Page 3 of Maybe This Time
“I’m coming,” I called back as I took one last look at myself before turning off the lights and walking back to my bedroom.
“Holy shit,” Josie hollered. “You’ve got boobs.”
I laughed and squished my already pushed up cleavage together. “Yeah, last I checked, I did.”
She brought her smiling face closer to the screen. “Give me a twirl. I wanna see the magic I’ve created,” she demanded, gesturing for me to turn.
I extended my hands on each side and did as told, exaggerating my movements like I was at one of her fashion shoots. Her laughter boomed around my bedroom and she pretended to take pictures with each pose.
God, I missed her.
With the time difference, we rarely spent more than five minutes catching up. On good days, I’d catch her between gigs, but with how demanding both of our jobs were, I couldn’t remember the last time we’d had this much uninterrupted time without a customer walking into the shop or her crew calling her back to resume their session.
I usually didn’t think about it much, but for some reason, tonight, having one of your best friends living so far away hit harder.
“Hey,” Josie said, pulling me out of my thoughts. Her face mirrored mine for a moment, but she quickly schooled her features and pointed a finger at me. “No sad face. Tonight is supposed to be fun and I would never forgive you if you started crying and I can’t reach through the screen to hug you.”
“You know I don’t cry,” I scoffed. She didn’t need to know what happened when the credits rolled earlier.
She pinned me with a stare. “Sure,” she deadpanned. “Now hurry up and get your pretty ass out the door. It starts at nine p.m. and you need to be there on time. Otherwise, they won’t let you in.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the alarm clock on my bedside table to see it was already 8:00 p.m. Mystique was located in an old building downtown Boston, which was usually only a twenty-minute drive at this time, but with it being Halloween, it’d be a miracle if I made it within the hour.
“Wouldn’t want to be late for their majesties,” I teased.
My sister narrowed her eyes. “Better change that attitude before you get to the club.”
I chuckled. “Love you,” I said as I leaned against the wooden dresser where I’d propped my phone.
Her face softened. “I love you, too,” she replied, grinning. “Go get yourself some nice dick and I want to hear all about it tomorrow. In. Detail.”
“I’m n?—”
She hung up before I finished my sentence.
No dick was being gotten tonight. I was far from being a virgin, but the last man I’dalmostslept with made me regret ever being into men. If I had a choice, I’d never look at one again after Greg from the grocery store told me he wanted me to pee on him when we got to his place.
Listen, I didn’t kink shame, to each their own, but I’d just met the guy. One nice dinner didn’t mean everything was suddenly on the table.
A shiver crawled over my skin at the memory and I shook away that horrid night. As I said, dicks had better stay far away from me tonight.
After ordering a ride, I walked over to my closet and reached for the top shelf, blindly patting for the heels I knew I kept there. I rarely wore them since I spent most of my time at the shop and heels weren’t the most convenient when I was on my feet pretty much all day. But they were my favorites because of how comfortable they were. Sure, beauty was sometimes pain, but if I had to embark on whatever Josie had signed me up for, I wasn’t suffering more in the process.
My fingers brushed against something hard as I patted for the tied straps. I wanted to curse old Talya for thinking it was a good idea to throw these heels back there the last time I cleaned my shoe closet under the staircase that led to my upper floor. I’drun out of space with the amount of sneakers and combat boots I owned, so this was the only place my brain thought would be a good idea to put them away.
Groaning, I stretched farther on my tiptoes.Fucking hell.I was already breaking a sweat and I’d barely left my place. I wasn’t short, but whoever had built this house must have accounted for a giant because even at five-foot-seven, I could barely reach it.
Finally, I felt the tied straps of my black heels, but they seemed to be jammed. Annoyance simmered in my veins and not wanting to waste any more time or risk my ride charging me a wait-time fee, I yanked on them, pulling them free.
Unfortunately for me, I’d tugged on them so hard, whatever was in their way came tumbling down with a softthunkon the carpeted floor of my bedroom as I stumbled backward. My bed prevented me from falling on my ass, but a flurry of papers rained down in its wake.
“Goddammit.” I sighed as I closed my eyes, my earlier annoyance slowly morphing into irritation. To think that I could be rotting on my couch, nestled with a soft blanket and buried under food, watching my favorite movie instead of having to clean up this mess.
It’s fine. Everything’s fine.
I repeated my mantra a few times to calm myself down when my phone pinged with a notification that my driver had arrived. I sat on the edge of my bed to quickly strap on my heels before kneeling down to gather whatever had fallen into a small pile. I didn’t have time to clean it up, but at least when I came back later tonight, I wouldn’t risk slipping and ending my night with a literal bang because I’d forgotten it was there.
As I pushed the pile closer to my bedside table, my eyes caught on familiar handwriting. My fingers instinctively brushedagainst the ivory paper and memories of receiving the letters flooded my mind.
