by V. Theia
Now it was back to reality without a sugar daddy guitar playing sex-god offering to make my life 1000% better.
Seriously, who does that?
Not even two blocks when my phone chimed. I was sure it would be dead in my purse but there it was blasting out Bang Bang by Jessie J.
Gray’s name on screen spiked my heart rate until it felt as though I was triple timing each beat as the phone went on ringing in my hand.
Well, the name I assigned him, so I’d know never, ever to weaken and call him.
See how that worked out.
Sugar Daddy calling.
“I only just left your apartment, Grayson.” I said, “do you have separation issues?”
“Come back,” he replied in his liquor smooth voice curling around me like a warm blanket, making me laugh as I continued to the subway through the busy early morning crowd. New York rarely slept. It was a bustling city full of rude, uncaring, faceless people and I fit in somehow. It was easy to move from A to B in a swarm of those faceless people and not be bothered by a soul. Maybe the odd flasher, but that just meant you were in the big, bad city.
I found myself flattening my lips against the smile hearing his voice.
Happy to hear from him so soon.
“That would defeat the object of leaving.”
“You’re the only one to call me that, you know?”
“Because it’s not your name,” then why did calling him Grayson feel intimately private between us? Why could I hear it in my needy tones as he slammed into me, pinning me to the big, white soft bed I’d awoken in?
“I like you calling me it.” Distracted with thoughts that had no business taking up brain room I almost barged into the back of an old man pulling a cart behind him standing at the curb waiting on the traffic light to turn red. “Sorry,” I mumbled at his nasty-old man scowl.
“Don’t be sorry,” Gray told me, and I laughed.
“Not you, rock star. Now why are you calling?”
On the other end of the phone I heard him opening and closing things. Curious what he was doing and why it was so important to call not ten minutes after I’d left.
Even if I was warm with flattery.
“Truth? I didn’t want to give you space to forget about me.”
Holy crap. He was honest if nothing else.
Men I knew were never honest. They fed me versions of themselves they’d like me to believe and vice versa. No one knew the true me or they wouldn’t want anything to do with the privately fixated woman with a basket load of responsibilities and insanity flaws.
He went on. “I think it means something that it was me you reached out to last night, India.” Not really. I didn’t have a whole wealth of people I could trust and the ones I did I wouldn’t burden them with my problems. “I don’t think we should lose that momentum.”
Somewhere between 7th street and the coffee place I was heading to I laughed. Holding the phone to my ear and my purse close to my body I weaved through people on the sidewalk. “You just want to sleep with me,” I told him. If he liked honesty, then he would appreciate mine.
I caught his laugh and the closing of another door. Seriously, what was he doing? Then running water? It was water I heard. God, he better not be taking a pee right now. Wouldn’t be the first time a boyfriend had done that and any attraction I had was gone seconds later.
Hold up. Boyfriend? Calm down.
“Do I want to fuck you? Yeah, I do, India. That shouldn’t come as a surprise. You’re so stunning I lose breath just looking at you, you’re smart, funny as hell with a mean-girl sarcasm that appeals to me. But if you don’t want that too I still want to help you if you’ll let me.”
I ignored his offer again because I had another question buzzing around my ears. How did he continue to make me feel good? And I was smiling like an idiot.
“You like me being mean? Wait, when was I mean to you?”
“Oh, baby-girl…” Gray suggestively chuckled those three words hoarse enough it caught my breath and right after I heard a sort of scraping noise.
“Okay, I have to ask, what the hell are you doing there?” If he said going to the bathroom I was hanging up immediately and blocking his number.
“Shaving.”
Oh, shit. He was getting ready for his day while he talked to me. Sexy. I wish I’d stayed to watch him meticulously de-scruff himself, paying close attention to the way he puckered his already pouty lips to avoid nicking them. “Wet or dry razor?”
