Hooked #2 (The Hooked Romance Series - Book 2) by Claire Adams Page A

waited
for me. Nothing.
    The sun was higher now in Wicker Park. Across some
of the buildings, I could see the Four Seasons hotel in which I knew Drew was
sleeping. I wondered if he was hunting around for his new bookstore location; I
wondered if he was thinking about me.
    I took the train out to the lake that crisp morning
and put my tennis shoes to the pavement along the pulsing water, hoping to
pound an inch of energy, of life back into my brain. My phone played loud music
into my ear, and I felt small tears streamline down my face. I remembered my
mother, back home in Indiana, telling me that Chicago would never work for me.
At twenty-four years old, I knew, in my heart, that she was right; perhaps
nothing I truly wanted would work.
    But where did that leave me?
    I didn’t know.
    I huffed and puffed back to the train. Before
entering, I bought a large pastry at a side bakery, where the crescent rolls,
the donuts, the pain au chocolats gleamed in the bright light. The woman who handed the pastry to me had sagging
skin and a cragged smile. “You have a nice day, dear,” she yammered to me as
she handed me several hundred calories, wrapped in a simple brown package. As I
removed the monstrous jelly pastry, I remembered all the years I had watched my
weight for dance purposes. Now that dance had kicked me to the curb in every
arena of the world, I found myself on the side of the road, eating a jelly
pastry. And some small part of me didn’t care at all.
    In my pocket, my phone began to buzz. Irritated, I
wiped my hand on my jacket and picked it up. The name DREW blasted across the
screen. Shit. Now, not only had I lied to Drew about being a   PR major looking for work throughout the
great city—with an assistant, to boot—I had also lied to him about myself on a
few other levels. I had built a sense of confidence, a sense of sexual prowess
with him that I knew I couldn’t match in my current state. I had built a small
notion of love for him inside my soul. And I was further certain that if I saw
him, I would become gooey, off-center.
    Which is why his text message, which said; “Meet for
Lunch in the Park?” was ignored easily. I stuck my phone back in my pocket and
caught the train back home. Netflix, a bottle of afternoon wine, and some
serious cat cuddling was in my future. This, ladies and gentleman, was a
twenty-four-year-old woman without hope, without a plan.

 
    Drew texted me later that day, around lunchtime.
“Wish you were here. Couldn’t decide between a burrito and a sandwich, so I
went with a pretzel. This was a big mistake, only avoided with your
assistance.”
    I imagined him typing this with great care in line
at some dumb deli, and I shivered as I ate day-old macaroni and cheese from a
yellow bowl. Melanie had called me a few times to try to pound me with hope.
“We can fight this! We can!”
    But I had already moved on. Between Netflix movies,
each with a sappy ending, I had looked up receptionist jobs throughout Chicago.
I had looked up waitressing jobs in my hometown, dismal Indianapolis. I had
read eight blogs about the Peace Corps, because options for my life were
unending—and also seriously unappealing. I wanted to dance. That was all I had
ever wanted. But, because it was no longer in the cards for my life, picturing
myself in a tiny hut on the coast of Africa, trying to restore a sense of world
peace was my next option.
    Life was bleak. The sun had never really escalated
in the sky beside my apartment, and thus the day was grey, crowded with a sort
of angry fear. Every person I saw on the train, every person I saw on the
street seemed to frown eternally.
    The days sort of filtered on like this, as well. I
sent out a message to all of my students, from the over-fifties to the
youngsters, to tell them what had happened; that I would ultimately need to
close. Some of them hadn’t yet paid for their sessions. (I had never quite
gotten around to nagging them hard enough, so grateful I was