#mynextmistake

Thaddeus hadn’t been a good friend to anyone since he let his grief consume him. His friendship with Fraye had been suffering since before then. He’d been keeping everyone at arm’s length and aside from park visits or supporting whatever show, tv or stage, she was doing, he’d avoided her. No one could see him at his house, the code long since changed and every name removed from the neighborhood’s front gate’s welcome list in anyways. If someone wanted to see him, he went to them, but for the most part he’d make an excuse and not go. The truth was that he couldn’t stand being alone but he couldn’t stand being around other people either. This resulted in a bit of a clusterfuck of emotions that spiraled into numbing his loneliness with alcohol.

No, Thaddeus wasn’t a drunk. No, he didn’t have an addiction that couldn’t be stopped. He simply enjoyed a relaxing glass of scotch and a cigar to calm his nerves and as of late something was always keeping him on edge so he found himself partaking a bit more often than was healthy. Work was being work, keeping him busy and the end of the month would bring on another busy and chaotic situation that could potentially leave him dead. Trying to take his mind off of it he thought he’d spend a little bit of time in New York, catch up with a couple of people in the field over there, and head back to Los Angeles before anyone noticed he was gone. Then he noticed Fraye hadn’t won the dance show she was on and thought that he probably wasn’t alone in feeling miserable.

As he picked her up around two in the morning, they moved through LAX with bleary eyes. She passed out almost as soon as the plan too off, sinking low in the comfortable first class chairs and leaving him alone to his thoughts for the next five hours. She’d been excited for the get away and a promise of quality time with him, which always seemed to surprise him. He didn’t have much in the ways of a plan; brunch with his work connections while she got the spa treatment, walking the dogs in Central Park because it made no sense to have paid so much to bring them along if they’d be stuck in the pet friendly hotel, and at Fraye’s request they would be seeing the Friday evening Broadway performance of Finding Neverland. That was the Friday plan and Saturday they’d sleep in, grab a bite, and head to the William Secord Gallery with their dogs before heading back to the airport.

Fraye’s eyes hardly opened as they cabbie pulled them up to The Waldorf, leaving Thaddy to stack all four of the dog crates on a rack and head in. Fraye at least managed to wear her backpack, albeit in a sort of Quasimodo manner. They had a suite with two rooms and a separate sitting room and their view was absolutely spectacular. He missed New York and all its movement. It was easier for him to be distracted in New York than in LA, which was much more laid back. By the end of the weekend he wouldn’t feel that way, it would be back to noticing the negative attitudes and dirt and grime of the place and all the mistakes he made when he lived there.

The day went well, Fraye not minding the princess treatment while he met his “friends”, which were actually other undercover INTERPOL agents. They had to do this periodically, meet up and talk through bigger busts, scoping out who could help the other person most. Thaddy had a big job the last weekend of August and needed to let them know what the repercussions would be. Though plane tickets were cheaper this was a deeper way to get faster responses and read if someone had more to share or was fucking you over. People flipped and were double agents, he wasn’t but he wasn’t quick to trust people either, not in his line of work. It went well enough and he was eager to enjoy the rest of his short time in the big apple.

Fraye looked nice, obviously excited to see the show and go to a fancy dinner, but covering the dark circles under her eyes with makeup couldn’t mask the tinge of sadness on her face. They walked through the city with his arm draped over her shoulders, deep in conversation. He wasn’t all that interested in the show but didn’t mind it, happy to just see her happy. At dinner they talked, deep in conversation about Fraye’s life, him happy to ignore his own. The trip was an escape for both of them and the longer they talked the more she seemed to let her problems go.

They drank, a lot, at first it was just a shot while they waited to be seated. Then it was a second glass of wine before dinner because it was taking longer than expected for dinner to get to the table. Two more mixed drinks came for each of them as they talked through dinner. Come dessert they caved and got a bottle of chocolate wine, intrigued by the recommendation to have it with their dessert. The conversation hadn’t died out, spilling into more personal topics and the restaurant was thinning out. He paid the bill and they went into a quiet bar and took a seat in the back and they ordered a bottle, taking it in shots as they laughed through funny stories and dares.

A part of Thaddy knew that getting Fraye drunk, his usual way of easing a bad day, wasn’t going to help her in the long run, but she seemed to be having a good time and that was the point of the trip. The bartender called them a cab back to The Waldorf somewhere in the hour of three and they snorted as they fell into the cab. Fraye clung to his arm as they moved toward the elevator. It was New York, the city that never slept, but it was also The Waldorf and they got dirty looks as they fell into the lift. One of them suggested they sit as it moved up the near 50 flights so they didn’t vomit. She closed her eyes and her head fell on her shoulder. He kissed the top of her head and the doors opened. Thaddeus got up first and was overwhelmed by just how drunk he was. Recklessly trying to help Fraye to her feet she stumbled forward into his arms and he bumbled back into the wall.

For a brief moment they looked at each other. There weren’t thoughts or objections, all levels of sobriety long burned away with alcohol. When the kiss happened it was reckless, neither one particularly initiating it and neither capable of pushing the other away. The harder her soft lips pressed to his the closer he pulled her, both filling a void. Her tongue ran across his lips and his met hers. They impulsively got familiar with each others molars in the hallway until a door slammed and they practically jumped apart. They looked at each other, cackled, and shook their heads no.

After clumsily shoving the key in the room’s slot several time he realized his mouth was still damp. He rubbed the back of his hand across his face and saw the markings of Fraye’s lipstick, too drunk to figure out what it was. She stood in the door to her room while he looked at his hand confused and took him out of his trance by repeatedly hollering his name. Dragging his feet he moved across the living room to unzip her dress. He stared at her back confused, swaying for a moment to follow her as she moved into the room, the dress falling to the floor. The alcohol seemed to swish in his stomach and he held the door frame. Turning on his heels he raised up a peace sign and marched to his own room, shouting goodnight and collapsing on his bed fully clothed.

When he woke up, his face hanging off the edge of the bed, he saw a puddle of vomit on the floor just below. His mouth tasted like last nights dinner mixed with something much more acidic and his head throbbed worse than anything he’d ever thought it could. When he moved into the bathroom he caught the scent of alcohol seeping through his pored and saw the look on his face, smears of read and vomit, bags of exhaustion under his eyes. As he moved into the shower, his stomach churning, he noticed the red smudges on his hand too. Shutting his eyes he tried to piece together the night after the show. A part of him thought it was coming back in flashes, blips of him talking to Fraye or them laughing over drinks. Then he thought there was a kiss, but he denied it the mere thought making him shake his head vigorously which resulted in him having to lean out of the shower to vomit.