18. Sleep Like a Baby Tonight
CHAPTER 18
Sleep Like a Baby Tonight
DUSTY
“C herry, thank god,” Monique says as I head back to my desk from the breakroom.
My brow furrows and I look around. “What?”
“There’s a man on line three for you. Said he wouldn’t pay for anyone else,” she says.
A sharp pull tugs at my navel. For a fleeting moment I think maybe it’s Joel. That he just wants to talk to me or maybe that he’s regretting ending our date with just a kiss. But then another thought hits me like a train. Is it . . . him ?
“Bastard is taking up an entire line. So hurry up and deal with him, please.”
She stalks away, and I’m left bewildered and holding my steaming mug of coffee. I glance at my desk, where the light flashes on and off, on and off. Somewhere on the surface, I panic. Things went amazing today with Joel. When he kissed me it was electric. Then he left me horny and with no time to take care of it myself, so I wound up at work with an outlet that led to me describing certain scenarios I’d like to be involved in with him and no relief. But if Baby is on the line, I don’t trust myself enough not to do something stupid . . .
I sit at my desk, sip my coffee, and pick up line three.
“Hello, this is Cherry speaking.”
“Fuck, sweetheart, I thought you’d never pick up the phone.”
I grip the desk. “I’m so sorry, Baby.”
“I’ve missed you,” he says.
There’s something in the way he says it. Something that breaks along the edge of the words. Is he sad? I glance at the clock.
“You must really be missing me if you’re calling at two thirty in the morning. I hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long.”
He sighs into the speaker. “I’d wait days for you.”
“You probably say that to all the girls,” I tease.
“Nuh-uh,” he says, “you’re the only one I call.”
I pause. Normally I wouldn’t believe him, but . . . this is the second time he’s mentioned it and the sincerity in his voice is too pure not to take his word for it.
“I missed you too. What’s got you down?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on, I can tell when my Baby is upset. Tell me, and I’ll make you feel better.”
“I don’t know if that’s possible.”
Hmm . . . something must really be bothering him. Normally, he’s raring to go, dick hard in his hand and wanting to do vile things to me with hardly a how-do-you-do.
“If I were there with you, I’d wrap my arms around you. We’d lie in bed and I would stroke your hair.”
He moans, and the sound zings through me. “Have you ever been so mad but so exhausted at the same time?”
I squeeze the phone in my hand. “I—yes, yes I have.”
“I want to destroy everything. Break everything. Run through the streets swinging a bat. But I also just can’t get out of bed.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“It’s not your fault.”
I shake my head. “No, but I’m sorry something has made you feel so terrible.”
I hear a deep breath through the line then a long silence.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” I ask tentatively.
“No one can help me,” he admits. “Unless you have a time machine.”
I chuckle. “If I had a time machine, I wouldn’t be hanging around here.” I freeze. The number-one rule of sex work? Never interrupt the fantasy. This man has called me hoping for sympathy—comfort. To admit I’d rather be somewhere else? Not cool. “Sorry, I—I didn’t mean that.”
“It’s okay,” he says, and I can almost hear a smile in his voice. “I’m not an idiot. I know you’re only listening because I’m paying you to.”
Guilt racks me and for once, he’s wrong. “That’s not true. I’ve thought about you . . . even after the phone line goes dead.”
“You have?”
I take a deep breath. “Yes. And more often than I care to admit.”
A breathy laugh echoes through the speaker. “I don’t know why, but it feels like I know you.”
“Maybe we met in another life,” I suggest.
“Star-crossed lovers, perhaps,” he adds.
“Didn’t work out so great for Romeo and Juliet,” I tease.
“True, but it seems all of my relationships are doomed for tragedy.”
I blink and think of Joel. Did I doom our relationship before it’s even begun? Will it all end in sorrow?
“I worry the same thing for myself,” I whisper. “People like me—we don’t get happy endings. I’m not even sure they really exist.”
“They do,” he says suddenly. “My friends . . . they have it. The happily ever after. I watch them sometimes and think how lucky they are to have found each other. I tell myself it isn’t real but it is—I’m just jealous of what they have. They’re soulmates. Meanwhile, I just sabotage everything that comes my way because I can’t get over my own heartbreak.”
Tears begin to sting my eyes. His words hit really close to home. “That sounds really lonely.”
He sniffs, and I close my eyes as the first tear falls. “Not always. I have my best friend.”
“That’s good that you have each other.”
“I think he’s lonely too though, and while we have each other, we can’t be everything for the other. There’ll always be something missing.”
“Is that what you’re mad about?” I ask. “Do you think he’s found someone?”
He takes a long deep breath. “I don’t know. It could be nothing. I thought that maybe he seems a little different lately . . . but maybe it’s all in my head.”
I wrap the phone cord around my finger. “You could ask him.”
Another long pause.
“I know that guys aren’t always super comfortable sharing, but?—”
A laugh.
“I—I’m sorry, did I say something funny?”
“Oh! No . . . no just—never mind.”
