I had basically army-crawled out of Vann’s apartment this morning because a lasting relationship was the last thing I wanted. The career, remember? The goals? And accomplishments? All that travel? And the general feeling of just needing to get my life together before I added anyone else to it.
But now I felt shockingly alone—glaringly single. Like everyone else in the world had this wonderful, beautiful, perfect relationship and I had… a lonely apartment and an uncertain future at Bianca.
Tears filled my eyes as I realized this wasn’t a new feeling. This wasn’t something I had just recently stumbled into now that my friends were all settling down.
This emptiness… this utterly depressing feeling of total isolation was something I had carried with me since I could remember.
This was why I’d gotten pulled along with the prep school crowd, trying whatever was put in front of me, sleeping with whoever was interested. This was why I’d hated going to my dad’s house where the lonely feelings I struggled with were only amplified. This was why it had been hard to be at home with my mom when the same feelings were reflected in her.
This was why I’d chased a culinary career—because I could see the sense of community there, because I wanted the friendships and relationships my brother had with his people.
And it was why I’d hooked up with Vann last night. He’d felt like part of that impossible dream I just wanted to taste. I wanted to hold and immerse myself in it for only a few minutes.
Only when I’d woken up there this morning, those romantic feelings of belonging and companionship were gone.
It was cold in his bed where I’d been drenched with reality. It was even lonelier there than in my own bed.
Because he didn’t want anything real or long term. He’d wanted to hook up.
Wehad wanted to hook up.
And once that was over, there was just him. And there was just me—same girl, same problems, same life.
I squeezed out of the office—it was getting hot in there with all the people—and escaped down the hallway toward the bathroom. If anyone asked where I was going, I planned to tell them I needed to freshen up, but no one stopped me.
Out of the corner of my eye I could see black tuxes interspersed between endless bouquets and floral decorations. The air smelled like honey and lavender and an early summer evening.
The bathroom door couldn’t have shut fast enough. I braced myself against the sink, everything new, gleaming and still smelling like fresh paint. I wanted to cry, but I refused to mess up my perfect makeup. Besides, I tried to reason, this wasn’t worth crying about.
Just because everyone in my orbit had found their happily ever after didn’t mean I wasn’t going to find mine. This wasn’t a competition to see who could be the happiest. This was life and it didn’t make sense—would never make sense. That didn’t mean it couldn’t be beautiful.
Or that I couldn’t be happy without a man.
I couldn’t control the timing of things. Life happened in its own sequence. And I would just have to wait for the right time and for the stars to align and for Mercury to get out of retrograde.
Or was I waiting for Mercury to go into retrograde?
“You don’t even believe in that stuff,” I told my reflection.
“Believe in what?”
I whirled around, bumping my hip against the thick concrete counter. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be in here,” I told Vann, completely shocked to see that he’d followed me in the women’s bathroom.
He leaned over, looking cool as a cucumber checking for feet beneath the stall. He didn’t bother arguing my point. His raised eyebrows said everything.We’re alone. What does it matter?When he was upright again, he folded his forearms over his chest, wrinkling his crisp white shirt and tuxedo jacket. “What are you, like the one-night stand fairy? I didn’t hear you leave this morning.”
Oh, so he was just going to lay it out. Like all of it. My cheeks instantly flushed, the blush so strong it spread across my chest to my shoulders like wildfire.
This wasn’t how I did things. I came from a world that turned passive aggressiveness into an artform. We didn’t say what we thought. We said what you wanted to hear. And I would never bring up something like a one-night stand and put them on the spot.
God, Vann. What the hell?
I cleared my throat of the frogs that had taken up residence there and tilted my chin in the hopes that I looked as calm and collected as he did. “I, uh, have a hard time sleeping in any bed but my own.”
Lie.
And he knew it.
His eyebrows scrunched together over his nose, bringing attention to the perfect proportions of his face. God, he looked amazing in that tux with his hair styled back. An image flashed—his cut biceps caging me in, his broad, bare torso slick with sweat and rippled with muscle, his hips pressed against mine.I’m going to save you from those blind dates, Dillon.
