It's getting harder to work the calories off. It's getting downright torturous dealing with the hangover the next day. And now this.
It's getting impossible to deny that my life has no real meaning. One big party after another. Chasing one orgasm to the next.
I could go cold turkey.
"Pfft!" exploded from my mouth. Cut off all of my guys? All at once?
I stopped under the shade of an overgrown Kowhai tree, the yellow bell-shaped flowers dancing in the slight breeze. Small bees buzzed around me, searching for their next nectar filled hit.
That was me. I wasn't just living in the moment, like I'd always believed. I was searching for the next hit. For the next emotion.
For the next bit of comfort and attention in another person's arms.
This had to stop and the only way I could think of doing it, was to cut myself off from the source of my problems. From seeking that next hit.
If Genevieve Cain can grow up, find a man to settle down with and start a family, then the least I could do was find some balls too.
I had no intention of finding a man to settle down with, but one step at a time would do the trick.
I kept walking, running this new and frightening idea over in my mind. The more I tried to break it down and analyse it, the harder it got to think straight at all. My hand slipped into my pocket, my fingers rubbing the corner of my phone. All it would take would be one call, let them know Kelly Quayle was off the menu, no longer girl about town.
Could I do it?
I turned and looked back down the street towards video guy's house. I couldn't even see which one it was, I'd walked out of there in a fog, and truth be told, I hadn't emerged from the haze yet.
Something had to give. I couldn't wake up in another stranger's bed. I couldn't lose hours of my life. Next time the person who found me might not be as nice.
I rubbed my chest where an ache had started forming, a pressure that matched the one inside my head. This was entirely too fucked up and I hated it. Hated myself right now. Hated the world and my life, too.
I took a deep breath in and managed one step further before my cellphone chimed. Pulling it out, I glanced at the text message.
Still on for tonight, babe?
I guess I was about to find out if I had any balls.
I swiped open a message screen, my thumb paused over the keypad. My heart thundering in my chest, blood pumping through my veins. Sweat once again gracing my cool skin.
I could do this. I could cut them all off one by one.
But I'd tell them to their faces. A text message was just not right.
Still on
, I typed.
Meet you there at eight.
It wasn't a victory on the road to saving Kelly Quayle. But it was a start.
Tonight I'd tell Matt it was over.
And then there'd be only four.
I felt a million times better when I walked into the Red Hummingbird that evening. So much so, that for a moment I believed that morning hadn't really happened. I'd spent the rest of the day mucking about the house; cleaning, doing laundry, soaking in the bath. The nausea had finally abated around lunchtime, the headache sometime around two.
Now, standing inside the funky, dark interior with groovy Tiki artwork on the walls, birdcage-like seating area off to the side, a living wall of greenery by the bar, reds, browns, golds, and the striking contrast of purple lights, I felt almost myself again. I felt alive, thrumming with anticipation, excited about the prospects for the upcoming night. Eager to hook up, to feel, to be entertained.
To experience life.
One step further and I realised how
wrong
those sensations were. I was not here to hook up with Matt. I was here to let him down.
My hands clenched at my sides and I scanned the people in the bar. I spotted him, quietly sipping his beer in a booth seat beside the birdcage area. His light blue eyes were on me. Hunger, and the anticipation I'd only just identified in myself, stared back at me from behind the rim of his glass.
My steps faltered. He looked good. Shaggy blond hair brushing his shoulders. Dark grey, ribbed sweater stretched tight across what I knew to be an extremely lickable chest. His sleeves were pushed partway up his arms, displaying tanned skin, dusted in light hairs. His fingers, wrapped around his beer glass, were long, but thick. I knew how they felt on my skin, how they felt when he slipped them inside. How those hands felt banded around my waist as he pulled me down onto his cock. Hard.
Oh, fuck. I was such a lost cause.
I sidled up to him, noticing he'd already bought me a drink. It wasn't tequila. My stomach still rolled at the sight of the gin he had waiting for me, though.
"Hey, beautiful," he murmured, standing slightly and leaning over the table to kiss my cheek. "Long time, no see."
Yeah, it had been a while. Twice now I'd begged off our dates and not even turned up. Once, I'd been waylaid by another, and did the dubious thing of texting my regrets from the bathroom just down the hall from where he sat waiting.
I had a sudden image of how others would see me. And I did not like what I saw.
I took a sip of the gin, grimaced and then placed the glass back on the table. My hands shook when I placed them in my lap.
