Chapter 9

Tricia sat staring at Jaime not sure at all what to say or even what she was feeling. She had thought that if she ever did see him again she’d view him as no more than a friend. After all it had been a relatively brief thing they’d had, a few months getting to know one another online and then one week that was a combination of the wonderful and horrible the way it had ended with Matt catching them.

Jaime looked pretty much the same to her, maybe a touch more gray in his hair. He was wearing a denim shirt with the logo of one of the online poker sites on it and a pair of jeans. He was sitting back looking at her and seemed perfectly at ease. She wondered why she was so nervous when he seemed so calm.

Finally she had to ask. “You look like you expected this and it happens every day. I’m nervous as hell Jaime.”

He smiled the crooked smile that she had so quickly come to love and she felt her heart jump. “Oh I’m nervous Tricia. I nearly left when I verified that you were here.”

“Oh?”

“Well I promised you that we’d never have any contact but it was pretty much inevitable if we were both here for the same tournaments. We could have well ended up playing together if I’d played the first event and normally I would have.”

“Why didn’t you?” Tricia asked, curious.

“Could you have played well if we’d ended up on the same table? I couldn’t have. I know it’s been eight years or so and what we had was pretty much just a fling. Maybe that’s how you look at it and you’ve moved past it but for me it must have meant more because I never stopped thinking of you.”

Tricia felt a lump in her throat and took a deep breath feeling her eyes filling with tears and willing them to stop. She shook her head. “I’d have been a wreck. So why didn’t you leave?”

Jaime shrugged. “I have a contractual obligation to play this event. It would have been very awkward to get out of it at this point.”

“Oh” Tricia said wondering if that was really the only reason he had stayed.

He smiled and then as if reading her mind said, “That is the main reason and it’s true, it would have been very awkward for me to not play this event after just getting my sponsorship agreement set up. I will admit that I’ve been a bit at odds with myself as to whether us ending up here at the same time and place violates my promise. It certainly wasn’t my fault and if you already admitted that you read my journal online so you knew I’d be here.”

Tricia felt more relief at that then she’d have believed and felt tears trickling down her cheeks. Jaime squirmed uncomfortably as she wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand.

“Thank you,” Tricia said quietly. “I guess I wouldn’t have blamed you if you hadn’t even wanted to see me again. It was pretty ugly there and then when I finally said good bye for good I did it pretty abruptly but I had to. I hope you can understand that.”

Jaime nodded and then said, “You pretty much know my life if you’ve read my journal. I am at a disadvantage. Tell me about you. How’ve you been? You must be at the same address if you got my card. I honestly had no idea if you’d even get it.”

Tricia sighed and began to tell him about the intervening years.

“I’ve been ok. I’ve got a five year old son,Matt Junior, we call him Matty.”

Jaime nodded and then smiled the crooked smile that she knew meant he was amused.

“Yeah, yeah,” Tricia said. “I know I said I didn’t want children. Matt did though and I amso glad now that I gave in. Matty is a joy. This is the first time I’ve been away from him for more than a weekend and it’s kind of tough.”

“Matt’s home with him?”

Tricia shook her head. “He’s with my parents. Matt is…well Matt is Matt. For a while he got better. We went through a lot of counseling but I’ve come to see that while he went he viewed it the whole time as a way to get me to change with no real intention of changing himself.”

Jaime didn’t say anything to that just watched her expectantly. She could not read anything of his thoughts on that from his face.

“For a while he was very attentive. When Matty was born Matt seemed very happy. I wonder now if to him it wasn’t just an ego thing. See now I’ve got a son, I’m a real man. Over the past few years he’s more and more like he was back when you and I met.”

“That’s too bad.” Jaime said.

But again Tricia was unable to tell how he was feeling about that. She wondered if he would decide that meant they could try it again. That thought scared her. She had no idea what she would do if he suggested they pick up more or less where they had left off. The fact that she didn’t immediately know she would say ‘no thank you’ scared her and made her feel guilty. Seeing Jaime again was tougher than she had thought. She was surprised by her physical reaction.

“You said he’s as bad as he was,” Jaime prompted. “So he’s still working a lot.”

Tricia nodded. “He does have a lot of work. The business is going well. I’m doing the books now so I know that he really is working a lot. I still wonder if some of the late nights are not spent downtown with the guys. I know he meets clients for dinner and drinks sometimes but when I get so much time at home alone to wonder my imagination starts to take over, you know?”

Jaime nodded.

“So you got your sponsorship agreement?” Tricia asked trying to change the subject to something that felt safe. “Why didn’t you say so in your journal?”

Jaime shrugged with a sheepish look on his face. “I kind of wanted to see how well I did before I wrote about it. Kind of stupid since I was pretty much going to write about it anyway.”

