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What the fuck?
I haven’t heard from Clay in six months, and suddenly, he’s messaging me out of the blue. He has a girlfriend. Why the hell does he need me to tell him to stay gone?
I should immediately reply with those two words:stay gone.
I should.
But I need to think first. So I climb out of my bed and make a pot of coffee like a zombie. The entire time, I’m replaying every moment of our…relationship—if you can even call it that. I took things too far with him. I broke all of my own rules, and I let him be more than a client. Clay and I never once saw each other outside of the club, except, of course, for that day last week.
Is that what brought this on? Seeing me again stirred up memories for him? They certainly did for me.
“Fuck!” I whisper-shout as I drop my coffee mug so hard onto the counter it breaks. As I stare at the mess, I wonder what the hell got me here. I’m Madame fucking Kink. I don’t get attached to clients. I don’t get lovestruck and hung up on men like Clay Bradley.
What is wrong with me?
Jack stumbles out of my bedroom as I’m cleaning up the mess from the broken mug. He’s rubbing his eyes as he watches me dump the dustpan full of broken ceramic into the garbage can.
“What happened?” he mumbles.
“Nothing, buddy. Mama was just clumsy.”
When I try to lift him into my arms like I always do first thing in the morning, I frown at the way he barely makes it off the floor. He’s growing too fast, his life flashing by like a gust of wind I can’t seem to catch.
So I kiss his head and pull out a chair at the table for him to sit on. He climbs on sleepily and stares ahead with an unfocused gaze as I turn on his morning cartoons.
While I pour his cereal and then my coffee, I glance back at my phone, waiting as if another message will pop up at any moment.
It doesn’t. The rest of the morning is quiet everywhere except in my head. Even as I walk Jack to the bus stop down the street, he can tell I’m distracted. He’s gabbing on and on about his baseball team and then something about the movie we saw over the weekend and then about some video game.
When I hear the wordsarcade guy,I pause.
“Wait, what arcade guy?” I ask.
He looks up at me with his cute little eyebrows pinched together. “The guy from the arcade. At the movie theater. He played the racing game with me.”
I swallow, glancing away as we continue our stroll to the end of the street. “Oh, yeah. What about him?”
“How do you know him?” he asks.
“What do you mean? I don’t know him,” I reply defensively.
“Yes, you do. He said your name, Mama.” Jack rolls his eyes dramatically, one of those adorable little kid traits he picked up from an adult—likely me.
“Oh yeah.”
“So, how do you know him? Maybe you can call him and we can play games at the arcade again?”
“I don’t think so, buddy. I don’t know him that well.”
I’m lying to my seven-year-old.
“Well, he knew you. He knew your name was Eden. He said it. So, how do you know him?”
“From work, buddy. It’s just…grown-up stuff.”
The bus isn’t here yet as we reach the corner, and I avoid making eye contact with the other moms waiting with their kids. I hide behind my sunglasses like I always do, refusing to look anyone in the eye because there’s not a conversation in the world I want to have with these strangers. I feel the way they look at me—a single mom, usually looking sleep-deprived and wearing last night’s makeup.
“What does grown-up stuff mean?” he asks loudly, and I grimace behind my sunglasses. “Does that mean he’s your boyfriend or something?”
