“Hey. Baby?” I called to him quietly. I set the tray down lightly and rubbed at his back. I touched his hair lightly, calling to him. Asking him to come back to me. “Drew?” I whispered.
His eyelids fluttered, bringing him back. I sighed, leaning down to kiss him. I rubbed his chest, feeling his heart beat rev in his chest.
“Something smells delicious,” he murmured, looking around him with wide eyes. “What is that?”
I reached for the breakfast tray and stationed it in front of him. His eyes met mine with appreciation, with amazement. “You always know what I need.” He reached toward the coffee and drank it slowly, inhaling and exhaling the home-like aroma. “I had a great time last night.”
I thought of him poised over me, making real love to me. My body shivered, wanting him to touch me again. But in the light of the morning, I wasn’t sure it was possible; I wasn’t sure if it should happen. After all; every moment that passed, I fell away from the daydream, from the certainty that we cared for each other. I understood the wealth that surrounded us, that tormented me. I understood that he was probably just using me for sex. I was good at sex, sure. I had a great body, yes. But I wanted to be thought of as more than that.
But what did I, really, have to offer? I was just a fucked up girl with a rough past. A fucked up girl who hadn’t made it as a dancer, who was probably just going to end up broke and dead, like her father. I shivered, backing away from the bed. Drew sensed the disturbance, but didn’t say anything.
I sat at the table and poured myself a cup of coffee, piling food on my plate. Drew picked up his carefully made breakfast in bed tray and walked toward me, sitting across from me at the same place he had sat yesterday. It was like all that hard work, all that bonding was falling away. I blinked at him as if he were a stranger. But he wasn’t. We had things in common. My subconscious was trying to work against me. But even if it was true, even if we had things in common, it couldn’t matter.
A sense of quiet worked over the room. I chewed my food slowly, carefully, not wanting him to think I was overzealous with my eating. (Of course, when I was alone, I always ate quickly, fanatically. Not with him; not with him.)
Drew, unsure of what to do, began talking about his life—about his real life outside of the realm of this beautiful, millionaire-worthy hotel room. “You know. I’m going to finally be able to move into my new home in Chicago. That nice building I was telling you about in Wicker Park? It hasn’t been available for all this time, and I’ve just been waiting and waiting.” He shook his head.
I hummed into my meal, raising my eyebrow. “That sucks.”
“It didn’t suck so bad. I hadn’t lived in such a little, cute-sy place like our apartment building in many, many years.”
“You got rich pretty early, yeah? I mean. You were rich by the time you were my age. I’m twenty-four, in case you don’t remember.”
Drew considered this, considered the fact that I was talking so quietly, without any enthusiasm. He furrowed his brow, but he didn’t mention anything. “I suppose I was rich when I was twenty-five. But twenty-four. That year was tough.”
He was teasing me, I knew. He was giving me confidence, telling me it was okay to be who I was. But I didn’t know if it was because he wanted more sex before we left, or if it was because he actually, truly liked me. I supposed it didn’t matter.
“What time shall we get going?” I asked him. I reached behind my ear and scratched at my scalp. I thought of all the things I had to do during the following week. I had to work out the loan situation—figure out how I was going to pay it. I had to meet with Carol and begin the process of re-working the upstairs studio to make sure it was appropriate for the dancers. Maybe I would need to work with a marketer who could upsell me to other ballerinas?
I didn’t know how to market myself to little girls in tutus, but there had to be a way.
“Well. I guess we can get back now. I have a long day tomorrow, and I’d love to re-group tonight.” His eyes were hot on me. “If that’s okay with you?”
“Perfect. I have a ton of stuff to get done, as well. You know. Finding a new studio. Learning how to pay for it. All that.”
“You’ve taken out a loan?”
I nodded, frowning at him. I didn’t want to tell him anything about my life, even though I knew not telling him anything about me had sort of gotten me into the mess in the first place. If he had only known it was my dance studio—if he had only known I was a dancer—perhaps none of this would have happened. “I’m going to pack up my stuff.”
