Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 73665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
“I don’t need it with interest.”
“You’ll get it with interest all the same. The only thing worse than not doing the one-night stand or one-hour stand thing with me because you feel sorry for me is giving me money after and not wanting to be repaid because you feel sorry for me.”
She’s not going to let it go, so I relent and say, “What’s your number? I’ll text you.”
“Okay. One month, I promise.”
“Do you like what you do? Weddings?”
“I…sometimes. It depends on the couple. I like celebrating people’s love. But sometimes, the excess of it all is a lot.”
I wonder if it’s salt in the wounds, planning the celebration of other people’s love and having lost the chance at it yourself because the person who should have treasured you is a total tool bag.
“Could I borrow your phone now?” she asks. “It’s late, and you have better things to do than provide charity to a stranger.”
“No. And it’s not charity if you’re paying me back. That will be a dollar for the call, ma’am.”
Her lips twitch as I pass her my phone. “I think this might be the only time I’m disappointed in someone for being a gentleman.”
“If it makes you feel better, I’m disappointed too.”
“It doesn’t really, but…I guess it kind of does.” She makes the call and then hangs up and passes the phone back. “Thank you. I…I hope you have a nice life? Is that what people say?”
“Probably not, but I’ll take it. Let me make sure you’re okay with the tow and everything.”
“I’ll just watch for the truck from the lobby. I’ll be fine. Honestly. I think it’s better if I just slip into the night.”
It’s not that I’ve spent the decades since my divorce guarding my heart or being locked in fear. I’ve just buried myself under a mountain of busyness so that I don’t even have time to consider it being there. The hurt was a long time ago. She’s moved on. I’ve moved on. It’s what happened in the interim that hurt far worse than her falling out of love.
I’ve never found another person where it actually physically hurt to watch them leave.
This hurts.
After I unlock the door and pull it open, watching Bellatrix slip through into the lobby tears a fissure in my chest that doesn’t make sense.
Standing at the lobby’s window, I watch her to make sure she’s okay. I watch until the lights of the tow truck flash blue against the lobby’s interior, and then I watch her vanish like she was never there at all.
I want to go after her.
But I don’t have her number. She never gave it to me.
I don’t have her last name either.
And she doesn’t have my first or last name.
All we know of each other is that, for a few moments, we fit. Not perfectly, but more imperfectly perfect than I’ve ever felt before.
There have been many moments in my life where work has not been enough. Where finding the vase that made this all possible was more of a curse than a blessing. Where I wished I could go back and do it all differently. But each of those moments revolved around my daughter. I missed her. I wanted back in her life. I wanted to know her. All the money in the world couldn’t undo the past, and it still hasn’t brought us back to a point beyond a few awkward phone calls and maybe seeing each other for a few minutes a year.
I’ve never wished I could change everything for a stranger.
There’s no going back and undoing time. Not for all the money in the world. Not for anything. If Bellatrix tries to come back here, I won’t be bartending. And if she asks the front desk, they won’t give her my name.
Brushes in the dark of night are meant to be just that. A whisper of shoulders. A flutter of the heart. One single moment of blissful dreams.
Anything else would ruin the beauty of it all.
Chapter four
Bellatrix
The banging is either coming from the people in the condo directly beside me, who happily engage at all hours of the day and night in what could only be described as bed sport, given how rough and loud they go at it, or from my front door.
I slam my pillow over my head, hoping to drown it out.
The walls are like cardboard, though, which lets Mika’s loud voice filter into my small condo. “Bish! Let me in!”
She has her own key to the front door, but seeing as she didn’t let herself in here, she must have lost it. I love Mika to death, but now I’ll probably have to get my locks changed because of her scatterbrained ways.
You know those sayings about losing your head if it weren’t attached to your body?
Yeah.
“I’m coming!” I yell. I stumble out of bed and note that it’s just past the stage of watery dark. Given that we’re in June and creeping toward the longest day of the year, that means it’s early. No wonder my head feels like a sack of mush that used to be pumpkins but the pumpkins fell off a wagon and got stomped on by eight different dinosaurs.