AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But I was too tired to belabor the point. I’d try to figure it all out later, when I wasn’t so pooped. I had plenty of time on my hands now that I was persona non grata in my old community, so what was the harm in hanging out with gorgeous men who were all friends, all wanted to date me, and who all knew about each other?
Okay, that was just crazy talk. But at least I couldn’t get in trouble for being deceitful. Unlike some people…
And the way Sumner had kissed, his lips soft but confident. Like a man who knew who he was, and what he could get done…
After our good-nights, I walked as quickly as I could through the lobby to the elevator. I was afraid if I didn’t move fast enough, I wouldn’t make it to bed. As it was, once inside my apartment—the one I used to share with a husband—I threw my clothes on the floor, climbed under the sheets completely naked, and pulled my fluffy down comforter up to my ears. My mind turned off almost immediately.
Unfortunately, my dreams did not.
Since she’d left me, Lisette liked to visit my dreams. Whether she was really there or my imagination had just conjured her because I missed her so terribly, I’d never been entirely sure. But the dreams alternated between comforting and disturbing. I never knew what I was going to get and consequently, they were a constant source of worry.
In my dream that particular night, which was the same as in so many others, we were driving, laughing, talking, and I was trying to fix her hair—just as we had been on that fateful day. The problem was, I was also driving the car.
As we did our usual sister thing, I flew through a traffic light. All I know about what followed was that we collided with something big, heavy, and loud.
Lisette didn’t make it. I almost didn’t, but I managed to survive with several broken bones and a closed head injury.
But in my dream, Lisette did live. And instead of her dying and my being severely injured, when we crashed, the car spun several times. It bounced off other things in the road, exactly what, I wasn’t sure, and when we came to a stop, she looked at me.
“Holy shit. That could have been bad.”
I was so scared, I was shivering, and we held hands until our knuckles turned white. But we were okay, and we were together.
If only.
I woke with the morning sun elbowing its way into my room as if it were my own personal, torturous alarm clock. Thank goodness my dreams were behind me—well, they were never really that far behind me—and I could dive into the distracted busyness that daylight brought. I threw on my clothes and called my car for a ride down to the gallery.
Funny thing was, the driver didn’t answer.
So I called again.
Guess he was gone. Fucking Devon. Didn’t even have the balls to tell me ahead of time. How was it I married someone who turned out to be such a piece of human garbage? It was so puzzling, not to mention downright painful.
I’d had a husband whom I thought loved me. He’d been nice, kind, and supportive. What makes a person change on a dime?
But I pushed those thoughts out of my head. I needed a break from the shitty days I’d been having, and I was going to make this a good one if it goddamn killed me. As soon as I was dressed, I ran out in front of my building and caught a cab.
Twenty minutes later, as I was unlocking the heavy door to my gallery, I heard the phone ringing from the other side. I got to it just in time.
“Took you long enough,” Blu said, his voice full of sleep.
“Blu! Good morning, sweetie,” I said, really laying it on. I knew that would irritate him to no end. “How late were you out last night?”
“You don’t want to know, Av. But I can tell you, it was wo
rth it.”
“Well then, I’m happy for you.” I locked the gallery door behind me. I had two hours before opening, and I had a ton of office work to catch up on now that my whoring ex-assistant wasn’t around to help.
He yawned in my ear. “Enough with the pleasantries. Tell me what you thought of the club.”
I chose my words carefully. It was his business and his livelihood, after all.
“I gotta tell you,” I said, “it was…it was incredible. I mean, it was weird at first, but when I got used to watching people—you know—”
“Av, say it. F-U-C-K-I-N-G. People were fucking. You’re thirty years old. You gotta start using the F-bomb like you own it,” he said.
“Okay. Okay, then. I liked watching the fucking. It was hot as hell.”
