Chapter 5
Ispend Saturday morning with my nose buried in my kindle.
At the moment I’m trying to get lost in my favourite Dramione fanfic.
Usually there’s nothing a morally-grey, wild-for-Hermione Draco Malfoy can’t fix.
Heck, he practically single-handedly carried me through my trauma from the night I left my husband, but even my most beloved book boyfriend can’t distract me enough from replaying last night’s events in my mind over and over, and over again.
Suddenly, instead of white-blonde hair and pale skin, I’m picturing black hair and endless smooth, tanned skin that feels like silk beneath my tongue.
For fuck’s sake.
I toss my kindle to the pillow next to me and go clean my bathroom instead.
When my arms are sore from scrubbing the grout with a toothbrush and my heads spinning from bleach fumes, I turn to the kitchen.
But no amount of distraction techniques can stop the thoughts from pouring in.
My heart rate has sky rocketed about one hundred times today.
Pretty much every time I think about the hotel adonis’s hands on me, or the way my name sounded in his deep, smooth voice.
Which he knew because Angela must have let it slip and she just didn’t want to admit it.
On the website, I was only listed as ‘G’. There’s no other explanation.
By the time I start descaling my coffee machine, I’ve decided to eradicate the last two minutes of my encounter with the Hotel Hottie from my mind.
After a whole day of swinging wildly between being turned on by the steamiest sex of my life and wanting to melt into the cracks of my tiles at how the night ended, I’ve decided I just don’t need that kind of negativity in my life, and up until that point it was a perfect night. Exactly what I needed, really.
So PSA, from this moment on, he never offended me and that’s that. I’m never going to see him again so I can think whatever I want.
It’s five o’clock and my apartment is hospital-grade clean when my best friend Anna calls to tell me we’re going out, which is just as well. I don’t need to be holed up at home thinking about last night. No, I should definitely get drunk instead.
I take my time to apply my makeup and straighten my hair, all the while still marvelling at the fact that I can just decide to go out to a bar with my best friend whenever I feel like it now. After six months, it still hasn’t gotten old.
I never got to experience my wild coming-of-age years like everybody else.
Daniel and I met in high school and we started dating shortly before we graduated.
We were married two years later. Slowly, he began to cut me off from my friends, my studies, from pretty much my whole autonomy.
Looking back now I don’t know how I was so complacent about it all.
It was so gradual that I’m not sure I realised it was happening until one day it just… was.
Daniel was so careful to disguise his motives, though, which is the kicker.
He didn’t want me to stop hanging out with my best friend Anna because he didn’t like her, he just didn’t trust other men not to hit on me if I was to go out partying with her.
He didn’t want me to give up my studies or my future, he just wanted me to drop out of that course because he thought my uni friend Brett was secretly in love with me, and it was disrespectful to Daniel for me to continue seeing him every day.
He didn’t want me to quit working as a barista, just that particular job because it was on campus and I would still run into Brett.
There was always something.
Then by the time I left him I hadn’t worked or done any further studies, because at that stage I was the wife of a footballer, and how would it look if Daniel’s wife was making coffees or doing some other menial job when he was such a big superstar?
He made sure I wasn’t able to earn my own money.
He restricted my access to funds, so if I wanted something, I had to ask him for it.
And even then, I had to provide him with receipts.
It was all about control for him. It took him years to get me, and when he did, he wasn’t about to let me go.
So naturally, I had never even entered a nightclub until I left him.
Saturday nights were game nights, and I was expected to be there supporting him.
Or, in the off season when he wasn’t playing, they were for spending with the other WAGS while the boys went out partying.
The times Anna would beg me to come out with her always ended in such massive fights between Daniel and me that, eventually, I stopped answering Anna’s calls altogether.
But it’s Anna who’s calling my name now and I spot her across the road, lining up outside the bustling bar in a gold shimmery mini dress, sky-high heels and her phone pressed to her ear.
The sky looms dark overhead, but the steady vibrations of music creeping through windows and the vibrancy of the crowded, bar-lined street create a euphoric atmosphere that sends a buzz of excitement across my skin.