"So, what's been keeping you so busy, Kels?" he asked, his arm wrapping around my shoulder and pulling me close.
It was a normal move for us. Matt always hugged. Before sex. Afterwards. Even just meeting in the street. Matt was a hugger and I loved him for it. I allowed myself a moment of further weakness and relaxed into his hold.
"Oh, you know. Gen's wedding. Organising the hen's night. Going to dress fittings. The usual matrimonial uproar."
He chuckled. It was a nice laugh. Carefree and happy. How I used to be.
"Heaven forbid you get any ideas, woman," he murmured, nuzzling my neck, his hand creeping up my thigh.
"Do you ever get tired of all of this, Matt?" I asked. The words were out before I'd consciously thought them. My body stiffened, followed by Matt's.
"What sort of question is that?" he asked carefully, his face no longer flush against my skin, but his body was still too close.
"Oh, I don't know," I stalled, fidgeting with the coaster beneath my sweating glass. I could sympathise with the bloody thing. Was it too hot in here?
"OK, Kels. What's up?" he asked, pulling away and placing much needed space between us. "Three times you've stood me up. That's not like you. And I gotta admit," he added, running a hand through his ruffled hair, "You don't look in the mood to party."
That sickness I'd felt earlier had come back in full force. But where that had been washed in a mire of alcohol fumes and lost memories, this was crystal clear.
I was saying goodbye to a friend.
I sucked in air as though I was drowning, feeling the water lap at my nose. I lifted my hand and pressed fingers to my lips, noting they still felt bruised from last night. Not able to recollect how they'd gotten that way, only guessing it had been video store guy.
There are times when your life stretches out before you, bright sunshine and clear skies for miles and miles.
And then there are times when you hit a pothole, bump over the edge painfully, and see the ground rush up before your eyes.
Video guy was my pothole. Matt was the ground I was about to hit at high speed.
This was going to hurt.
He reached for my hand and laced his fingers through mine. I knew he was watching me unravel. He must have already seen the writing on the wall. Part of me wanted to deny everything. Keep going as I was. Searching for that next hit of unrestrained joy.
But whenever I thought those things, my stomach would roll, reminding me of last night.
I may never get those hours back. I couldn't keep doing this.
"What's on your mind, Kelly?" Matt asked quietly. He wasn't making this hard, he was trying to help me get the words out. But he wouldn't say them for me.
I liked him. There were things about him I actually loved. But I didn't really love him. He was fun, carefree, ridiculously good in bed. He accepted my need for variety. Hell, he had a girl or two on the side as well. We were mirror images of each other.
At least, we had been up until last night.
"I've been thinking," I started, rolling the words over my tongue, tasting the truth. "It's time for a change."
"A change?" He wasn't happy with that explanation, and I couldn't blame him. It was a cop out.
"I need to change some things in my life, Matt," I explained. "Starting with this." I waved a hand between him and me and then out around the bar in a vague movement.
"You finally found someone to go solo with?" The question was a mix of incredulity and happiness. Shocked Kelly Quayle could be settling down, but pleased for me at the same time.
Nice guy. Solid guy. A good friend.
"Nothing like that," I corrected him, with a small shake of my head.
I straightened my back, lifted my chin, sucked in a fortifying breath of air.
"I'm taking a break," I announced. "Re-evaluating my life."
Matt whistled. It said a hell of a lot. 'What the fuck' being part of it. He shook his head, smiled to himself and then reached for his beer.
"Am I the first you're cutting loose?" The swallow that followed covered the hurt I saw in his eyes.
"Everyone, Matt," I replied, instead of answering that uncomfortable question.
"Even the lawyer?"
What the hell did Drew have to do with any of it? Well, other than the fact he was one of my five. Not all of them knew who was who, but Matt had spotted me out with Drew one night, and somehow knew him from way back when. He'd been able to put two and two together, but thankfully no one else had.
Drew was still a secret. At least in my normal everyday life.
"Well," he said, voice a little more gruffer than before. "I really didn't see this coming."
"You didn't?" He flicked me a strange look. "You did say I stood you up three times in a row," I pointed out.
"So, this has been going on for weeks?"
Oh. I shifted in my seat.
"I don't know," was all I could say. Had it been going on for weeks? It didn't feel like it. It felt like everything had unravelled this morning. Or got twisted up.
I stared at the table, at the slow drops of moisture sliding down the outside of my glass. Silence reigned between us, the sounds of the busy bar heating up as the minutes passed.
