35. Now
THIRTY-FIVE
now
Maggie decides not to torture me with a rave or a burlesque. Instead, she arranges a celebratory dinner at my favorite restaurant Downtown, followed by many, many drinks at an East Village hotspot.
Friends from NYU and work filter in and out, buying rounds and toasting my book even though none of them have read it yet. By one a.m., it’s long past my bedtime, and I’m way over my drink limit.
Champagne, cosmos, and amaretto sours blur into a haze, ensuring I ’ll have to drag myself to my yoga class by my fingernails tomorrow.
Maggie pouts when I tell her I want to go. She has her eye on the hot bartender at Angel’s Share and doesn’t want to leave before she gets off-shift. I wave off her offer to pay for my Uber and call my own.
For once, the roads back to Brooklyn are quiet. Halfway over the bridge, I turn to watch the city lights fade behind me. As they shrink away, a chasm of loneliness ripples through my center. I reach for my phone and unlock it, only to realize I have no one to call.
Grayson’s face floats unbidden and unwelcome through my mind. I immediately banish the thought, swiping open Instagram to give myself a distraction.
Parker’s story hovers at the top of my home page. It’s a video of a shot girl pouring a row of drinks, posted only ten minutes earlier. With my usual inhibitions strangled by booze, I swipe over to my texts and shoot him a message. I figure it isn’t that weird… After all, we’re supposed to go on a date in eighteen hours.
Before he replies, the Uber stops on my corner. Out my window, the cursed Stryker & Sons sign looms large on the dark street, its logo illuminated by an obnoxiously bright up-light.
I open the car door and slide out onto the street, staring up at the sign while I listen to the car rumble up the road.
“It’s not fair,” I mutter to myself. “He had to pop back up now ?”
Just when I’m about to have something exciting and new in my life. Just when a viable guy finally gets up the nerve to ask me out. Just when my therapy and finances and friendships are finally back on track after everything that happened to me.
Sighing, I turn my back on the sign.
Only to find Grayson Stryker standing there in the flesh.