Nocturne In Red

Chapter 1

One

Ari

Growing up, love was either something you earned or paid for.

It’s how my mother kept a roof over our heads, and I never knew anything different.

For the most part, it was fine, and sure, my mother made a lot of mistakes, but she always made sure I was never in the room when she was servicing a client.

I just wish our walls hadn’t been so thin.

The highlight of my childhood was when she would bring home the older, married men because their pockets were like magic portals to endless amounts of cash.

Without fail, they’d slip me a few crumpled dollars as my mother dragged them through her bedroom door, and I’d run off to the corner store to grab some candy before slipping into the diner down the street.

I liked watching whatever they had on TV.

But maybe I should have stuck around more often to take notes, because whatever magic my mother possessed that kept men wrapped around her finger?

It had skipped me entirely. Even now, as I swayed my hips to the thud of the bass, trying not to spill my martini as I captured Toby’s attention again, I could tell his thoughts were somewhere other than me.

“Are you alright?” I shouted, leaning forward slightly to make sure he could hear me over the music. His familiar scent of musky peppermint and sweat filled my nose, and I bit my lip softly, doing my best to take his mind off whatever was bothering him.

“I’m fine,” he said, rolling his shoulders back as he forced a weak smile onto his face, but I wasn’t convinced. It was the kind of smile that didn’t even reach his eyes, and his face turned sour almost immediately afterward when his attention was pulled elsewhere.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I had a busy day at work. The trading floor was a madhouse.”

“Oh. Well, you know…” I mused, placing my empty hand on his collar. My hips never stopped moving as I danced closer to him, but it didn’t seem to make a difference. Something was off. I could feel it. “If you need to take it out on someone, I’m always a willing subject.”

“Yeah, I got that,” he said, narrowing his eyes in the direction of the bar.

I scanned his face when he turned back, searching for any reassurance that my intuition was wrong, but all I found was disinterest, so I pulled on his collar like he was seconds away from disappearing into the crowd, tugging him towards me.

He was usually a lot more touchy-feely, and I hated when something happened and men started feeling distant like this. It was torture.

I trailed my hand over his shoulder and down his bicep.

His eyes dropped to the mid-rise crop top I’d worn just for him, and I smirked when his gaze caught where the black lace of my bra was peeking out from behind my distressed neckline.

I opened my mouth to ask him if he wanted to get out of here, but the second I did, a girl tripped as she walked by, almost knocking me over and spilling both of our drinks on Toby in the process.

“Hey! Watch it!” He shouted angrily, throwing his hands up in the air like he had just experienced the worst thing in the world to ever happen to him.

“Toby, come on. It’s fine,” I said, pulling on his arm as I uselessly brushed at the spots where the brownish-red liquid was already staining the expensive white cotton, but he shoved my hands away. “Toby, please. It’s not like she did it on purpose. It was an accident.”

“I don't give a fuck. That stupid bitch has to learn to watch where she’s going,” he sneered, shaking his hands out repeatedly by his sides as if he had been drenched. Except he hadn’t been.

“Don't be like that, come on. I can go home with you tonight and get it. I don't mind.”

“No, stop. Just forget it,” he snapped, angrily surveying his button up for a few more seconds before rolling his eyes and sighing loudly. “I can't stand this fucking place.”

“Oh, come on, it’s fun! You used to love coming here. You just need to loosen up a little bit,” I teased, trying to lessen some of this tension by moving my hips in small circles as I bit my lip. “You’re just stressed out.”

“I’m not in the mood for this.”

“Don't tell me you’ve been so busy at your big-boy job that you've forgotten how to party.” I pressed my hips against the front of his pants and tugged his left hand around my waist, letting my head tilt backwards when the softness of his palm brushed against my exposed skin.

“Stop,” he snapped, yanking his hand away.

Rejection cut me like a knife, severing the flimsy threads I’d used to hold up what was left of my self-worth. Pain flashed across my face for a split second before I forced it back into the darkest hole deep inside my chest.

I didn't mean to reach for him again. I knew better than to reach for people who obviously didn’t love me, but I did it anyway.

Before I could touch him, he jerked his entire body away from me.

It was like I was watching a train wreck, but I couldn’t stop.

