Hooked 2 (Hooked #2)(4)

Marty, the man with black hair, wheeled around, revealing him to me; Drew. Drew Thompson.

He looked so casual, standing there in the subtle darkness of the living room. He was wearing a baseball jersey, Cubs of course, and he held a beer in his left hand. He looked at me sheepishly, as if he had never been surprised in his life. “Molly?” he asked. He held his phone in the air. “I was just—I was just calling you. How did you find me?”

I put my hands on my hips, nearly gasping for air. What was happening? “I live down the hall. I heard you guys talking on the balcony.”

Marty and Drew made eye contact with each other. I watched as Drew brought his hand up to his neck and massaged it. He was nervous. “I’m sorry. I guess I thought—I thought your building was a few down the street. All these apartment buildings look so similar. I didn’t even know which one you lived in since I just dropped you off before.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Crazy world, yeah?”

But I felt the wine bubbling in my stomach. I felt sassy, nearly angry. Why had this man conned me by taking me to a Four Seasons and pretending that was his home? Why had he told me he so rarely slept with other women, and yet I had heard him tell his friend here—this Marty—that he had slept with some tattooed woman only weeks before?

“Crazy world indeed.” I narrowed my eyebrows over my eyes. “Listen, Drew. I heard what you said about everything. I’ve been listening to you for days, thinking you were just some dumb guy.”

“You’ve been eavesdropping on me?” Drew’s eyes lit up. “Wow. That’s incredible! And you only just figured out it was me?” He laughed at me. I wasn’t sure if I should be more offended or not.

But I continued. “You know, Drew. I thought you were a really good guy when I first met you.”

“That’s a first,” Marty interjected.

I cleared my throat. “But then I hear you talking about sleeping with some other girl mere weeks ago—even when you told me that I was your first in so long! I thought we had something special in that hotel—” I swallowed, noting only that Drew was trying not to grin. I knew I was having a sort of breakdown, there in the doorway. “And now I find out that you don’t live in the Four Seasons at all! You live in my dank apartment building!” I stomped my foot.

Marty, next to him, had begun to laugh even harder.

“Molly.” Drew crept closer to me, his eyes centered on mine. In spite of myself, I felt a stirring, a sexual need for him. I wanted to grab him and take him back to my apartment immediately. But I held my ground. “You know I’ve been calling you every single day, multiple times, since I last saw you—since I last woke up without you?”

I didn’t give him a nod; I didn’t give him a smile.

“I can’t get you out of my head. That’s why I have to unwind by talking to this guy, my best friend from childhood, Marty—“

Marty held up his hand in greeting.

“About our sex life. It’s the only way I have to unwind. Seriously.” Drew nervously laughed, showing his wolf-like teeth. “I think about you constantly. And now that I know where you live, I’m going to come and knock on your door every single night if you don’t go on another date with me.” He stood proud, haughty in the doorway now. I felt small and meek.


I held my ground, my mind racing. It was true that I had been bogged down with my own strained thoughts about the dance studio the past several days, that I had hardly given this man before me a single thought. He was allowed to live wherever he wanted; he was allowed to do whatever he wanted. But the fact remained; I didn’t want to get bogged down by an obvious player.

My left eyebrow arched high in the air. “Every night you’ll come to my door?” I asked him. My mind raced.

He nodded, leaning his nose so close to mine, I thought he was going to kiss me. “Every night.”

“And if I go on one single date with you, you won’t bother me anymore?” I asked him. I knew that I would be leaving soon, anyway; I knew my days in Wicker Park were numbered. I could get through these final days with a sense of passion, with a sense of wonder, and then scurry back to Indiana for a certain dull future. I could carry these memories with me, even if they were alongside a very real player.

“That’s right,” Drew answered. His breath was hot on my neck. “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Saturday. 3 p.m.” He considered for a moment, looking at my body up and down, up and down. I felt exposed. “Wear tight clothes. Black. You can manage that, can’t you?”

I took a step back toward my apartment door. “All right. All right. One single date,” I said. I held my finger high in the air. “And that’s all you get.” What did he mean, tight clothes? He was looking at me ravenously, as if he were about to strike.

“That’s all I need,” Drew said confidently, his head leaning out the door of his apartment—just down the hall. I shuddered. “That’s all I need.”



I couldn’t sleep that night. Bundled up in my blankets in the chill of the late September evening, I thought only of my dance business—of all I had lost. And now, in these last few weeks before I was forced to leave Chicago, I was going to date this player—Drew—this man who had made me feel more womanly, more sexual than I had felt in my entire life.