Page 1 of Shortcake
Prologue
Addy
Three Halloweens Ago…
It’s a simple known fact that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else. A fact that I’d lived by most of my dateable years.
I exited the bathroom of the Lower East Side bar, the soles of my patent leather four-inch boots gliding along the greasy wood plank floors with each careful step I took. Looking down at my Halloween costume, I made sure I was still appropriate.
Or rather, as appropriate as a sexed up, skin-baring cop costume I’d gotten last minute at the party store could be.
It’d been a hell of a week. An even shittier two days. I thought I’d be here, in the greatest city in the world, with my boyfriend. Or rather, fiancé. I’d had big plans for my birthday trip with him. We were to meet at LaGuardia airport. Spend the week in New York and party on Halloween, the day after my birthday.
I’d made a silly sign with his name on it like limo drivers did for when his flight landed. I saw him across the terminal and ran toward him. It’d been weeks since I’d seen him. Held him. Kissed him.
Long distance relationships sucked.
I was never a traditional kind of girl. And after two years of the long distance thing? I was done. I was ready to start my life with him. Tired of only the short bits of time between business trips that he could come to Maple Grove, NH to visit me.
So after he’d scooped me into his arms and kissed me, I sank to one knee and presented him with the very ring that he had won for me on our first date at the county fair.
There, in front of thousands of strangers rushing to and from their destinations, I asked him to be my husband.
And there, in front of thousands of strangers rushing to and from their destinations… he said no.
Pushing the awful memory from my mind, I adjusted the crop top police shirt and flicked the fake plastic badge pinned to my left tit. Wrapping my hand around the door handle, I walked into the seedy bar on the corner outside of my hotel room, looking up at the neon sign that was flickering. Chillerz with az.
I didn’t want to think about yesterday. The most humiliating day of my life. Instead, I slipped a five dollar bill into the cocktail waitress’s palm and grabbed a neon green shot off of the tray she carried.
Tipping it back, it went down smooth and sweet, like candy. Then, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, slamming the empty down on the bar as I scanned the crowd for my target.
The man who was going to help me get over Dante.
Dante, whose face sank as soon as the words, “Will you marry me,” left my lips.
Dante, who was eight years older than me and supposed to have his shit together.
Dante, who traveled the world for work.
Dante, who had looked me in the eyes two years ago and swore to me that someday he’d take me on those tours of the world with him.
Dante, who was a big fucking liar and who was married with a family in Ohio.
Across the bar, I spotted him.
No, not Dante.
Him.
The man who would help me move on from fucking Dante and his fucking secret family.
His head was down, bent over his phone, a full pint of frothy beer sat untouched on the bar next to him.
Full head of dark hair. A sharp line down his angled nose and the light from his screen illuminated full lips that he worried as his thumb slowly scrolled from the bottom of the screen to the top.
He was probably about Dante’s age. Maybe a little older. But that’s how I liked ‘em. I preferred older men. Guys my age were idiots. More interested in playing beer pong and getting their dicks wet than having a meaningful conversation.
Then again, maybe Dante just disproved my theory about older men.
