I hit the button on my steering wheel to end the call with Loralei as I headed back to the office from an afternoon lunch meeting. We were supposed to meet for dinner that night, but that wasn’t happening anymore.
Things with Loralei were…odd, to say the least.
I didn’t know if it was because we were new and still learning about one another—we’d barely known each other for three months and had been “official” for nearly two—but things with her still felt more casual than anythingelse. It made me question the purpose of her wanting to label it.
I meant it when I said I wasn’t upset about her canceling dinner tonight, though. Truthfully, I wasn’t in the mood to go out. I hadn’t been all week.
I’d been fucked in the head since my run-in with Morgan last weekend. I’d already felt all over the place, but that was the icing on the cake.
You have someone. You don’t need me anymore.
Those words were like a knife right to my chest, more so the latter because it couldn’t have been further from the truth, not in the way she believed, anyway. Myneedfor her was exactly the damn problem. And thinking about that made me feel even shittier than I already did about what I was doing, all in the name of trying to bury and forget that need.
And I couldn’t shake the look on her face when she said it. Maybe I was reading too much into it, but I swore I saw the briefest flicker of sadness in her eyes when she spoke those words. And that thought, even though it was far-fetched, twisted that knife even further.
I felt like I was spiraling.
My headspace didn’t get any better throughout the rest of the week.
By Saturday, I was on edge, testy, and heading to the batting cages with the guys, which I agreed to because I thought it might help relieve some of my frustration.
“You need to work on your form,” Chad quipped.
“Who the fuck invited this guy?”
“You did,” Gabe said, chuckling from outside the cage.
I scoffed before swinging the bat, driving the ball into the back net with a crack. That feltreallyfucking good.
I hit a few more before I stepped out. “Where’s Blake?”
“He’s on his way,” Gabe replied.
“There.” Lucas tipped his chin in a gesture, and we looked over to see Blake walking towards us.
“Hey, sorry. Things ran over a little later than I expected.”
“No worries,” I said, clapping his shoulder. We knew he’d come from a Saturday morning therapy session.
The way his eyes only briefly met mine before he nodded and looked away didn’t go unnoticed by me. He’d been doing that whenever he saw me the last couple of weeks. I shrugged it off, though. I knew he was going through some things.
While Gabe stepped into the batting cage, Lucas looked at me. “You seem on edge today.”
“I’m fine,” I lied.
“You don’t seem fine. You seem pissy,” Chad added.
“I’m notpissy.”
“What’s the matter? Trouble in paradise?” Lucas asked, half-joking.
I sighed. “Can we not?”
“Is that a yes?” Chad asked tauntingly. “Because if she’s gonna be on the market soon…” He trailed off with a laugh when I rolled my eyes. He’d been making comments like that ever since he first met Loralei a few weeks ago.
We went through a few rotations in the batting cage, each cracking the balls—except Chad, who claimed he played baseball in high school, but I think he meant T-ball.
“So, I wanted to ask you guys something,” Lucas said while we took a break. “I have to go to Monaco in a few weeks for work, and I was talking to Callie, and we were thinking about making it a group trip.”
