It wasn’t like when I fucked a random girl, which is what I’d been doing for the last four years. It was so much more. There’d been eye contact and touching. I actually cared about how she felt and whether or not she got off. It felt so wrong and so right all at the same time.

I could hardly believe my eyes when I walked into my bathroom and found her naked in my bathtub. I watched her as she bathed. The way the light reflected off of her moist skin and the way she’d rubbed the water and soap onto her body. I thought for a second I was going to come in my pants right then.

It had been so long since I’d been with a woman, and when she told me she touched herself with thoughts of me, I was done. There was no way I would’ve been able to control what happened next.

How was she able to pull me back in that way? And why wasn’t I able to just blow it off as a fuck like I usually did? It was as if she’d weaved some crazy web of innocent seduction all around me and I was stuck and couldn’t get out. I was thoroughly tangled in her snare and I fucking hated it.

When I turned around, Zeke was standing there staring back at me.

“You okay, man?” he asked calmly.

Nothing shocked Zeke and he was always so chill about everything.

“Yeah, I’m good. Just need to blow off some steam,” I said as I rubbed my busted knuckles.

“Want to talk? There’s some beers in the fridge.” He started toward the kitchen.

I followed behind him. He tossed me a beer over the counter and I popped it open and sucked down half of it.

Zeke and I weren’t big on heart-to-heart talks, but I guessed if anyone understood relationships, it would be him. And while the rest of the guys would have ragged me about it, Zeke would understand since he was in a relationship.

I spent the next hour telling Zeke all about Faith. He listened carefully and shook his head from time to time. He almost spewed beer on himself when I told him that our new maid was the Faith I was talking about.

“Damn, man. That’s fucked up,” he said. “So what are you going to do about her?”

“I don’ t know. She makes me fucking crazy,” I said as I took another swig from my third beer.

He chuckled softly to himself. “That’s all women. They’re nuts, but love makes you that way. Don’t let the past get in the way of your future, dude. If you love her, you have to try. Pride’s a bitch, but it’s not worth losing the girl you love.”

He gave my shoulder a squeeze as he stood up from his stool and walked by me. “If you need to talk again, you know where I am.”

I watched him walk away. His words moved around in my head while I finished my beer.

I spent the rest of the night mentally kicking my own ass. I felt bad for the things I’d said to Faith, and even when I pulled out her letter and read it, it still didn’t anger me enough to not worry about whether or not I’d hurt her. I clutched her cross in my palm until I was sure it would puncture my skin and I’d bleed all over—bleed for her the way she swore she bled for me.

I drowned myself in vodka with Chet and Tiny when they got home and smoked so much cush that I went into my room and passed out. I had dreams of her face in pleasure. I could practically hear her moaning in my sleep. I had dreams of her body as she took me in and held me like no other woman ever had.

I woke the next morning feeling even worse. I couldn’t help but hope she came back to work so we could talk things out. Obviously, there were lies floating around. I figured that out when she mentioned the letter I’d written to her. I never wrote her letter. Honestly, I hadn’t even known where she was even if I wanted to send her a letter. If there really was a letter out there from me to her, it wasn’t a real one. And if hers wasn’t real, who’s to say the letter I got from her wasn’t real either?

My brain was practically smoking I was thinking so many things. Finally, I had to climb out of bed and move or I was going to make myself crazy. I needed to stop thinking for just a second and take a few deep breaths. Things were getting chaotic in my mind, and I didn’t want to have a meltdown.

I went into the kitchen and pulled open the fridge. Orange juice spilled down my chest as I downed it straight out of the carton. After finding a Pop-Tart in the cabinet, I sat on a barstool and devoured it. Anything that made me feel better at that point was my friend—food was my friend.

It was then that I noticed her purse sitting on the counter. I looked around to see if maybe she’d come in when I wasn’t paying attention, but she was nowhere to be seen. Everyone else was still in bed so the condo was completely quiet. If she was anywhere cleaning, I would’ve heard her.