I cross the street towards her, still thinking about how much my life has changed since then, even though it wasn’t all that long ago.
Now, I can go out whenever I damn well please and I don’t have to answer to anyone.
Except my mum, of course, whenever I rock up to family lunch hung over.
I think the last six months have been an adjustment for my parents as well, who don’t quite know what to make of single Gianna.
“Hey, babe,” Anna mouths, air kissing my cheek as I join her near the front of the queue. Since my separation, I’ve been going out with Anna most Saturday nights, catching up on all the fun I missed out on in my early twenties, and Anna’s been wanting to try this new bar for weeks.
She finishes up her call then directs all of her attention to me.
“Sorry, I was just breaking up with Jonathan.” She waves a hand dismissively towards her phone and flicks her long, honey-brown hair over one shoulder. “How are you?”
I let out an affectionate snort as I eye my best friend. “Better than Jonathan, I’d say.”
“Oh, don’t worry about him. He’ll be fine! Dick bigger than a sopressata salami.” She waves me off, and I can’t help but burst out laughing.
“Then why are you breaking up with him?” I ask her, seriously. I know what Anna values in a “relationship”, and usually dick size ranks number one on the list of one.
“Not much going on between his ears, unfortunately.” She sighs. “There’s only so much pillow talk about his dog Bruno I can handle.”
Another giggle climbs my throat and I lean in to give Anna a hug for no reason other than I love that she can always make me laugh.
We pull away and she leans back, eyeing me with furrowed brows.
My best friend is so unassumingly beautiful.
With big, brown eyes, a petite nose and pouty lips set within a heart-shaped face, her beauty is something that creeps up on you the more you look at her.
However, her whole identity is like a juxtaposition.
She looks like the girl-next-door, but as soon as she opens her mouth, you realise she’s probably not the girl you want to bring home to meet your mother. Which absolutely suits her just fine.
“What’s up with you?” she asks as she searches my face. “You seem… different.”
Did I also mention she’s sharp as a tack? Because she is. Not a single thing gets past her, which is why our friendship understandably became a bit rocky after I married Daniel.
“Why do you say that?” I ask innocently, pulling my coat tighter.
I’ve been thinking all day about how I’m going to break the news to Anna about what I did last night, and I’m still undecided if I’ll go with the whole truth.
What if she reacts badly? Selfishly, I’m not sure I can handle her rejection right now. She frowns deeper.
“You’ve got a shit-eating grin on your face which means you’re hiding something,” she answers as we move up a spot in the line.
I check to make sure the girls in front of us are engrossed in their own conversation before I blurt out, “I slept with someone last night.”
“You what?” Anna yelps, causing the girls to startle and turn towards us. “You gorgeous little hussy, you! I want all the dirty juicy details now!”
I give the girls an apologetic smile and wait for them to turn back around while Anna holds up her hand in front of me, ticking off her fingers as she continues, “Who? What? When? Where? How? And most importantly, how BIG?”
Before I have a chance to answer, the bouncer gestures us and the girls ahead forward, lifting up his little red rope so we can pass him and head into the busy venue.
Inside, I barely appreciate the modern-industrial vibe of the trendy bar and my ass hasn’t even hit the stool before Anna starts her inquisition.
“Who did you sleep with?” she asks eagerly, round eyes gleaming. Even though we’ve been friends for fifteen years, she has never been able to direct this question my way. Anna knows the ins and outs of my entire modest sexual history.
I can see the excitement glistening through her flushed cheeks as she places her purse down between us and leans toward me on her forearms. “I didn’t think you were open to dating yet!”
“Can I at least grab a drink first?” I laugh, trying to buy time.
I’m still not sure if I should tell her the circumstances around my meeting with the Hotel Hottie.
Judging by how she’s acting over me sleeping with someone, she may actually keel over and suffer from a heart attack if I tell her I was acting as an escort.
“No. I’ve been waiting for this moment for a very, very long time. You talk, and I’ll flag down a waitress,” she demands. Her eyes scan the crowded bar before she barks out, “Gia, SPILL!”
“Okay, okay!” I fiddle around with the zip on my black purse as I cast my mind to last night. It’s starting to feel like a dream.