My lungs felt like they were filling with lead as I took a sharp breath in, and the familiar ache I hated with every fiber of my being crept back into my chest. Why was it that every single time I got close to someone, they always did this to me?

I needed him to be different. I needed him to love me as much as I already loved him.

I didn't want to be alone again.

The next time my fingertips brushed his arm, he pushed me away, hard enough to knock me into a few girls who had been dancing behind me.

“What’s wrong with you?” he shouted, turning more than a couple of heads in our direction. “Why can't you ever just take a hint?”

“I can!” I tried to argue, but he just let out a biting laugh and rolled his eyes so hard his entire head followed.

“Oh, give me a break, Ari,” he said, the sarcasm doing more damage to me than I let on. “I can't even take a shit without you texting me.”

“That's not true! I don't text you until you're off work,” I argued back, anxiety wrapping its vines around every piece of me, tightening until my jaw cracked or my heart shattered into a thousand pieces.

“That’s because you were non-stop for like two weeks and I had to tell you to leave me alone during business hours! I mean, for Christ’s sake, I’ve only known you for like two months. It’s fucking weird. It’s like you’re obsessed with me or something.”

My mouth fell open and my bottom lip quivered ever-so-slightly. I sucked in a sharp breath, doing my best not to burst into tears, and tried to come up with something to say back, but what could I possibly say to make this better?

That he was wrong?

That he was the first person to call me names?

He wasn’t.

All my life I’d done everything I could to convince people to stay—that I’m worth loving—but they don’t.

No matter how many pieces of myself I give away, no matter how many times I try to change myself into something they should love, I’m always discarded like an annoying piece of gum stuck to the bottom of their shoe.

My mother called me a hopeless romantic, as if this wasn’t all her fault.

She was the person who scoffed at me when I begged for attention as a child.

I was the daughter who couldn’t separate her emotions from reality, so my mother’s judgy scowl was the thing I saw whenever I closed my eyes, but it didn’t make me better.

Sometimes being able to remember her made things worse.

I blinked back the tears stinging the corners of my eyes, refusing to cry in the middle of this club, and swallowed down the pain.

“You said you liked getting my after-work texts.”

“Haven’t you ever heard of pillow talk?” Toby said coldly, narrowing his eyes as he looked down on me with an expression that told me we were over.

“Yeah, actually, I have,” I shot back, glaring daggers into his chest as the familiar ache of hurt made me snap. “Why else would you think you were making me come? It's called fluffing someone's ego to make them feel better about themselves.”

The words were venomous—the final nail in the coffin—but I didn't care.

All I had to do was focus on how good it felt to insult him, how good it was to knock his ego down a few inches.

As long as I did that, I wouldn't have to feel the way rejection always made me want to crawl inside myself and die.

The look on his face told me I was nothing more than a stranger to him now, but satisfaction bubbled in my gut.

He stared as he sucked on his tooth, silence passing between us for only a moment longer, then he scoffed.

“Awesome.” Instead of saying anything else, he whipped around and headed for the bar.

“Toby, wait! I'm sorry!” Panic flushed my cheeks as I suddenly felt completely and utterly alone. I ignored the people whispering and staring as I pushed my way through the crowd, wiping a stupid tear off my cheek that had slipped out. “Toby! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it!”

Spotlights in every color bounced around overhead, cutting through the darkness of the club in odd intervals, and making it hard to keep track of the path he was taking.

I kept up fine until the song dropped and the lights blacked out completely, and when green lasers finally appeared overhead, rising in tandem with the beat, Toby was gone.

I looked around frantically for the blonde cropped hair he always kept gelled into a tidy pile on the top of his head, but I couldn’t see anything other than the dark silhouettes of strangers, all screaming the lyrics to a song I didn’t know.

Maybe Toby had gone to close his tab? I turned slightly, doing my best to push through sweaty bodies and cologne, but when I finally made it to the empty space between the dance floor and the bar, I didn't see him at all.

Just more groups of strangers laughing or making small talk with their friends, and a pang of regret and loneliness echoed through me.

“Hey hon, you alright? You need anything?” The bartender asked, leaning her body towards me as she put her elbow on the countertop.