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Any dreams or hopes for myself that I’d had were a small sacrifice, too.
I thought about James again, unable to block him out. I thought about how he’d held my hand earlier tonight, and how warm and comforted it made me feel. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had held my hand like that—maybe
never. I pictured him smiling at me, and my chest got tight. He’d left me on the street just now so easily, it was like I was nothing to him.
That’s because you are nothing to him, I thought.
I knew that was true, but the tightness in my chest persisted. I realized it was the sensation of common sense strangling the hope that was living there, inside my heart.
It hurt. It really, really hurt.
James
“I’m sort of surprised you’re calling me, James, after your little hissy fit earlier,” Cole was saying. I could hear people laughing in the background. Cole was probably still at the party, or at some other party, picking out a woman to go home with.
“I just dropped Audrey off. She was upset,” I said.
“Because I asked her to come home with me and I offered to pay her? She is a hooker, right? Because I really wasn’t trying to offend her,” Cole said.
He was an asshole, but he was also my best friend. On top of that, Cole was brutally honest. He wouldn’t steal a date from me, not a real date I’d gotten to first. But someone who was for hire, who I wasn’t planning on fucking because I wanted to keep my boundaries intact?
He’d do it just so he could tell me everything I was missing.
“I’m not sure why she’s upset. Maybe because I told you she was an escort,” I mumbled.
“Well, she’s right about that,” Cole said loftily. “You probably shouldn’t have said anything. She was pretending to be your girlfriend and doing a pretty good job of it. You threw her under the bus with that one.”
“Thanks a lot,” I mumbled.
“So she’s gone? Did you fire her? Or did she quit?” Cole asked.
“Neither,” I said.
“So why’d she go home? I thought she was with you for the next two weeks?”
I didn’t say anything for a moment. “I think she just needed to be alone.”
“You mean she quit,” he insisted.
I furrowed my brow. “Is that what it means?” I felt like a confused, hormonal teenager. I’d been horrible when I dropped her off, not saying a word about when I would call her. I thought she wanted to be away from me.
On top of that, I was upset for some damn reason. Upset that she was leaving, upset that I was going back to my apartment alone and that I was clearly no longer in control—if I had ever been in control since I’d picked her up this afternoon.
“Sounds like she quit to me,” Cole said. He waited a beat. “So if you two are done…can I have her number? There’s not a lot of action out here tonight.”
My jaw clenched again. “No, you cannot have her number,” I said hotly. “I’ll text you her service’s number—there’s a girl there you might like. Jenny. She’s Audrey’s friend. Go get an escort of your own.” Leave mine alone, I thought.
“I know you like this girl,” Cole said. It sounded as though he was yawning. “You can try to hide it, but you suck at it.”
“Thanks,” I said tersely.
“You might want to call her,” he said. “If I want her number, other guys do, too.”
“Talk to you later,” I said.
“If you’re lucky,” Cole said and hung up.
I opened up Audrey’s contact information and stared at it for a minute. Then I took a deep breath and stared at it for a while longer.
