I lie back against the pillows and close my eyes. I remember the way she went down on me, her huge eyes looking up at me. My dick clenches.
‘You’re such a bastard...’ Sienna sniffs.
‘Yeah, well, just as well you don’t have to put up with me any more.’
I disconnect the call and toss my phone aside. It’s far more fun to imagine Ally’s lips around my cock than it is to argue with Sienna.
But the conversation has unsettled me. Our break-up was bad. No—it was so much worse than that.
I have vague recollections of Sienna pitching a crystal vase at me as she shouted, and I remember saying awful things to her. Things I regret.
We were both so angry.
We were both aware that we’d been holding on to something that had at one time been good, but that had soured slowly. As if poison had been dripping into our relationship for years and we didn’t want to acknowledge it.
Our final fight was proof of that.
There had been no love left.
I regret the way we ended it. Most of the time we were together it was okay, even good, and we knew each other in a unique way, both having gone from normality to immense fame almost overnight.
Which means we should have known better than to take our fight into the street. Well, that was Sienna, actually, storming out in the middle of the afternoon, mascara running down her cheeks, bare feet, shouting at me as though the world needed to know our issues.
Yeah, the break-up had been shit.
I get up and pull on some boxers, moving to my guitar on autopilot and staring out at Manhattan.
Things with Sienna are messed up, but that’s okay. Because what I’ve got going with Ally is just perfect for where I’m at. Fucking someone normal and undemanding. Someone who seems even less interested in the whole romantic dating bullshit than I am.
No flowers.
No dating.
Just sex.
With a reassuring end-date that takes all the Where are we going? crap out of the equation.
Suddenly I’m as impatient as all hell to see her.
So, I’ve been thinking...
I send the text to Ally with a smile on my face, not expecting to hear back. It’s so early she’s probably still fast asleep.
The idea fills my imagination very pleasantly.
I place my phone down on the coffee table, beside my bare feet, and reach for my guitar. It’s never far from me when I’m working on new songs, and I’ve been doing that for a month in earnest.
I begin to strum, and all I can think of is her smile.
Ally.
Her name whooshes out of me. I lean forward and scrawl lyrics in my own particular brand of can’t-be-fucked shorthand that will only ever be decipherable to me, note the chords, then lean back and stare out of the window, singing the lines over and again.
My phone buzzes.
Just in general? Or about something specific. Because I think you should be worried if you’re ever *not* thinking.
She puts a little kiss emoji at the end and it reminds me so much of her that my grin threatens to split my face.
Oh, my thoughts are very, very specific.
Three little dots appear, to show that she’s typing back, but then they disappear again. I grin, put the phone down and return to my guitar, continue playing. But after ten minutes, when she hasn’t replied, I’m impatient to hear from her.
I pick the phone up and am about to start typing when a message swishes onto the screen.
Specifically...?
I laugh.
Ten minutes for one word? Seriously?
Her dots move frantically.
Are you literally standing by your phone waiting for me to reply?
Everything inside me tightens. This is fun. The kind of fun I haven’t had in...years?
I think of Sienna with guilt. When did I stop finding her fun? Or is that normal after you’ve known someone a really long time?
Yep. Aren’t you?
I stare out of the window, waiting for her to reply. It doesn’t take long.
My prayers are answered. She’s sent a photo of herself, a smiling photo taken as she...runs? Is she running? I pinch the picture. It looks to be a park somewhere. She has earphones in and a cap pulled low.
Even like this, with no make-up, her face pink from exertion, she is so beautiful. I ache for her.
Nice. How about you run my way next?
I briefly question the wisdom of such an obvious bootie call but her response is immediate.
I’ll be there in ten.