“Always wet.” Damn. The way he said it fuzzed up my vision that I almost didn’t see the lady with a stroller I was about to collide with as she came rushing out of a health food store. My heart only returned to normal when I noticed the stroller wasn’t holding a kid but two chihuahua’s. Welcome to the weird and wonderful New York where a woman pushing two bratty dogs wearing diamond collars sitting in a child stroller didn’t even register as odd. I could never be that woman.
“So, tell me when I was mean to you?”
It’s more than a slight chance I was. I’m caustic at the best of times and most people didn’t know how to handle that but add in how shitty I felt yesterday plus the bottomless pit of tequila I consumed, my tongue would have been looser than me that one New Year’s Eve party with the NFL quarterback.
“You don’t remember last night?”
“Most of it.” Unfortunately.
“You have a sharp tongue, baby-girl. And I liked it. I was trying to cheer you up with funny stories of my recent trip to Asia and immediately you hit back with how much money did my Thai bride cost.”
I laughed. “Well, how much?”
My whole coffee order went by in a blur because I was so fully focused on the man on the other end of the phone regaling me with retelling of my meanness that I was holding my venti almond mocha and back out on the street before I realized.
“You are a twisted kind of a man to like meanness, Grayson.”
“I am. Come back and be mean to me some more.”
“Nope. Places to go, a life to live, Gray. You do too, don’t you have shoes to sell?”
He sighed a great gusty noise loud enough to tell me he was exasperated. “You didn’t even have breakfast.”
“I’m capable of buying my own chai bowl.” But I was tempted… so much… to have Gray feed me.
“I’m about to go into the subway, handsome. But it was nice talking to you.”
“India … wait.”
I grinned, his voice, seriously… hot as hell.
At another time. Another place. Ahhhh… fate and destiny.
Hey, I watched Serendipity seven times. I know.
I couldn’t claim to not have felt this in a long time because I hadn’t felt this ... ever.
This was brand new and confusing. A little worrying. I didn’t have time for brand new emotions, I could barely keep a lid on the ones I did have.
“Bye, Grayson. Do great things today.”
And I hung up.
Not a minute later before I’d even paid my barrier toll a text pinged.
And my heart went directly into my stomach almost choking me on a mouthful of caffeine.
Sugar Daddy: We’re only just beginning, baby-girl. See you soon. Call me anytime. For anything. G. PS. No Thai bride if you’re interested. I’m holding out for a mean girl. Xx.
Two kisses. He added two fucking kisses.
Screwed. So, screwed.
But I spent the rest of the day smiling.
If I took a deep breath into my lungs, inhaling the coconut and lemon scent of the candle I was burning just yesterday in my bedroom and squeezed my eyes tightly closed I could almost feel like my old self again.
In what order did an overwhelmed woman go about fixing a shitty life?
First thing was a hot shower.
I boiled myself under the hot spray until my skin screamed for mercy. And while I saturated my naturally-blond-but-sometimes-helped-out-with-a-little-enhancement hair in a conditioner mask holding my laptop I
sat Indian style on my too-expensive couch. My one splurge—regrettable indulgence last year.
I didn’t count shoes as splurges.
Those babies were as necessary to me as blinking.
Okay. It had to be done.
I had enough in savings until next month. Enough to pay this month’s bills, plus mom’s bills, groceries and for her medication. I might have to drop the lawn service I hired to go to her place once a month and keep the grass looking neat. It was mostly to stop her neighbors from bitching their neighborhood watch mouths. Mom was practically a shut-in if I didn’t force her out occasionally, so she didn’t give a flying fuck about no damn grass.
When I punched in the grand total of what I’d need, without getting a pay check next month I wanted to cry.
I wouldn’t. Crying was for the powerless … or the drunk.
With every resume I emailed to job applications I felt more despondent.
Did I like that field of work? Nope.
Was I good at it? Absolutely.
It was why I’d stuck with it for so long. The regular pay check was a seductive bitch and living in Manhattan I’d gotten used to eating every day, so I’d stayed in the job up until that ratchet bitch back-stabbed me and I wouldn’t allow myself to be walked over like that.
