I let myself into the apartment and kick my heels off, slowly sliding down until I’m slouched on the floor with my back resting against the door. My heartache has stolen all my energy, leaving me too exhausted to even make it across the room.
I sit there, looking around my apartment. It’s my favorite place in the world, and after years of scouting flea markets and vintage stores, it’s a colorful, elegant home. My blue velvet settee takes up one wall, with a glass-topped coffee table and delicate sketches and framed prints on the walls. I take pride in keeping a lovely home: hosting dinners and cocktail parties at every holiday, taking weekly trips to the market for fresh-cut flowers and delicious foods.
But now, as I sit with my legs crumpled under me and my heart breaking in my chest, all I feel is alone.
Don’t wallow, I tell myself desperately. Do you know how lucky you are?
I do know. I have parents who love me and a fulfilling career. I may not be rich like some of my business school classmates, pulling in six-figure incomes in finance, but I never wanted that life. I’ve been careful with what I do have. I’m safe, and healthy, and I know, those aren’t small blessings.
Still, that doesn’t stop the ache of loneliness, the heavy wing-beat in my chest. I want more than this, and I know I’ll never find it unless something changes.
Unless I’m the one to change.
Suddenly, I know what I have to do.
I don’t know how long I sit here, running things over in my mind. But the afternoon sun is low in the sky and my limbs are aching and stiff by the time I finally pull myself up and cross to the bureau in the corner. It’s an antique writing desk I salvaged from a junk store, and tucked away in the back of the top drawer, I find the slip of paper I hid there, two months ago.
555-627-8196.
No name, just a number, scrawled out in confident dark strokes.
Dex Callahan.
I clutch the paper to my chest, my heart beating a little faster. I can hear his words in my mind clear as day, remember the fevered intensity in his eyes as he held me tight.
“I have a place at the beach, away from everything. Spend one week there with me, and I swear, I’ll make you forget this other man is even alive.”
I told myself that he didn’t mean his hurried proposition, that he’d just wanted to get laid; have his way with me and move on.
Now... I wonder if that would really be so bad.
Dex made me feel things, a passion I’d never imagined. He showed me what I’d been missing out on, locked in my bubble of unrequited love.
A lover’s touch. The burn of desire, twisting hotter in my core. The freedom in surrender, giving everything for the taste of pleasure.
If anyone can blot Hunter from my mind, my heart, it’s him.
My hand shakes as I reach for the phone. Part of me is praying I get a voicemail, or that the number’s been disconnected, but after just a couple of rings, I hear his voice on the other end of the line.
“Hey, who is this?”
My heart catches. The low, deep, whiskey drawl is like a shock to my system, and in an instant, I remember that voice whispering in my ear, urging me higher as his hands claimed my body as his own.
“Hello?” Dex asks, sounding pissed.
“Hi,” I stutter, my voice sticking in my throat. “It’s me. Alicia.”
Silence.
“We met, a couple of months ago, before your show?” My voice trembles.
Still nothing.
“I was just calling because…never mind,” I whisper miserably, feeling totally humiliated. I should have known that night we shared didn’t mean a thing to him. He’s probably hooked up with a hundred other girls since then. “You don’t remember. I shouldn’t have called.”
“I remember you, sweet Alicia.” Dex’s voice sends shivers down my spine. “But I’d given up on hearing your call.” He pauses, and I can picture him somewhere out in the world: ragged denim, leather jacket, smoldering stare. “Does this mean you’ve reconsidered my offer?”
I catch my breath. “I…yes,” I say quickly, before I can take it back. “I’m in. I want to try.”
He chuckles, a wicked sound that makes me wonder for a moment if I’m doing the right thing. “You have no idea how glad I am to hear you say that. Is this your cell number?”
I nod, before remembering he can’t see me. “Yes.”
“I’ll text you the address. Come tonight.”
“But…” My protest dies on my lips. I look around. Am I really considering this—taking off to go see a complete stranger on some last-ditch effort to save my broken heart? I barely spent a few hours with the man. He could be dangerous. He could be anything.
And you might like it.
“Don’t back out now,” Dex says softly. “Or you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering what might have been.”
Resolve hardens in me. I’ve missed enough time wishing for something, I need to make my life real. To experience something, and jolt myself out of this lonely daze.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. He’s my last chance to be free.
“I’ll be there,” I tell him, and I slowly lower the phone. A second later, it vibrates with a text. The address, just as he promised.
I stand there in the middle of the room, my heart racing. I can’t believe I’m really doing this: safe, predictable me. But as I hurry to throw my things in a bag, the rest of Dex’s proposition from that night slides into my mind, the raw desperation I glimpsed in his dark gaze.