2 Seb
Seb
The Ghost of Girlfriends Past had never really been my style.
All that sappy, introspective reflection on past loves just seemed like a waste of time better spent pursuing the next person.
I’d learned early on, probably from watching my father’s fleeting relationships, that deep emotional connections were best avoided.
The act of falling into bed with a woman had turned into a carefully rehearsed play of charm and detachment.
Dates were easy—a charming smile, a well-chosen restaurant, and a practiced line or two always did the trick.
Endings were even easier—a mumbled excuse about work, a disappearing act, a ghosting that left them wondering what they’d done wrong.
Except with Roxie King. That ending was almost my undoing.
Even a decade later, the memory of that messy, gut-wrenching explosion of hurt feelings and accusations still echoed in my mind.
So, after James and I walked into McGuire’s, the last person I was expecting to see amidst the dim lighting and the crowded space was her.
It felt like a different lifetime the last time I’d laid eyes on her.
People had said she was in New York City, where she was trying to make a life for herself in the art world, but the city’s size was such that it could swallow people whole.
We certainly didn’t run in the same circles anymore.
My life was a dizzying mix of endless hours in the office, the sting of alcohol, and nights that often blurred into oblivion.
While hers, according to whispers I’d heard through the years, was a whirlwind of gallery openings and rooftop parties.
She’d disappeared from our wealthy Connecticut hometown, vanishing without a trace as if she’d never been there in the first place.
The manicured perfection of our town, with its sprawling estates and country club, had never seemed enough to hold her. I don’t think she ever truly fit into the world of debutante balls and trust funds.
We’d spent so many nights as kids on my sailboat rocking gently in the Long Island Sound, dreaming about what New York City would bring for us as adults. On clear nights, the shimmering city skyline pulled her in, much like how a good time always called to me.
The woman I saw tonight was not the Roxie who I’d shared stolen cigarettes with behind the tennis courts.
Or the girl from homeroom, super focused, tapping her pencil on her notebook while I leaned close, smelling her perfume.
This woman seemed more totally at home in herself, and in this city, as if she wore New York City like her favorite jacket.
Despite everything, the sight of her now, positioned in a booth under the ruby sheen of a neon beer sign, felt like a glitch in the matrix.
I had remained at the bar, awaiting my bourbon, while James sent wine over to Hallie, a girl he seemed to have a love-hate relationship with, and who looked like she was already on a date. However, when I glanced over, I thought I was hallucinating.
Sitting opposite her was a gorgeous blonde, who had always lived in the secret places of my imagination.
Roxie.
Of all the places, of all the nights. While fate wasn’t something I usually subscribed to, this situation seemed different, as though the universe, having had enough of my behavior, was now offering up my deepest regret.
For half a second, I considered dipping, slipping out the door before she could see me.
But I wouldn’t abandon my friend when he was about to make a move on a girl he liked.
It wouldn’t be fair to drop him because my past has just strolled in, sporting Doc Martens and a black dress, revealing curves I never remembered her having.
From the bar, I watched as James confidently walked over to the table. My gaze quickly shifted away from him, finding Roxie instead.
All the features I remembered from childhood had changed.
Her face was less rounded. Her hair was shorter, no longer down her back and wild like it used to be.
But somewhere underneath all those changes, I knew she was still Roxie.
Still the girl that used to sneak onto my sailboat late at night, the one I thought I’d ask to be my girlfriend before everything blew up.
The memory hit like a sucker punch.
A party in the Hamptons, the summer before college.
I’d planned that night to ask her if she ever thought we could be more than friends. Princeton wasn’t so far from NYU. We could make the distance work. But then I saw her with someone else. Some guy in a varsity jacket, kissing her like she was his.
We’d never been official. We had only exchanged a few drunken kisses after our nights together extended too late. But it hadn’t mattered. I knew how I felt about her, and I’d assumed she felt the same. When I saw her kissing Mr. Varsity, I realized I was wrong.
And now, all these years later, here she was, still having the same effect on me. The bright blue of her eyes was reminiscent of the ocean waves that used to be an escape for both of us. A single look at her still sent my pulse racing.
I took my bourbon from the bartender, the amber liquid swirling as I chose to discreetly follow James, making it appear as though this evening was routine.
James and Hallie were in the middle of a verbal sparring match when I walked over to the table. With the intoxicating scent of a perfume I used to love wafting toward me and the strong potential for a confrontation just a breath away, I wasn’t sure how good of a wingman I’d be for James tonight.
