Chapter 3

She woke to a room thick with shadow. Alone. The white duvet pulled up to her chin. Her boots were gone—he must have taken them off her sometime in the night, because she didn’t remember doing that. She stretched her toes in the soft, sleep-warm sheets.

Dawn, she thought, and listened for the sound of the shower, or of Harry quietly getting ready for the trip to find the man who would get his sister out of trouble. But then she realized the sunlight coming in under the blackout shades on the window was knife bright and she rolled over to see the clock on the bedside table.

Nine thirty.

Beyond the table, the closet was open and empty. The bathroom was dark. The sink counter empty of toiletries. Next to the TV were her bag and her clothes, folded and stacked.

Harry was gone.

The slice of pain was embarrassing and awful. And totally unexpected.

She sat up, clutching the sheet to her chest, trying to staunch the slow bleed of startling emotion.

It was a hookup at a bar. You can’t go falling in infatuation just because he was sad and provided expert cunnilingus.

Though the truth was she’d fallen in love for far worse reasons before.

But there was a flash of white paper on top of her clothing, and she flushed with a sort of seventh-grade thrill.

A note!

She managed not to leap out of bed like the woman in a rom-com movie, but she couldn’t stop the hard chug of her heart as she picked up the note, the dark scrawl of his handwriting not quite legible in the shadowy room.

She flicked on the light and sat down on the foot of the bed.

Ryan Kaminski. His handwriting was like the way he moved—no flourishes, but graceful in its economy. I watched you for a few moments before leaving, debating whether to wake you up. But in the end I decided to let you sleep, because you are simply lovely and while sleeping you are only more so. Also I was in no great hurry to start a conversation about why I cannot see you again, or call you. Why anything more than this amazing night between us would be an impossibility. I arranged a late checkout, and breakfast will be arriving around ten. I hope you can stay to enjoy it.

Thank you.

Harry

That had to be one of the most lovely kiss-off letters she’d ever seen. Really quite masterful.

Her stomach full of a weird kind of regret and morning-after melancholy, she made a quick call down to the front desk to cancel the breakfast. She would shower at home; the #7 train to Sunnyside would remove some of Harry’s fairy-tale dust that still lingered on her skin.

She dressed, and after a moment of painful consideration, folded the note and tucked it into her purse.

The door clicked shut behind her and she checked her phone as she walked down the hallway toward the elevators. Luckily, she still had some juice left.

A text Lindsey had sent last night bloomed on her screen.

So? Did you make Ken Doll happy?

I gave it my best shot, she texted back hours after Lindsey’s original note.

Atta girl, came the response fairly quickly. She imagined Lindsey in bed with her phone.

How was the rest of the night?

Gary asked some questions about you and Ken Doll. I threw him off the scent.

For some strange reason, that made her feel almost weepy. Talking to Harry last night about his sister when it had been years since she’d talked to her own. Years. She talked to her brother more often because he was pushy that way, but that she was closer to Lindsey, whom she’d known for only two months, than to her sisters, well, it hurt on this weird morning when she felt all raw and turned inside out.

Thanks, Linds.

The elevator doors opened and she turned left out of them, tucking her phone back into her bag, which was why she didn’t see the men’s bathroom door open and Gary come stepping out.

“Ryan?” His familiar voice made her stop in her tracks, her stomach slipping down into her boots.

“Gary.” He really was a nice guy and if the bar were unaffiliated, what had happened between her and Harry probably wouldn’t even get her hand slapped. But The Cobalt Hotel was a part of a conglomerate and there were rules about this stuff.

“What are you doing here this morning?” he asked, pretending to be casual, clearly trying to give her a chance to lie.

There was no point in pretending. That wasn’t quite her style.

She smiled and shrugged. “What do you think?”

“Christ, Ryan,” he said, stepping alongside of her and pulling her into motion, down the stairs toward the bar. “Couldn’t you have taken him to your place? Why the hell did you have to stay here?”

“Because I’m a sucker for the free shampoo in the rooms.” She had swiped it. She might be too proud for a free breakfast, but she wasn’t too proud for travel-size luxury toiletries.

He paused in front of The Cobalt Bar’s locked doors.

“Do you even know who he is?” Gary asked.

“You’re not my father, Gary.”

“No. I’m not asking do you know his name and sexual history. I’m asking do you know who he is?”

“He’s … someone?” She’d known that, of course. The gravitas. The way other people in the bar watched him from the corner of their eyes. She just chose to ignore it.

“Oh, Christ, doesn’t anyone read the newspaper anymore? I thought you were smarter than the rest of the idiots who work here. He’s Har—”

Some remnant of self-preservation made her hold up her hand. “Don’t tell me. Don’t. It’s over. It won’t happen again.”

“But you did it here. And now you told me about it.” He lifted his hands as if to show her how they were tied. Poor Gary. Stupid Ryan. “I have to fire you.”

“Don’t bother, Gary,” she said. “I quit.”

She patted his shoulder, because he was better than most, and headed out into the full summer reality of July in New York City. It was hot and close, though the smell of the garbage hadn’t taken over yet.

The sun had heft to it and it fell over her bare shoulders like a lover’s arm.

Instead of heading toward the subway, she turned east toward Central Park. A hike in heels that pinched her toes, but such was life.

In Ryan’s reality, everything had a price. No pleasure came without its sorrow. No joy without its despair. And perhaps losing her job on top of the vague despondence she felt over the letter in her bag was overkill, but karma was a bitch, and sometimes she took more than her due.

Still, she thought, dodging a couple holding hands on their way to work, the fact that she’d gladly pay the cost for another night with Harry might indicate she wasn’t quite done paying.