“It won’t happen again. I promise.” She cleared her throat and spoke in a softer tone. “I’m having a hard time balancing running this, some family stuff going on that I’ll tell you about later… Little things are falling through the cracks and this was one of them. I’ve never let you down, Fiona, and it’s not going to be a habit. It is a relief knowing you’ll be full-time soon. Trust me, okay?”
Tears slid down my cheeks and I nodded.Shit. She can’t see me.“Okay. Don’t do it again…I’m not a forgiving person.”
“Yes. I know,” she mumbled. I gave a strangled laugh at her tone.
“I’ll see you later. We’re still meeting at the venue by Camelback tomorrow to go over placements?”
“Yup. Don’t wait so long to call if you need to yell at me. I can take it.”
She hung up and it was as though a small weight had lifted off my chest. She’d made a mistake. That was it. Gideon would probably say a couple of cuss words and move on with his day.
God, just the thought of him had my entire body tense. The urge to call him hit again, and I scrolled through my phone. I about screamed when a text from him came through.
Gideon: Can you give me Jade’s number? I need to prepare for the TTL event.
Fiona: She’s swamped. What’s your question?
I stared at his message with my heart in my throat. I set it on the table and ran through every scenario and how it could end. Would he call? Did I want him to? God. I did. I missed his deep voice and stupid jokes.My throat constricted and I waited for the phone to ring. The vibration echoed on the table as it bumped against the white dish holding our coasters. I snatched it, hitting hello before the first ring ended.Desperate, much?
“Hello?”
“I never got the agenda for the event.”
He didn’t greet me, acknowledge me or anything. Nerves bounced in my stomach and I clutched a pillow in my lap. “Okay. I can send it to you. Were you sent parking arrangements?”
“Yes. Southeast lot.” His voice—the one I’d spoken to every day the past four months—sounded like a stranger. I hadn’t had a breakup before, but this was miserable. I wanted to ask him how he was doing, how his ACL felt, spring training, his family, but my throat remained tight. “If I want to bring guests, who do I contact?”
Who is he bringing? God—another woman? It couldn’t be.“Uh, Bethany. She’s the event planner they hired. I’ll text you her number.”
“Thanks. See you there.”
“Wait.” I froze. He hadn’t hung up yet, but I didn’t know what to say. Everything? Nothing? My eyes stung and I scrambled for anything. “Uh, the banquet.”
“What banquet?”
“For the baseball team. Have you thought about when you’d like to have it? I know spring training started this week, but what date works for you?”
“I’ll have to check.”
“Okay. Just, uh, let me know.” I gripped the phone, hating the tense situation. It was worse than I’d imagined. Helpless. I felt helpless being so far away from him. “How’ve you been?”
“Let’snotdo this. I gotta run.”
Click.
I fell onto the couch, riding the wave of misery. The ironic thing was that not four months ago, he’d hung up on me and I’d almost been in tears.This time it’s my fault.A wave of self-pity hit me—I deserved this. The feeling of helplessness clogged my throat and lungs.
Why couldn’t I apologize to him? Tell him I feltwhateverit was, too? I sat up. I could tell him. I would tell him. At the banquet, I would eat crow and own up to everything. It couldn’t be too bad…at least not worse than this.
* * * *
“Fiona! Registration needs help. The system broke down,” Jade’s voice crackled through the headset.
“On it.” I turned, mid-step, toward the entrance and smiled as guests filled the small reception hall. We’d chosen a hotel that overlooked the valley and had mountains. It was beautiful—the perfect spot for our first run at a gala. Amanda had ended up being fantastic with setup and Bea had a huge line at the bar already. She’d even told me every tip she made that night was going to be donated in Justin’s name for me. I made a note to try harder to see Bea—she was a good sister. I headed toward their direction and spied Bethany, who had red spots on her cheeks and her black hair waving everywhere. “What’s going on?”
“The app we downloaded won’t work at check-in. It’s not accepting guests.”
“Do you have a paper copy as a Plan B?” I scanned the tables and fought a sigh when I didn’t spy any back-ups. “I’ll run into the hotel and try to print them. Just write down the names and their pledge if they’re donating. Assign different bidding numbers. We can add them all later.”