“Excuse me, everyone,” I murmured, casually settling into the last empty seat, my arm instinctively draped over the back of Roxie’s chair. Her shoulder stiffened beneath my touch. I kept my grin easy. “Figured I’d join the party since my friend here so rudely ditched me at the bar.”
A forced smile quickly hid the flicker of apprehension that flashed across Roxie’s face.
For a second, I wondered if she’d call me out, if she’d tell everyone that we already knew each other. But she didn’t.
As if it were the first time, I offered her my hand and said, “Sebastian Whittaker.” Her eyes showed a hint of uncertainty, but she still took my hand gently.
Familiar and foreign all at once. A decade of distance vanished in the space between that touch, as if nothing and everything had changed.
The sounds of the packed room grew distant and muted, as if it were just her and me.
“Roxie King.”
The sound of her voice was exactly as I remembered it. Soft. Steady.
“Well, now it’s a party,” I grinned and winked, the scent of leather filling my nostrils as I produced a sleeve of Cuban cigars.
I regretted the words as soon as they came out of my mouth. I’d slipped into the familiar persona that had established me as New York’s most notorious playboy, to divert my attention from the nerves in my stomach, the bourbon a suit of armor against the world.
James kept volleying with Hallie, but my focus stayed locked on Roxie. Watching her reactions, measuring them against the version of her I kept in my head.
I tried to keep my composure and continue pretending we didn’t know each other.
But the moment she tossed her hair over her shoulder, the plan went out the window, and that same jasmine and spice instantly whisked me back to when I was a sixteen-year-old boy, introducing the most beautiful girl to society at her debutante ball.
“You still wear Chanel No. 5.”
Her shoulders stiffened. A slow, hesitant exhale escaped her lips, as if she was debating whether my comment was worth acknowledging.
Her date, I assumed that’s who this guy was anyway, was oblivious to what was unfolding between me and Roxie, his eyes glued to his phone.
I shifted slightly, letting my fingers brush her shoulder again as I asked, voice quiet so only the two of us would hear, “So, Roxie … what do you do now?”
She squinted at me, as though trying to see through my intentions.
“I sell art,” she said simply.
I had refrained from looking her up on the internet over the years. Only allowing myself the bits and pieces I’d heard through the grapevine.
“Whereabouts?” I asked, my thumb barely grazing the edge of her sleeve now. I was playing with fire, but that was always the thing with Roxie King. She was an inferno I would have once gladly let consume me.
“Upper East Side.” Her voice was still reserved, but she hadn’t cut me off, which was a win. She looked at her date, still focused on his phone, and then at Hallie, whose face was flushing more with each exchange between her and James. Nobody was paying us any mind.
“Did you land in that neighborhood we talked about back then? The one you always said you saw yourself getting bagels in the morning before work or stopping in at some bar for a drink after?”
Her gaze was sharper as her eyes flicked to mine again. “Something like that,” she replied. “But what about you, still writing your own rules, Sebastian?”
“Trying to,” I admitted, watching her closely. “You always were better at it.”
She tapped her fingers against her glass—a habit of hers I hadn’t thought of in years.
Hallie stood up from the booth just as I was going to press Roxie further.
Her date was gone, and the fury burning in her eyes as she leveled them at James made even me shift uncomfortably.
“Roxie, I’m out of here,” she snapped, snatching up her purse. She didn’t wait for a reply, just turned on her heel and stormed toward the door.
Roxie hesitated for half a beat before she followed and just like that, she was gone. The door of McGuire’s swung shut behind her, leaving me staring at the empty space she’d left behind, wondering if I’d imagined the whole thing.
I sank back in my seat, trying to steady my pulse.
“How did we both strike out tonight?” I asked James, trying my best to act normal. “That doesn’t even seem possible.”
James smirked, swirling the ice in his glass before taking a slow sip of his Old Fashioned. “I didn’t strike out tonight, Seb. I hit a home run.”
I frowned at him. “How in the hell do you find that a home run?”
He leaned back, eyes glinting with something between mischief and certainty. “Everything is perspective, Seb. Even the curveballs.”
We sat there in silence, nursing our drinks, his words gnawing at me.
Because maybe he was right. Maybe life had just thrown me the biggest curveball of all. Roxie King. My Roxie, who had walked back into my life after nearly a decade.
And as the burn of whiskey settled low in my chest, one truth hit me harder than anything else.
I’d already let her walk out of my life for good once. I wasn’t going to let her do it again.