Chapter 19
PENITENT DICK ERA (?)
NOLAN
I’m on cloud fucking nine when Rishi’s text comes through.
Yo. How’d the steak turn out? Medium rare perfection or amateur hour?
Didn’t get to it.
***
Ran into Rorie Adams.
Ran into? As in physically? Or biblically?
We talked. That’s it.
Uh huh. And by “talked” you mean—
I mean TALKED, you menace.
Damn. Wasted steak and sexual tension?
Tragic.
I took the day off. And now I’m pacing my apartment like a man waiting for a transplant. Which, in a way, I am.
My new couch is due to arrive any minute now, and I keep checking my phone even though the delivery window still says twenty to forty minutes. I’m hitting refresh like that will magically make the truck teleport to my doorstep.
The living room looks empty as hell—no couch, no coffee table, no remnants of tastefully displayed furniture. Nothing but a bare floor and wide open space.
It’s the best kind of empty. A Chloe-free zone. Like my dick. And my life.
After getting the all-clear on my lab results, I decided it was time for a cleanse. Spiritually, emotionally, sexually. The couch she swore was “elevated and European” but felt like it belonged in a dentist’s waiting room?
Gone.
Hauled out like the poor choice it was.
The chic, soul-sucking coffee table with the razor-sharp corners that murdered my shins at least once a week?
Also gone.
Hopefully now living its best life in a shelter where no one gives a damn about “aesthetic.”
The new couch is mine. I picked it. Deep, moody green. Oversized. The kind of couch you could sleep on for eight hours and still wake up thinking damn, that was cozy. It’s bold. Loud. The visual equivalent of flipping off Chloe’s shrine to beige minimalism.
Every time I sit on it, I want to remember this: I don’t have to perform anymore.
Not in relationships. Not in my own damn living room.
I glance around, imagining how the space will feel once it’s fully mine—plants I won’t kill, books I’ve actually read, maybe even a ridiculous espresso machine I’ll never learn to use but need for the hell of it.
I’ll start cooking again. Or get a dog. Or become one of those guys who owns throw blankets for reasons other than sex appeal.
The buzzer rings.
I nearly faceplant over my own feet getting to the intercom.
“Come on up.” Way too enthusiastic. I sound like I won the lottery instead of bought new furniture.
The delivery guys are fast and unfazed. They maneuver the couch through the tight doorway like it’s just another day at the office, which I guess it is. To me, though?
This is Christmas.
No—this is Reclamation Day.
Dropping onto it, I sink into the cushions. I’m being swallowed by the best kind of monster. The kind that feeds you chips and beer and gives you back your personality.
A slow smile creeps across my face, the kind that comes from finally, finally doing something for myself.
Freedom feels like velvet. I run a hand over the fabric. And smells faintly of new beginnings.
I want to celebrate. I want to shout it from the rooftop of my building—or at least from the top of this new damn couch.
Because a couch isn’t just a couch—not when the last one had Chloe’s perfectly manicured fingerprints all over it. Not when every corner of this place used to smell like her shampoo and that overpriced pine and patchouli candle she swore “set the mood.”
Now it smells like leather and sawdust and manhood.
My life. My choice.
And for the first time in a long time, I’m actually myself again.
I want to tell someone.
Rorie, the Silver-Tongued Siren Who Might Be My Professional Undoing, drifts across my brain like a whisper.
She’d laugh at this, make some snarky comment about me choosing furniture that doesn’t scream: “CEO of Sad Beige, Inc.”
She’d lean back, swirl her wine, and ask something like, “Does this couch pair well with brooding?”
That little minx has invaded my network, my meat market—and somehow still managed to take up permanent residence in my brain.
Especially since last night—
Her eyes, her laugh, the way her breath caught when I told her my touch would be anything but casual.
And that kiss.
Slow and wrecking. Her fists curled in my shirt like she needed more, while I held back, letting every brush of my lips ask instead of take. Her warm mouth opened, answering me in ways words never could.
I’m still unpacking that. Still figuring out if I’m on a slow slide into something I’m afraid to name yet… or if I’m finally waking up.
I smile before I can stop myself.
The one that deserves an apology. Textually Frustrated.
She doesn’t know me. Not really. But somehow she sees straight through me anyway. And I owe her more than silence.
Pulling out my phone, I open our thread. Her name stares back at me, bright and unbothered, like it hasn’t been collecting dust while I ran away, kissed a girl, and bought a new couch.
Let’s see if she’s still speaking to me.
So, hypothetically, if someone completely shut you down while you were sharing really exciting news, how badly would you drag them for it?
I stare at it, then unsend it.
Too try-hard.
I type: What’s the penalty for being a total ass? Asking for a friend.
Delete.
Even worse.
I try again: Guess who’s back from the brooding dead?
Delete.
God, no. Am I okay?
I exhale, press my thumbs to the keyboard, and finally go with what I should’ve said days ago:
Me: Hey. Sorry for being a dick.
Sent.
My chest tightens as I watch the screen, eyes locked on the empty space where her reply should be.
Seconds tick by.
A minute.
Then two.
Read.
No reply.
Oof.
Her rejection stings. The weight of it is suddenly unbearable, the phone falls into my lap.
Another connection fractured. Another thing I might’ve ruined because I couldn’t get out of my own damn way.
I lean back on the couch—my couch, my clean slate—and stare up at the ceiling like it holds answers.
It doesn’t.
I need to fix this.
A few hours—and one personal meltdown in Hobby Lobby later—my loft looks like a kindergarten art project mated with a disco ball and filed for divorce.
There’s glitter in my eyebrows. Glue on my pants. And somewhere under the mess, the sad remains of my pride.
The t-shirt I sacrificed in the name of redemption now lies across my kitchen table like a cotton confession.
I’ve written a message in neon puff paint and surrounded it with little lightning bolts and rhinestones, because if I’m going down, I’m going down with flair. Rishi told me once there’s healing in glitter. So, here goes nothing.
The front reads:
SORRY FOR BEING A DICK!
TEXT ME FOR FURTHER APOLOGIES
(555) 977-1529
Yes, my actual number.
Yes, in all caps.
Yes, I hate myself.
The back is even worse:
I’M SORRY TEXTUALLY FRUSTRATED!
I AM SEEKING REDEMPTION!
PLEASE DON’T BLOCK ME!
I stare at the shirt for a full ten seconds before grabbing my phone and snapping a photo. In case I die of shame and someone needs to tell the story at my funeral.
Then I text it to her.
Exhibit A. I’m calling it my Penitent Dick Era.
My thumb hovers over the screen. No way to undo it now. Not after I branded myself a walking billboard for emotional turbulence.
This is what desperation looks like. This is what trying looks like.
I hope to hell she laughs. Or forgives me.
Either way, it’s done.
I’ve officially glitter-glued my sins to a cotton-poly blend and offered them to the gods of forgiveness.
Now all I can do… is wait.