by Lisa Suzanne
I sent it to voicemail.
I had a bad feeling about it, but I was moving to San Diego for a fresh start. Talking to Jules on the way seemed like a foolish way to hold onto the past when I was ready to start my new life.
I pulled into the parking lot to Dan’s apartment a little after 6:00. After being alone with my thoughts for the past six hours, I had arrived at several conclusions during the long, lonely ride.
I was ready to be selfish for awhile. I loved women and sex too much to write them off, and Dan had already told me how many lovely ladies the town of San Diego had to offer, so I was ready to just have some fun. Maybe Gorgeous had the right idea: No Strings Attached. After the drama of her combined with the drama that Jules brought into my life, I wasn’t ready for anything serious. I was ready to hit the new town as the new and improved Travis Matthew Miller.
I hopped down from the driver’s seat to the street and stretched my back. I could see the beach from where I stood in the parking lot, and I immediately knew I had made the right decision.
I glanced around. I had visited Dan before, so I knew what I was getting myself into, but seeing the beach from my spot in the parking lot confirmed it.
I felt a surge of something between excitement and expectation rumble through me.
I grabbed my overnight bag containing my clothes and toiletries, and I headed toward the open building and walked up to Dan’s fourth floor apartment. I knocked on the door, and he opened it a minute later. “Hey buddy!” he greeted me, giving me one of his signature guy hugs, hitting my back twice.
“Hey, man,” I said, setting my bag down inside the door.
“Welcome to your new home.”
I grinned. “Good to be here.”
“You want to unpack the truck or grab dinner first?”
“I don’t think it’ll take long to unpack the truck. Let’s start there and then grab dinner after.”
My apartment in Arizona had been fully furnished, so I had a lot of shit that I was bringing to Dan’s place. I lucked out in that the roommate that had moved out a month earlier had taken a lot of furniture with him, so there actually was space for my stuff.
Dan’s job at my dad’s firm in San Diego must have paid well, because his apartment was fucking incredible. He must’ve been doing better than I thought he was.
The apartment had three bedrooms; two were master suites complete with walk-in closets and full bathrooms, and the third was a guest room. There was a third full bathroom in the hallway, and the apartment featured a huge kitchen, a dining room, a family room, a laundry room, and an office. The décor was modern and the place was spacious. It was pretty nice digs for two dudes.
A little over two hours later, the truck was unpacked and ready to be returned the following day. My dad had wanted to me to start working right away, but I told him I needed a couple of days to adjust to my new life in California, so I would be starting on Wednesday, and Dan had taken Monday off to show me around town and help me return the truck.
The thing I loved the most about my new apartment in San Diego was the location. It was walking distance to the beach, and there was a fantastic little bar right on the way. That fantastic little bar was where Dan took me to dinner.
The bar was called Skips, and it was one of those dive bars that’s perfect for playing pool with buddies. Sexy women somehow poured into the place even though I imagined it as the type of place that had a thick layer of smoke rising above the crowd before smoking was banned in public places in California. My guess was because of its proximity to the beach.
They served bar food, but it was good bar food: Juicy burgers, spicy hot wings, and crispy potato skins. And ice cold beer.
I ordered my first beer as a California resident, and the waitress, a cute blonde girl with a great ass, winked at me when she set it down. I grinned at her, and things were already looking up.
Not that I’d forgotten about the woman from Friday night. She was still in the forefront my mind despite my pact to myself that I was bottling and burying my feelings for her.
That time alone in the truck had forced me into the realization that it was one of those surreal nights that I would always treasure. Unfortunately for me, it couldn’t be anything more. The thought of that still shattered me, but it just wasn’t meant to be. And I needed, as my sister so lovingly told me, to man the fuck up.
Dan and I split varying levels of hot wings; I opted for medium while he chose hot, and the hot were fucking HOT. I felt beads of sweat forming on my forehead as I gulped down buckets of ranch dressing trying to alleviate the burn.
After we ate, we sat around shooting the shit and drinking beer.
“Talk to me about the scene,” I said.
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
“Take a look around,” he ordered. I did. “What do you see?”
“I see pool tables. You game?”
He laughed. He knew I’d kick his ass every time.
“Maybe later. What else do you see?”
“I see a lot of sexy blonde women.”
“Welcome to California,” he said, raising his bottle in a toast.
I chuckled and tapped my bottle to his.
“Did you talk to her before you left?” he asked out of the blue.
I shook my head, knowing he meant Jules. “No. I left her a message letting her know I was moving, but I didn’t want to talk to her.”
“You seem to be holding up okay.”
“You know something? I am. But it’s not because of Jules.”
“Then what?”
“I met a girl on Friday.”
He arched an eyebrow. “And?”
