Now What?

Richie was worried. He didn’t know what to do. He’d thought that after Sunday at the game that they were okay. He should have figured it out, he supposed, when they had gotten back to the parking lot after the game let out, and she dropped the happy-to-see-him act.

“You’re coming back to the house?” Jennifer asked, surprised.

“I was planning on it,” Richie answered, smiling.

“Well, the truck’s sorta full of gear; I don’t have room for you.” She smiled a little. “I really wasn’t expecting to see you today.”

Richie winked. “I have it under control,” he said. When he leaned in to give her a kiss, she jerked away quickly, before his lips could touch her. She didn’t say another word, just got into the truck and slammed the door.

Richie had stood there in shock for a full minute before sprinting to the limo lot to find the car he’d hired. He gave the driver the address, and waited what seemed an eternity before he was driving through the gates of Jennifer’s house. He pulled up in time to see Jennifer and her father, brother, and friend finish unloading the truck. They had stored all the gear in one of the garage bays, and were carrying the coolers back into the kitchen.

“You guys want to stay for dinner?” she had asked them, not seeing Richie in the doorway. Her brother had seen him, though, and given him a hard stare.

John could sense something wasn’t quite right with his sister and her boyfriend, and though he wanted to stay and protect his sister, he knew she needed to deal with this on her own. She’d come to him if she needed him – she always did. “Nah, sis,” he said. “Ed has to get up early tomorrow, and so do I. I’ll take Dad home; you uh, entertain Rich.” He smiled at his sister, who didn’t return the gesture.

“Alright, John.” She reached up to hug her brother, who towered over her despite her height. “Thanks for coming.” She hugged her father and Ed too, keeping a wary eye on Richie when she caught sight of him.

“Thanks for having,” Ed answered. “See you in a few weeks.” He kissed her cheek. “Bye, Jen.”

She shut the door behind them and stared at Richie. “I suppose you’re hungry,” she said, her voice flat and cold. She turned to go into the kitchen, and Richie put a hand on her arm to stop her. Jennifer stopped, but didn’t turn around.

“Jennifer, look at me. Please.”

Reluctantly, Jennifer turned and met Richie’s gaze. He could see pain and sorrow in her dove-gray eyes, and it tore at his heart. “I love you,” he said to her, meaning every word.

She just nodded. “I know you think you do, but I don’t really believe that you do.” She turned her gaze away so he wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes. She started to walk to the kitchen, and Richie followed her. He watched as she silently emptied the coolers, and got everything put away.

“You took me by surprise,” Jennifer said softly. “I wasn’t expecting to see you today.”

Richie smiled sadly. “You said that already.” He crossed the room and tried to take Jennifer into his arms, but she stiffened and pushed away from him, and he nearly cried. He dropped his arms and took a step back. “I’m so damned sorry, Jennifer. You didn’t deserve all that.”

“No. No, I didn’t,” Jennifer answered sadly. She reached up as if to touch the side of Richie’s face, but dropped her arm to her side. “I think you need to leave now,” she said quietly.

“You don’t love me any more, do you.” Richie’s question was more of a statement of fact. He barely got the words choked out.

Jen shook her head. “Somewhere, in there, under the hurt, I’m sure I still love you. It wouldn’t hurt this much if I didn’t. I just don’t like you at all right now, and I don’t know if love is enough. I don’t know if I trust or forgive you.

Richie nodded. “I understand,” he said, barely above a whisper. He reached out to touch Jen’s hair, but stopped when he saw her flinch. “Can I at least call you tomorrow?”

Jennifer shook her head, more vehemently this time. “I’ll call you in a couple of days.” She stiffened but didn’t dart away when Richie leaned in to press his lips briefly to her cheek. He could feel her eyes following him out of the room.

The whole flight home, Richie tried to figure out how this whole thing got so fucked up.

It was now late Tuesday, and Jennifer still hadn’t called him. Richie was getting really nervous now. Being without her, unable to reach her heart, made him see that Jennifer was the woman he wanted to be with for the long haul. Once he admitted that to himself, and found that he liked the feel of it, he knew he had to convince Jennifer to forgive him. He posted a message to her as an act of desperation, because his phone calls went to voicemail, and his emails went unanswered. He was half-tempted to call Jon to help, but didn’t want to admit to Jon how badly he’d messed things up.

When he checked the board later for a response, and saw her impersonal reply, his heart fell.

Sorry, Rich; work has been busy, and I’m going out w/friends tonight. I have an early morning tomorrow; so I need to try to get some sleep; I'll talk to you later.

You are right, I suppose; we should talk, and we will. Soon.

~ J

Wednesday morning, Jennifer went to work as usual, and saw her voicemail light blinking. Again. Sighing, she scrolled through the call log and saw Richie had called more than a dozen times. She also saw she had a couple of missed calls from work, and called those people back directly, telling them her inbox was full. Then she called the help desk and once again had one of her friends there empty her mailbox so she wouldn’t have to listen to his voice. Then she thought back to what Jon had said to her last night.

After the heated PM exchanges with Jon earlier in the week, she was surprised when he had called her, trying to persuade her to let him take care of Richie since he was the one who instigated the whole thing. Jennifer had reluctantly answered the phone when she saw his name come up on her Blackberry, but held firm, wanting to maintain the little dignity she had left after this whole episode. Jon tried to tell her again that this was totally out of character for Richie, but that just made her hurt more – that she had driven him to this. He was distraught at the tone and lack of emotion in her voice.

Then Jon told her that he had made some off-the-cuff remark to Richie about when was he going to marry her, and Richie had answered “today, if she’d have me.” Jon told her to think about that when she was mulling everything through.

She’d done nothing but think about that.

Mid-morning, her phones started ringing again, both work and cell. She was legitimately busy, so ignored them, but caved, and listened to the messages when she broke for lunch.

“Jennifer, please, call me back. I need to talk to you. I need to make you see that I didn’t mean any of that horrible stuff I said to you. I love you. I never meant to hurt you. Please, let me make this right.”

“I’m begging you, baby, please, PLEASE talk to me.”

Tears formed in Jennifer’s eyes when she heard the obvious tears in Richie’s voice. She expected him to be contrite, but not to be so upset. She hadn’t counted on that. She skipped the rest of the messages, checked the calendars for an empty conference room, grabbed her cell phone, and took off, dialing on the way.