“I wasn’t planning on tellingyouanything, Mom. You shouldn’t even be here. How I choose to live my life shouldn’t concern you,” I say with a sigh, my voice slightly raised. She shushes me loudly as she hurries to close my bedroom door. Her eyes dart frantically between me and the man who lays limp, no doubt without any form of underwear as a barrier between his junk and my expensive linen.
“Are you going to tell me where you were all night? I was worried sick.”
“He’s out cold, Mom. You don’t have to pretend you like care, and I don’t have time to sit and justify my actions to you. I have Cassandra’s wedding today. I have to catch a flight in…” I check my phone. “Now.” I hurry to collect my purse, shoving the spare phone charger from my kitchen counter into my suitcase before zipping it shut and standing it up on its wheels.
“Which one is Cassandra again?” She asks, though I know she doesn’t really care for whatever my response is going to be. She’s making small talk to delay me in the hopes I miss my flight.
“You’ve met her a handful of times, Mom.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. I preferred to keep my friends’ interactions with my mom to an absolute minimum.
Checking my purse one last time, I make sure I have everything I need. My suitcase is packed to the brim with hair and makeup products, comfortable shoes, clothes for sleeping and my flight home.
My maid of honor dress is already in Grangewood Creek with Cassandra’s sisters. My shoes arrived there this week. “I’m meeting Tahnee at the airport, Mom. I really have to go.” I grab the handle of my suitcase and start to wheel it out.
“OK,nowI know you’re making this up. First Caitlin and now Tansey? At least pick believable names.” She rolls her eyes, slumping down onto my no longer neat couch, collecting the remote from the space beside her.
Ever since I was in high school, she could never remember the names of the friends that I’d made. The only name she ever remembered was my high school boyfriend, Harrison, and that was only because she was screwing his dad, in turn, ending his marriage.
It was also the reason Harrison and I broke up.
“He mustn’t have really been into you if something so small could have made him break it off,”she’d said to me, while I sobbed into my musky, old pillow, trying to come to termswith my first ever heartbreak. She’d said it so casually, too, as if having an affair was just some minor detail that everyone needed to forget about and move past. Like it was something she would do on a day-to-day basis.
If I weren’t running late, I would storm into my bedroom and take a peek at the man’s ring finger, but I really have to go.
“Bye, Mom. Please, for the love of…anyone other than yourself, put my key on the counter when you leave. I can’t have you just showing up unannounced, and random men in my bed,” I tell her, wheeling my suitcase behind me when I hear her mutter something under her breath that sounds exactly like, “This is the thanks I get for raising you.” She crosses her arms over her chest, watching me walk out the door.
“Don’t be here when I get back,” I shout as the door slams, echoing in the hallway of the apartment building.
My phone vibrates in my purse and I fish it out, seeing Tahnees’ face and name light up my screen.
“I’m on my way,” I quickly tell her by way of a greeting, and hang up on her before she can say a single word.
Chapter six
Him
This isn’t unusual forme.
Walking down the streets of a warm, busy Santa Monica with no shirt on, surrounded by beach goers and surfers.
Though,typicallyI’m not pairing my bare chest with a pair of slacks as a result from a very expensive—well worth it—evening.
I went into the night not knowing what to expect. A nameless face that nobody would remember, seated at the back of the ballroom at the table we deemed ‘thethrowaways’.
I walked out of it hand-in-hand with the most incredible woman my eyes had ever seen.
I saw her as she strutted into the venue, a tight, little black dress hugging her curvy figure so…God, I can’t even find the word to describe it.
She was alone, too. And I watched as men ogled her from the side of the room just waiting to pounce. I guess you could lump me in with those guys, because I was doing the same thing.But she deserved the attention. She deserved all eyes on her whenever she entered any room.
I was sure of it.
She was captivating, right until she ran out of my very expensive hotel room, slamming the door shut behind her.
I’d never seen her around here before, and I’ve met a lot of women in California. I work in a bar across from the most popular beach on this side of the city, for Christ's sake, so I knew immediately that she wasn’t from here. I also knew that I had to make her mine while I had the chance to do so.
Even if it was only for the night.
When I saw how that man was trying to shoot his shot and the way she scrunched up her nose at his advances while trying to walk away from him, I knew he wasn’t what she would usually go for, and that she wished she weren’t alone in that moment.
