“I don’t know what came over me. It was like I went into crazy autopilot mode. I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and just started scribbling. I was sure she was going to come into the office.”
I don’t mention that in the end I had to throw the sushi in the trash since Felix told Julia his mom had left already…and she wasn’t hungry to boot.
“Jeez,” Rachel says. “So, what are you planning on doing with it?”
“I should throw it in the trash. Or burn it.”
She giggles. “Yeah, maybe. But that’s not what I asked.”
I think for a moment. “There isn’t much I can do.”
“I know.” She sits up, all bubbly. “You can send him a text. Hey, boss, I just wanted you to know that I'm game any time you want a quickie in the office. And then put like a hundred kisses.”
We collapse into heaps of laughter, reveling in the joke, but underneath, I feel a pang of something darker.
“He’d be sick if I sent that, and then he saw me.”
Rachel slaps me on the arm. “Hey, don’t say stuff like that.”
I nod. She’s right. Nothing good can come with so much self-pity.
It doesn’t stop me from thinking about it, though.
“So…,” Rachel arches her eyebrow.
“What can I do?” I murmur. “I don’t even know why I wrote it down. It’s like something else took over.”
“Something else?” she asks softly, a note of confusion in her voice.
I almost tell her about the recurring dream I’ve been having. Felix with his strong arms wrapped around me, cradling me close to his chest, whispering in my ear that he’s always going to be there to protect me.
And then it changes, and we’ll be sweaty and pulsing together, our hungry bodies clashing as we drive harder and harder, closer and closer.
Finally, I’ll watch as Felix wraps a big towel around three of our children. I’m standing at the door with our fourth, a gorgeous baby in my arms, and then Felix will look up with his intense wolfish eyes, the corner of his lips twitched in a smirk… no, a smile, a smile like I’ve never seen from him before, untinged with irony or darkness.
“I don’t know how to explain,” I say now. “I guess I’ve just got the biggest crush in the universe.”
It feels like an understatement, but I’m not sure how else to describe it.
“I really wish I didn’t have to go back out tonight,” Rachel says. “But I agreed to cover a shift. When we get a chance, we need to figure out how you’re going to use this phone number.”
I smile, but it feels shaky, not as genuine as I’d hoped. In Rachel’s reality, a woman can make a man’s interest flare in any number of ways. She’s always had male attention.
It’s not jealousy, I feel, exactly, because I’ve never been interested in any of the boys Rachel has been with. It’s simply a fact that we experience life differently in that way.
Rachel hops in the shower. I pick up my book and walk into the bedroom, trying to lose myself in a thriller.
But the plot escapes me. The words seem to hold little meaning.
With a sigh, I sit at my small foldout desk. It has my sewing machine and my crafts supplies. I’m in the process of experimenting with a new bodysuit, repurposed from a bunch of my old scarfs. It’s not a serious attempt at making an attractive piece of clothing. It’s more a way to hone my skills because one day – just maybe – I might be able to make something beautiful.
But I can’t even focus on this, which is crazy. It’s become my obsession ever since I could save enough to buy the sewing machine.
Now I have a new obsession.
The phone number glares at me from my notice board, the digits right there begging me to use them.
But what the heck would I say?
For a moment, I imagine typing out the recurring dream, explaining that I’ve fantasized countless times about having a family together, closed my eyes, and envisioned all the love and warmth we could share. I imagine a smile spreading across his face as he stares down at his phone, with a carnal possessive glint in his eye.
This is just what I’ve been waiting for, he’ll reply. Meet me in ten.
Sitting back, I groan.
I need to accept reality.
If I texted him, he wouldn’t even text back.
CHAPTER THREE
Felix
I hit the punching bag with my fist, the reverberation going up my arm, shattering through my body.
I should wear gloves to stop the worst of the impact. My coach is always giving me hell about that, so we’ve settled halfway on some hand wraps.
My coach doesn’t understand that I need to feel that impact simmering through me, hot and urgent, hellish…so it distracts from everything else. I try not to think about what happened when I was a kid, but with Mom sick, it’s stirred it all up again.