I watch them leave, then turn to Landon. “I’m leaving,” I say.
“I gathered,” he replies, a small smile on his lips. He’s holding my hand again, making no move to release it.
“It was nice to run into you.” I say softly.
He chuckles. “It was nice to run into you, Rachel.”
He’s holding my gaze, making it hard for me to breathe. After a few second, he releases my hand, and I wait for him to ask for my number this time, to ask if he can see me again, but there’s nothing.
I get up, stung by how clear it is that he has no intention of pursuing the obvious attraction between us. “Goodnight.”
I can feel his eyes on me as I walk away. Outside, there’re still people trying to get into the club, and on the sidewalk close to the entrance, Brett and Laurie are kissing. I walk towards them, pissed off at Landon, and at myself for caring so much. What if he doesn’t want to see me again? I shouldn’t care. He’s just a one-night stand I should already have forgotten.
As I walk towards Laurie and Brett, a sleek black car pulls up on the sidewalk beside me. The driver, a bulky guy with a crew cut and sharp eyes steps out of the car.
“Miss Foster?” he asks.
“Yes?”
“I’m here to take you home,” he says. “Courtesy of the Insomnia Lounge.”
“Hey,” I call to Laurie and Brett, momentarily perked up by the fact that I won’t be walking home in my four inch heels. “Our ride is here.”
A FEW days later, my article about the Insomnia lounge is up on the site. I refresh the page for like the fifth time, reading the new comments. Most of the people commenting have been there, and have nothing but praise. The people who haven’t been, leave comments about making sure to visit when next they’re in the city.
Not bad.
There’re a few pictures of the lounge published with the article. Shots of the VIP area among them. Just looking at the pictures, I can’t help thinking about Landon, the way he’d held my hand, and how intoxicated I’d been by his presence.
God! I have to stop thinking about him. He’s just a crutch. He’s just something I’m subconsciously using to occupy my mind while I deal with getting over Jack, the person who has occupied it for the past two years.
The person I haven’t thought of for days.
Right now, it’s Landon who’s occupying the prime place in my thoughts. Landon who didn’t even bother to ask to see me again, because as far as he was concerned, I was just a hooker on her day off.
The words on my screen start to look blurry, and I turn towards the window, a tiny slice of glass that provides me a limited view of other office buildings and a little sky. He’d wanted me. I’d felt it, in his touch, in his voice, in the heat from his body that found its way into mine, making my whole body thrum with need for him.
He’d wanted me, and yet he’d done nothing about it. I’d even allowed myself to toy with the idea that somehow, he’d found out who I was and he was there to see me.
Even Laurie had been thinking along the same lines.
“I thought you said you didn’t leave him your number,” she’d asked me on our way home in the car the club had provided.
“I didn’t.”
“So… he just appeared at the same Lounge you had to go for a work assignment… it was a coincidence?”
“What else could it be? He doesn’t even know my last name.”
“That seems very unlikely,” she’d pronounced, before transferring her attention back to Brett.
But it was a coincidence. And he hadn’t even been interested enough to use the opportunity afforded by that coincidence. I’d been so desperate for him, I’d have followed him back to his apartment, his car, or any dark corner without a thought.
My door opens, jerking me out of my thoughts. I look up to see Jack standing at the entrance to my office.
I haven’t thought about him in a while, but now that he’s standing right in front of me, it hits me that all the romantic hopes and dreams I’ve centered on him for the past two years have resulted in nothing, and there’s a small ache that comes with that realization .