Page 29 of Reckless
Hope: It’s not that.I want you to be happy.
I typed back.Me: Thanks.
Then I silenced the phone, set it on the coffee table, and drank tea until my body slowly came down from the kind of adrenaline that leaves a person exhausted and weirdly awake at the same time.
I did sleep eventually.I dreamed in fragments.Xerses’s hand over mine on the stem of a glass.Britney saying you are not behind.A man in a black shirt looking at me like he already knew what I’d taste like.
I woke up angry that my subconscious was a traitor.
The morning didn’t improve.I had coffee.I showered.I stood in front of my closet too long because putting on clothes for a normal Thursday felt impossible after being socially detonated in front of a trillionaire family the night before.
I settled on jeans and a soft fitted top because I had exactly enough self-respect left to refuse to dress like a woman in emotional recovery.
Then my phone buzzed and I checked my phone.My entire body went hot.
I crossed the apartment in six furious steps and yanked open the blinds.There he was.
Leaning against a black car that probably cost more than my first three years of rent combined.
Dark shirt.Gray trousers.Sunglasses.Two coffees in one hand.Looking like the kind of man women should charge consulting fees to look at.
I opened my apartment door hard to make it clear this was not hospitality.
“What are you doing here?”
He looked up and his gaze moved over me once, enough to tell me he liked what he saw, enough to make me hate the small pulse of heat that answered it.
“Good morning.”
“No.”
One corner of his mouth moved.“Starting strong.”
“You do not get to show up at my home uninvited.”
“I texted last night.”
“That was not an invitation.”
He pushed away from the car, two coffee still in hand, and for one insane second my body remembered how much space he took up when he started moving toward me on purpose.
I held my ground because I valued self-respect.
Also because if I backed into my apartment like a frightened Victorian heroine, I’d have to kill myself.
“We need to talk,” he said as he handed me a coffee.
It smelled good.Coffee and that sandalwood cologne of his mixed in my nostrils.“And yet here I am.”
I took his offering but shook my head.“You say that like persistence is a charming trait and not an untreated condition.”
“It can be both.”
“Why are you calm?”
He watched me over the top of his sunglasses.“Would you prefer panic?”
I kept this conversation outside.He’d not go in my place, ever.I held my head high.“I’d prefer an apology and then immediate disappearance.”