It’s funny how guys talk about sex. We share dirty summaries, at least Dan and I always had, but when a girl walked into the picture and I actually cared about her? I didn’t want to share one damn thing about my night with Gorgeous. Maybe because feelings were suddenly involved. But since I would never see her again, and he wouldn’t go away until I told him something, I did what guys do. “I fucked her.”
“And?” he repeated.
“And it was… good.” I glanced down at the table and played with the rings my bottle had left on the table.
“Good?”
I sighed. “Yeah. Real good.”
“Just once?”
“If I’m being honest, I fucked her four times and she gave me head twice between Friday night and Saturday morning.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“That’s not typical for me.”
“Thank God. I was starting to question the idea of having someone with your stamina sleeping across the hall from me.”
I laughed, and we both focused on our bottles for a moment. I finished mine and then started playing with the label.
“So what’s next?” he finally asked.
“What’s next is I find some California woman to keep me warm at night.”
“What about the four by two girl?”
I chuckled at his nickname for her. “The four by two girl is history.”
“How do you let someone like that go?”
“Not by choice,” I said dryly.
“So what happened, then?”
The waitress walked up and we ordered another round.
“She wanted a no strings attached deal,” I said after the waitress walked away. “We were both drunk when we established that there would be no strings. We didn’t exchange numbers. Or names, for that matter.”
“You are my hero.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“I once dated a girl for three years and I got a total of two blow jobs from her. You got two in one night and you let her walk out your door?”
“I’ll repeat, it wasn’t my choice. I tried to get her to stay.”
“So I take it she somehow helped you move past the Julianne thing?”
“Kind of.” I glanced over at the television and watched one play of the basketball game that was on before I c
ontinued. “I’m still hooked on Jules. I think I will be for the rest of my life. You don’t get over your first… everything, you know?” Dan nodded, and I kept talking. I was usually a man of fewer words, but something about being in a new place with an old friend was comforting. I wanted to get it all out, and I wanted to hear what my closest buddy had to say about it.
The waitress delivered our beers.
“So how are you really doing with all of this?” he asked.
“I had a shit ton of time to think about that on the way here, and I have to chalk up what happened with the four by two to a really hot night and a really good time. And I have to let Jules go. I have to let her be happy with that douche bag, but I also think that means I have to cut her out of my life.”
“Can you do that?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I can try to move past it someday, but it doesn’t mean I will just forgive and forget.”
“You sound scorned and bitter.”
I chuckled. “I am.”
“Do you think you’ll ever be friends with her again?”
“I don’t know the answer to that, either. All I know is that I’m here in California and I’m ready to forget about Jules and that bullshit for awhile.”
“Good for you. And I know just the person who can make you forget.”
I rolled my eyes. “Hooking me up with someone already?”
“Not exactly. I was thinking about Willow.”
“Who’s Willow?”
“My favorite dancer at the strip club.”
I grinned. “I like the way you think.”
CHAPTER 5
Monday morning greeted me with my first California hangover. I was stiff from sleeping on a couch; we hadn’t put my bed together before we had gone out to dinner, and we were too wasted when we got home to bother with it, so I passed out on the couch that we had placed in the office.
I sat up and stretched, thinking back to the night before. It had been fun; after a few drinks at the bar by my new place, we called a cab and headed to the strip club. Dan was right; Willow was enough to make a person forget his problems for awhile, but I woke up with that same sense of disgust I always got after visiting a strip club.
It’s funny how a person can say something, and at the time you think it’s dumb, but later on it comes back to haunt you. That’s what ruined strip clubs for me. My mom had once said that I should never go to a strip club “because that’s somebody’s baby up there gyrating on stage,” and now every time I watch a topless woman dancing in front of me on a stage, her words come back to haunt me.
Thanks for that, mom.
But what kind of friend would I be if I hadn’t gone with Dan after he suggested it?
I grabbed my cell phone only to find I had slept until almost noon. We must’ve gotten in later than I thought.
I headed toward my bedroom, and I found the mound of boxes that were waiting to be unpacked. Just what I wanted to do when I had a headache and my mouth felt like I had been chewing on cotton all night.
I slipped out of the clothes I’d worn to the bar (and subsequently passed out in the night before) to take my shower, emptying the contents of my pockets onto the dresser.
And amid the assortment of receipts and dollar bills, out slipped the mystery woman’s earring.
I held it in my hand for a moment and turned it over. It was silver and simple and it glittered in the light. I set it on my dresser on a sigh, wishing I knew her name for about the millionth time since our night together.
I felt a little better after my shower, and then I headed out to the kitchen. Dan was just pouring a cup of coffee, and he looked like he just woke up, too.
“Fun times last night,” he said.
I nodded. “I need coffee.”
He handed me an empty cup. “And Aspirin,” he said.
“Ibuprofen, preferably.”
“Pussy.”
“Aspirin upsets my stomach.”
Dan chuckled. “We’re not kids anymore, are we?”
