The Thousand Words We Spoke (A Novella)

Chapter One

Mia felt like an old woman whenever she went out on the town with her friends. By ten o'clock she was ready to get her ass to bed, put on a movie, and fall asleep fifteen minutes in. Mia was a legal drinker for about two years, but was more or less over it after two months.

She hated crowds.

Hated parties.

Most of all, she hated not being in her pajamas and out of her bra as soon as she got home.

None of her friends allowed her to pace herself, either. If her drink went dry, they bought her another. Mia came up with a formula, though. Fifteen minutes, take a drink. Repeat. By the time she was done with the booze, her ice would be thawed and she'd be left with grenadine flavored water.

The hundred different perfumes wafting through the air were provoking a headache and the thumping base coming from the speakers wasn't helping matters. It did, however, flood out the sound of constant come-ons. The few occasions she heard the guy, she just yelled 'huh' a multitude of times until they gave up and sauntered away.

It wasn't the most refined of moves, but it was the most polite she could think of, and it did the trick.

Mia pushed her way through the swarms dancers. She couldn't dance for shit. Her mother compared her to Steve Martin in 'The Jerk' when she tried. She was fine swaying to a slower tempo, but once she tried moving along to dance music, she looked like she was having an upward seizure.

Spotting Zoey on the dance floor, Mia tugged at her arm. "I gotta go."

Zoey was drunk enough to not care about much of anything except the heavenly man remaining behind her as she danced. But their other, more sober friends were close by and would monitor her. She just saluted and kept on dancing.

The air was frigid when she stepped outside, the icy freshness of it filling and detoxifying her senses. It was too damn cold for mid-November and Mia wrapped her black coat around her as tight as it could go until a taxi pulled up in front of the club. She hopped in, relishing in the warmth of the vents turned on high. "1873, 147th Street, please."

"Sure thing."

And with that, they took off.

Mia watched the vivid lights of the city pass by in a blurry technicolor as they drove, becoming absorbed in her thoughts. She'd moved to this city for college and now that college was over with, there were few reasons to remain. While she cared for her job at the museum and loved her friends, she hated living in a city this vast. Rent was monumental, traffic was atrocious, and she was too damn polite to still be living there.

Her parents paid half her rent while her trust fund provided for the other half and her paycheck at the museum covered the remainder of her bills, but it wasn't just about the steep prices. Traffic didn't matter since she didn't own a vehicle. This city just didn't bring her any joy. It never had. A big part of her preferred to move back home, but then she'd have her last name following her around, controlling her destiny and demanding special treatment.

At least here she wasn't the offspring of the family who owned a decent portion of the city and the largest finance firm in the state. That was the only beneficial part about living away from the place she loved; anonymity.

It was a twenty-minute drive to her apartment and by the time she arrived at the front door, her feet were numbing and aching from the heels. Normally she'd take the stairs to the seventh floor, as that was her only source of exercise, but tonight it just wasn't worth it. Instead, she took the elevator and fished around for her keys in her purse as it took her up, spotting them when the doors parted for her.

She didn't know what two-thirds of the keys were for anymore, but if she took any off, Mia knew she'd end up locked out of some place in no time. She went through one at a time as she strode down the hallway, turning up the correct one just as she reached the door.

The sight of a guy passed out next to her door caused her to bounce back, landing her back against the taupe-colored walls. He had a baseball cap tucked over his face and two suitcases next to him and one beneath his head. She glanced up and down the hallway, wondering which apartment he was meant to go to, but surely someone would have claimed him before he'd fallen asleep.

"Excuse me," Mia said, giving him a soft tap with her sparkly black heeled shoe, "who are you trying to find?"

Too polite for the city and way too damn trusting. Anyone else would have just unlocked their door and hopped over him, twisting every lock on the inside once the door sealed behind them.

She knocked him again before he stirred, his hands reaching up to lift his baseball cap and rub his drowsy eyes. When they fell back to his side, she recognized that face as well as her own.

It belonged to the man who showed her how to ride a bicycle when her dad just couldn't find the time. The man who'd sent her over a hundred postcards over the last few years from all the places he'd visited. The man who called or texted her at midnight on every holiday since she was old enough to have a phone. No matter what the time difference was, he'd hit midnight in her time zone every time so he could be the first one to wish her a merry Christmas or happy birthday.

Her first friend.

Her first crush.

Her first Love.

Her first heartbreak.

And none of the real firsts she preferred he'd had.

Not that Mia had ever shared that with him. He had no clue. He was the younger brother of her father's best friend, who was also her godfather, only five years younger than they were and eighteen years older than her.

Eighteen years to the day.

When he messaged her 'happy birthday', she always sent the same back to him.

"Adam?"