My plans to study in the library flopped. A quick text in the group chat revealed that my friends were grabbing noodles at a local Thai place. I pre-gamed with the burrito as I walked down the street and I finished it at the table, taking the last bite moments after placing in my order with the waiter.
There still wasn’t any reply from Massimo, but I wasn’t surprised. In his defence, it hadn’t been more than half an hour, but I just knew that I wouldn’t be getting a reply from his today. Perhaps, not ever, and the sooner I got used to that idea, the better it would be for me.
“What’s got you looking so gloomy?” Nala asked.
When I didn’t answer straight away, she leaned over to nudge my shoulder with mine.
“Yas?” Rizwan called out to me from across the table, a concerned look on his face.
“Sorry, what?” I asked, snapping out of the daze.
“What’s up with you?” Nala asked.
“You’ve been kind of zoned out since you got here,” Tia asked, her lips tugged down in a small from where she had her head rested on Ethan’s shoulder while he finished off her leftover noodles and spring rolls.
“’I’ve just got a lot on my mind. Nothing big,” I shrugged, hoping we could dismiss the topic and move on, but I should have known that it wouldn’t be as simple as that. Not with my group of friends.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Rizwan asked, wiping his mouth on a napkin, having just finished eating.
“Not particularly, no,” I sighed and rubbed my hands down my face, tired. “I think I just woke up on the wrong side of the ball this morning.”
“I call bullshit,” Ethan chuckled. Now that he was finished with his meal, he threw his arm over the back of Tia’s chair and pulled her closer.
Watching them just reminded me of Massimo and I couldn’t help but pull a face at the thought.
“I agree with Ethan,” Tia nodded. “There’s clearly something wrong with you, and don’t pretend like you’ve just slept funny or woken up in a funny mood.”
“You guys can be really persistent if you want,” I groaned and brushed my hair back over my shoulder. My lips tugged down in a small smile as I glanced around the table. “I may or may not have gotten laid the other night.”
“Wait! When?” Tia exclaimed as she pushed herself off Ethan and into a sitting position, her voice a mixture of shock and excitement.
“Did you or did you not get laid?” Nala asked, her lips pulled up at the corners to match the grin on my face.
“I did,” I chuckled and nodded.
“When?” Ethan asked, though it looked like it was more for Tia’s sake as she struggled with her words than for his own.
“Tuesday morning.”
“Tuesday morning?” Tia asked, her eyebrows furrowing together as she thought hard. “But you were working a night shift Tuesday morning.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at all the confused faces around the table and when I finally got to Rizwan, he matched my laugh.
“You dirty dog!” Rizwan laughed, leaning over the table to hold his fist out for me to bump with my own.
“Are you telling me that you got fucked while you were at work?” Nala gasped, looking conflicted about whether she was supposed to be proud of me or still unable to believe that I had actually done that.
“It kind of just happened, okay?” I chuckled.
“Who was it?” Tia asked, an eager grin on her face, and I just knew that she was dying to ask me for all the details. But then her face was quick to transform into a look of horror. “Please don’t tell you fucked Conor when he arrived to take over from you.”
“Of course, not,” I was quick to deny, pulling a face. “It was actually a customer.”
“I can’t believe you fucked a customer!” Nala gasped again and I couldn’t help but laugh. She had always been the most dramatic out of all of us, but this had to be taking the cake. The way she was gasping and looking all flushed and bothered by this, you’d think that I was going into explicit detail about the way Massimo had ploughed into me from behind.
I mean, I could, but I wouldn’t be doing myself any favours reminding myself just how great that one time with him was.
“Well, I did. Anyway, I’m a little embarrassed to admit this but he said he would come see me again the next day while I was at work, and he didn’t. It’s now been three days since we’ve fucked, and let me tell you, it was the best fuck of my life, and he hasn’t tried reaching out to me yet.”
“Did he call you?” Ethan asked, starting to look quite invested into the story now that he had more of a back story.
“No,” I shook my head. “I haven’t got his number, but we did add each other on Instagram.”
“Show me,” Tia all but demanded, holding her hand out expectantly in front of her.
“What? No,” I scoffed and shook my head.
“Why not?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at me in suspicion. “Is it a regular customer?”
“I’m not going to say anything,” I denied with a swift shake of my head.
It was already bad enough that I had told her this much. Tia was persistent and she would continue to ask me until I eventually told her what she knew. And as soon as she found out that I had fucked Massimo Mancini, I would never be able to hear the end of this.
I would always laugh and play it off like it was a joke, but secretly, it would hurt. It would only serve as a reminder that he wasn’t interested in me in the way that I was in him.
I wasn’t willing to admit it out loud, but I had never felt this way about someone before. Especially not so soon after knowing them.
But Massimo was different. I could feel it…or rather, that was what I thought before he decided to ghost me.
“What about you?” Rizwan asked me. “Have you tried messaging him?”
“I did earlier,” I sighed, suddenly remembering my phone which was still buried at the bottom of my bag. For a moment, I was tempted to reach in there and retrieve it but had to force myself to hold back.
I already knew he wouldn’t message me back so what was the point of checking obsessively? I would only be hurting myself by checking.
“I messaged him on Instagram, but I really doubt that he’d reply,” I shrugged and attempted a small smile. “Anyway, it’s not a big deal. I’m sure I’ll get over it,” I said, meaning him. Massimo. “Soon enough, but since you guys asked, I thought I might as well just be honest with you.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, babe,” Tia pouted sadly, the look endearing. “He’s a dickhead for saying he’d come to see you again and then ghosting you. You don’t deserve this.”
“Yes, he is and no, I don’t. But it is what it is, I guess,” I chuckled and shrugged, trying to come across as nonchalant but the sound was a little too bitter to be successful.
Tia was right. This was a dickhead move from Massimo however, unfortunately, I was struggling to see it that way.
“He must have been a really good fuck to get you so worked up over him like this,” Nala murmured, studying me. “I’ve never seen you so bothered over a guy like this before.”
“It was more than just a good fuck,” I found myself admitting in a small voice, surprising even myself. “We’d been talking for a little bit,” I said, purposely leaving out the part where the talking stage had only lasted two days, and now, looking back, I wasn’t even sure if serving him coffee two days in a row could be considered the talking stage. “And I really felt a connection to him. This is sappy and it feels wrong coming from me, but I’ve never felt like this about anyone before.”
“You’re right. It is sappy,” Ethan chuckled, clearly intended to lift the heaviness of the mood and for his sake, I offered him a small smile.
“You should forget about him, Yas,” Rizwan said, sending me a small smile. “Great sex or not, he’s not worth your time. If he was, he wouldn’t have broken his word like that.”
“Yeah, I know,” I sighed and attempted a smile, though judging by the look on Rizwan’s face upon reception, I was pretty sure that it was more of a grimace. “I’m assuming no one stopped by last night or this morning at work asking about me?” I asked, directing my attention to Tia.
“Sorry, babe,” she smiled softly and shook her head.
“It’s fine,” I chuckled, hoping to play it off cool. “I didn’t think he would. I shouldn’t have asked in the first place.”
I could tell that my friends felt sorry for me, and that sucked because that was the last thing I wanted. Sure, I was bummed about Massimo ghosting me after such great sex and feeling like we had a real connection there, but I would get over it soon enough. Time was a great healer, after all.
However, I was glad that I opened up to them. It was much healthier talking about what I was feeling right now, even if they were fleeting, than keeping it bottled in and letting it eat away at me.
And they were right. If Massimo chose not to call me back, then that was his loss, not mine.
-
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Layla Knight
26.01.2022