“Is not playing the first event going to mess you up? I don’t want to mess you up.”

Jaime laughed. “Too late for that dear. I was good and messed up. I’m better now though and no I don’t have to play every single event. I could if I wanted to but I really don’t like to play the first event anyway. I like to come up to speed on the players here and wait for the second tier events now with slightly larger buy ins.”

“Especially now that somebody else is paying the buy ins?” Tricia teased, trying not to show how his comment implying that what had happened between them had messed him up had bothered her.

He shrugged. “Well that is certainly a factor.”

“I think it’s great you got the deal,” Tricia said.

“Thanks,” Jaime said and the squirming awkwardly stood up. “It’s getting kind of late. I should let you get on to bed. You probably need to call your husband and tell him how you did anyway.”

Tricia stood up, blushing as she realized she had forgotten all about calling Matt to tell him how she’d done. She had been going to do it as soon as she got into the room.

“Yes, I need to do that,” she said. “It won’t take long though and we could talk some more. I doubt I’ll go to sleep right away anyway.”

“We can talk another time, tomorrow probably,” Jaime said.

Tricia looked at him, trying to see how he was feeling. She didn’t want to leave even though she didn’t quite know what to say. Now that he obviously was not going to suggest going up to her room or her joining him in his she felt surprisingly disappointed and guilty about that disappointment.

“Only probably?”

“Tricia it’s been eight years and I made a promise to you. This not easy. I can’t believe you came here hoping I’d be here so we could just pick up where we left off. Not unless everything you told me while you and Matt were in the early stages of working things out was bullshit.”

Tricia’s eyes widened and her first reaction was anger. Then she took a good look at Jaime’s face and saw the pain lingering there.

“No Jaime,” she said quietly. “I didn’t come for that reason. I came to play poker with the big boys.”

“And you did very well today,” Jaime said. “You proved you can do it and I think you’ll do well the rest of the time. Can we just call it a night now? We’ve both got a lot to think about I guess. I know I do.”

She shrugged. “Ok. You’re right. For what it’s worth I don’t consider that this means you broke your promise. I never asked you to make it anyway, not like you seem to think.”

Anger very briefly flashed across Jaime’s face almost too quick for Tricia to see. “You did exactly that Tricia. You said in the last sentence you typed to me that you needed to sever all contact with me. I typed back. ‘ok I understand, I promise I will not try to contact you.’”

She sighed, remembering it clearly, remembering the tears that had been streaming down her face during that last conversation.

“I knew it was for good when your last words before you signed off were ‘I love you Jaime’. I knew that after telling me a couple of months earlier that you could never say that to me again that when you did it meant I’d never hear from you again. I never expected to. I’m not sure what to make of this now. I hope you understand.”

She wiped her cheeks again and nodded.

“Go to bed now,” Jaime said quietly and then almost inaudibly added, “please.”

Tricia saw then that Jaime was probably as confused as she was. She couldn’t help but take three quick steps and hug him. Slowly and awkwardly he hugged her back. In the end holding her very tightly.

Then he gently pushed her away. “Good night Tricia.”

“Are you going to leave?” Tricia asked, tears running down her face, looking up at him.

He shook his head. “No this is something we will have to work out. I can’t leave. It’s important to me to stay and to play well.”

“Do you want me to leave?” She asked. “I will.” She realized that she would and that while she didn’t want to it could even be plausible to Matt and her parents if she just said that she’d proved she could play at this level and wanted to come home because she was missing Matty.”

Jaime shook his head. “I can’t ask you to do that. Not because of me. If you’re going to keep playing poker it may happen again.”

“We’re going to have to talk about it then.” Tricia said, knowing it was true. She didn’t see how they could leave it like this.

Jaime nodded, not looking happy. “Yeah. I guess we will. But not tonight. Please? How about breakfast tomorrow around 9:30?”

“Kind of late for breakfast.”

“I’m on my out of town poker schedule. I won’t get up until 8:30 or later. 9:30 is early for me. Then I will play through lunch and stop for an early dinner. I really do that, it’s not something I just write in my journal you know.”

“Ok, 9:30,” Tricia said. “Where?”

“The buffet. I’ll meet you out front.”

“Ok. Are you in this hotel?” Tricia asked.

He shook his head. “But I’ll be here on time. Sleep well.”

Tricia still didn’t want to leave. She wanted to hug him again. Hugging him had been a big mistake she realized. She was amazed at how she was feeling, amazed and very guilty feeling. Jaime was just standing there watching her. He was plainly waiting for her to leave. She took a deep breath and turned toward the elevators. She looked back as she stepped into an open elevator and saw him watching. She waved to him before stepping inside and he smiled at her.