“Nights like last night make me feel fucking ancient.”
“Because the stripper was eight years younger than you?”
“God, now I feel like a dirty old man.”
“Don’t. It was fun.”
My head cleared a little with my first sip of coffee. I glanced at the clock again: 12:17. “Fuck.”
“What?”
“I had to return the truck by noon. I will now be charged for another day.”
Dan laughed. “Well that sucks.”
“Penance for getting drunk and going to the strip club.”
We headed for the U-Haul return center, Dan in his Mercedes and me in the truck, and after we returned the truck, Dan drove us to one of his favorite restaurants near the pier. We had fish tacos and cervezas for lunch as we sat out on a patio and enjoyed the sunshine and scenery. I could get used to this life. Too bad I had to start work in two days.
When we returned to the apartment, Dan helped me put my bed together, and then I did some laundry and unpacked a few boxes. We ordered pizza for dinner, and I was just heading into my bedroom to unpack a few more boxes when my cell phone started ringing.
I glanced at the screen: Nick Matthews. Jules had given me his number when they first started dating in the event of an emergency. Why the fuck was this bastard calling me?
The hurt and anger over what Jules had done to me came rushing back at me.
“Are you calling to tell me about how you’ve won?” I answered.
There was a pause, and then, “It’s Julianne.”
I felt like an idiot. “Oh. Hi.”
“What do you mean that he’s won?” she asked.
I still wasn’t ready to talk to her. Her voice was enough to slice through the tiny progress I had made in moving on from her, and hearing her on the other end of the phone just brought everything back to the surface. “Julianne, if I knew that this was you, I never would have answered.” Maybe I wanted her to hurt, too.
“How are you?” she asked.
“Shitty.” My answer was automatic, but not entirely true. I was actually doing better since I had moved to California. Better, really, since Friday night and my encounter with the gorgeous woman from Mahogany.
You know how something amazing happens and the next day it’s all you can think about, and you’re still thinking about it the day after that, but then it starts to fade to a memory and soon you’ve forgotten that it had ever even happened?
My night with Gorgeous was not like that. My memories about my wild Friday night hadn’t diminished at all. It was as real as if it had happened ten seconds earlier.
Yet I had Jules on the phone, and I wanted to put her through the same hell she had put me through. I wanted her to feel pain.
“I can tell,” she said.
“I thought about calling you. But I didn’t.” Low blow, but I didn’t care.
“My cell phone was wrecked in the accident I got into in your apartment complex lot yesterday.”
My heart stopped for a moment as concern for the woman I had loved for half of my life flooded through me.
Now I just felt like an asshole for the things I’d said. I couldn’t be there to take care of her, not that she’d want me to anyway, and she had gotten into an accident in my apartment complex parking lot. I suddenly felt totally responsible for her accident, even though the rational side of me knew that there was no way I could be at fault. I hadn’t even been in the same state as her.
“Travis?” she prompted.
“Are you okay?” I asked, suddenly so in love with her that it hurt.
“I will be. Broken wrist, concussion, nasty cuts on my head and arm. But I’ve got plenty of painkillers, so I’ll be okay.”
There are times in life when a person cares so deeply about another person that we take on their pain as our own. In that moment, I felt her pain. Physical from her accident and mental from what had happened between us.
I felt weak from our conversation.
I had built up some strength in being away from her, but her voice telling me that she was hurting tore me apart. Destroyed me. “I’m sorry, Julianne. Feel better.”
“Travis, I’m so sorry about what happened between us.”
In that moment, I couldn’t take any more. If I had to listen to her beg for forgiveness, I knew that any hope I had left that I’d be able to get past what she’d done would be forever gone. I was too weak when it came to her. I couldn’t allow her to deteriorate me further. “I’m sorry about your accident. I can’t go beyond that with you right now.”
“Please listen to me,” she begged. “I have—”
I had enough. Her voice was pulling me back into that dark place where I’d resided in the week after she had dumped me for Nick, and I couldn’t go back there. Not after what had happened with the mystery woman. I had to focus on the hope that I’d taken from our one night together.
I cut Julianne off. “I can’t do this. I’ve got to go. Get well soon.”
I hung up the phone and realized that my hands were shaking. I hadn’t moved from the hallway where I stood when I had first answered the call, and it took a great effort to place one foot in front of the other to walk into my room.
“Were you talking to me?” Dan poked his head in my room a minute later.
“No. Sorry, had a phone call.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I lied.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“It was Julianne.”
“Oh. What did she say?”
“She got into a car accident yesterday.”
“Is she okay?”
“Will be.”
“Anything else?”
I shrugged. “I don’t want to get into it.”
“Okay.”
“She started apologizing. She wanted to talk about things.”
“And you didn’t?” he surmised.
“Correct. Still don’t.”
“You sure you’re okay?”
