Page 19 of IRL: In Real Life
I gave it back.
Then she turned and disappeared into the night.
By the time I got home to my condo on the North Shore, I still had her on me.
Her perfume. The smooth drag of that dress under my palm. The way her mouth softened when she was amused. The steady hold of those amber eyes, like she had no interest in looking away first.
I dropped my keys in the bowl by the door, loosened my collar, and stood in the middle of my living room for a second with the river dark below me, the bridges lit up, and downtown glowing through the windows.
Still, Talia’s face moved through my mind in pieces.
Her laugh. Her mouth. Those amber eyes. The line of her neck. The way that dress moved over her hips every time she turned, like it knew exactly what it was doing.
I scrubbed a hand over my bearded jaw and went to pour a drink I didn’t need.
That was the problem with finally meeting somebody in person after months of ambient online familiarity. Now the digital version had weight, temperature, scent, and body. Now, when I thought of Talia Vaughn, I wasn’t thinking about a profile picture or a Threads take or some quick little response under a conversation about dating and delusion.
I was thinking about a woman in black standing too close in a room that had already been too warm.
My phone lit where I’d tossed it on the counter and when I looked down, and it was a new story from Talia.
Just her hand on the wheel. Lavender nails. Dashboard lights low. The city sliding by in pieces. Carl Thomas singing “Hey Now” low through her speakers.
Caption: maybe some things really do hit different in person.
I smiled before I meant to.
three
. . .
By the timeI pulled out of the garage, my body was still arguing with every good decision I’d made in the last hour.
My hands sat at ten and two like I was calm. Like I was just another woman driving home from another mixer with a decent drink in her system and good music low through the speakers. Like I had not spent the better part of the evening trying not to picture what Micah Sutton might feel like if the room disappeared and all that dark-eyed restraint he wore so well finally gave way.
That man had touched the small of my back for maybe one second, and my body had been carrying on ever since. His voice,his mouth, the way he looked at me like he was seeing more than my face and liking what he found—all of it had stayed with me.
And then there were his words.
That I actually looked like myself.
That one stayed with me because it was honest, a little rude, and exactly the kind of thing a man only got away with when some part of you already knew he was right.
The light ahead changed. I eased forward, city glow sliding over the hood in streaks of gold and red.
There was a time when a younger version of me might have looked a man like that in the face, smiled once, and asked whether he was coming home with me or not.
This version of me had better sense.
My pussy, unfortunately, did not care.
I laughed under my breath and turned the music up instead of down, because pretending quiet was going to save me felt foolish at that point. Carl Thomas had already settled into “Hey Now,” smooth and low through the car, all that grown, intimate heat in his voice like he knew exactly what kind of mood he was helping me nurse instead of escape.
The song was too on the nose.
Too much silk. Too much late-night possibility. Too much of that come here and quit acting like you don’t know what this is energy.
Exactly where my mind was.
