Page 11 of Wild Devotion
“Don’t be. You’re human. If we can’t mess up from time to time, what’s the point? Besides, I really doubt anything happened. Why do you think I left you with him instead of putting you in a cab myself? I trust him to be sensible.”
“Oh.” A strange sense of disappointment settled over me.
“Oh?” Chantel mocked. “Did you want to have sloppy sex with my baby cousin?”
“What? No.”
“You do. You totally want to bone him.”
“My God, Chantel, please never use the word bone again.” I forced a tight laugh.
“He’s a good guy, Zadie.” Her humor faded, her tone turning serious. “A really good guy. But he’s young, and he’s got his own problems. Plus, you don’t need a man—you just got rid of the last one, remember?”
Like I could ever forget. “Honestly, I was just worried that I’d drunkenly seduced him. I don’t need you to make fun of me for being a cougar. How old is he anyway?”
“Old enough to decide for himself.” She paused, the sounds of the hospital filtering through the line. “Listen, I’ve got to go. I’m picking up another shift, but I’ll be home later. You can confess all your perverted fantasies over dinner.”
“I don’t have any fantasies.” My throat felt tight, and my voice was too high-pitched. “Other than a shower and something to absorb the alcohol still drowning my system.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say. I’ll see you soon, cocotte.”
Phone in hand, I sat on the edge of the bed, listening to the silence pressing in. There was no sound from across the hall, which meant he was probably still asleep.
I could shower. Pretend everything was fine. Go about my day in this borrowed room, in this borrowed house, in this borrowed town and act like last night hadn’t let something loose inside me.
The bathroom was right across the hall. I grabbed clean clothes and moved quietly, not looking at the guest room door, not thinking about the man behind it, not remembering the taste of his mouth or the way he’d looked at me like I mattered.
Once I was behind the locked door, I stripped off my alcohol-scented clothes and stepped into the shower. But the warm spray did nothing to ease my throbbing body or brain. Or my aching heart.
As the water rushed over me, it mixed with the tears streaming down my face.
I wasn’t crying over Sean. It hadn’t even been a week, but I really was glad to be rid of him. My tears weren’t self-pity, either. I’d had enough of that last night. Hell, I wasn’t even crying because of the pain from the wretched hangover.
No, these tears were from my brief encounter with a thing called hope.
It was something I’d given up on right around the time I gave up on love. Last night, maybe even a bit this morning, I’d let myself feel a glimmer.
Hope surfaced when Caleb smiled at me, hung on while he listened, tried to dig in when I kissed him. But when I woke up, sobered up, and recognized the ridiculous impossibility, hope didn’t just die…
I killed it.
Because keeping it alive would only be another mistake. And honestly, how many could I make in a lifetime? In one night?
I seriously hoped Chantel was right and I hadn’t made as many as I feared.
With any luck, Caleb would wake up like me—regretfully hungover, with little to no recollection of getting that way. He’d go back to his life, and I could go on pretending like nothing happened.
Mistakes forgotten.
Hope left dead, right where it belonged.
Beside the dried-up corpse of love.
Week 6
Chapter Five
Caleb
