I wanted nothing more than to be back in the presence of him, and if he wanted to pick me up, then I wouldn’t stop him from doing that. “You can pick me up,” I agreed.
He smiled. “Okay then…how about seven?”
“I’ll be ready.”
He grabbed the keys from his pocket and headed back to his car. Once he reached the driver’s side, he turned to me. “Oh…Tasha?”
I turned around. “Yes?”
“You look really good, and it’s nice to see you.” He smiled that smile that had me weak in the knees every time. I smiled, still surprised by seeing him outside of my job.
“Thank you! You look pretty good yourself.”
He waved, then got in his car and backed out of the spot. I watched him leave, my heart racing wildly in my chest. I wanted to believe nothing bad could come from going out with him, but I was hesitant, because I didn’t want to lose him all over again.
***
Matt picked me up and we rode together to the restaurant. It was all pretty normal, other than there wasn’t a kiss greeting and the ride to the restaurant was pretty quiet. I didn’t know what to expect or why I was even there. He didn’t say anything, and I was afraid to dive into our discussion.
We got to the restaurant and it wasn’t even until after we ordered that we started a true conversation that didn’t include just small talk. “So, first off…I need to thank you.”
I arched an eyebrow at that statement. “You’re thanking me? For what?” I asked, after taking a sip from my water glass. For some reason, I felt like my mouth was full of cotton and I needed something much more than water to quench my thirst. Maybe liquor.
That’s when he told me the story about Cody. “Cody and Bobby are actually friends and I don’t know how you did that, but it was good to see them walking out of the school together, laughing and talking, just being bros. And from what I hear…that’s because of you.” There was a twinkle in his eyes as he talked about Cody’s new relationship with Bobby.
I was happy too, but shrugged. “I didn’t do anything, not really. It was Cody’s responsibility to get Bobby to talk to him and he did it. Your nephew is a very special little man.”
He smiled the first real genuine smile that I had seen come from him since he picked me up. I just sat for a moment and admired the beauty of it, his sparkling white teeth, perfectly shaped lips, causing a glow to spread across his entire face. “He is pretty special, I must admit, but I thought I needed to reach out to you and thank you for giving him the courage to face his fears and conquer them with kindness. You gave him the thought of becoming friends with Bobby. It was really pretty genius.”
I nodded slowly and looked away from him. All this thanking me had me wondering if that was the only reason he invited me out, because he wanted to thank me for doing something so small. “So, that’s what this is about?” I asked, motioning my hand toward our dinner. “You just wanted to invite me out to thank me for doing my job? I mean, I was his babysitter at the time and it’s only right that I try to help him be a good human being.”
“Well, I suppose you could say that it was just part of your job, but I say that it’s a part of who you are. And no, that isn’t the only reason I asked you out.”
I sat back in my seat as the waitress brought us our food and we thanked her. Once she was gone, he started to pick at his chicken, but I waited to eat. “Okay, then what other reason is there?” I asked.
He put down his chicken and wiped off his hands. “I got to thinking…and I now know that I wasn’t exactly fair to you. I want to hear your side of the story.”
I bit my lower lip and scooped a small spoonful of potatoes in my spoon. “Is that right?” I said, then took a bite of my potatoes while looking at him.
He nodded. “I let you walk out of my life…” he swallowed, before correcting himself. “I let you walk out of our life without so much as a word from you. That wasn’t fair, and I want to correct it and hear your side of the story that you wanted to tell me that night.”
I took a deep breath. It was everything I wanted to hear him say from the beginning of this mess, and now I didn’t even know where to start, except I needed to start at the very beginning. “It happened a while back,” I started. “I was just getting my feet wet with writing and I was getting ready to work on a story. It was a story that I saw would put me on the map as a writer and I wanted to make a big impression. So, I got hooked up with this guy named Harper Finley and he was going to make that happen. Supposedly, he could pitch my story to New York Times and Washington Post and get me on as a permanent part of the staff,” I paused, feeling the memories all rushing back in. “What I didn’t see happening was that I was going to lose my integrity, and my heart, to him.”
“So…you fell in love?” he asked softly.
“Well, I thought it was love. Turns out, I didn’t know then what love truly was. He told me everything I wanted to hear, and I believed him. And then everything fell apart. He didn’t have any intentions on helping me. When we were having sex, he was videotaping me. He asked me to take near nude photos, as mementos of me when we weren’t together. Shortly after all of that, he humiliated me by leaking the sex tape in a compilation he created called ‘What Girls Will Do For Fame’ and t
hen he sold the photos. It became painfully clear that he was only using me.”
His face fell. “Oh wow…Tasha, I’m sorry that happened to you. You don’t deserve that, you don’t deserve any of that.”
I shrugged. “I thought I got past all of it and didn’t even know a DVD was left of it. And, God only knows if it’s on the internet,” I said, trying to hold myself together. I didn’t want to sob at dinner with Matt.
“This is messed up Tasha. Who do you think sent it to me?” he asked, furiously.
“Melinda gained access of it when we worked together. She pretended to be outraged about it, and I thought she cared about me at the time. She told me that she had thrown it away, but I guess she didn’t and just thought now would be a good time to dredge it up and get even with me. She lost her job and any hopes of having you, so I figure she sent it to you, because she thought at least I would lose the guy, and it worked.”
He released a sigh. “Wow. I should have listened to you, especially since this whole DVD thing smelled of Melinda. I should have heard you out.”