Hooked 3 (Hooked #3)(2)

I sipped at the tea, feeling the aroma from the herbs emanate over my face. I inhaled, exhaled, allowing my eyes to dip closed. A quick nap, perhaps, before I exerted myself into that world once more?

Suddenly, there was a tremendous bang on the door. My heart jumped into my throat, and I nearly spilled the tea down my dress. I set it on the counter and looked toward Boomer with furrowed eyebrows, as if to complain.

My soft feet led me toward the door and I peered through the peephole. There, on the other side of the wooden slate, stood Drew. Tall, stoic; with that hint of a smile peppered on his lips. My heart was pounding faster and faster in my chest, and I felt a strange passion in my body, a tingling in my breasts. Something sexual stirred in me. I cleared my throat and pulled at the handle.

He stood in his pleasing grey suit. His hands hung at his sides, and his chin was high in the air. “Hello, Molly,” he nearly whispered, gazing at my eyes, at my cheeks, at my breasts.

I felt so strange, as if I were being assessed at a county fair. Why had he come here? I kept my eyes closed, remembering how he’d looked in that hard hat next to my building, pausing before destroying the eternity of my dreams.

“Molly. I wanted to say I’m sorry. I wanted to come by here because—” He paused and slapped the back of his neck nervously, gliding his hands over the sweat that brimmed over his skin. “You were the only thing that made me smile, you know? I thought we really started to have something here.”

My stomach was completely empty. I could feel its sides scraping up against each other in my body. I longed for him to leave, to leave me in my squalor. I could figure everything out myself. I wanted to spit at him. I could do this all on my own, if only he’d just leave me the hell alone.





A pause occurred between us, our eyes meeting in the center of our heated bodies.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” he asked. His voice had lowered an octave; he had broken out of his sentimentality; he had leaned toward a sense of hostility, a sense of regret.

I didn’t open my lips, choosing only to look at him with my large, orb-like eyes. I couldn’t speak. I felt like if I did, the world would crack open. I had to get back to my work; I had to find my own place for Molly Says Dance. I couldn’t rely on my sexual passions, the feeling in my gut that this man before me was so much more—so much more!

I couldn’t rely on anyone.

“You really aren’t going to say anything?” Drew sputtered. He was growing angry. I assumed he wasn’t used to begin ignored. “I come down here, soak up all my confidence to do it, and you won’t even talk to me? You know you’re really putting me through the ringer here. Come on, Mol. Just one word. One syllable, even. Just give me something to go off of, so I can move forward. So I can try to make amends.”

There was no making amends, I wanted to tell him. There was nothing. I shook my head simply, as if I were speaking with a child who hadn’t gotten his way. He nearly stomped his foot. I could feel the anger brimming in him; it was about to burst.

Until, finally, he turned on his heel and walked away down the hall. I watched as his neck curved down, leaving his back a bit crooked, a bit aged. The shadow of his body lurked across the wall. I stood in the doorway, watching him until he entered the apartment he shared with Marty—that dismal apartment in which we had f*cked on nearly every surface, feeling the tremors of our bodies in such a way that made me squirm.

It couldn’t be so anymore. Not anymore.

I backed up into my apartment as well, feeling safe in the shell of my own smell, of the herbal tea. I crashed into the dining room chair and leaned my chin on my knuckles, allowing myself to pause at the strangeness of the situation. I, a poor nothing, was ignoring the most beautiful, the most brilliant man in all of Chicago. And yet, in so many ways, I couldn’t care.


Thirty minutes passed before I heard another knock on the door. Frowning, I looked down at my empty tea cup and prepared myself for another Drew altercation. Would I speak this time? I bit my lip and peered through the peephole. This time, I didn’t see the tidy smirk of a businessman; instead, I saw the beautiful, timid smile of Mel—my beautiful dance assistant who hadn’t given up on me. My stomach stirred as I remembered, however; perhaps she had known all along that this would happen. Perhaps she had been the root of the problem.

No one could be trusted.

I pulled open the door, biting my lip mid-smile. Mel flung her long, ballerina arms around me and held me close to her chest. “My darling, Molly,” she murmured. I felt myself pour into a fit of tears. “Please. Please. Don’t cry.” She pulled her fingers over my hair, allowing me to fall into sadness, into comfort. I felt the morning’s strain pull at my chest.

I led her into my apartment and pushed the door closed. My face was red, splotched. Mel looked at me, gripping her hands together, her eyebrows high on her face. “Darling. What’s going on over here?” she asked. “I haven’t heard from you in days—not since I saw you and Drew at our place. Darling, what’s going on? Is it that bastard’s fault? I mean. I know how he can be with women.” She punched her hips for a moment lightly, as if deep in thought.

I shook my head. “It’s not the womanizing thing, Mel,” I murmured. I collapsed into a chair once more. “It’s the—it’s the dance studio. Drew bought the building. That’s why we’re out of business.”