Chapter 7
The first thing I noticed when I woke up was the weight on my waist. Undeniable. Heavy. Warm. An arm draped loosely around me from behind, the grip slack with sleep but present. Grounding in a way that made absolutely no sense given that I had no idea where I was.
I lay very still.
The ceiling was too high. Too clean. Expensive in the way that whispered rather than announced itself. Morning light bled softly through heavy curtains, grey and quiet, the city outside not yet fully awake.
I was not in my apartment.
I was not in my bed.
And I was certainly not alone.
I became aware of other things slowly. The way the sheets felt against my skin - softer than anything I owned, and against my skin being the operative phrase that my brain circled once before moving quickly past.
Then the second thing hit me. A deep, settled ache. Low. Unmistakable.
I closed my eyes.
Oh.
Oh no.
The memories didn't come back all at once. They arrived in fragments, unhelpfully out of order. The bar. The golden lights. The manager with the calculating smile. The corridor. The door opening into a room full of suited men like expensive terrifying wallpaper and then-
Him.
On the couch. Arms spread. Legs relaxed. Looking at me like I was the most mildly interesting thing that had happened to him all evening.
I had SAID that. With my mouth. To his FACE.
I pressed my eyes shut tighter.
The arm around my waist shifted slightly, tightening its hold. His breathing remained slow and even behind me, warm against my nape. At least he was still asleep. The warmth of him against my back was doing absolutely nothing to help me think clearly and I needed to think clearly RIGHT NOW.
I had done this.
I had actually done this.
I, Elera Carter, who had never done anything like this in her entire twenty something years of careful sensible living, had walked into a bar, ordered a male escort, and apparently spent the night with a man whose name I did not know.
The ache reminded me again. Helpfully. Thoroughly. I needed to leave. Immediately. Right now.
Before he woke up and I had to look at him with full sober consciousness and account for my decisions with actual words.
I moved slowly. Carefully. Lifting his arm by the wrist with the focused delicacy of someone defusing something dangerous. He stirred slightly, a low sound in his throat, and I froze completely.
Stopped breathing.
Waited.
His breathing evened out again.
I exhaled.
I slid out from under his arm one inch at a time and sat up slowly on the edge of the bed, my back to him. I stayed like that for five full seconds, waiting. He didn't stir. Thank God.
I didn't turn to look back at him. I didn't have it in me.
I looked at the floor instead. Our clothes scattered around. My bag at one corner. I stood up quickly. Bad decision. Pain throbbed from both my head and my lower body at the same time. I didn't have time for either.
I didn't have to think, thinking wasn't for now. No. It was for later. For the on-my-bathroom-floor-pulling-out-my-hair-regretting-every-life-decision moments that were absolutely coming for me. But not now.
I grabbed the first thing my hands found - his shirt. It would do. My earrings and bracelet were still on the nightstand. I picked up my bag and swept everything into it in one motion, and without thinking twice I pulled out whatever cash I had and left it on the nightstand.
A few hundred dollars. There went another month of careful spending.
Focus. Not now.
I tiptoed to the door. One last look back he was still asleep, his back to me, those tattoos spreading across his shoulders and down his -No. Elera. Absolutely not.
I slipped out and pulled the door shut behind me without a sound. The corridor was empty. The elevator took an eternity. The lobby doors opened onto cool morning air and I walked out into it like something was behind me.
Which felt roughly accurate.
In the taxi home I sat with my bag in my lap and my dress crumpled beside me and my shoes still in my hand and tried very hard not to think about the ache that followed me all the way home like a reminder I hadn't asked for.
It didn't work.
One night, I had told myself. Just one night of not thinking.
I looked out the window at the waking city.
Elera Carter, I thought tiredly. You are so doomed.