Chapter 8

Riley walked out of the bathroom wearing shorts and nothing else. His bare chest still had water droplets on it, and his blond hair was still wet as well. He peeked into the bedroom and saw Stephanie sitting alone on the bed, looking off into space. He leaned in the doorway and looked over at her, waiting for her to notice him. When she didn't, he spoke.

"You look like you're in your own little world," he said loudly.

Stephanie looked up at him, startled. Her eyes took in his body, which looked so much like Chris's body that it was scary. She realized that she was staring, and she looked down at her hands. "I guess I am in my own little world."

"Filled with thoughts of Chris, right?" he asked.

She smiled a little. "Am I that obvious?"

"Yeah," he said with a laugh. "I mean, anybody can see that you're in love with my big bro, just by the way you look at him."

"Then why can't he see that?" she asked, sounding anguished. "Why can't he see the way that I feel about him?"

"He's still hurt," he replied, as if it had been obvious. "You don't understand all the crap he went through over the past few years."

"Tell me, then," she said. "I want to know, because I need to be with him. Just last night, he came to my office and apologized to me before his match and said that we were friends. Now tonight, he's mad at me again, and I just can't understand it all."

"Let me tell you about Chris," he said, sitting down on the bed. "First of all, if you know him as well as I think you do, then you know that he can be a very jealous man."

"I knew he was jealous, but I didn't know just how jealous he could get," she said. "And flirting's pretty harmless, right?"

"Ok, let me start over." He was silent for a minute, and then he looked at her. "When you married Paul and left, Chris was beside himself with grief. He didn't know what to do. Run after you? Wait for you to come back? Go back to his wife?"

"What do you mean go back his wife?" she asked sullenly. "He never left her."

"Oh, on the contrary, he did...somewhat. He moved out of the main house and moved into the guest house," he informed her. "That was the first step."

"He never told me that," she argued. "You're making this up, aren't you?"

"He never told you because it was supposed to be a surprise," he said. "But he did move out. It was all, like, a gradual process. First he started sleeping in a guest bedroom instead of the master bedroom with her, and after that he moved out to the guest house."

"Wow," she said. "And he never told me about any of it."

"It was supposed to be a surprise," he said again. "But I guess it's a good thing he didn't tell you, because then you just disappeared... Why'd you marry what's-his-name anyway?"

"Paul? He was there for me, and he didn't have a wife," she said simply. "I did love him, too, but not the way I love Chris. I don't think I could ever love another man the way that I love Chris."

"I see." He stood up and started to walk out of the room, suddenly anxious to end the conversation. "Well, I have to get some sleep. Today's been a long day for me."

"Goodnight," she called to him.

"Yeah, same to you," he called back, and then he didn't say anything else to her.

Stephanie sat in the bedroom on the edge of the bed and wondered when Chris was coming back. She couldn't quite process all the information Riley had told her. Chris had actually moved out of his bedroom? Out of his house? And for the past two years, she'd been consumed with wondering why Chris wouldn't leave his wife for her and why he wouldn't move out... All that time, he'd actually been ready to move out? Ready to leave his wife to be with her?

She stood up, gathered some of her stuff, and headed for the bathroom for a shower. By the time she came out about thirty minutes later, Chris was back from his walk. She put her stuff away, then sat on her side of the bed and tried not to look at him. She was still thinking about all the things Riley had told her.

"Hope you saved me some hot water," Chris said, not looking at her, making small talk.

"You moved out?" she asked, unable to control what she was saying.

"What?" He looked at her with one eyebrow raised. "What are you talking about?"

"Your brother told me that you moved out into the guest house back, well, you know when," she said. "Is that true?"

"Damn, I told him not to tell you," he said, frowning. "But yeah, I moved out into the guest house. I was going to move completely off the property but then I found out that you married Paul and figured, what's the point?"

"You were really going to leave her...for me?" she asked, swallowing hard.

"Yes." He glared at her. "But that didn't quite happen, did it? Because you married Paul, didn't you?"

"Because I thought you didn't want me! I felt like a whore, Chris," she whispered. She mentally cursed at herself as she felt the tears coming. "You don't know how I felt, having to sneak around with you. I was always wondering if you would ever leave her or if I would always just be your woman on the side..." She looked away as the tears fell.

That's just what Riley said last night, he thought, and immediately he started to feel guilty. He was at her side in a flash, touching her arm. "I'm sorry, Steph," he said softly. He didn't know exactly what he was apologizing for, but he knew he had a lot of reasons to say it to her. "I never meant to make you feel that way. If it makes you feel any better, I certainly never thought of you as a whore."

"That's just what I felt like," she said sadly, looking at him.

"That's not what you were to me," he said, reaching up with his hand to touch her face. "Now wipe these tears away and stop crying."

"What did I mean to you?" she asked, reaching up to touch the hand he was touching her face with.

"God, Steph, you meant the world to me," he whispered softly, staring into her eyes. "You were my everything, the woman I lived for...You were the woman of my dreams..."

"Do you still feel that way?" she whispered, wanting to just lean over and kiss him.

He immediately pulled his hand away from her face and stood up. "It doesn't matter if I feel that way or not now," he said, going over to his luggage. "What we had is done, and the most you and I can be now is friends. These past two years, I've worked really hard to get my marriage back on track, and while I can't say that I'm totally happy...it'll have to do." He finished his little speech and walked into the bathroom, shutting the door before she could get in another word.

She sat on the bed, staring dumbfounded at the closed bathroom door, going over what he'd just said in her mind. She wanted to cry, she wanted to throw a temper tantrum, she wanted to do something to make him change his mind. Of course, she knew that once he had his mind set on something, there was no changing it. She was just going to have to deal with it...

She laid down in the bed and snuggled up under the covers, feeling very vulnerable all of a sudden. She laid there in silence until Chris came out of the bathroom, freshly showered, a few minutes later. She felt his presence in the room, felt it when he laid down on his side of the bed. She turned on her side to look over at him and saw that he was lying on his side with his back to her.

"So it's really over between us, huh?" she asked, hoping that sometime between the end of their last conversation and his shower, he had changed his mind. She held her breath, waiting for his reply.

"Yeah," he said after a minute. "It's really over."

"You're with your wife for good now?" she asked, disappointed.

"Looks that way," he answered.

"And you and I are just friends?" she asked.

"Enough with the questions, Steph," he said, yawning. "Just go to sleep."

She sighed and turned back over on her side with her back to him. She closed her eyes. It was really over...

A/N: So, weird, I know. I had an idea where I was going but now I'm lost again... But in other news, I already started Chapter 9 and I'm gonna be updating "Sometimes It Comes True" sometime this week, so be on the lookout!