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She was a client.
It was unprofessional.
She was going through some shit.
She didn’t need another man in her life.
The countdown started at twenty and with each drop downward, my heart seemed to thud harder and harder.
Three…
Two…
One.
The screams erupted for the barest of seconds before half of the crowd fell silent, turning to their partners, locking lips.
Jenny seemed to stop breathing entirely, her body as tense as mine.
Oh, fuck it.
My hand moved out, gently touching her chin, giving her the chance to jerk it free, refuse this, refuse me, confirm that I was alone in these feelings.
But she didn’t jerk away.
Her head ducked slightly for a second before her head turned slowly, her lashes fluttering open, all that brilliant blue. And all I saw there was want. Want as strong as my own.
I leaned forward, closing my lips over hers, hearing and feeling her breath catch at the contact.
Emboldened, my lips pressed harder, demanded a response.
And she gave it.
Instantly.
Thoroughly.
Her hand pressed down on my thigh, allowing her to shift to get better leverage as my teeth nipped her lower lip gently, seeking entrance. The whimper she let out gave it to me, my tongue moving inside to claim hers. And at the contact, a shiver coursed through her body; her hand on my thigh curled, scrunching up the material of my suit pants.
I knew I could do it.
Press her back on the couch, run my hand over her body, slip under her shirt, down into her panties, peel the layers off, settle between her thighs, seek entrance into her body.
I could.
We could.
But as much as my body wanted it, I knew we shouldn’t.
My lips got softer before pulling away completely, pressing my forehead to hers.
“Happy New Year, Jenny,” I told her, not even trying to hide the need in my voice.
“Happy New Year, Smith.”
Smith.
She didn’t even have my first name.
And, both of us seemed to realize that at the exact same second, pulling away, putting space between us.
I opened the champagne.
We drank.
We popped confetti wands with next to no enthusiasm.
And then we went to bed.
In separate rooms.
And I tried like fuck to fight the thoughts.
But, in the end, in those weak moments right before sleep, there was no stopping them.
And the strongest, most persistent of them was also the simplest.
I was pretty sure I was starting to fall for her.
SIX
Jenny
He kissed me.
He kissed me.
After the ball dropped.
At midnight.
On New Year’s Eve.
It was practically the stuff of a fairy tales.
But fairy tales, I had learned as a little girl, all had villains. And in this one, that was my own damn head. It was the ugly, insecure, defeated part of me that screamed that I could never have anything like that, anything resembling a fairy tales.
Women like me, beaten down to dust, we didn’t get happily ever afters. We didn’t get men who wanted to get down on their hands and knees, gather us up, piece us back together.
Why would any man want to put that much work in when there were hundreds, thousands, millions of other girls out there who hadn’t been ground into a fine dust.
As I sat there after, my lips still tingling, my chin and cheeks warm from the brush of his beard, my heart skittering around in my chest – a wild animal caught in a trap, the reality came down on me hard, slamming into my shoulders so hard I would swear I lost a whole inch of height.
Pity.
It was a pity kiss.
Because he felt bad for me.
Because I gave him my sob story about my lonely New Year’s Eve tradition.
Because Smith was a good man. And good men tried to make sad women feel better.
Tears stung relentlessly at my eyes as I sipped champagne, feeling the bubbles tickle up into my nose, something I would normally smile about, maybe say something about, but I was too focused on slow blinking the wetness away.
I didn’t cry when I was sad.
I didn’t let the world at large get another chunk of me like that.
I fought the tears back. I hoarded them. Saved them for when I was alone. In the shower. Water steaming up, some music playing through my Bluetooth speaker. Then I sat on the cold stone seat built within. And I purged. Salt and fresh water combined as I drained it all, then washed it all away.
And after popping the confetti all over my floor, not even feeling a moment of satisfaction over the idea of Maritza having to get on her hands and knees to pick out the pieces when she came back the day after New Year’s Day, that was exactly what I did.
I got in my shower.
I purged it all.
Then I did what years of doing so taught me to do. I cold compressed my eyes until there wasn’t going to be any swelling or redness in the morning.
