Page 22 of Only After We Met

10

Rhys

Tomorrow, I’d see my mother after a year’s absence. And then I’d be catching a plane for Los Angeles. I’d leave behind another city, its people, its streets, its environment. But unlike the strange feeling that overtook me when I left Paris the month before, leaving now felt right. It meant that everything was following its course. That the world was moving. That I was moving with it, spinning round and round.

I didn’t want to think about it much though.

I was on edge and needed to clear my head and put my thoughts to sleep. That’s why I found myself at the club I had been working at. I laughed when the people around the table did, but I hadn’t heard the joke, and I didn’t care either.

I took a deep breath and a sip of my drink. I listened to the music, an EDM mix with a wild rhythm. I felt soft fingers stroking my hair, sinking into it. And Sarah’s hot breath close to my mouth.

“Your head’s somewhere else today,” she whispered.

I nodded. I hadn’t told her I was going to see my mother the next day. Or how strange I was feeling that night. I didn’t tell herthe drink in my hand was my fourth or that I was about to order a fifth in the hope of just blanking out, even if I had to wake up with a hangover and my mother would notice, because she knew me that well.

“What’s up with you, Rhys?” she asked.

“Nothing. I’m great.” I smiled.

I liked Sarah. I’d liked her since the first time we’d wound up in bed together two years ago, hanging out all night, having fun. But right now, I felt far away from her and from the rest of my friends there too. I wanted out of New York. To run away from myself.

Even if by then I knew you couldn’t escape your own skin.

I closed my eyes when I felt her fingers caress my neck again, slipping downward, tickling. I laughed as I thought of what was coming.

“We should end this on a high note.”

“I have to get up early tomorrow,” I said.

I didn’t pull away when her lips touched mine. It was almost a friendly gesture. Simple. I saw her beautiful green eyes and sighed.

“The other night left me wanting more.”

“Me too.” It had been a quickie, impersonal, and then we’d crashed, almost without talking. “But we’ll see each other in LA. Aren’t you filming there soon?”

“Yeah, next month.”

Sarah was an actor. She did ads for all types of things: toothpaste, frozen meals, tires, lotions. Ninety percent of her work was in LA or New York, so she was always back and forth.

“You’ll call me, right?” I smiled.

“I’ll think about it, Rhys,” she responded mirthfully.

I felt a vibration in my pocket just then that took my attention away.Ginger.Six letters that had unexpectedly become part of my life. I left my glass on the table. And I smiled like an idiot when I saw it was her. The message didn’t have a subject line. I held my breath when I opened it and saw the picture.

It was her. She was with another girl, with a drink in her hand, and her eyes glowed as she looked at the camera. The photo was blurry, but I saw every detail: her transparent black shirt, the shadow of her bra beneath it, her hair messy, her happy expression; yep,insanely sexy, that was it.

“Who is it?” Sarah bent over to look at my screen.

“A good friend.” I got up, downed what was left of my drink, and looked at the people seated around the table. “Guys, I’ve got to bounce.”

“Come on, Rhys, stay for another round,” Mason said.

“Next time. I’ll call.” I waved and bent over to say goodbye to Sarah with a kiss on the cheek. Then I left the club.

The spring nights in New York were cold. The wind was blowing hard as I walked down the street, hands in my jacket pockets. I felt my phone. I thought about her again. I sat on a bench at the playground in Hell’s Kitchen Park, where I gazed up at the moon, thinking and enjoying the solitude, the feeling that tomorrow I’d be somewhere else, somewhere much warmer, and that I was still in control of my life. Because I didn’t know then that the opposite was true: that life was pulling me along and I was stumbling after it, not even sure where I was going.

I don’t know how long I was there before I took my phone out and looked a second time at the photo Ginger had sent me. I rubbedthe screen with my fingers. Jeez. She always made me smile. It didn’t matter if I’d had a shitty day; I could open my computer or look at my phone, and she always put me in a good mood. Always.