My phone buzzes in my pocket. Dove and Dorian both check their phones at the same time.
It’s the Seekers Club. They’ve sent a notification.
[Message: Seekers Club]
[Event Invite] Seeking: A Kinky Connection for Valentine.
Join us for a Valentine’s Day themed matchmaking event this Friday at the Seekers Club. We’ll start the night off with a speed-matching event for those seeking a partner(s) for the night. Once a connection has been made, we’ll spend the rest of the night playing with our chosen Valentine’s. Bring your bruised hearts. Leave with a bruised ass. RVSP to participate.
Dove snorts. “He must be getting desperate if he’s throwing a party. I bet Sub Club really rattled him. Should we do a competing event? Oh! How about…Switches and Bitches?”
I tuck my phone back away. “Yeah…I don’t know.”
Dove senses the change in my voice. Her eyes flicker over me. “What’s wrong?”
“Phantom and I have our own issues. But I’m not trying to tear the Seeker family apart. I’m putting Sub Club on hiatus. You should go to the party. You and Dorian. You can represent.”
Dove links her arm in mine. “We’re not going without you,” she tells me. “We can do something just the three of us. I’ll make a charcuterie board, Dorian will bring the wine, and we can watch a bunch of rom coms.”
“So like every other Friday?”
“Exactly.”
I chuckle. “We’ll see.”
I appreciate Dove’s unshakeable loyalty, but I don’t want my friend to have a boring Valentine’s Day because of me. And that’s the hard part about break ups: they don’t just affect the two people in it. There’s a ripple effect that touches friends, family, and everyone around them.
A deep rumble of thunder cracks in the air. The children let out a single, shrill scream. I glance out the long windows to see gray storm clouds rolling in.
And it hits me like a lightning bolt.
“Oh, shit! Phantom’s stuff!”
“What?”
I grip Dove’s arms and give her a squeeze. “Gotta run home. See you there!”
“Stay dry!” Her parting plea chases me as I rush out the bookstore.
I barely make it home before the sky opens up.
Sheets of rain come pouring down, making small rivers along the streets and dumping waterfalls off the awnings above businesses and restaurants. For once, I’m grateful for the tunnels of metal rods and wooden planks that hold up the construction sites and I weave through them to stay dry.
I get inside, race upstairs, and go immediately to the fire escape, where I expected to see a bag full of wet, wilted clothes.
But there’s nothing there.
He took it. The realization leaves a weird, hollowed-out feeling in my chest.
He’s gone. Really, actually gone.
I shut the window. The rain makes muffled clinking sounds against the fire escape.
Spud doesn’t greet me. He’s too busy in his dog bed, chewing the heck out of a plastic bone. A plastic bone that looks…brand new.
Wait a second.
I cross my apartment, go to the coat closet, and yank it open.
