Lilah's List

Chapter 5

Lilah was having an out-of-body experience. There was no other explanation for the surreal dimensions her world had taken on.

Her fingers were caressing the ultrasoft skin on the nape of a man she barely knew. And she was loving it. Her mind began to cloud once again as the sensations of his lips working expertly on hers intensified.

Vaguely, in the distance, she knew she should be resisting. Something about the time and place was completely wrong. But logic couldn’t penetrate the fog surrounding her.

“Whoa!”

Tyler released her and her head fell back against the pillows.

Lilah watched the scene unfold as though she were watching a movie. Tyler was sputtering while Angie gaped at them, her arms stacked with three boxes of Isosceles cologne.

“It’s good to see the two of you getting to know each other better.”

They both turned their attention to Lilah. “Are you okay, missy?” Angie asked.

Lilah felt the giggles bubble up from inside her. She pointed a finger at Tyler. “He—he is a good kisser!”

Angie dumped the boxes on the bed. “Okay, she’s drunk. She’s been telling me all night that she needed to eat something, and I should have listened to her. I’d better get her back to the hotel.”

Tyler came to his feet. “I’ll help you get a cab.”

Moments later Lilah felt her shoes being shoved onto her feet. Tyler was standing back, watching her.

She gave him a big smile. “It was so nice sharing a bed with you.”

There’s someone in my bed! Lilah’s mind screamed as she came into consciousness. As the world began to take shape around her, she realized she was lying in her hotel room and the body next to her belonged to Angie. There was no mistaking the soft, gurgling snore she’d endured all through college.

The clock radio on the night table read 1:22 a.m. Lilah sat up straight and a slow, steady throb began at her temple. She trudged to the bathroom for her toiletry case that housed her ibuprofen, and took a swig of water straight from the tap to swallow the pills.

“Oh, what a night,” she whispered, sinking to the floor. A sting of heat rushed her cheeks as she remembered making out with Tyler Martin. “What the hell am I doing?”

She glanced out into her darkened hotel room and wondered, yet again, why she was even there. Lilah’s mind began to fill with thoughts like a tub filling with water. A few moments more and she’d overflow. There was only one outlet for her when that happened.

Using the light from the bathroom, Lilah crept into the room and settled herself at the tiny desk where she’d set up her laptop. After connecting to the Internet, she pulled up her blog.

She’d first discovered online Web journals when she was updating the Web site for her real estate firm. She employed the technology then in hopes of generating repeat traffic to the site. Later, after her divorce, she’d begun a personal blog to cope with her sadness and frustration. To her surprise it had become a therapeutic outlet as other divorced women rallied around her blog until it ultimately evolved into a virtual support group.

She began her Lilah’s List blog before coming to New York. She wanted to have a lasting memory of the experience. Now Lilah wasn’t so sure she’d want to remember it. She was already off to a rocky start.

Feeling her embarrassment rising again, she began to type.

I made out with a stranger last night.

As she channeled the words through her fingers, Lilah was able to release her misgivings. Now it was as though it had happened to someone else, she thought as she completed her entry.

So, while my first day didn’t go quite according to plan, it wasn’t a total loss. I checked a whopping four items off The List!

30. Crash a party. Sure, Lady Luck tossed me a bone in the shape of Reggie Martin’s brother, but at least I had the chance to give that bullying bouncer a piece of my mind.

28. Kiss a stranger. Which must be why I had so little of my mind left when I checked this one off. Tyler Martin wasn’t a perfect stranger. But I hadn’t seen him in over ten years, so I think it qualifies.

31. Do something scandalous. I know it’s not much by most standards, but I think making out with a virtual stranger in public is as scandalous as it gets for me.

43. Fly first-class. Blah. I may have to try this one again to see what it’s like when you’re not paralyzed with fear. But for now, check!

“What are you doing?”

Lilah had been so engrossed in her blogging that the sound of Angie’s groggy voice nearly made her jump out of her skin.

“Nothing.” Lilah hastily closed the laptop.

Angie leaped out of bed and rushed over. “Are you looking at porn?” She opened the screen and read it over her shoulder. “What’s this? I didn’t know you had a blog. I didn’t even know you knew what one was. How come you never told me about this?”

“It’s private.”

Angie stared at her. “Yeah, you only share it with your gazillion closest friends on the World Wide Web.”

“I mean, no one I know in real life knows about my blogs. It’s just my way of sorting through my thoughts.”

Angie turned away and sank down on the bed.

“What?” Lilah asked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You’re still my best friend,” she said softly. “But I don’t feel like I’m yours.”

“What are you talking about? That’s crazy. Of course you’re my best friend.”

“Then why are there so many things in your life you don’t share with me anymore? I know we don’t live in the same state anymore, but we’re both on the east coast. New York is only an hour by plane or three hours by train. I can see if you don’t want to invest in weekly long-distance calls, but if you’re bothering to write down the details of your life in a blog, you could have let me know. I could have kept up-to-date with you that way.”

Lilah was mortified. “I’m so sorry, Ang. I didn’t mean to shut you out. I guess I’m one of those people that when things aren’t going so well, I don’t like to talk about it. I can share it with strangers because they don’t really know me.”

“Ever since the divorce I haven’t known which way was up. And even before then, Chuck required my full attention. I felt like I had an obligation to make my marriage my priority. You see how that worked out. Now, when I look around, I feel like all I have is so much wasted time.”

Lilah moved over to join her friend on the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry I haven’t been a good friend to you over the last several years, Angie. I know it’s not good enough. But it’s all I’ve got.”

Angie hugged her. “It’s okay. I just want to remind you that you don’t have to rely on a virtual world of strangers. I’m right here, and I always will be when you need me.”

