Chapter 6 #3
My food arrives and I tuck in to it, working my way slowly around the plate.
There’s something wrong though. Something lacking.
The food doesn’t taste as good as it did last night, when I was dining with Kit. Not sure why. Probably the menu choice I made. It’s more fish, which perhaps I’m getting a bit overloaded with?
I’m most of the way through it when it hits me that I’m actually a bit bored, eating on my own. So I finish my meal quickly and thank the server when she comes to clear away my plate, turning down her offer to get me the dessert menu.
When I get up, I realise my legs are shaking a bit and my tummy’s started to feel a bit fluttery.
That’s weird. It’s like my body is in fight or flight mode and is producing way too much adrenaline.
Maybe a walk around the hotel will help.
My feet take me straight to the bar. I guess they have an inkling I’ll find something there to help me deal with this restless feeling.
It’s busy in there and I do a quick scan of the area.
Kit’s not there.
Because of course I’m there to see if he still is.
My heart sinks.
I notice with interest that the group of women are still here though and as I start to turn away to head out of the bar again, my shoulders a little more slumped than they were on my way here, the one with the blonde bob calls out to me, halting me in my tracks.
‘Hey, sweetie. Are you looking for Kit?’
I bristle at her presumptuousness, but her manner is friendly and open, so I’m hopeful she’s not going to be bitchy to me about it.
‘Err, yeah. I just thought I’d pop in to see if he was still around. But I guess not, so…’ I start to back away, giving her a tight smile.
She holds up a hand, as if to stop me leaving. ‘He went back to his apartment to eat. He was sad you didn’t come and join us earlier,’ she says with heavy meaning in her voice.
‘Yeah, babe, he’s really into you. He told us all about your time at university together. It sounded like you both had a lot of fun there,’ the redhead says, giving me a salacious wink.
I feel my face start to heat.
‘I have to say, you’d make a gorgeous couple,’ the woman with jet-black hair says, giving me a wide, genuine-looking smile.
This is so weird. It’s like a gaggle of beautiful angels has me cornered and is giving me advice about my love life.
‘Err, thanks,’ I mutter, at a loss about how to deal with this onslaught of observations.
‘I’m sure he’d be real happy to see you if you were to swing by his room,’ the blonde woman adds.
As a group, they all nod and smile encouragingly at me.
It strikes me as strange that he’d talk to these women about me. I would have thought he’d want to tell them about Katya and the breakdown of his relationship for maximum drama and attention. But it seems not. He chose to regale them with stories of our time together at uni instead.
This, of course, brings back my own memories of how hot and fun our sex life had been.
It was brief, but explosive and all-consuming in the short time we were together.
Almost like a dream. A fantasy. I guess that’s one of the reasons I didn’t take it very seriously – it didn’t seem sustainable at the time.
It was all about the physical, rather than the emotional.
Which had disconcerted me.
Now I’m older and wiser, I’m in a much stronger position to handle something like that though.
But what am I supposed to do now? I can’t very well just turn up at Kit’s apartment. What would he think?
More to the point, what would I think?
I mean, it’s not the worst idea in the world, but if I go there now I’m sending a very clear message to him that I’ve changed my mind about anything more happening between us.
Backing away, I mumble something incoherent like, ‘Maybe, I’ll see, perhaps later, if he’s there, maybe,’ then turn and get out of there as fast as my shaking legs will allow.
Back in the safety of my room I finally let my thoughts spin back to last night.
About how electrified I’d felt in his presence.
How being handled in that confident way of his was such a turn on.
Ugh. My head is so messed up…
Though, dealing with a messy head is exactly what I’m here for, of course.
Perhaps his idea about the two of us hooking up and banishing our demons – which have taken the form of our exes’ rejection of us – isn’t such a bad idea.
Neither of us are looking for anything serious from a relationship at the moment, not after being burned so badly by our last ones, so it could just be a laugh.
Maybe this is the stars aligning and giving us both a gift by throwing us together at exactly the right time. Resetting the balance.
It could actually help us feel a bit less shitty and humiliated about our fiancés leaving us.
Like we’re taking back control of our own narratives.
A sensible part of my brain decides to stage a quick intervention.
Is this actually a helpful coping strategy? Wanting to shag an ex. Or is it sheer lunacy? Self-flagellation maybe? But a fun kind of punishment. A salve. A distraction from the heavy burden of pain and sorrow I’ve been carrying around in my chest for the last few days.
I’m so confused.
But I need to see Kit again to try and untangle my thoughts.
I head to his apartment.