Page 67 of Wait for Him

We all cope differently.

The week Jackson got married, I spent every night crying into a different one of his shirts. Hoodies, old T-shirts, one particularly soft Henley he'd left at my place years ago. I had an entire drawer of him I'd never gotten around to returning, which had seemed harmless right up until he married another woman and suddenly became the saddest fucking drawer in Los Angeles.

I had no right to be that devastated.

Nothing could ever happen between me and my brother's best friend. He was a full decade younger than me, complicated in approximately seventeen different directions and, by then, very publicly in love enough with someone else to marry her.

I'd known all of that from the beginning.

Didn't stop me from being quietly, catastrophically in love with him from the moment we walked out of that hotel room.

So I did the sensible thing. I loved him from a safe distance and made my peace with the terms. I always knew the day would come when he'd meet someone. Build a life. Fall in love.

I want him to be happy. I truly do. Just not with another woman.

A wife, no less.

Honestly, the ideal outcome would've been monkhood. Deeply committed monkhood. One of those lifelong vows of celibacy followed by immediate relocation to a monastery carved into the side of a mountain, preferably somewhere with poor cellular service and absolutely no attractive pilgrims.

He could spend his days making cheese.

Illuminating manuscripts.

Growing medicinal herbs.

I would've supported him wholeheartedly. Personally delivered care packages and pussy. It’s a delicate balance.

I think it would've been a beautiful life.

But no. He had to get fucking married.

Anyway.

Once the Jackson spiral had run its course and I'd exhausted his drawer of absorbent fabrics, I did what I do whenever something in my life becomes unbearable.

I made it a project. Then the project became a business, the business became a building, and somewhere along the way RAGs became one of the few places in my life where I never have to second-guess the rules. A place I can go when I need control back.

Which, tonight, I very fucking much do.

The elevator reaches the lobby, and Gerald spots me the second the doors open. His eyes widen before he catches himself, and then he scrambles out of the driver's seat so quickly he nearly clips the curb with his shoe.

The scramble is what gets me.

Gerald is a grown man with grandchildren.

I take it as a compliment.

For my age, and I say this not from vanity but from fair, evidence-based assessment, I still have it.

Whatever it is.

I get carded often enough for it to have gone from flattering to administratively inconvenient, and people routinely do that little double blink when they find out how old I am. I've reached the point in life where pretending not to know I'm attractive feels considerably more obnoxious than simply acknowledging the available evidence.

Tonight, I am also wearing a sleeveless black leather dress that skims every curve I possess, paired with a push-up bra that has sent the girls straight to the heavens. My shoulders are bare, my legs exposed below the hem, and a black leather choker circles my throat beneath a sleek high ponytail that took far more effort than I intend to admit.

So yes, I understand Gerald's reaction.

“Thank you, Gerald.”