"OK, babe," Matt finally said. "You gotta know I had fun."
My eyes flicked to his, noticing his empty beer glass on the way there.
"It has been," I agreed. "Fun," I added, lamely.
He smiled. It wasn't quite his Matt wow them and take them to bed grin, but pretty close.
"I'm going to miss you," I whispered, feeling the sudden urge to cry.
"Kels," he murmured, leaning forward and wrapping me up in his arms, laying a soft kiss to my head. "Take care."
And then he was gone. And I was sitting alone at a table in a packed bar staring at a barely touched gin and tonic on the table before me. Feeling like I wanted to bawl.
I don't know how long I sat there, stunned at the depth of pain I felt at saying goodbye to Matt. I'd finished relationships before, that'd been easy. And although Matt had been part of my life for more than a year, he'd never held more of a place in my heart than any of the others. I pretty much shared myself between them fairly. Until recently and Drew decided to rain on my parade.
I pushed thoughts of the adventurous lawyer aside and concentrated on what made my heart feel gouged out, leaving a gaping hole in my chest right now.
It took a while. The condensation on my glass had long evaporated. Matt's empty beer schooner disappeared at least ten minutes before that. I was starting to get strange looks from the wait staff. The place was pumping, they needed my table for drinking/paying guests. But I hadn't moved an inch since Matt left, my mind reeling, my heart aching, my life on pause.
It wasn't Matt, as such.
It was what he represented.
The end of my past.
I'd done it. I'd broken off with one of my guys, I'd whittled the number down to four. Did I feel any different? A new and better and healthier Kelly Quayle emerging at last?
I shook my head, sucked in a deep breath and then lifted my eyes from the table for the very first time.
Coming face to face with pale grey across the room.
I held his gaze, unable to react for the depth of surprise I felt. How long had he been there? Did he see Matt leave? Had he watched me moping ever since?
Why did he keep turning up at my dates? Actively planning to sabotage them? Making each night his and not theirs?
I wasn't sure I was strong enough to battle Drew tonight. I'd just broken the tie to one of my five and it had hurt. If I faced him now could I do it again? I needed to. All five needed to be culled. But I really wasn't sure I had it in me to go through what I'd just been through, so soon afterwards.
I needed to leave.
I needed to get up and walk out that door without a backwards glance.
I needed...
Ah, fuck. I needed to
feel
. Anything other than this wretched emptiness and a familiar sense of being alone.
I hadn't thought about what would follow the act of cutting ties. I hadn't considered how much it would bring back old and hated feelings. I was spiralling down a bleak, dark hole, knowing what waited at the bottom. And there wasn't a thing I could do to stop it.
I didn't want to go back there. It had been years since that awful time. But I was staring into the same black place, and all I could see to reach for was soft, gentle grey.
He was suddenly standing before me, hands in trouser pockets, expensive suit unbuttoned showing a broad chest beneath. He'd come here from work, I could tell. Drew only wore these suits when he had to be in court. He'd probably worked late, decided to grab a quick drink on the way home, and then spotted me.
Coincidence, nothing else.
"Are you going to drink that?" he asked, the world disappearing to just him.
I knew people still bustled around us, I knew glasses were clinking, and laughter was ringing out in the air. But for a moment, like it does every time he looks at me, no one else existed but us.
"Not really," I mumbled, flicking my gaze back down to the drink.
"How long are you going to sit here for?"
How long had he watched me?
"A while."
His lips twitched, lopsided, but still a smirk.
"Do you wish to be alone?" he asked. Not the Drew I'd come to know.
Andrew Kline demanded. Walked into a room and stole all the air. One look and I was his. One nod of his head towards a hidden spot and I was there. One touch and I was gone.
But tonight I was empty, and even his presence didn't fill me up.
Is that why he was treading so carefully? No look. No nod. No touch.
Until I asked.
I shook my head in answer to his question. It happened naturally. I hadn't meant to make the move, but there it was.
I'd cut one of my five off tonight, I couldn't manage a second within an hour of the first. That's what I told myself, but when Drew finally reached forward and slipped his hand into mine I realised I was a hopeless liar. Even to myself.
Drew was never going to be the next I would cull. I was always going to save him 'til last. I'd not consciously acknowledged that until now. With his big, smooth hand in mine, his quiet, steady grey eyes holding me trapped, I finally felt something fill that emptiness inside.
This was dangerous. I knew it. Drew was not the answer to my fucked up life. He was part of the problem.