I should have been relieved. The man had bought my company, stalked my desk with coffee, kissed me senseless on a dark street and then looked at me like I’d ripped his heart out when I pushed him away. His absence should have felt like freedom.
It didn’t. It felt like something was missing.
I came home Monday evening tired and irritable, my feet aching from a day spent chasing down sources who didn’t want to be found.
I kicked off my shoes at the door and dropped my bag on the floor and stood there for a moment in the silence of my apartment, listening to the radiator clank its familiar rhythm.
The pigeon was back on the fire escape, glaring at me through the window like I owed it money.
Everything was exactly as I’d left it that morning, and somehow that made me feel lonelier than if something had changed.
I grabbed leftover pasta from the fridge—cold, because microwaving felt like too much effort—and collapsed onto the couch with my legs tucked under me.
The remote was buried somewhere in the cushions, and I dug it out without thinking, flipping to the local news because I needed noise.
Background. Something to fill the quiet that had started to feel oppressive.
Traffic updates. Weather forecast. Some story about a new restaurant opening downtown that I’d probably never be able to afford.
Then his face filled the screen, and my heart attacked my ribs fiercely.
Jack. Standing outside some building in a charcoal suit, answering questions from a cluster of reporters.
The headline underneath read something about Specter Capital and a new acquisition, my pasta was getting cold in my lap and I couldn’t look away.
Even through a television screen, he looked like something that could wreck me if I let it.
I’m going to kiss you now.
The memory hit me without warning—his voice low and rough in the darkness, his hands cupping my face. And I’d kissed him back. For that perfect seconds, I’d let myself have what I wanted, let myself melt into him.
I did the right thing. We don’t belong in the same world—him with his private jets and charity galas and a last name that opens doors I didn’t even know existed.
Me with my student loans and my grandmother in the hospital and a career I’m still fighting tooth and nail to build. He’s champagne and penthouse views. I’m cheap wine and a one-bedroom apartment.
The kiss was a mistake. A beautiful, devastating mistake that I couldn’t afford to repeat.
On the screen, Jack said something that made the reporters laugh.
I grabbed the remote and switched off the TV before I could torture myself any further.
His face disappeared. The ache in my chest didn’t.
The apartment felt too quiet now, the silence pressing in on me from all sides. I sat there with my cold pasta and my racing heart and wondered when exactly I’d become the kind of person who couldn’t watch the news without having an emotional crisis.
A knock at my door made me jump so hard I nearly dropped my fork.
I set the pasta aside and crossed the room, wiping my hands on my jeans. Through the peephole, I could see purple hair and an apologetic expression.
I opened the door.
“Hey!” Candy stood in the hallway looking frazzled, her keys in one hand and Meatball’s leash in the other.
“I am so, so sorry to ask this again, but I have a pipe emergency. Like, water-shooting-everywhere emergency. The plumber’s on his way but I can’t have Meatball in there while they’re working because last time he tried to eat the tools and it was a whole thing.”
She said all of this in one breath, barely pausing for air.
“You want me to watch him?”