Another phone girl walks past my cubicle on her way to the breakroom and I pull myself closer to my desk. “So, what are you going to do?”
He sighs. “I think I need to take a trip.”
“Like a holiday?”
He clicks his tongue. “No. More like I need to go home.”
I frown. From what he’s told me about his parents, I have a feeling home isn’t a great place. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“Probably not, but there’s some things and possibly . . . some one I need to find, so I should start there.”
I nod. “I hope you find them.”
“Me too.” He yawns. “I think I’m going to try sleeping now, sweetheart. Do you . . . do you think you could do me a favor?”
“I’ll try.”
“Could you stay on the line with me until I fall asleep?”
I glance around. What will my boss think if she walks by and I’m not even speaking? She’ll think I’m wasting company time is what.
“Please?” he begs, and the sound steals my breath away. My heart aches, and a prickling heat rushes into my face.
“Of course I will. I’ll even be decent and hang up so we don’t charge you for hours and hours.”
He chuckles. “It would be worth it.”
My cheek turns up at the side. “I hope you have a good sleep.”
“Good night, sweetheart.”
I listen as his bed sheets rustle, and after a few minutes of tossing and turning, it sounds like he finally falls asleep.
“Baby?” I say through the speaker. When he doesn’t answer I whisper, “Good night.”
Then I hang up the phone with a soft click.
* * *
By five thirty in the morning, my feet drag across the sidewalk as I head home from the bus. I’m exhausted. And not the normal I worked all night and live the life of a cave dweller exhausted. No, right now? I’m emotionally exhausted.
This week has been a lot. My first date with Joel left me giddy and vulnerable. Then Baby was hurting, and he called me to make him feel better. Did he call me because he simply has no one else? Or did he call because everyone he knows is sleeping at two in the morning? What happened to make him so sad? He didn’t even try to make the conversation sexual, even though that’s what I get paid for. But the way he just sounded so defeated—it hurts my heart.
The neon sign for The Sudsy Dream comes into view, and I stop to stare at the alleyway beside the building. Nausea rolls around in my stomach. Oh god, I’ve spent the last few hours obsessing over a man’s voice and feelings when I was kissing Joel in that alley less than twenty-four hours ago. I blink rapidly, trying to keep my emotions at bay. I know he said he’s not the jealous type, and he doesn’t seem to need any reassurances from me, but I’m starting to develop real feelings for this faceless voice.
What the fuck am I going to do? Everything is such a mess.
I duck up the stairs and slam the door shut. Stella attempts to weave through my legs, but I rush over to the bed and throw myself down onto it. My life hasn’t felt this out of control in years. Not since—not since the hell I clawed myself out of. That feeling of hopelessness, desperation, betrayal, and, at the core of it all, the confusion . . . it’s all rushing back to me, unwelcome. How stupid I was to have so gravely misunderstood his feelings for me. That any moment he was going to show up. That he would be the hero he always tried to be and save me. But then he didn’t. So, once again, it was up to me to save myself. And it damn near killed me.
But I don’t think Joel would do that. I don’t think he would throw me away so carelessly. Sure, he might not want to marry me, but as far as relationships go, I believe he’s genuine about liking me. Then again, I thought Key was too.
I’m too caught up in this phone stranger. It’s scary and wrong, but also . . . intoxicating. The next time he calls? I’ll just have to tell him I can’t speak to him anymore. What’s he going to do? It’s not like he knows who I really am or where I live. For all I know, he lives in New York City.
A fluffy paw bats at my head, and Stella starts to purr as she nuzzles herself into me. I roll over and pull her in.
“I’ve made life a complicated mess again, pretty girl. What am I going to do?”
She meows, then purrs before nibbling gently on my finger. The radio suddenly draws my focus as a metal song slams loudly through the quiet of my apartment. I should turn it off and get into bed, but before I can convince myself to get up, half the song is over and my foot taps along to the double bass beat of the drums.
“That was Carnal Sins’s hit, ‘Firebird,’” the radio host announces.
“Carnal Sins?” I whisper to myself, and Stella perks up. “That’s Joel’s band! I can’t believe I didn’t tell you. He’s on the radio.”
She meows softly as if to confirm to me that she understands I’m sort of, kind of, dating the bass player of the band we just heard.
“It’s metal music. I know it’s not really our thing,” I say as I softly pet her head, “but I kind of like it. And I like him . Maybe—I don’t know. Maybe that’ll be our new thing? We don’t have many, you know, things.”
I frown and let myself wallow in a little self-pity, if just for a minute. There’s just nothing going on with me. No passions. No hobbies. Movies are really the only thing that gives me any kind of joy. Acting used to do that, but . . . well, look where that got me.
Stella bites me hard, and I yank my hand away with a gasp. “Hey!” I examine the mark, which thankfully seems to have just been a warning—as though she could hear my own self chastising thoughts. “Okay, I’m sorry,” I say. “Let’s go to bed.”
But as I lie awake, unable to drift off to sleep, the memories of my past break out of their carefully crafted vault to haunt me.