Lilah hugged her friend back, nearly choking on the emotions welling in her throat. The intense moment was instantly broken when her stomach released a loud groan of hunger.

Angie laughed. “We never did get a proper dinner. I know a burger joint with twenty-four-hour delivery.”

“Really? I love New York.”

Tyler stared unseeing at his computer screen. It was nearly noon on Saturday and he hadn’t gotten much, if any, work done. Weekdays were for meetings and phone calls, but Saturday mornings, he liked to try to catch up on e-mails and light paperwork. Then he could have the rest of the weekend to himself.

But today he couldn’t concentrate at all. His mind kept drifting back to Lilah. He felt like a jerk for taking advantage of a woman who had clearly been intoxicated. He should have pulled away from the kiss immediately, but she’d caught him off guard. But that didn’t give him an excuse.

Tyler smacked his forehead as he did every time the embarrassment came flooding back to him. He could only imagine how she was feeling today.

There was only one way for him to make things up to her. He had to give her what she wanted. A date with Reggie.

If he knew his brother, and he did, Reggie would be in bed until something approaching three o’clock. Then, since he didn’t have any other appearances scheduled for the weekend, he’d hang out in his apartment playing video games until he went out clubbing with his boys around midnight.

That would leave him plenty of room to have dinner with his old, high-school tutor. Tyler expected there would be some protesting, but now the kid owed him one.

Feeling much better now that he had something proactive to do besides mentally replay last night’s embarrassment, Tyler typed the words Casablanca Hotel into his Internet browser.

Tyler had heard Angie name the hotel when he’d hailed a cab for them last night. After dialing the number, he asked to be connected to Lilah’s room.

“Hello?” a sexy, sleep-roughened voiced purred into the phone.

“Lilah? I’m sorry, did I wake you?”

“T-Tyler?”

“Yes.” His stomach muscles clenched at the way she breathed his name.

She cleared her throat, but she still sounded like a phone-sex operator. “No, we were up, but I admit, we haven’t been up long.”

We? Before he could ask the question out loud, she continued.

“Angie and I ended up ordering out in the middle of the night and didn’t get back to bed until after 5:00 a.m.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to disturb your rest, I was just calling to see if the two of you were free for dinner.”

“Dinner? Um…”

“With Reggie,” he added before the silence could stretch on, then tried not to be offended by her quick recovery.

“Actually, yes, we are free.”

“Great. I’ll try to get some reservations at Sapa for seven. Should we pick you two up at the hotel?”

“No, I’m not sure what our agenda is for the day, but we’ll probably be out and about. It might be easier if we meet you there.”

“Then it’s a date.”

There was an awkward moment of silence, until they both tried to fill it at once.

“Look, about last night—”

“I want to apologize for my behavior—”

They laughed.

“I’m sorry—”

“No, I’m sorry—”

They laughed again.

“It’s clear that both of us weren’t quite ourselves last night,” Tyler finally said. “Why don’t we just leave it at that?”

“That sounds like a good idea.”

Tyler hung up the phone wondering why he actually felt worse than he had before he placed the call. But he didn’t want to dwell on it. Lilah was only in town for a couple of weeks, and after he got her together with Reggie, he wouldn’t have to see her again.

Maybe then he’d be able to stop thinking about her.

Reggie Martin hung up the phone, cursing his older brother under his breath. Why did he think he could order him around every minute of the day?

Tyler actually expected him to have dinner with some girl he supposedly knew in high school. His brother had mentioned her name but Reggie had already tuned him out, replaying the mind-your-own-business mantra he played whenever Tyler started telling him what to do.

Wasn’t it enough for Tyler that he handled every other aspect of Reggie’s life, including his finances—giving him an allowance like a twelve-year-old?

Reggie tossed the cordless phone onto the sofa and picked up his note pad, trying to get back to the lyrics he’d been writing. Even though he stared at the words on the page, his mind refused to pick up where he’d left off.

He was starting to feel like a caged tiger. Not just in the moment, but in his life. He’d finally reached a point where he could call himself successful. The first time his parents heard his single on the radio he thought he’d finally walked out of Tyler’s shadow.

Sure, they expressed all the right sentiments, but along with those came all the usual comments.

The music business is plagued with drugs and debauchery, but thank goodness you have Tyler to keep you out of trouble.

What would you do without Tyler to help you invest those big paychecks?

You can’t make a living singing your whole life, you need a long-term plan like Tyler.

His parents would never see him as anything other than his older brother’s responsibility. And frankly, Reggie had no idea why Tyler continued to put up with it. How much fun could it really be to follow behind your little brother cleaning up his messes?

Reggie’s friends assumed that Tyler must come down so hard on him because he was jealous of his popularity and musical talent. But Reggie knew better. He’d trade in both his easy charm and his singing voice for Tyler’s brain. His brother was so smart he could do anything he wanted. There were probably a lot of things Tyler wanted to do other than managing Reggie’s business affairs.

If Reggie knew what was good for both of them, he’d leave the city and head down to Atlanta. He could take up his buddy’s offer to collaborate with Jermaine Dupri. Despite the positive buzz on his album, many of the critics were saying that his R&B ballads needed more of a hip-hop edge to compete with the reigning artists.

But Reggie knew his days of coasting were in the past. For the first time in his life he had a lot to lose. He was at the turning point where he could launch himself into superstardom or languish in the record bins as a one-hit wonder.

He couldn’t afford to make a lot of risky moves right now.

No, the safest thing to do was to stay in New York where he had steady access to his brother’s advice. After all, his parents were probably right, he could have ended up broke or strung out without Tyler constantly barking in his ear like a junkyard dog.

But that didn’t mean he had to do every little thing his brother told him, Reggie thought.

Tonight’s dinner, for instance. Reggie was sure he could come up with a good excuse to blow it off.

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