I packed swiftly, stuffing things into my suitcase. Drew got dressed, jeans and a t-shirt—something I’d never seen him wear. I watched as he casually maneuvered his suitcase toward the door and turned back toward me. “You ready?”
I supposed I was. I grabbed my suitcase and walked toward him. We boarded the elevator. For the first time since we had arrived, I didn’t look at the remarkable hotel like it was truly elegant. Instead, I saw it for what it truly was. I saw the stains on the counter—the coffee spills. I saw a maid fighting with another maid over by the fireplaces. I saw that a smart-looking, professor-type man in the bar area was reading Orange is the New Black instead of Proust. Everything felt false to me; nothing felt right. I shivered.
“You missing Chicago, Mister Thompson?” the valet asked him as he walked toward the Porsche, the keys dangling.
“Gotta get back home, Leon,” Drew answered, grinning that suave grin. “Thanks for treating Miss Molly and I here well this weekend. We’ll be back real soon.”
“It was our pleasure, sir,” Leon answered. He watched us as we sluggishly entered the car. At this point, I could feel the hangover overtaking my body, my mind. I draped my limbs over the car seat armrests, feeling like I was having an out-of-body experience. The man beside me; did I really know him? Did I really know myself?
“I think I’ll probably just drop you off at your apartment and head over to my new place, just to check it out,” Drew was saying to my left.
I nodded, trying to force myself to stop caring about him. “You should.”
“I’m looking forward to decorating it. You should come over sometime and help me imagine what it should look like. You know. I want it to be really elegant, really personalized. To suit my style.”
“I see,” I murmured. And I couldn’t help but become excited, if only for a moment, about the prospect of helping him arrange his new world, his new life in a grand, Chicago apartment—a place that I could never afford. It was like a fantasy, imagining us together in that illustrious place with the whole of the city rushing around us.
Of course, the past two days had been similar to this fantasy; just us, conquering the world. I had made ten thousand dollars at the black jack table, if only to hand it back to him, recognizing my true fate. I had made love to him, as if I were a different sort of person—the type of person who could fall in love. And, beyond anything else, I had laughed. I had seen wonders. If this wasn’t the gift for which I was searching in my (probable) last days in Chicago—if the loan didn’t work out, if the studio didn’t work out—then I could be happy. Maybe.
I fell asleep on the car ride back to Chicago. I woke up to the horns, the quakes of the city. I felt the power and the energy of the people. Blinking awake, I noted that Drew looked so regal sitting beside me, his sunglasses plastered to his eyes.
“You’re awake!” he said excitedly. “I’m nearing your apartment now. The city really came alive today. It’s so sunny. Probably the last nice day before winter, you know?”
I blinked wildly, trying to get a sense of the surrounding world. I saw children rushing around a playground; I saw dog walkers and runners. People sat outside drinking margaritas and pints. I reminded myself that it was Sunday, that the rest of the world had carried on with their usual days when I had escaped into that solace, the grand hotel, the vibrant casino.
Drew parked the car in front of the apartment building, and no valet came rushing out.
Real life awaited. I clasped my hands together in front of my stomach, peering at him as he raced to my side to let me out. I allowed my feeble legs to stand beside him on the sidewalk; I watched as he removed the suitcase from the back of the car. He set it next to my shoe and leaned down to kiss me, lightly, on the cheek. “I had a great weekend with you. You’re—you’re spectacular,” he murmured.
But I didn’t know how to take it. So I simply sent him a thank you, a nod. I smiled serenely and then walked to the door of the apartment building—the place he would no longer call home. Perhaps he never had. I walked up the steps, dragging my suitcase behind me. I wasn’t sure why I was crying. I felt such a desolate loneliness as I hoisted myself up to the fourth floor alone.
