Hooked #2 (The Hooked Romance Series - Book 2) (2 page)

I heard him pop the top from his bottle. “I can’t
believe she hasn’t been answering my calls, my messages. Nothing.”

“Man. Bitches are crazy. You know that.”

“She just seemed different, you know. Well. The sex
was incredible, certainly.” He laughed off the seriousness of the initial
sentence. His friend joined in, as well.

I could tell his voice was strained, that he
seriously missed this girl. That he wanted her beyond the physical sense. But I
knew his friend couldn’t comprehend this. I brought my ear further toward them,
trying to catch their words in the rush of the evening wind. (The Windy City, I
thought, grinning.)

“You know where she lives?” the other guy asked.
“Why not do a romantic gesture? Head to her apartment and surprise her,
something like that?”

“She lives somewhere around here,” the man said. He
sipped his beer. I could hear his lips come away from the top with a squelch.
“But there are things she doesn’t know about me, yet.”

“You are a secretive guy, man. It usually works for
you, yeah. But if you really like this girl, you need to come clean about it
all.”

“I’ve just never had to before,” the man continued.
“I’ve always been here or there. New York or California. Never caught here in
the middle of the country, in my hometown, thinking about a girl in a—whatever.
A serious way.”

My heart was beating fast in my chest. I had begun
to link this voice with someone else; someone quite close to me. Was this
man—who was complaining about a girl not answering his phone calls—Drew?

I clutched my wine glass tightly between my fingers
and sipped at it ravenously. What the hell was going on? Certainly, this
couldn’t be Drew. I tried to laugh it off, almost. Certainly it couldn’t be
Drew because Drew was many miles away, at that beautiful Four Seasons Hotel.
Certainly, he had already taken up with another poor Wicker Park slut, like
myself
. Certainly they were banging against the window; she
was telling him her all-too-real story about how she actually WAS a PR major,
instead of just pretending to be one, like me.

But what if—?

“Why don’t you just call her? Right now. And leave
her a message,” the other man said. He was clearly bogged down with the
conversation, bored with it. “You being who you are. You can have whatever you
want. And you know that.”

My heart quickened. This was it. This was the moment
I could discover, truly, if I was as crazy as I thought.

“All right; all right. I’ll call her one more time.
But I’ll look desperate.”

“That’s the chance you’ll have to take.”

The man laughed as he dialed. I looked down at my
leg, where my phone was positioned easily on my legging. My legs were still
tight; still like dancer legs. I wondered what they would look like as I aged,
as I turned away from my dreams. I wondered if you always ended up looking the
same as you were meant to, regardless of the choices or the careers you had in
your life.

The phone started buzzing. I looked at it,
dumbfounded. Could it be a coincidence? The name blared across in bright, white
letters; DREW.

My heart was racing. I allowed the phone to ring and
ring, to buzz against my leg. The man on the balcony kicked his foot against
the balcony railing. I could hear it; bang, bang, bang in the coming nighttime.

Finally, the phone stopped ringing. “See?” he
sputtered. He was angry at being put up to it, I could tell.

My mind was racing. Why did he live here, in my
building, if he also had a hotel room at the Four Seasons? Why was he here, in
a wonky apartment in Wicker Park, when he could be eating room service lobster
while living the life of eternal luxury? He was rich, wasn’t he? Why had he
lied about where he lived?

Suddenly erupting with eternal drama, I decided to
head to the hallway and knock on the door. The door was just down the hall, I
knew. It seemed strange that I hadn’t run into any of the people who lived
there. For a long time, I had thought that apartment had been empty. I tidied
my hair as I crept toward the door, hoping I didn’t look too much like I had
been drinking wine, eating macaroni, and feeling depressed about my life for
the past week. I wanted to look sexy, sultry; even if this man wasn’t for some
reason, Drew.

I put my hand against the wood and I knocked three
times, decisively. I stepped back, waiting.

I heard loud footfalls behind the door. I heard the
CLUNK as the deadbolt opened, as the person
swooped
the door open to reveal a rather grey, ordinary apartment. I looked up at the
man—this man that was so very much NOT Drew, and I felt my heart float down to
my stomach. He had curly, black hair, and his face was a bit round, a bit
burly. He looked mean.

“I’m so sorry—
“ I
sputtered. I wanted to rush back into my apartment. Why had I thought Drew had
been outside? Had I imagined the entire thing? Perhaps I was drunker than I
thought.

The man looked at me, confused. Suddenly, I heard
the voice—the voice I had heard outside—call from the back room. “Is it the
pizza?” the voice asked.

The man at the door shook his head, his eyes still
centered on mine. Why hadn’t he said hello yet? My mind was rushing to come up
with an excuse, anything. But I felt frozen in place, in time.

“
Naw
. Some girl,” the man
said. “Can I help you with something?”

I sputtered once more. “No—No. I just thought. I
thought this was someplace else—“

I saw a shadow pass over the room behind the man
positioned before me. The man with the curly black hair seemed to take up the
entire doorway, leaving me no room to see beyond.

But I heard the voice again. “Marty. Who’s at the
door?” The voice was so familiar, so dear. In my head, I pictured him; Drew,
there at the baseball game, his mouth over mine. My body seemed to melt.

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.

My body burned with the memory of his body over
mine, fucking on that fabulous bed in the Four Seasons. Had it all been a lie?
Had he cared for me at all?

And now, I was going on another date with him. I was
going to see him again, become another notch on his belt. For some reason, I
wasn’t sure that I cared. Maybe he could be a notch on my belt—just another
memory from this raucous, beautiful time when I lived in Chicago and really
pursued my dreams. (Before I had to assuredly rush back home, no money to my
name, begging my mother for forgiveness.) I sighed into my pillow.
 

CHAPTER
THREE

The next morning, I rolled out of bed early—ever
ready to head back to the dance studio and teach little girls to twirl, teach
old women to love their bodies again. But then, as I ever did, I remembered the
situation once more. I knew I had to go back to the studio and clear out my
stuff. And so, around eleven in the morning, that’s what I did. I looked down
the hallway of my apartment building, a bit worried that I would see Drew. But
he was nowhere to be found. I was certain he was at whichever building he had
so recently bought; I was certain he was planning his beautiful, new Femme
Fatale bookstore. I imagined him hovering over a big sheet of building plans,
pointing at this and that. Looking effortlessly masculine, strong. I shuddered.

I walked to my old work, pausing to look at all the
old sights, noting the way every person looked as I passed. I felt like I was
in a dream.

Finally, I arrived at the studio. My key fit into
the lock perfectly, and I ducked in from the now-bitter wind. Shaking my body
off, I noted the way the shadows held themselves so long across the wooden
floor; I noted how different everything looked in the wake of non-usage. It
seemed so bizarre. A layer of dust had begun its descent over one of the
mirrors. I wiped it away with my fingers, trying to remember a time when I had
felt so desolate, so sad.