His To Breed

Chapter 4

~ Trinity ~

The dating app stays open long after I’ve stopped paying attention to it.

Faces slide past beneath my thumb. Smiling men standing beside mountains. Dogs. Boats. Gym selfies. Bios carefully polished into the exact versions of themselves they want strangers to believe. Funny. Loyal. Honest. Adventurous. Looking for something real.

Maybe they are.

Maybe none of them are.

How am I supposed to know?

I tip the tequila bottle against my lips again, taking a longer drink this time before letting my head fall back against the couch. Warmth spreads through my chest, dulling the sharp edges that have been cutting at me all evening. I understand now why people drink after bad dates, even though tonight wasn’t a bad date at all.

That somehow makes it worse.

Kevin is everything I told myself I wanted.

Kind.

Patient.

Respectful.

Safe.

If I can’t make things work with someone like him, then I don't think I deserve to find love?

I scroll through another dozen profiles before tossing my phone onto the cushion beside me.

This is ridiculous.

No amount of swiping is ever going to tell me who somebody really is. A carefully chosen photograph can’t show whether someone loses their temper when they’re frustrated. A clever bio can’t tell me if they’ll keep a promise six months from now. You don’t discover people through a screen.

You discover them standing across from you.

Looking them in the eye.

Listening to the way they laugh.

Feeling whatever invisible thing exists between two people when they’re simply… right.

And if I’m ever going to find that, hiding inside this apartment certainly isn’t going to help.

I sit forward, staring at the half-empty bottle in my hand.

“Enough.”

The word comes out louder than I intended.

Before I can talk myself out of it, I stand and walk toward the hallway mirror.

My reflection looks surprisingly put together considering how defeated I feel.

My dark curls still frame my face the way they had when I left earlier. My lipstick has faded a little, but not enough to matter. The navy dress I’d spent nearly an hour choosing this afternoon still fits perfectly.

I don’t look like someone whose confidence collapsed outside her own front door.

Maybe that’s the problem.

Maybe courage isn’t something you wait to feel.

Maybe it’s something you decide to fake until one day it stops being fake.

I fish my lip gloss out of my purse and touch it up with slightly unsteady hands.

“Stop thinking,” I mutter to the woman staring back at me.

“Just do something.”

I cap the gloss, take another swallow of tequila for bravery I haven’t earned, then slip my heels back on.

Two blocks away sits the little nightclub Kat always drags me to whenever she decides I spend too many weekends behaving like a seventy-year-old librarian. The bouncers know her by name, the bartenders make drinks strong enough to erase embarrassment, and the dance floor always seems full of people too busy enjoying themselves to judge anyone else.

Maybe tonight I need that.

Not another date.

Not another carefully planned conversation.

Just music loud enough to drown out my own thoughts.

I grab my purse, lock the apartment behind me and head downstairs.

The night air hits my face the moment I step outside.

Cool.

Fresh.

Alive.

The sidewalks are still busy enough to feel safe. Couples wander past hand in hand. Friends laugh outside cafés that haven’t closed yet. A taxi crawls through the intersection while somebody somewhere plays music loudly enough for half the neighborhood to hear.

This city never really sleeps.

It simply changes personalities after dark.

I square my shoulders and start walking.

Each step feels steadier than the last.

“You’re fine,” I tell myself quietly.

“You’ve taken self-defense classes.”

“You know this neighborhood.”

“You’re not doing anything wrong.”

The words sound convincing enough that I almost believe them.

The club comes into view a few minutes later, its glowing sign spilling colored light across the sidewalk. Music vibrates faintly through the walls even from this distance, and a small line has already formed outside the entrance.

I smile.

Maybe this wasn’t such a terrible idea after all.

I take one final drink from the bottle, screw the cap back on and drop it into a public trash bin with a satisfying clunk.

“Fresh start,” I whisper.

As I continue toward the entrance, an uncomfortable sensation crawls across the back of my neck.

The unmistakable feeling that someone is watching me.

I glance over my shoulder.

Nothing.

Just an older couple strolling arm in arm, talking quietly between themselves.

A cyclist rides past.

A group of university students crosses at the traffic lights.

Normal.

Everything is completely normal.

I laugh at myself and shake my head.

“You’re being paranoid.”

Still…

The feeling doesn’t disappear.

It lingers just beneath my skin like an itch I can’t reach.

I force myself to keep walking.

Ten more steps.

Eight.

Six.

Then my stomach twists so violently I stop in the middle of the sidewalk.

“Oh…”

The tequila suddenly decides it’s had enough of me.

I clap a hand over my mouth and stumble toward the nearest alley, barely making it to a dumpster before I throw up.

The world blurs.

My knees tremble beneath me.

“Fantastic,” I mumble hoarsely, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

“So much for confidence.”

I try taking a step away from the dumpster.

The ground tilts.

The buildings seem to sway around me as though the entire street has climbed onto the deck of a ship.

Definitely too much tequila.

Definitely not one of my better ideas.

I press one palm against the brick wall, willing the dizziness to settle, but it only grows worse.

My legs give out without warning.

The concrete rushes toward me.

I land hard on my back, blinking up at a sky scattered with stars I don’t remember seeing a moment ago.

They’re beautiful.

Beautiful enough that I almost forget where I am.

My eyelids grow impossibly heavy.

“I should…”

The sentence never finishes.

Darkness quietly folds over everything.