A few hours later, Matty and I stumble through the door to my apartment. Morocco comes sprinting out of the living room, trying to jump on us and lick our faces. She’s about five years old, the shelter thinks, but she still acts like a puppy. I rub the top of herhead, and Matty sits down on the kitchen floor and lets her climb onto his lap.
“What a good puppy,” he slurs. “Do I smell like tequila, Morocco? Hm?”
“She’s going to get drunk off your breath,” I tell him. Although honestly, I can’t talk. Thomas and I didn’t have any luck conspiring against Hunter, and we kind of got plastered in the process. The room spins as I lean down to untie my shoes. “What time’s your flight leave tomorrow?”
Matty is now lying on the floor with his arms spread out wide while Morocco paws at his face. “Not till four, thank god.”
“I’ll set an alarm. See you in the morning.”
“Late morning,” Matty stipulates with a groan.
I go to my bedroom and change into sweatpants and a T-shirt. I leave my bedroom door open until I hear Matty stumble to the spare room. He’s crashed there a few times over the past months. I hear his telltale curse as he hits his head on the lamp near the bed.
“Every time!” he complains.
“Every time,” I agree. “Night. Drink water.”
Morocco comes padding into my room a few minutes later. I close the door behind her and crawl onto the bed. She hops up beside me and we both lie down. The ceiling is swimming over my head. I watch it for a while, my thoughts skipping around pointlessly.
They settle, as they always do, on Jacob. And yes, I know it’s pathetic to be hung up on someone I haven’t heard from in months. And I know Heather and Hunter think I’m slightly insane for breaking up with Thomas. But it is what it is. I’m still hung up on Jacob. If anything, dating Thomas just made me moresure of it. He was a really awesome guy. There wasn’t anything about him I didn’t like.
He just wasn’t Jacob.
I grab my phone and open Instagram, which is the only app I have on my new phone, other than a clever language app that Matty showed me that helps translate road signs and menus and things in foreign countries. I only have to type in “j” and Jacob’s profile pops up, @jacob.tn01. Every time I open it, I kind of hope there will be a new post. At the same time, I’m terrified there will be. I don’t know how I’d feel if he posted something normal and happy, like a picture of him and his friends, or with a new girlfriend.
I’d like to say I set up my own Instagram account because Harper’s press team made me, but that’s not really true. They suggested it a few times, especially in the lead-up to the last race, but I only agreed because of Jacob. I thought that maybe, if he saw it, he might reach out.
Which was stupid. But yeah.
I throw my phone away and sigh heavily, raking a hand over my face. Morocco whips her head up to glare at me. I’m keeping her awake. I pet her obediently until she falls asleep again.
Even though it’s well past three a.m., and even though I drank what felt like a hundred drinks, I can’t fall asleep. The F1 season will start up in a few weeks, and for some reason, it feels like there’s a clock ticking down. I don’t want to go into the new season with this hanging over me. My brain knows that Jacob doesn’t want me, but it’s like my heart still doesn’t believe it. I need to hear him say it out loud. Heather and Hunter have both said I need “closure,” whatever that means. And Matty once told me that he hopes Jacob ends up in F2 again, so I can tell him off to his face the first time I see him.
I don’t want to tell him off, but I do want to tell him how crappyhe made me feel. And how mad I am at him. And how sorry I am for not fighting for him harder. And how much I miss him.
He’s changed his phone number, but I could send him a message on Instagram, I guess. He doesn’t follow me, but there’s a chance he would see a message. I don’t want to do that, though. I’ve never been good at putting my thoughts into words, and I don’t want to send something off into the ether and then wait days or weeks or months for an answer.
I don’t want to send him a message. I want to see him, in person, and talk to him.
I grab my laptop from my nightstand and open Expedia. As I wait for it to search for flights, I wonder how much Expedia makes off drunk people booking last-minute flights to visit exes.
A lot, probably.
After a few minutes of scrolling, though, my stomach is churning with frustration. How can it take eighteen hours to get from London to Albuquerque? The quickest journey has three separate stops, and none of the flights have any seats left in business class. The press and fan attention have gotten pretty intense over the past year, and the last thing I want to do is sit on a plane with a bunch of people staring at me.
Sighing, I do what I always do when I run into a problem I can’t solve. I text Heather.
You up?
She texts back a few seconds later.Yeah, but I’m not interestedin a booty call.
?
“You up” is a booty call text.
Ah. Good to know. This is not a booty call text, though.
Darn. What’s up?
