Lifting her chin in understanding, Kacey speculated, “Let me guess. You were more than willing to help him achieve this goal, weren’t you?”
I didn’t respond since she already knew the answer to that question.
“Always doing something to help out the greater good of humanity,” she stated.
“It wasn’t all of humanity, Kacey! It was one guy who I felt some compassion for since he and I were there because people who claim to love us thought it’d be funny,” I argued.
Kacey smiled at me. “I do love you, Adele. And you know that, which is precisely the reason why you’re even acting like this right now. The truth of the matter is that you went into this blind and didn’t expect to feel any sort of connection with the guy. But now that you have, you really want to thank me, but you’re holding onto a grudge because that’s just your way. It’s okay, though. I know you love me, too. Probably even more now that I gave you this experience.”
Once again, I remained silent because everything she said was true.
How?
How did this happen?
Why couldn’t the guy have just been someone else?
It had to be Riggs. Of all the choices I’m sure Anna had, Riggs was the one she selected.
Why?
My frustration had nothing to do with Riggs himself. He was obviously wonderful, and I appreciated much more than just his looks. But now that I knew this incredible guy existed in the world, how was I supposed to just forget about him?
Evidently, I’d been silent too long because I was so caught up in my thoughts that Kacey made her own assumptions about my mindset.
She decided to move on to more important matters.
“Don’t worry, Adele. He’s going to call you,” she assured me.
Shaking my head as though I was trying to rid myself of the thoughts that had been running through it only moments before, I wondered, “How’s he going to do that?”
“Um… it’s just a guess, but I’m going to go with the phone,” she replied sarcastically.
After giving her an incredulous look, I advised, “But he doesn’t have my number. He doesn’t even know my last name. In fact, I don’t know his either.”
Shock fell over her. “Did you talk to this guy at all or were the two of you too busy getting frisky to take care of the important stuff?”
“We talked,” I insisted. “We just didn’t exchange numbers. Why would we?”
“Maybe because you both obviously liked each other enough to be comfortable enough to dry hump in front of the photographer,” she reasoned.
I winced at her reminder of what I’d done. I already knew just how far I had taken things with a guy I barely knew. Kacey’s reminders weren’t exactly helping me at the moment.
I shouldn’t have felt ashamed about it. Riggs and I were adults. We could do as we pleased. But that didn’t change the fact that I was horrified at what he must have thought of me. Of course, he hadn’t once made me feel bad about it, and I found that to be incredibly sweet.
“It doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t have worked out anyway,” I told her.
“Why not?” she wondered.
I could tell by her tone that she was genuinely curious.
And because I knew how disappointed she was already feeling about this, I decided I needed to let her down gently.
“Kacey, listen to me,” I started. “All joking aside, I really did have fun. I got out of this what you had hoped for me to get. And I was really lucky to have gotten the chance to do it with someone like Riggs. But you know what my life is like. Even if Riggs had been interested beyond what we had today, it wouldn’t have been fair to him.”
Kacey’s face softened. “I don’t understand why you’d want to miss the shot to get to know him,” she said. “You don’t want to be alone for the rest of your life, do you?”
I shook my head. “No. Of course not,” I assured her. “But I’m being realistic right now. I have a lot of commitments over the next few months. My free time is scarce. I’m teaching all day during the week. I have a couple hours free in the evenings and then a lot of my weekends are packed right up through the holidays because of all the last-minute volunteering I signed myself up for.”
For a long time, Kacey didn’t respond.
When she spoke again, I started to wish she hadn’t.
“So, what happens once you finally have more than just your evenings and the occasional weekend free? What if you realize then that you made a mistake letting him get away? Will you be okay knowing that he moved on and is with someone else when it could have been you?”
Her questions forced me to stop and think.
Even though I tried to write it off as him following through on the dare his siblings had given him, I knew what I felt with Riggs. It wasn’t just him being a good actor. There was more there.
A lot more.
It was in his teasing, his laughter, his gentle touches, and most of all, his kisses.
The way he was with me, especially when he flipped me to my back right at the end of the photo shoot, wasn’t about a man who was interested in giving the photographer a good shot. It was about a man who wasn’t willing to miss his shot to communicate what he was feeling in that moment.
And what he felt clearly lined up with what I had been feeling.
It was all about the two of us in those moments.
Nothing else mattered.
Not the photos.
Not a fake contest.
Not a silly dare.
Not work or responsibilities.
Just us.
If I was completely honest with myself, I had to admit the truth. I wanted to experience that feeling again, and I wanted to feel it regularly.
“Your silence tells me I’ve struck a nerve somewhere,” Kacey broke into my thoughts.
I took in a deep breath and blew it out before I admitted, “Maybe. But there’s no use in dwelling on this. There’s nothing I can do about it now anyway.”
“I can reach out to Anna and get his contact information,” Kacey offered.
I shook my head. “No! Don’t do that. I can’t make that move.”
“Why not?”
How could she still not understand this?
“I dry humped him within an hour of meeting him, Kacey,” I reminded her. “I’m not going to be the one to pursue him.”
“But you’d reconsider your stance on getting to know him better if he pursued you?” she wondered.
“Yes. But you’re not going to get involved in any way to make that happen, right?” I said as a warning.
“You’re so boring,” she huffed.
“This is my choice,” I stated. “Promise me, Kacey.”
She narrowed her eyes at me again but ultimately promised me. A moment later she demanded all the details of the photo shoot.
Since she gave me her word she wouldn’t do anything with the information and I trusted her with my life, I gave them to her.
And by the time I crawled into bed that night, hours after Kacey left and even longer since I’d kissed Riggs, I couldn’t fall asleep because he was still on my mind.
Which is exactly why, if I had any chance of getting a decent night’s rest before having to deal with third graders all week long, I needed to take matters into my own hands.