Graham

That was the worst night’s sleep of my life. And I’ve slept in a coach seat on a red-eye across the country. Hell, I’ve hit the sack on the floor of my office for an hour of shut-eye after working all night.

But this tossing and turning sucks.

She’s not next to me when I wake, and that feels like an affront to the fabric of the universe. When I wander into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee, the sink reminds me of her.

The motherfucking sink.

The stove holds a memory, for Christ’s sake.

Good thing I don’t use it, or I’d think of her every time I cooked, and now I’ve found yet another reason to never make a meal I can’t take out or order in.

I heave a sigh, trudge back down the hall, and curse my bed once more for taunting me with images of her on it, in it, curled up with me.

Hell, it’s been less than twelve hours, and everything is a reminder of the woman I fell unexpectedly ass over elbow for.

It’s a cruel joke. Is this what a broken heart feels like? How does anyone endure this? Get through it? All I know to do when my mind is a traffic pileup is to run. Maybe it will work with a piled-up heart, too.

I pull on my basketball shorts, lace up some sneakers, and get the hell out of my lonely shell of a house.

Cue the sad song.

Yep, Taylor Swift, time to call me. I’ll inspire your next breakup tune.

I hit the sidewalk, lengthening my stride instantly, running hard so my mind goes as blank as it possibly can. So I can let the physical overpower the emotional.

I groan at the thought.

Emotions are not my strong suit. Hell, they’re not even in my deck.

All I can do is hope a workout will rid her from my mind. That has to be what the average guy does when he gets fucked by love, right?

Trouble is, a run is what I do to think.

To sort through problems at work.

To find solutions.

And my brain has a brilliant idea as I finish my workout outside of Central Park. It’s telling me to go talk to a friend.

But when I jog by the carousel in search of the food trucks, a long line snakes around the mint-green Luna’s Sweet’s vehicle. Despite my sour mood, I smile. I’m proud of my friend. I’m glad her business is thriving. And I won’t disturb her with my sorry story.

I turn around, lower my shades, and make my way out of the park, wandering past packs of cyclists speeding by and families out for Sunday afternoon picnics.

I’m half tempted to stop someone, anyone, and ask for help. Ask the harried mom wiping melted ice cream from her toddler’s hand what a note like this means.

“Thanks for being my teacher.”

I open the text once more, hunting for a hidden meaning as I walk down Sixth Avenue, weaving among the Sunday afternoon pedestrians.

This is like a note that says: Thank you for not smoking. Of course I'm not smoking, and of course I was happy to be her teacher. But I don’t feel like a teacher. I don’t think of her as my student. She’s the woman who has my heart. And I know we could be so much more. We could be everything.

But there’s no business book to tell me what the hell to do when you’ve fallen in love with your dead best friend’s sister who asked you to spend seven days seducing her. There’s no Forbes article on how to navigate that thorny situation.

Nor is there anyone in this city of millions I want to ask.

As I turn the corner on Fifty-Fifth Street, a familiar place draws me.

The St. Regis.

I blink, almost surprised I’m here.

But not entirely.

This is one of my places.

This is an anchor, and maybe that’s what I need right now.

As I head into the lobby, I picture the night with CJ. Only I’m not thinking of the stripping, though that was fantastic. I’m thinking of how we left together—as a team. How we found her brother’s cat. How we packed and returned to my place and fell asleep without screwing.

My mind jumps to the next night, to dinner, when I told her I was glad I could show her what she’d been missing, and she said two simple words in reply—me, too.

But it wasn’t the words. It was the way she said them. How she looked at me like there was more between us than just sex.

Like how it’s been for me, too.

I furrow my brow as I stand in the lobby, memories from the last week crashing into me, words I didn’t pay enough attention to at the time.

Before we made love. “I’m so glad it’s you.”

At the rink. “I do trust you.”

In the town car. “I’ll miss this.”

But more than the words, I linger on the look in her eyes. Was there more hidden there all along?

I don’t know the answer, but there’s one person I need to talk to. I call Luna’s wife.