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For a split second, he looks like he might cry. Then suddenly he’s smiling. “I’ve really enjoyed this evening, Zak. This has been worth more to me than … than a thousand dates.”
I smile. “Me too,” I say suddenly, warmed.
And then the pair of us stare into each other’s eyes, either out of things to say, or else letting our curious gazes do all the talking.
“The wine’s made me sleepy,” I admit.
“Me, too. Also, it’s gone straight through me.” He chuckles anxiously, then pushes himself off the floor. “I’m gonna make a trip to the boys’ room. I’ll be back. Don’t you go falling asleep on me.” With that, he disappears down the hall.
I watch him as he goes, swimming in the words we have shared tonight. Who could possibly know this was where my night would lead me?
I find myself smiling as I lean back onto the comfy, soft white rug. I reach up blindly and grab a ridiculously silky throw pillow off the couch, which I thrust under my head as I stare up at the high, high ceiling of the penthouse suite. The music of Mozart—or is that Bach now?—floats around my ears like tiny violins, cellos, and playful deep bass notes in curt, staccato strokes of string. With my cheek buried into the silky White Clover emblem on the pillow, I am left to wonder what the beautiful hell my life is, as I do exactly what Richie instructed me not to: drift to sleep.
6
I open my eyes to a dark room.
Maybe it was the distant honking of a car horn far, far below that infiltrated my dream and caused me to wake up. I’ve turned over onto my side, and straight ahead across the sea of a fluffy carpet, the tall glass windows reveal the city outside in its late-night glow—or is that an early-morning glow?
It takes me a second to remember where I am.
Then I hear a deep, slow breath.
I sit up from the floor and turn. Someone is on the couch under a soft blanket. His bare foot sticks out from under it.
It takes me another five seconds to realize it’s Richie.
I fell asleep. He must have tried to wake me, or else just let me sleep and took his own place on the couch instead of relocating to the bedroom.
I guess he wanted to be out here with me.
Something about that fact touches my heart.
I stay right there for quite a while, just to watch him sleep. I listen to the calm pull and push of his breath. It’s so quiet, it barely touches my ears, the sound of his deep breathing.
I glance down at my lap and notice for the first time that there’s a blanket over my body, too.
A blanket he must have laid over me.
What time is it, anyway?
I pull out my phone to check—and am blinded by the screen as it flashes a text at me sent earlier from Larry, my boss at Aubergines. ‘You better have a damned good reason for giving Mack your shift tonight, because I pay dancers to make my customers happy, not to feed their goddamned drug habits.’
I shove away my phone, then sit there on that rug, staring numbly ahead at an empty wine bottle Richie and I downed, which sits on the floor next to the armchair.
Reality is slowly creeping back toward me.
Like a bug that found its way into my newly renovated kitchen, crawling over the countertop, a tiny, alarming silhouette flitting across an otherwise perfect picture.
What am I doing here? What is Richard really expecting from me? And what am I expecting from him, sitting here in half a captain’s uniform, curled up on the floor of a penthouse that probably costs as much a night as my apartment costs a month?
I run a hand through my hair, then peer down at my feet, noticing that my shoes are off.
He even took my shoes off.
Richie took my shoes off so I could sleep more comfortably.
I should find that sweet, too. Just as sweet as I found the gesture of him laying a blanket over me, or him choosing to sleep on the couch next to me.
But suddenly, nothing is sweet anymore.
The fantasy is crashing apart as fast as it was glued together last night—as flimsy, spontaneous, and irresponsible as it was to believe a second of it.
Soundlessly, I rise off the floor. I spot my shoes by the end of the couch, which I grab. Padding on my quiet, socked feet, I make my way to the door.
Then I stop.
I peer over my shoulder back at the couch. He is still asleep, from the barely audible sound of his quiet breaths.
It’s really going to break his heart to wake up and find me gone.
I don’t want his heart broken. I really don’t.
