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I’m used to staying up all night—my life before tended toward nocturnal, but lately I’ve been keeping to a more typical schedule. I miss the parties. I miss my friends. I miss flirting and laughing for fuck’s sake. I miss my freedom, and I miss my parents. Or maybe I just miss their attention.
However, every time I think about that conversation with my mother, I get a shiver of disgust. Whether it’s self-directed or not, I haven’t stopped long enough to examine. Still, there’s a niggling feeling of wrongness in my head, something keeping my days dampened and dark beyond the heavy gray skies, and I’m pretty sure it was that little talking-to.
Tuesday night with Elodie felt like a manifestation of that conversation. Inevitability. Disgust. The inability to escape this fate on my own. The fear of being, in fact, alone.
I swallow hard as I wiggle on the couch, unable to sit still and too tired to accomplish anything productive, not to mention that I don’t have anything to do that anyone else in the free world would consider productive.
I settle on listening to an audiobook while I clear colorful obstacles in a game on my phone. It’s a self-help book I wonder if Drew’s read. It’s about sobriety. It feels fitting, and it’s narrated by the author. My mind is blown a few times in the first few chapters, and I’m newly disgusted with myself for the amount of toxins I’ve pumped into my body during the course of the last eight years. Basically, when I turned sixteen, the wheels came off. Weed, pills, liquor—whatever was available. There was always a party, and there was never a shortage of the best drugs money could buy.
I wouldn’t call myself an addict—more of an enthusiast. Still, “Sobriety” holds a certain appeal—at least the way this author talks about it. Like, I could go to yoga. I’m not sure I’d like it, but I could try it.
Six o’clock finally rolls around, and I place a breakfast order for delivery. I add a special instruction: Leave with doorman. I almost add: The hot one, but since Drew might see it, I don’t.
I’m not sure I’ve kept it under wraps that I find Drew hot. He’s caught me checking him out. He’s also caught me trying to slide my hand up his abs while I’m sucking him, but he always slaps me before I get too far and says something like “Focus.”
I want to tell him I’m just trying to figure this out, asshole, but we don’t really talk. He has yet to touch me in any way that isn’t violent or punishing.
Am I ready for that to change? I mean, yeah. I’m fucking lonely as fuck, and he’s the only person besides Elodie who speaks to me.
But then again—what would we have to talk about?
I do want to tell him I think he’s hot, though. That he got a raw deal in New York. But I can guarantee he doesn’t want to hear that from me. I still get the sense he only barely tolerates me.
Just like everyone else.
Another entire eternity passes before his knock comes.
He’s already untucked, undone tie and all, and he looks—fucking gorgeous.
A sight for sore eyes and all that cliché shit that causes my mouth to go dry at the sight of him. I’m a hot mess of nerves and loneliness and want, and I can safely say I now officially identify as bi.
Instead of handing me the delivery bag, he holds it away when I reach for it. “Say something so I know you’re sober.”
“I don’t know if I’m completely sober,” I tell him, “But I had four energy drinks and I sort of want to puke.”
He hands over the bag. “Then you should eat something.”
The last thing I want is food. “Did you miss the part about how I want to puke?”
His lips press into a grim line. “Are you up for this?”
I scowl at him. “I ordered breakfast, didn’t I?”
He gives me a scan from head to toe and meets my eyes again. “You gonna get out of the way so I can come in, then?”
I stand aside. He enters, and I close the door behind him.
“You’re a wreck,” he notes.
“Yeah, thanks for noticing.”
I turn my back on him and take the bagels I ordered into the kitchen. I pick off a few pieces, shove them in my mouth and try to chew.
Drew takes off his jacket, slides off his tie, and puts them on the back of one of the dining table chairs. He looks around the penthouse. It’s not the tidiest it’s ever been since the maid comes today, but aside from some empty energy drinks and unfolded blankets, it’s not all that bad.
It’s sort of dark, though. The morning is gray, and I only have the kitchen lights and a lamp in the living area on.
“Well, I’m dying to know,” he says, facing me. “How was the big night?”
