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The whole thing came spilling out, how he just couldn’t help himself. How he was bored and thought their relationship was stale, but he didn’t want to lose her. Blah, blah, fucking blah.
She’d basically kept herself locked in her apartment since it happened, even though she wasn’t that interested in the guy. Or any guy. Or in dating in general. It was just the assholishness and the humiliation of the act that burned her up and made her want to hibernate in her apartment and never come back out.
Just thinking about it brought a hot wave of bile splashing up Sydney’s throat. She groaned and turned over in the bed, her entire body protesting both the pounding at the door and the movement.
She balled up the sheet in her hand and called out a savage greeting. “If you have a key, why the heck do you even bothering knocking?”
The pounding kept right on going and she cursed her mom. Her mom also moved out to San Francisco to be closer to Sydney. Really, it was because she couldn’t deal with trying to make her own way in the real world and needed the help, but maybe that was just semantics.
Being an only child, her mom was her best friend, when it came right down to it, so Sydney tried not to mind the constant loss of privacy and the many boundaries her mom crossed. She had keys to the apartment and unfortunately, Sydney had come home quite a few times to find her mom there, doing laundry that wasn’t hers, rearranging the fridge and cupboards, doing the dishes… it was completely humiliating.
“God, I’m coming!” Sydney shoved off the bed in one harsh movement that brought on a volley of stars at the edges of her darkened vision.
She mumbled curses, mostly at herself and Jasmine, under her breath as she made her way to the door. She flung it open without thinking, so sure that it was going to be her mom standing there that she hadn’t even bothered to change out of her rumpled pink pajama shorts and matching tank.
On her way to the buzzer to let her mom up, since she obviously must have forgotten her keys, she realized how dank the apartment smelled. Like she really was an animal hibernating in there. Yuk.
She hurried over across her small living room to crack open the large window that stood above the couch. A rush of cool summer morning air rushed up to greet her, pebbling her skin and, unfortunately, her nipples as well.
She stalked over to the intercom, stubbing her toe on the couch in the process. She tried not to curse as she sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and blinked back tears at the pain tearing all the way up her leg. She slammed down the button and waited.
Not more than a minute later, a knock sounded at her door. Sydney walked over, muttering things about her mom being forgetful and making up extra keys just so she could glue them to her forehead. She ripped open the door and let out a shriek of surprise at finding a man standing there, a tall, middle-aged man with greying hair and an immaculate black suit. She quickly slammed her arm up over her breasts, since even she could tell that her nipples were hard as rocks from the open window blowing in cool air. It didn’t help that the old dude’s eyes went straight to her chest. When she looked back up at his face, there was a flush riding high on his cheeks, which made her want to die on the spot.
“Jesus,” she muttered. “I don’t know who you are, but I’m pretty sure you have the wrong place.”
The guy actually pulled a sleek looking cell out of his pocket and double checked it. “Nope. I have the right address. Miss Underhill?”
“Er- no…” Sydney went to slam the door on his face, but he stuck a polished shoe out, blocking her way. He flipped the phone around in one wrinkled hand that was surprisingly tanned, to reveal a picture that was unmistakably her.
“I believe this is you? No?”
“No,” she ground out.
She tried even harder to shut the door, actually moved it back an inch and slammed it forward, but the guy’s foot didn’t budge. Something inside of her nearly snapped and fear pulsed through her already pounding brain. What if the guy had ties to the mafia or something? Had she done something to piss off someone from the underworld?
Holy fucking shit. The night before was pretty much a complete blackout after the first few drinks. What the hell had she done? Seeing as she’d woken up, aching all over and cursing herself, in her own bed, she was pretty sure that nothing crazy went down and her friends carried her limp ass body straight into her condo and put her to bed.
