“It’s on. Which means it’s not broken or in need of a charge.”
I gestured toward the phone in his hands. “Obviously.”
“Then why the hell didn’t you respond to my texts and calls?” His voice was stiff, clogged with anger.
I planted my hands on my hips and glared at him. After getting off the phone with my parents, feeling like a complete idiot trying to put all that production stuff together, I’d had about all the emotional ups and downs I could take.
“Who are you talking to like that?” I snapped, snatching my phone from him.
“You,” he said, not backing down. “I sent you the first text this afternoon. I came this close to sending Micah out here to check on you. But then he told me that you’d had lunch with Jodi. So, at least one person spoke to you today.”
I blinked, jerking my head backward, shocked. It took me too long to recognize that it wasn’t just anger that he was emoting.
“You were concerned about me?”
He appeared as if I was the one to shock him with my question. But I was still a little too stunned to realize that he genuinely cared.
“Why else would I rush over here after all my work meetings today to make sure you were all right?”
Despite the anger still in his voice, I let out a small smile. My grin widened when I saw the brown bags he’d propped on the counter before he’d snatched my phone off of it.
“Is that food for me?”
His eyes were slits, but he looked from the bags back to me. “Not all of it.”
“What’d you get?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sharing until you tell me what the hell you were doing all day. What had you tied up so much that you couldn’t respond to a text message?”
“I had lunch with Jodi.”
His frown deepened. “Already knew that, as I said.” He moved closer, our fronts nearly brushing together. “Where the hell were you?” His voice was so deep that it was unsettling.
Then I made the mistake of looking directly into his eyes. My stomach rumbled at seeing how dark they’d become.
“I did something stupid,” I admitted.
“What?” he asked.
“I wasted four hundred dollars.” I shrugged. “Not a lot of money, but …” I trailed off. “Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. What’d you buy?”
The words tumbled from my mouth before I could stop them.
“I bought a production set. To produce my album for the first time.” I sighed. “It was a reckless decision. I was in the music store downtown and saw it, and I bought it, just like that.
“And I’ve spent the last few hours trying to put the damn thing together, but I suck at technology and all that stuff. It was dumb and stupid. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Gabe took my hand into his, squeezing it. It was that motion that finally got me to stop rambling.
“I would try to get my money back, but Bradley was so nice. I’d hate to return it.”
“Why would you return it?”
“Did you hear what I just said? I can’t produce anything.” I tossed my hands in the air.
“Why? Because you’re having trouble assembling it?” he asked like it was no big deal. “Where is it?”
