arm and stop him, completely thrown aback that he could know so much about me. "How?" I wonder dumbstruck.
Extending his hand as he turns towards me, the handsome young stranger introduces himself. "Gregory Richards, only son and greatest disappointment of Congressman Samuel Richards and the esteemed Mrs. Caroline Richards."
That explains why his eyes are so familiar. "I've met your father. He's at all of Massey's luncheons."
"I apologize if he's said or done anything boorish." He holds my hand firmly, but reverently, like a precious artifact. "But I'm afraid everything he's said about me is true. I am a bookish loser who will never amount to more than I a history professor. A waste of his name and reputation." He laughs but there's pain behind it.
"Your manners certainly aren't a waste." The complement sends a flush across his strong cheekbones. "I can't think of many favorite sons who would walk a woman all the way back to their apartment just to try to fix her car. That may not even start anyway."
"It is said that most of life is to be had in the journey." He offers me his arm and I surprise myself by taking it. "Even if that journey is just back to my apartment. There's a world to be explored in those steps."
He smells subtly like expensive aftershave and the cloth of his shirt is soft against my hand. "You don't mind sharing that world?"
"No." He, Gregory, smiles up at the stars and turns to me with the look of a man walking through a beautiful dream. "Not with you Miss Blake."
I readjust my bag and he stops and takes it from me, slinging it over his shoulder and giving me his arm again. It's heavy and I'm glad to be rid of it. "You can call me Olivia."
"It might have to be Miss Blake for the time being." Gregory replies easily with a sheepish smile. "Olivia's too beautiful to profane with my lips."
"My last name isn't beautiful?" I tease playfully but he pauses and gives it a serious moment of thought.
"It's Irish but of English origin. Simple, and not really befitting of someone like you." He speaks with quiet authority. It's nice to have someone talk to me in an educated way without speaking down to me like one of my professors. "Means black, your hair is nearly appropriate, but it's not the first thing that comes to mind when I look at you."
"What's the first thing?" I wonder but he dodges the question with ease.
"Olivia is latin, derived from the olive tree and commonly means peace." He studies my face without losing a step. "Something I hope you find."
It's as if he can see right through me and a shiver runs down my spine. "What does Gregory mean?"
"Watchful or vigilant." He wrinkles his nose in distaste. "It's Greek in origin, though my parents have no connection with Greece."
"It's certainly lucky for me that you are." The warmth in my tone earns another blush.
"My pleasure Miss Blake." He pats my hand and the same shiver runs up my arm and tingles my shoulder. "My pleasure."
January 1997
He's home late. Not uncommon in and of itself and I know what it feels like to not want to come home. What's odd is that Rose says he's working late at the radio station, but the radio station hasn't seen my husband since this afternoon. I should have seen this coming. It's been nearly a year since our last explosion over our respective affairs. He knows I'm more possessive. Gregory knows every affair of his cuts straight into my heart and he does it anyway.
My affairs are cheap, recreational and usually no more than a one night stand. Gregory's are a search for love. Affection that he doesn't want from me anymore. Rose is just trying to rationalize his story when he comes home. He flops on to the couch, avoiding my eyes because he knows he's been caught. "Checking up on me darling?"
"I didn't know a wife calling her husband at work counted as checking up." I reply grimly as I steel myself for another fight. "Where were you?"
"Out." He replies simply. "I got done with work and drove around. I needed some time to think."
I turn on him, ready to tear him apart until he tells me everything about that damn whore but the phone rings. Gregory gets up to pour himself a drink and I answer it.
As I hang up the phone the world starts to crumble. "Elaine's been shot."
He nearly drops his glass in shock. "She's dead? My God-"
I grab for my purse and car keys. "She's been shot. They're taking her to the medical center." As I head for the door he runs after me. It's illogical but I feel better as he buckles into the car next to me. I'd rather have him at my side, even if he is sneaking around behind my back.
He kissed her. Gregory leaned down over her dead lips and kissed her. I've been walking all night. Wandering the streets we used to walk together and trying to figure out where we got lost. How we went wrong. I walk up the stairs to our bedroom in a daze. Some tramp, his secretary, the coffee girl at the radio station- that I could understand. Elaine was my friend.
The shower's running as I enter our bedroom. The room we loved in once. The bed hasn't been slept in so he must have been up all night as well. I jiggle the knob to the bathroom. It's unlocked. Without thinking I barge into the bathroom. There's a cloud of steam around our marble in-floor shower and within it is my naked husband. He leans against the wall with one hand and the other brushes across his face.
The gesture is unmistakable. He's wiping tears away. Gregory's mourning his slut. I crash into him, hitting his chest with my fist as I shove him back into the wall of the shower. "Bastard!" I spit the word into his chest. "When's the last time you cried for me?"
He puts up his hands weakly refusing to defend himself as the water cascades down onto both of us. It soaks through into my clothing but I don't even feel it. All I feel is his flesh beneath my hands.
"Stop." He whispers softly. "Olivia you don't understand."
I slap my hand across his face, bloodying the lips that kissed hers. "What's there to understand?" He lets me keep hitting him, sinking down against the wall without raising a hand to defend himself.
I fall to my knees in front of him, feeling the hard marble shoot pain up through my legs. "You kissed her. You said-" I wasn't going to cry. All my anger was supposed to keep me from crying. I force myself to concentrate on the stupid expression on his face. "You said you loved her. How often do you kiss cold, dead lips and whisper how much you love her?"
He spits blood into the bottom of the shower. "No one is colder than you Olivia." He rests his hands on my shoulders without any pressure but when I strike his chest again he grabs my lapels. Gregory pulls my face within a breath of his. "I haven't been this close to you in years."
Even infuriated, disgusted and soaking wet I can't ignore the way the heat of my anger is rushing down between my legs. He rips off my jacket, shoving it down off my hands as I grab his neck.
"Shut up." I pull him to my lips, tasting his blood as his hands dig into my back. He runs his hands down and across to the front of my pants. I force my tongue into his mouth, but as soon as we taste each other we succumb to our addiction.
He tears my pants open, flipping me down to the floor of the shower. My upper back catches on the edge of the shower and the sudden flash of pain makes me realize there will be a mark but I don't care. I want him. My body's barely ready but I pull him inside. Gregory splits the front of my blouse, flinging buttons off as the wet fabric gives way.
He grabs both of my breasts and squeezes them hard against the bones of my chest. I groan and wrap my arms tightly around his back as I open my legs to let him in deeper. The water splashes off his back and the steam rolls around my head. He thrusts, driving in towards the emptiness inside me. I dig my nails into the back of his neck, spurring him on. He curls over me, lowering his head on my shoulder. Before I close my eyes all I see is the circle of water pouring down from the shower head.
With my eyes closed I crush him against me. Gregory moves faster and I start to orgasm so quickly it hurts. I tighten around him in agonizing pain, arching into him as he keeps moving within me. I force his name out of my cry of pleasure, making it a guttural scream. He's panting as he reaches his own climax. He shudders above me, but he whispers something that could do more damage than any affair ever could.
"You're the best Liv."