slipping through every moral of yours until none are left. Yet all of us who shame the city of endless nights always return one way or another. Hypocrites, the lot of us.
“I’m sorry,” I respond lamely. What do I say? I’m sorry I didn’t stay here and be with you, but I found another hottie and enjoyed him? Did I, though... enjoy him?
Yes. My body doesn’t hurt in the wrong ways like it did in Paris. After that morning...
This feels like I let loose, explored a man, and got too drunk. Am I selectively regretting or forgetting something important? Can’t believe I was so reckless while in the presence of men. Not all good men, I’m sure.
“Did you have fun?” He doesn’t grill me or ask with malice. Like he cares, he sits on the sofa in the front room. With a wine glass in hand and soft features, he waits for my response. He’s so sophisticated. Too mature for me. Too much my friend’s dad...
“I don’t remember,” I reply honestly. I don’t know why I find myself being open, but I am. He nods, his face curious as he pats the seat next to him. I make my way over, wanting to know how he makes me feel so comfortable.
“I remember those days. The forgetting. Getting high and drinking until I got alcohol poisoning with munchies on the side. It’s not fun. Don’t do that.” He chuckles, fingering the edge of his glass, almost stuck in the past. “It didn’t last long, though; the reminder of what my life became kind of drowned that out.”
This is the most we’ve spoken that hasn’t been flirtatious and hot. He’s giving me an opening, and I’ll be damned if I don’t take it.
“Was it your release?” It’s a simple question. Simple for folks who don’t struggle. Ones who live blissfully where nothing seems to go on. But for people like him and me—the ones who hide their battles in smiles and charity events—it’s a gun, waiting for the bullet to be chambered, giving an ultimate destruction.
“Until I met her.”
“Who?” I question. Not out of jealousy or worry, but plain curiosity.
“Gray.” It’s a simple one-word answer, but as I look into his raging storm eyes, I know it’s anything but. When I sit next to him, my leg bumps his accidentally. As I try to move from my mistake, he grips my bare thigh. Warmth spreads through me, starting from where our skin connects and causing a flush all across my body.
“What do you mean met?” I attempt to direct his attention to anywhere but my thigh and the goose bumps he left in his path.
“We just met,” he whispers, emotion sticking to every word like glue, molding to each letter, marking their memory like tree roots to the ground. Chills break out over my skin as confusion settles in. The ebb and flow of his pain, wrapped in the air, whizzing erratically like my heart, flows over me, absorbing me, telling me there’s so much more than I could imagine.
Breathe, Joey.
Letting out the stale air in my lungs, I ask him so many questions with my eyes, hoping he sees them and answers each one. Because while I may be brave on a good day, exhaustion overwhelms me and keeps me from spouting off each one.
“Francis,” I mutter, not knowing how to force him to go on. How do you? It’s his story, his pain, his history. It’s not something that should matter to me. We’ve just met, after all. But I care, even if just for the sake of him and his daughter.
“I mentioned my ex...” When I nod, he accepts this as a cue to go on. “She was the love of my life. Or so my seventeen-year-old self thought. Putting a smile on her face brought me the most joy I had ever experienced. Honestly, I was just a love-struck idiot.”
I’m entranced, and he hasn’t said anything I haven’t heard from anyone who lost a first love. Regret. Hurt. Cynicism. His face doesn’t give a ton away either, just knowledge and acceptance. He burned his burdens, eradicating them from his soul, and rose from the ashes in return.
“She knew everything about me. My family, our royal bloodline, the inheritance...” he veers off. I flinch, thinking of how Dad always warned me not to date beneath me—that in doing so, they’d only love me for what I was financially worth.
“I’m so sorry,” I finally say, my heart breaking with the