Two weeks ago, I was the woman who had it all, not a care in the world; a high paying job, a third-floor apartment in the heart of the meatpacking district with a quiet drag queen for a neighbor who sometimes gave me almond milk for no reason. Drinks most every night, to schmooze clients into signing with my firm. And a high monthly clothing/shoe budget.
Sure, it was all bullshit. Anything on the outside looking in could appear perfect, you only had to look at those Instagram famous people. A smile could hide a host of problems and I was no exception. I lived it daily.
I’m good. I’m amazing, thanks for asking. It was from my own personal script.
No one in my life guessed how I still grieved for Jack. How I blamed myself for his death. How I’ve punished myself ever since keeping myself on the fringes of every relationship for fear of attaching and getting hurt again.
No one’s life was perfect.
Now as I sat on my stupid couch I was probably gonna have to sell and sent off my eighth job application I knew I had tough decisions to make.
I could with no trouble move back home with mom.
Her house was fortunately bought and paid by my granddaddy long before I was born. It was the one piece of good luck when dear old dirt bag sperm donor took off. We scarcely had much food for months, but we had a roof over our heads.
Living with mom again … I couldn’t face it.
I felt like crap admitting it, but there it was.
Her depression made me worse until it was a ricochet to my anxiety.
I’d get angry when she wouldn’t help herself, on the face of it content to wallow in her sadness. I hated it, and pitied her and sometimes, yeah... hated being around her for how it made me react.
Living with her couldn’t be an option. Not for a week or a month.
I ruled it out quickly.
Jobs applied for, I sighed and sipped a fresh coffee. Outside my building I heard yet another moving truck parking. When I’d arrived home, two movers were carrying out furniture. One day notice and already people were abandoning ship like the rats did the titanic.
There’s always Gray’s apartment. He offered.
Man, that voice needed to shut the hell up.
I was not living with a guy I didn’t know and the same guy I wanted to bounce on.
Feelings came with guys like Gray Ellison. The sweet, superman personalities who just wanted to rescue every damsel in Prada shoes distress. It made it worse that he was the Henry Cavill Superman and not the Dean Cain version.
I needed to stop thinking of him.
Next on my list. Apartments. Ugh.
Thirty-five calls—no word of a lie—later I was fed up.
No one had rooms to rent.
I couldn’t even get a closet in a shared house.
With a few viewings tomorrow for a brownstone I was not hopeful.
Around 7:30pm well and truly sick of adulting, I closed my laptop, it was tomorrow’s India’s problem now, I was officially tapping out for the night.
I finished checking in with my mom, and then I called the neighbor who looked in on her sometimes.
On the back of that soul sucking emotion I was just about to soak in a hot bubble bath and forget today happened, I was getting good at that, when the intercom rang.
Delivery.
Huh. I wasn’t waiting for packages, mostly because I’d heartbreakingly emptied my 400-dollar basket at Amazon just earlier. Again, adulting was the worst.
I tried to tell the young kid he had the wrong address.
“India Rivera?”
“Yeah, that’s me, but I haven’t ordered anything.”
“Look, lady, it’s Deliver-to-Door and I got stuff here for you.”
I used the service more times than I could count, regretting it now since I was broke-ish and they charged an arm and a kidney to personally shop for you. I buzzed the kid in and waited at my open door.
My eyes nearly bugged out of my head seeing the arm load of Food Emporium carrier bags. What the hell?
The blond teenager in a blue skull cap and his legs in the tightest skinny jeans huffed as he dumped all bags once he’d ambled down my lengthy hallway. My apartment was the very last one on the floor of five.
Red in the face he thrust an electronic tablet for me to sign.
“I didn’t order anything.”
“Lady, I got other delivers. It’s paid for, and I got a tip already, can you just sign?”
I signed and lugged the bags in.
