“I’ll take that under advisement,” he said before waving to an unknown person across the club and wandering off.
He’d tried two more times with the same disastrous results.
Finally at midnight, he thought he was onto something.
Desiree had just moved here from Miami.
“Thought I’d see what New York has to offer,” she said.
“It has me,” Gray said with a stupid grin. She smiled back. They chatted for a little while and she seemed like a fun woman who was struggling to find her way in the big city.
“Do you want to go back to my place? I have an early appointment, but that doesn’t mean we can’t party until it’s time to go.”
“Sounds good.” Gray nodded. She hadn’t said anything about it just being for one night. “Let’s go.”
He steadied her when she slid off her stool, noticing for the first time that she was a bit more drunk than he’d thought. Shit. He didn’t sleep with wasted girls.
“Hey, maybe we can just stay here and talk for a while.”
“No. No.” She slurred. “Do you know where we can score some blow?”
The word blow had made him laugh when Trent and Tiffany giggled like fifth graders the night before. In this sentence, however, he didn’t find the word amusing at all.
He held up his hands in surrender.
“And now I’m out. Sorry, that’s not my thing. You should call a cab.”
“Asshole,” she spat as she stumbled away.
He ran his fingers though his hair, or tried to until they got stuck in all the hair product.
“This is ridiculous,” he muttered as he headed for home, cursing Alyssa unjustly for ruining his life.
Chapter 3
“I don’t know what to do,” Alyssa said as she hung her head in her hands at her desk. On top of everything else, it was Monday morning.
The chat with Sasha had gone as expected. Keeping her out of their apartment that night she’d spent with Grayson had been the last straw. Now she needed to find a new place to live.
“It will be okay. We’ll figure something out,” Freddie said as he gave her the most non-sexual shoulder rub she ever had. “You can stay with Link and me for a little while.”
“You can crash on my sofa but only until it gets hot,” Mia offered. “In a few weeks, my bedroom will be sweltering so I’ll need to sleep in my living room next to the air conditioner.”
“Thanks guys,” Alyssa said with a forced smile. “I’ll figure something out.” As desperate as she was, she didn’t want to impose on her friends. That was what had gotten her into this mess. She couldn’t imagine losing Mia or Freddie because they didn’t work out as roommates. Besides, it was important she find a way to make it on her own.
“How long did she give you?”
“Two weeks, but I don’t know if I want to take her up on it for fear she’ll stab me in my sleep,” Alyssa explained.
“You really pissed her off when you kept her out of the apartment.” Freddie winced.
“I know, but if you had been with the guy I was with, you would have done the same thing. Besides, how many times have I needed to crash with one of you because she’s done the same thing to me? It should go both ways.”
“Everyone knows the roommate rules. It’s the reason I don’t usually have a roommate. I don’t want to miss an opportunity if someone gets there first,” Mia said with a chuckle.
“Unfortunately, the rules don’t apply to her.”
“Did you put a sock on the door?”
“I might have forgotten the sock.” Alyssa laughed while they both hugged her.
“We’ll take you out to lunch today,” Mia offered as she and Freddie went off to their desks.
“Thanks.” Alyssa appreciated her friends immensely, but lunch was not going to help in this situation.
The only apartments she found that she could afford on her own and wouldn’t run a credit check weren’t fit to live in or were in Jersey. Any money she saved on rent would go for transportation. Not to mention how early she would need to get up to get to work.
Thanks to her previous stupidity, she had bills that made it nearly impossible to support herself. She was haunted by her past every month when her credit card statement came.
With great reluctance, she sent her mother an email.
She would never ask her mother for money, mainly because she knew how tight things had always been for them when she was growing up. Her mom wasn’t sitting on a huge savings that allowed her to just shell out a security deposit for an apartment.
What her mother could offer was Alyssa’s old room. The thought of moving back to Albany made Alyssa’s latte twist in her stomach.
If she didn’t have to work late some nights at the office, she could get a second job, but even that might not get her on her feet.
“This sucks,” she said to herself as she deleted the email and shook her head. She knew what she needed to do. Apologize to Sasha.
That night when Sasha got home from work at two, Alyssa was waiting.
“Hey, can we talk?” Alyssa asked.
“About when you’re leaving?” Sasha said in a curt tone.
“Kind of. I was wondering if we might be able to work this out.”
“You locked me out.”
“You lock me out all the time.” Alyssa worked hard not to raise her voice.
“Please.” She put up her hand in a stop gesture. “I just think it would be better if I had the place to myself. There’s really not room for both of us here.”
That was true. There was hardly enough room for one person let alone two.
“Okay. I guess I’ll work it out,” Alyssa said with a sigh and fell back against her pillow on the love seat.
The next morning, she was determined to do something. She waited the hour after her supervisor came in to approach her about the possibility of a raise or overtime.
“As you know I have a degree in business. Would it be possible for me to take on a client instead of just doing clerical work?”
“You knew when we hired you that you would have to work your way up.”
“Yes. I understand that. I have no problem with that. Except I’ve been here for almost two years and I haven’t moved anywhere at all.”
“It takes time. We don’t have any openings at the moment. I’ll keep you in mind when the next one comes available.”
“Sure. Thanks.”
Alyssa took a deep breath and went back to her desk, defeated.
On Wednesday, she finally sent the email to her mother about the possibility of moving back home.
There was no answer.
Thursday she sent another email and a text telling her mother to look at her emails.
No answer.
Friday afternoon she finally received an email:
Hi Sweetie,
I’m sorry you are having trouble in New York. Of course you can come home if you need to. It just breaks my heart to see you giving up on