Filed to story: Can’t Get Enough Of You
The real world.
Sure, I was rich, but I knew a thing or two about life. It was easy to hate a rich guy, but they didn’t know the whole story. Not half of it.
When I finished up and drove home, it was last afternoon, and I still couldn’t stop thinking about Carey.
It wasn’t just that the sex with her had been amazing. Everything about her was amazing. And I hadn’t had that in a long time-if ever. I wanted to talk to her at least another time.
I wanted to get her number so that we could stay in touch. I was going to study in New York, but LA was my home. I’d still come back for visits.
When everything was taken care of at the apartment, I drove back to Café Noir. Her shift had been late afternoon yesterday. I was hoping I would run into her again, so that I could get her number. So that we could talk.
So she could tell me why she’d left so early without even saying goodbye.
Hell, something like that would have made me happy if it was any other woman. Having to tell them to leave was always such a pain in the ass, and most of the time, they wanted more when I wasn’t willing to give it.
Now, I’d met the one woman I would have liked to see again, and she was the one that managed to slip away.
It hit me like a fucking ton of bricks.
I walked into the café and sat down at a table on the other side of the floor. I ordered a late lunch and a beer, and watched the people who came and went. After a while, a new shift of servers came to replace the old ones.
Still no Carey.
I stayed until well after the dinner rush, and finally realized that I was being an idiot.
She wasn’t going to come in tonight.
And I had to get back home so that I could be ready to catch my flight first thing in the morning. My apartment had come partially furnished, so I had a bed to sleep on and a TV to break up the silence.
Putting her out of my mind was a disappointment. I’d really hoped I was going to see her again, even if it was just for a conversation, a coffee or something, to cap off the time we’d spent together.
With her leaving without a goodbye, it was so open-ended. And I would have liked to spend more time with her.
I would have liked to take a long shower the next morning, running my hands over her soapy body before getting breakfast together, instead of finding my bed empty. I would have liked to get to know more about who she was, and where she was headed in life.
The one night I’d had with Izzy just hadn’t been enough.
But there was nothing I could do about it now.
I climbed into my car and drove back to my apartment. I grabbed a beer out of my fridge and wandered around the place, making sure everything was packed and ready. I’d already said goodbye to all my friends in LA at the going-away party for Austin and me two days earlier. I’d kept my last day in town free to take care of any last-minute details that arose.
Now here I was, on my last night in LA, and I was all alone.
After flicking through the TV channels and finding nothing to watch, I ended up going to bed.
My mind was filled with her, but I pushed the thoughts away.
Tomorrow, I was going to New York, and then I probably wouldn’t see Izzy ever again.
Better to treat it like all the other hookups I’d had-forget about it.
I’d gotten what I wanted, which was to sleep with her. And that was it. She’d gotten the same.
The fact that there had been so much more between us than just sex?
Well, I’d have to stop thinking about that.
Sometimes, these little amazing things came across our paths, but they weren’t meant to be.
Maybe it was the same with Izzy.
It had to be.
I couldn’t bear the other possibility-that I’d just lost someone amazing.
Carey
A couple of weeks passed, and I couldn’t put Nolan out of my mind.
But I had so much other shit to deal with, too, like the breakup with Ryan.
Besides, Nolan had left. There was no reason for me to keep thinking about him.
He and I had had a magical night together, but it had been a one-night stand. No matter how incredible it had been, and what it had shown me I’d missed during my relationship with Ryan, it hadn’t erased the fact that my life had somehow fallen apart in the blink of an eye.
And despite all that, Nolan was all I could think about.
“You should call him,” June said. We sat at Farina, a café on the other end of the neighborhood from where I worked. When I had days off, the last place I wanted to be was Café Noir.
“I can’t,” I said, popping a potato fry into my mouth. “I don’t have his number.”
“I can’t believe you haven’t made an effort to find him yet,” June said. “After what you told me about him, he’s amazing in every way. And that’s totally what you need. Not that loser Ryan.”
“I know,” I said. “But I still have to deal with the breakup. I mean, I need to get over Ryan, you know? I can’t just jump headfirst into another relationship if I haven’t really gotten over the first one. I wouldn’t want someone like Nolan to be a rebound. He’s too perfect to screw it up like that.” I swished another fry through a puddle of ketchup. “Besides, he left. Remember? No point in pursuing something that can’t happen.”
June took a sip of her soda and nodded. “Yeah, okay. I get that. You’re totally noble. It’s just weird that he’s so great, and you don’t want to contact him.”