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January 26, 2003
My ass might have been parked on Jason’s swanky leather sofa, but my mind was on the empty apartment across the parking lot. The one I used to call home. The one I’d shared with my rock-star boyfriend, Hans, until I found him in bed with one of my best friends. The one I’d trashed on my way out the door, taking everything that wasn’t nailed down with me.
Okay, I might have taken some of the nailed down stuff, too.
It had been six weeks since the breakup from hell, and even though I wasn’t quite ready to revisit the scene of one of the worst days of my life, my friend and former neighbor, Jason, was having a Super Bowl party, and I needed a fucking drink.
Jason lived in the newest, tallest, fanciest building in the Midtown Village apartment complex. His unit had stainless steel appliances. Mine had Formica countertops and an apocalyptic ant infestation. During the months I’d spent pacing my vinyl floor and wondering where the fuck my live-in boyfriend was, Jason’s place had become my home away from home. His friends had become my friends. And his plush Italian leather sofa—frequented by beer-drinking boys, double-malt scotch–drinking men, and a certain Gatorade-drinking guy—was a far more comfortable place to pout than my empty apartment.
Jason plopped down next to me on his sofa and threw his arm around my shoulders. He smelled like designer aftershave, and his crisp khakis barely creased when he rested his left ankle on his right knee.
“I missed you, girl.”
Jason was only three years older than me, but he was already pulling down six figures a year at an IT firm and dealing recreational drugs on the weekend “to raise capital for his start-up.” I, on the other hand, was an impoverished college student who still wore wifebeaters and combat boots like the ’90s hadn’t ended three years ago, worked a part-time job at Macy’s, and couldn’t even get my shit together enough to maintain a hairstyle. While I’d been busy trying not to have a nervous breakdown those last few weeks, my once-fierce platinum-blonde pixie cut had grown into something resembling a fluffy two-tone mushroom.
“I know, man. I missed you, too. Thanks for inviting me.”
“Thanks for coming. I thought it was gonna take a goddamn miracle to get you back here.”
I giggled. “You can’t say goddamn and miracle in the same sentence. It makes no fuckin’ sense.”
“You make no fuckin’ sense,” Jason sassed back, shaking his head from side to side.
“Ooooh…burrrrn.” I rolled my eyes as he downed the contents of his glass in one swallow.
“I’ma go get a refill. You need anything?”
“Nah, I’m good.” I smiled, sipping my Johnnie Walker Red or Blue or Black or whatever the hell color he’d given me.
I had just settled in for a long night of staring at the TV, fighting off his yuppie friends’ blatant sexual advances, and pretending like I knew jack shit about football when something by the door caught my eye.
No, not something.
Someone.
Time slowed down.
An invisible wind machine roared to life.
And Jason’s newest arrival waltzed in with the grace of a Grecian god.
Or perhaps a fallen angel, considering his wardrobe.
Jason’s mystery guest was tall and lean and dressed in black from head to toe.
He shrugged off his black wool coat and draped it over an armless chair in the entryway. He shoved the rolled-up sleeves of his black button-up shirt a little higher above his elbows, exposing two well-defined forearms. His shirt was tucked into a pair of black slacks that looked soft, not starched, and hung casually low on his hips. And, as he turned and glided toward the living room, he reached up and loosened the knot on a stylish, skinny black tie. Above that tie, I was pleased to discover a jawline that rivaled Captain America’s, cheekbones for days, and short light-brown hair that flipped up in the front effortlessly.
He looked like a bad boy with a good job and a great body, and I was definitely in the market for one of those.
I canceled my pity party, slurped the drool back into my face, and formulated a plan. I was either going to fall onto the floor at his feet and fake a seizure or pretend to be choking so that maybe he’d give me the Heimlich maneuver. Either way, I was positive that it would end with him thinking he’d saved my life and us forming an instant, unbreakable bond.
I was about to make a dive for it when I heard Allen, one of the regulars at Jason’s apartment, shout, “Ken!”
I looked around.
Ken?
Ken wasn’t at the party. I would know. Ken was my Gatorade-drinking, athletic-wear-wearing, smart-ass-comment-making, kind-of-cute-if-you’re-into-clean-cut-jocks—which I most definitely was not—sometimes study buddy. He wasn’t—