I swear my heart shattered into a trillion pieces poking my head into the first bag. I grabbed out a familiar white box and just about hugged it to my chest. Cinnamon Toast Crunch. That was soon followed by Cocoa Puffs, Corn Pops, Cocoa Pebbles, Reese’s Puffs, Lucky Charms, and my personal favorite, Fruity Pebbles. And then more. Twelve boxes of cereal to be exact sat on my kitchen counter in formation.
What had that man done?
Oh, I was in no doubt who’d sent this delivery. It couldn’t be my mom, she had no idea how to use a computer. She hardly used the smartphone I had set up on my plan besides calling and texting me sporadically.
Gray.
This was all that rock star sugar daddy’s doing.
And as cheesy as the gesture was—who even sent a person boxes upon boxes of cereal anyway? My heart melted into my floor.
Hot, treacly feelings filled my chest.
Smiling, I padded across the kitchen floor to grab a bowl from the top cabinet. It was a basic all in one two-bedroom modern living space, ideal for a single woman with no family. I’d loved decorating it in muted colors and making it my home for the last four years. I wasn’t attached to it … mantra of my life … but I would miss it.
I went for the Fruity Pebbles, naturally. Liberally filling the bowl to the top and splashing cashew milk. I carried my sugary bounty into the living room, feet under me, taking my first mouthful I found his number and called Gray.
I wouldn’t admit right then just how excited I was as I anticipated hearing him again.
“Hello, sweetheart. This is a nice surprise, you miss me already? I can come and get you.” Those smooth-as-hell tones drifted through me like my body was made wholly of water. God.
“You sent me cereal. A lot of cereal. How did you know my address, stalker?”
He laughed huskily. “You don’t remember for shit anything you told me last night.” He laughed. Damn. “I’m glad it arrived. Not a Bran Flake in sight. I did good, didn’t I? Go ahead, you can tell me I did good.”
It was my turn to laugh around a gulp of sugary awesomeness.
Nothing made a shitty day better than cereal. Call me weird.
“I’m eating it right now, so you did okay, rock star. Th
ank you. Is it a weird mating ritual you Upper East Side boys do?”
Crunch, crunch, I was considering a second bowl. I could add putting on ten pounds to my list of shit things to happen to me this month.
“Would it turn you on if I said yes?”
I grinned. The man didn’t quit. I enjoyed him holding nothing back and saying whatever he thought. Usually it was me to do the flirtation dance. I was not backwards in coming forwards when I wanted someone, even for a short amount of time as the case usually was.
With Gray it was different, and I was happy—maybe wrong choice of words—for him to be as forward as he wanted.
He entertained me. Thrilled me. Turned me on.
The smoke in his charm served as a distraction and I needed that more than I needed a quick, phenomenal fuck from him.
I was in the strange limbo of wanting him as a friend and not just a lover and for a woman who ran fast and ran far if there was ever a whiff of me liking someone—really liking them, this was kinda freaking me out.
Yet, I didn’t hang up.
“I have my mouth full of Fruity Pebbles, Grayson. I’m already turned on, you found my kryptonite.”
I heard him groan. Sexy, sexy man. I shoved in more cereal and knocked naughty thoughts out of my brain.
“Why did you send me a million cereal boxes?”
“You’re a paranoid little thing aren’t you when someone wants to do a nice gesture for you?”
I huffed.
“I couldn’t stand not knowing you hadn’t eaten this morning. I choose the least healthy, sugar-heavy ones I could find.”
“You did good. It’s heaven. I’m thinking of grabbing a second bowl.” Scraping out the last dregs of cereal I held the phone while I dumped the bowl in the kitchen. “Where are you?”
“I’m at the office still, there was a problem with one of my overseas shipments and I’m waiting on a call from Japan.”
“Oh, important, rock star,” I teased. “I’ll let you go then.”
“No. Talk to me?”
Again, with the flash flood of heat between my legs and through my chest. I sighed knowing I really needed to nip this in the bud when it had nowhere to go.