I entered my apartment to find Boomer on the table, to find that Mel had come—just as I knew she would—to feed the cat and give him water. She left me a note on the table. “Love you, Mol. Fed Boom. Let me know how the loan comes through. Mel and Jackson.” To the side, Jackson had scrawled something in purple crayon, leaving his mark. What a strange thing, that a baby and a mother had brought brightness and laughter to my desolate apartment.
I went to bed early that evening. I left my windows wide open, allowing the surprisingly warm wind to waft into my apartment. I had been feeling stifled, and each time the new city oxygen entered, I could breathe a bit easier.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The next morning I woke up early and went for a run, trying to balance out the wayward feelings of my brain. I ran by the new studio, where I was certain I could begin construction later that month. I tried to imagine teaching new students there, loving my life there. It was difficult to see into the future.
I jogged on, past the many parks, the rushing and talking people. It was still very early in the morning, but I knew already that it was going to be another brilliant, hot day—another Indian summer.
Back at my apartment I made coffee and read for a bit, scratching at Boomer’s neck and trying not to think about Drew. I wondered what he was doing, what he was thinking. I wondered if he missed me. I wondered if I would have the strength to avoid his text messages and calls in the coming days if, in fact, he decided not to avoid me. Would I have the strength to avoid such supreme sexuality, such grand times? For what, anyway? What was I living for?
Sometime at around one or two in the afternoon, after I had run my thoughts into the ground too many times, forcing myself into a sort of frenzy, my phone began to ring. My eyes widened. I reached for it, realizing in that moment that I truly didn’t have the strength to avoid him; that if it was him calling, I would answer and give my entire life to him.
But it wasn’t him. It was the bank. About the loan.
“Hello, Molly? Molly Atwood?”
“Yes. That’s me.”
“Right. Well. We wanted to call and thank you for already paying back that loan. What a marvelous turn around. This is really going to benefit your credit.”
I raised my eyebrows, turning my head out to the balcony toward the sun. What? “I’m sorry? Paid back the loan?”
I had received the loan and it sat in my bank account, waiting for me to do something with it—to create with it. However, I had to create with the loan before I would be able to make any money to pay it back. That would be—oh—five years from now. Maybe a little more.
“The loan has been paid back to us. Thank you.”
And the bank manager, a bit confused by my words, hung up the phone. I stood, perturbed. What the hell? Had there been some sort of mistake? I was continually stressing about paying that loan back; I was putting serious pressure on myself. Here I was, struggling with the fact that I had an extra 10,000 dollars in my account—something that I would ultimately have to pay back with interest.
But now I didn’t have to.
I walked out to the balcony and gazed out at the city before me. I sat on the ground, watching the cars shuffle past. Boomer sauntered behind me and started crying at my back. “I know,” I murmured to him as I scratched his ears and head. “I know.”
I remembered those days, just a few weeks before, when someone—someone who had ultimately been Drew—had stood on his balcony, talking about me with Marty. “That girl he had slept with.” I wondered if Drew was talking about me in that manner, now. “That girl he had taken to Iowa. For a scandalous vacation and a Jacuzzi fuck.”
I knew it was unhealthy to think this way; I knew it wasn’t appropriate. But this time, as I sat out on the balcony, I was completely alone. I heard no voices; I heard nothing that took me away from my loneliness. I remembered that feeling of waking up beside him, of waking up in someone’s arms, and I longed for that once more.
I didn’t need money. I didn’t need sex. I simply needed someone I could call my own—someone who called me his. Because of my situation, because of my lack of money, because of my lack of—everything, really—I couldn’t comprehend a time when I would be ripe and ready to be somebody’s somebody.
My head in my hands, I felt the city collapse around me in a sea of darkness and little twitters of stars. Tomorrow, I continued to tell myself—because I was the only voice in my head, the only voice in my world—was another day.
Part 4 of Hooked comes out February 13th
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 Claire Adams
Hooked #3 (The Hooked Romance Series - Book 3) Page 6