Play Me Hard (Play Me 3)

That old Casablanca quote plays through my mind. Of all the gin joints in all of the towns in all of the world, she walks into mine. Of all the apartment buildings in all of Vegas, Aria has to live in this one. It’s a goddamn cosmic joke. A giant fuck-you from fate. A hard knee to the balls that has me reeling, disoriented, lost and in pain.

When I can breathe without feeling like glass is slashing through my windpipe, I push off the wall. Walk slowly down the steps toward the first awakenings of dawn. But instead of heading through the parking lot to my car, I turn right. Walk down four doors. And stop in front of apartment 109.

It’s been ten years and she probably moved away a long time ago, but still I feel the need to knock. Just to check. Just to see if she’s still here. Just to see if she’s okay.

Like she could ever be okay again. Like either of us could be.

For years, I sent money—guilt money, blood money—but the checks went undeposited. I wised up after a while, or so I thought. Started sending cash. Then the envelopes would just come back, unopened and marked “return to sender.”

Eventually I gave up. Tried to move on. Hoped she’d done the same.

And yet, here I am, standing next to her old door with my fingers itching to knock.

But it’s only five-thirty and whoever is in there probably won’t take kindly to being disturbed. And I have better things to do than stand here reliving the past, hoping for a different outcome. Especially when I thought I’d given up wishes like that a long, long time ago.

Pocketing Aria’s keys, I take one last look at apartment 109 before finally heading across the parking lot to my car. It’s still in one piece—a lucky surprise—so I climb in. Start it up. And force myself not to look back as I turn onto the eerily—finally—quiet streets of Las Vegas.

Chapter Three

Aria

I wake up alone, groggy and cold and more than a little disoriented. I’m lying on top of the covers, the afghan my grandmother crocheted for me years ago wrapped around my legs. My bare legs.

It takes me a minute of concentrated effort to remember, to figure out how I got here. And when it hits—all the memories of last night flooding through me in one fell swoop—I nearly fly out of bed.

Sebastian bringing me home.

Bathing me.

Making me come. Again.

Talking with me about stupid, inconsequential things.

Holding me while I slept.

Sebastian.

I call his name as I stumble across my bedroom, still half-wrapped in the stupid blanket. There’s no answer—of course, there’s no answer, what did I expect? But there is a note, written in a bold, distinctive scrawl and taped to the inside of my front door.

Your car is in the parking lot. I borrowed your extra set of keys and let myself out—they’re in your glove compartment. Have a great day. And thanks for last night. Sebastian.

Thanks for last night? It’s classic, cavalier. A total one-night-stand thing to say.

Thanks for last night. I had fun.

Thanks for last night. I’ll see you around.

Thanks for last night. Maybe we can do it again sometime.

Thanks for last night.

My hands are shaking as I rip the note off the door and crumple it into a ball so tight that I can’t see any of the writing at all. Shaking when I walk into the kitchen and pour myself a cup of coffee from the fresh pot sitting on my countertop. Shaking when I cross to the refrigerator and pull out a carton of yogurt for breakfast.

Which is stupid, right? I knew all along what this was. I knew yesterday afternoon when he fucked me up against the window in his office and I knew last night when he sat at the bar watching my every move. It was after that that things got jumbled in my head and I got confused. Somewhere between the bath and the comic book stories I began to think that this was—

I freeze, spoon of yogurt halfway to my mouth when it hits me. Then I’m turning around, crossing my tiny kitchen in a single bound as I rip open the refrigerator door and stare into it in total and complete astonishment. Because yesterday, when I left for work, there was almost nothing in it. Yogurt, a small pack of cheddar cheese, ketchup. But today it’s practically bursting with food—fruits and vegetables, cheeses and lunch meats, milk and three different kinds of juice.

If you added up all the food I’ve bought in the last six months, I don’t think it would equal what is in the fridge right now. It’s insane.