Page 41 of The Right Player
But Belle was nowhere to be found.
By Thursday, I was worried. Had I said something wrong? Did I snore? Did the sex suck? But every question I came up with, I couldn’t find a reason for her to completely ignore me. Combing over our date, all I could see was her smiling, all I could hear was her laughter and her moans in my ear, all I could think of was what an amazing night it had been — and I knew she felt the same.
I also knew without a doubt that she did not think the sex sucked.
The way we’d fucked… the way she’d moaned and arched into me, the way she rode me on my kitchen floor, the way she’d pulsed around me when we both hit our climax at the same time… that entire experience was out of body, out of mind, completely wrapped up in a connection that only happens once in a lifetime.
Had she not felt it, too?
When I still hadn’t heard from her by Friday night, my worry was turning slowly to something else. It was all I could do not to drive over to her place, bang on her door, and demand she talk to me. I was tired of my emails and calls to her office being fielded to Gemma. I couldn’t bear to open her name in my phone and see the five unanswered text messages I’d sent her before I told myself I was being pathetic.
Here it was. Saturday. A full week since our date.
And I finally understood.
When I woke up this morning, I’d started wondering if I’d imagined her. Was she a vision I’d somehow willed into being with wanting so desperately to find someone? Did I make up the way she felt in my arms, the way my name sounded when it rolled off her perfect lips, the way her blue-green eyes lit up when she looked at me?
I’d survived my workout as if it was someone else doing it altogether, and then numbly sat alone watching film that I knew I wasn’t retaining anything from. Because my attention should have been focused on the television screen, but instead, my eyes kept drifting over everything new in my condo.
There was the giant sectional couch that I sat on, one Belle had carefully selected, keeping in mind how big I was, how I said I wanted to entertain, how I noted that I wanted warm, inviting colors. There was the bed I kept losing sleep in, and the geometric bar stools at the kitchen island, and the totem statue, made of teak, that was so far from the cheesy, commercialized tiki totem I’d imagined when she’d first explained it. It was modern and architecturally satisfying, a beautiful statement piece.
Every time my eyes wandered, I was even more upset. I’d see an art piece curated in my honor, or a combination of shapes and textiles and fabric that somehow captured exactly who I was as a person. And then, anger started seeping in.
It was when I got pissed that I could fully accept it.
She had ghosted me.
It didn’t take long for hurt to push anger out of the way, and that hurt settled in for the long haul, pitching a tent and building a fire. Here I had been opening myself up to this girl, and she’d been waiting to fuck so she could ditch me immediately after.
At least, that was my assumption.
In reality, I had no fucking idea what happened. I knew I could be a sucker when it came to pretty girls, but damn… I really had thought she was different. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how we had both been together for what felt like the most perfect date, and then woke up in two completely different realms.
Me, confused when I woke up alone and excited to see her again.
Her, already erasing me from her life.
And now, on a Saturday night I would have rather been spending with her, I was sitting at Doc’s bar, alone, trying to convince myself it wasn’t a big deal that I hadn’t heard from her while I polished off my third beer.
My phone was face up on the bar, as if that would somehow conjure Belle to call it. I stared at that phone like it was a cornerback who’d just stolen my pass and I was about to pummel it into the ground.
“Another?” the bartender asked, swiping my empty glass off the bar as soon as I’d downed it. His name was Dave, and he was a Chicago native, born and raised and in love with everything that the city was. He’d recognized me as soon as I sat down, and what I liked most about Dave was that he didn’t make a big deal of it. He didn’t call a bunch of attention to me, ask for a photo or an autograph, or ask me a million questions about the upcoming season.
