“Yeah, that is going to affect my big birthday plans this year,” he agreed, nodding, pretending to look grave.
“Your big birthday plans were going to cost in the millions? You could dig wells and give clean drinking water to everyone in Africa for that, you ostentatious ass.”
“Hey now, I give a lot to charity,” he insisted, looking not the least bit insulted by my calling him an ass.
“Giving boob jobs to out of work actresses does not count as charity,” I qualified with a smirk.
“Aw man. Your standards are too damn high!”
From there, we talked for just a few more minutes, promising to keep in touch. He told me that he would drop in if he were ever in Jersey again. I said that would be nice even though I had a feeling it was just one of those things people said We should totally get drinks and catch up sometime! Meanwhile, no one has any intentions of doing such a thing.
“Alright, I better get the hell out of here before Quin comes out with the fire hose.”
With that, he kissed my cheek and disappeared into a town car that seemed to be waiting for him just at the corner.
I turned back to Quinton Baird and Associates, wondering if I had a valid excuse to go inside, to maybe happen upon Quin. But with Gunner and Fenway gone, there was no rational reason I would be in there. Sure, I saw Jules often enough, but we hadn’t exactly bonded.
It would look weird.
And desperate.
So I got back in my car and drove my ass home.
And did something that I feel a churning fist of shame every time I think about it – I waited by my phone.
The first day, I excused it.
He had been out of the country for weeks. He had been staying in a shack in the woods eating canned meat and rice. He probably wanted a shower, a steak, and a good night of sleep in his own bed. I was totally in no place to judge that.
I figured he would call when he was clean, fed, and rested.
And yet there was no call.
Or text.
Not that day.
Or the next.
Or the next.
On the fourth day, I was pretty happily settled in What The Fuck mode.
I mean, I hadn’t been imagining all those texts and calls over the last several weeks.
To be fair, he never said he wanted to date me. That was my own wishful thinking there. But at the very least, we had forged a friendship. A steady one. One with secrets from both our pasts in the mix. We had talked, in some form or another, several times a day since Christmas. Until, apparently, he was on his way back to the States.
That was just bizarre, right?
Who did that?
At least without reason.
But if he had a reason, I was completely in the dark as to what that could have been.
I tried to pretend I didn’t care as I polished off the last of my Christmas cookies, as I wondered if it was too soon to take the tree down, as I listened to my coworkers talk about their plans for New Years.
But there seemed to be no end to the swirling thoughts.
Then New Years Eve morning came.
And my stupid, traitorous brain could think of nothing else than the silly little promise he made what felt like a lifetime ago.
About 1600 Broadway, #7C.
I hadn’t even written that down. Normally, I was terrible with things like addresses. That one, for whatever reason, had stuck with me.
And this morning, as I watched as women in the salon got their hair done for their New Years plans out on the town somewhere, I couldn’t help but roll it around in my head.
1600 Broadway, #7C.
Was that where he was going to be? Alone in his apartment with a drink in his hand, overlooking the city, feeling like he was missing out?
Would he think of me?
“Ugh,” I growled, thrusting my arms into my coat sleeves hard enough to make my shoulders object with a pang, waving goodbye to my coworkers who were finishing up for the night, getting in my car, and heading home to my quiet house.
I still couldn’t sleep in my bedroom. I had forced myself to try several times, getting into a nightdress, and climbing under the nice new sheets. But as soon as I spread out, there was a tight, suffocating feeling on my throat, like his hands were all over me again, like I was reliving the night. Like, I thought as I reached to flick on the light, I had his life in my hands again. It almost felt odd to walk toward the door and not see the body there. Even though the rational part of my brain knew it wouldn’t be.
But the couch was my new safe spot with Mackey only ever a few feet away, sleeping under the heating vent where I had put his new fluffy dog bed that he spent half the day trying to destroy.