Hooked (Hooked #1)(6)

My heart was humming in my chest. How long had it been since a boy asked for my number? I tapped it into his iPhone, watching how my slim, white fingers worked with such femininity. I made a mental note to think about the intricacies of sex, to remember just how it all happened; it had been too long.

Drew leaned down as I handed him his phone once more. He kissed me for a subtle moment on the side of the mouth. A horn blazed by us, bringing us back to the city, away from the moment. I swallowed, looking up at him. Nodding. I was going to see him again, wasn’t I? I thought. Or would he disappear, like a memory?

I turned my back then, and pushed my key through the lock. I was trembling a little, and the key was difficult—like a puzzle. Finally, the door lurched open for me and I stepped through, watching as my shadow careened over the tile floor.


“Good night, sweet Molly,” were the words that I heard him say in the end, as I pushed the door closed and dismissed him, feeling the strange empowerment of saying “no.”



CHAPTER THREE

I took the stairs to my fourth-level apartment. The elevator always took incredibly long to reach me, and it had gotten stuck more than once, with me on the inside. I had grown accustomed to blaming my elevator for everything. Every time I was late.

I was huffing and puffing when I reached my sad, gray door. I opened it with the other key and immediately heard the shrill “meow” emanating from somewhere deep in the crevice of my tiny, hole-like apartment. “Boomer?” I called out. I tossed my keys on the kitchen table, noting the crumbs, the wrappers that Drew would have seen, had he come upstairs. I made a mental note to always clean up after myself—just in case of chance encounters. What a slob he would have thought I was!

I walked toward the couch, still hearing the meows. I reached down behind the chair, wrapping my hands around the fat, grey cat. I had adopted him when I moved to the city as my first faux-friend—until I actually found friends of my own. But, alas, that had never happened; I had always been too bogged down with “making Chicago work” by becoming a successful dance instructor. Proving to my mother that I could get out of the ravine that was Indiana and truly become strong and hearty in this world of continuous momentum.

I pet the cat while setting up my Netflix feed. The cat’s rough tongue scrubbed against my finger and palm. “Yeah. I would much rather hang out with you,” I whispered to Boomer, not really believing it. “That man is probably a rascal, anyway. Over thirty years old, and trying to come up to my apartment after a first encounter—a first non-date!” I spoke on and on to little Boomer, who had not a care in the world.

I reached down toward my phone, noting that Drew hadn’t texted me yet to give me his number. I already deemed him lost in a sea of other lost men all throughout the city. I hadn’t a friend anywhere.

Sure; I had Melanie, sometimes. Melanie was my dance assistant. She had had a child the previous year, and was constantly busy. Just that day, she hadn’t come into the dance studio because her baby had been very ill. I missed her, of course, now that the baby and that chubby husband of hers were happy, living out their lives in their lake-side apartment. (I was sure the husband did something very, very important, but I could never really get the information out of Melanie. Melanie was a closed vault about that man.)

I thought about texting Melanie about this strange encounter with this Drew fellow. But I knew she would never message back. She was probably covered in spit-up and could not be bothered with the rough-and-tumble information of my personal non-sex life.

Melanie knew, of course, that I hadn’t had sex in a great number of years; something like—oh—three. Or four. I rubbed at my inner thigh, remembering the tantalizing, college sex I had had all those years before. Until there had been Kevin, the boyfriend. The college student. He was majoring in business when I met him; a hot, successful guy who lived with my college friend’s boyfriend. We had hit it off instantly, nearly. I remembered rubbing myself over him, forcing him to cum in the back of the library during finals week, when everyone else was studying in other book aisles and at other tables.

I shuddered just thinking about it. But then, Kevin had grown ever-so-lazy. He had stopped trying in our relationship, certainly. But he had further stopped trying in school. He had dropped out during junior year, turning instead to a lucrative career selling marijuana. He had grown a bit pudgy from all the munching, all the chips and college pizza. His metabolism wasn’t riding along with him anymore; it had dropped him off, forced him into the dark, brooding, nearly-fat man. And I, the perfect dance major, continually going to rehearsals, eating like a bird, staying away from the “green” stuff, felt I had to dump him. He was lazy; he was going to ruin me. I was certain of it. (Of course, I could ruin myself just as well. And I did.)

Of course, my mother had been certain that Kevin would ruin me too. Since the day she had met him, she had told me he was going to ruin me, ruin my dance career. In the end, I wasn’t sure if I actually blamed him for the fact that I didn’t get any big calls out of college, that I had turned to teaching dance instead of performing it. Sure; maybe if I hadn’t indulged a few times on the burritos he was shoving into his mouth. Sure; if I hadn’t skipped a few rehearsals, just to laze with him on the couch. But I had thought he was the love of my life! Just a twenty-one-year-old-girl. What had I known of the world?


My apartment was in a sad state. Throw pillows—gifted to me the last time my mother had redone my childhood home—were strewn all over the floor. I started to clean, then, trying to see my apartment through the eyes of Drew. I wiped the crumbs from the table, allowing Boomer to leap up on the wooden table to lick the stick away. His dark eyes were on me the whole time, as if he was also centered in on helping me, working to make me less of a sad-sack and more of a real, sexual person. I imagined him speaking to me, “Come on, you sad sack. Pull yourself together, and get out there!” I whipped my blonde hair over my shoulder, noting the way I looked in the mirror. Good. Good. I was in the prime of my life! I needed to start living!