Page 35 of Chasing Blue
I open my car door, throw my bags across to the passenger seat, and climb in. This is the second time I’ve left here in bits because of him, and I hate that too.
I press the ignition button, and of course, my ‘heartbreak’ playlist I’ve had on repeat connects. Fleurie’s ‘Hurts Like Hell’ blasts through the sound system and I’m one million per cent sure at that moment I was an evil bitch in a past life, and the Universe is now fucking me up the arse without lube in retaliation.
I know I shouldn’t drive while I’m barely hanging on, but I can’t sit here and let Jack see me cry. Luckily traffic’s light, and to avoid the school run Mum’s, I pull onto the freeway rather than taking the beach road. I hit the on-ramp barely breathing, but once I filter into traffic, I let it out: my breath, the sob I was hanging on to, my tears, and for the next ten minutes, I let go. Singing at the top of my lungs, I choke out the words to Beyoncé’s ‘Broken-Hearted Girl’. I allow my tears to flow and my nose to run. When the song ends, I call Zoe.
“Whassup, bitch?”
“I need to get fucked up,” I croak.
She’ll know I’ve been crying by the thickness of my voice. There’s a moment’s pause before she comes back with, “I’ll be at yours around six. Let’s hit Main Street. You gonna be okay till then?”
My nose tingles at her concern, and I nod before croaking out, “Yeah.”
“You sure? I’m out looking at sofas for a job; I can come straight to yours when I’m done.”
“Nah. Do what you’ve gotta do, I’ll see ya when I’m looking at ya.”
“K. Hey, Scar?”
“Yeah?”
“We’ll get you through this, okay? I’m here. You’re not on your own. I love you.”
She ends the call before I can respond.
When I get home twenty minutes later, I gulp down a large glass of water along with a couple of painkillers to help ease my crying-induced headache. With a collagen patch under each of my puffy eyes, I put on my headphones, lay back on my bed, and block out the world while listening to an audiobook by one of my favourite authors. Half an hour later, I’ve decided I’m moving to Colorado to find myself an alpha mountain man who’ll do anything for his woman.
* * *
The rooftop barwe’re in is packed, loud, and full of kids. Now that happy hour has ended, the drinks are overpriced, and the buzz I’d felt from the two bottles of prosecco we drank at home is beginning to wear off, and I don’t want that. I need to build on that buzz, increase it. It’s not something I often do, but the last couple of days have been shit, and tonight I need to drink to forget.
We each have two Cosmos lined up, but once they’re done, we need to move on. I sip on one of them and observe the ‘children’ mingling around me.
“How the fuck do all these kids manage to get hold of fake IDs? None of them even look sixteen, let alone eighteen,” I ask Zoe above the blare of Lizzo’s ‘Tempo’.
She laughs.
“I’m pretty sure most of themareeighteen. We just gotold,girlfriend.”
She slings her arm across my shoulder and rests her head against mine.
“S’not fair,” I state. “Look at them with their perky tits, tight little bodies, and smooth skin.”
“Yeah, but look at the boys they get to choose from. I bet they shave their skinny legs more than we shave ours. What the fuck is that all about?”
I draw a long breath in through my nose, trying to recall the last time I felt the rough body hair of a man brush against my skin.
I’m a thirty-six-year-old woman with a healthy sex drive. I had four dates over four weeks with Matt, but we hadn’t slept together. Before him, there was a one-time date with a bloke I’d met in a bar the weekend before. I worked out very quickly that he had a coke problem, so that led to nothing. I’ve taken a total of four men to my bed, one of them being Jackson Cole when I was eighteen. Eighteen years later, my number was still only four. I wasn’t a prude, it’s just that I can’t have sex with someone I don’t have feelings for, and I’ve kept my heart so guarded all these years I’ve given it very little opportunity to let that happen.
“These girls might never get to experience the feel of a man’s chest hair against their nipples. Can you imagine never getting to wake up in the morning to the sensation of a pair of hairy legs tangled with yours?” Zoe says as she eyes the kids we’re surrounded by over the top of her Cosmo glass. “Nothing beats that momentary realisation that you’re not alone, followed by that flash of memory, recalling everything they did to you the previous night, then rolling over ready to face them and do it all again.” She lets out a long sigh before continuing, “Could you be with a man you have to share your razor or Nair with?” she asks as we both look across to the crowd of boys at the table next to us. All under twenty, all wearing short-sleeved shirts that are tight around their bulging biceps, tight skinny chinos rolled at the ankle, no socks, and lace-up shoes. My eyes travel to each of their faces; they’re cute enough, but their waxed eyebrows, perfectly shaved into shape stubble and immaculately faded hairstyles do absolutely nothing for me.
“No,” I admit. “Give me a well-groomed but reasonably hairy real man any day. In fact, right now would be a good day, the best day, to send me one of those. Preferably a mountain man from Colorado, big, hairy, and alpha.”
I hear Zoe chuckle from beside me.
“You reading those books again?”
“Yep, living vicariously through the sassy heroines.”
