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I grab a modest bite at the corner and get home in time for my online biology course, trading my hoodie for a set of glasses to squint at the screen and get to work. My alarm clock radio by the window stares at me with its giant red numbers, and it has the unintended effect of pulling my attention every time the digits change. Underneath the desk, my foot bounces anxiously in place. I’m drumming my fingertips across my keyboard in improvised rhythms, unintentionally typing extra keys as I work on a report for my class, while gnawing contemplatively on my lip.
Six o’clock couldn’t come sooner.
At ten to five, I end my work early, jump into the shower, then put on the exact outfit he had first requested: a crisp white dress shirt with the details on the collar and cuffs, black dress slacks that hug my dancer legs, designer black leather belt, shiny dress shoes (the same I wore playing the “captain”, actually), and a royal blue tie. I fix up my hair nice, which is rare, since I usually leave it a mess or else slap a hat on. I even put on my fancy white mirror cufflinks, plus a studded tie clip for extra class.
I look like a fucking tall glass of cool water when I gaze at myself in the mirror.
But these clothes aren’t meant for stripping.
No routine is on my mind.
Just Richie and a rendezvous at the nicest park between Mayville and Uptown, right on the cusp of class and sass, rich and wasted, high and low.
I get there with fifteen to spare. I stand on the corner where I’d expect Richie to show up—if he even shows up at all. He hasn’t answered the email I sent. Nor has he been online. In fact, the last login he made to VirtualTease was the night we met.
A few minutes of impatience has me sitting on a bench at the east entrance to the park, where I stare ahead at a fast food joint across the street, squeezed right between a bookstore and a jeweler. When the clock hits six and I’m still alone, I feel my first pang of serious doubt in my heart.
That pang turns into panic when it’s ten past six and I don’t see Richie anywhere. I’m off the bench and pacing, inwardly scowling at nothing in particular while keeping as calm and collected of a face as I can manage. It’s slowly dawning on me that he might have already left town. He might be back in Mississippi, having given up completely on me after I vanished. No explanation. None owed, either. To him, I was just another cheap lay he never laid, but instead, fed a seriously expensive grilled cheese sandwich with truffle fries and a slab of sinful cake. My only parting gift: some captain’s hat that isn’t even a real captain’s hat.
As fake as the fantasies I conjure for my clients.
He was a client … even if I never looked at him that way, not truly.
When I check my phone again, the email icon shows a new email, but as the fates would have it, it fails to load. I curse under my breath a healthy dose of times as I keep hitting refresh, closing the app, reopening it, and shaking my phone in the air fruitlessly. No luck. It’s likely spam anyway.
Or a message from Richie.
I enter the park from the east entrance and put myself at a bench, the dancing shadows of trees shielding me from the sun as I continue to glare at my phone, tapping the email icon a hundred times, feeling like I’m arguing with some stubborn friend.
A different shadow falls on my hands. “Hello.”
11
I look up.
Richie stands there in a fitted white polo and khakis. His polo has a beige ring around the ends of the sleeves, which hug his arms invitingly, and a thin stripe around the collar. Subtle, clean, and conservative. His thick hair is swept over in a curt, perfect part, and it appears darker than I recall it from the hotel, the grays less evident, if there at all. He wears a handsome smile, despite the way I was expecting his demeanor to be upon seeing me again, which reveals a dimple in his right cheek. His eyes catch the remaining sunlight in them, and they appear like liquid copper.
I’m on my feet at once. “Richie.”
“Zak,” he greets me as politely. “You look …” He chuckles as he takes me in. Despite his tranquil, collected appearance, I can see the glint of desire in his eyes that can betray his calmness at any second. “You look like a dream. Exactly how I saw you our first show … down to the cufflinks.”
I smile. “I knew you’d appreciate them.”
