“Let’s pay this guy a visit,” I muttered, and Vox gave me one of his dangerous little smirks that I took to say‘Way ahead of you.’
He pulled open an app on his phone and showed me a location pin.
I grinned. “Welldamn, Daniel.” Vox let out a silent chuckle at my dated meme reference. “Let’s get to fucken work.”
Iwoke up in a shitty mood. One, my face was fuckingkillingfrom the beating I had taken the day before. Two—I didn’t have any texts from Cal.
I stared at my phone in disbelief, wrestling with the twisting pit of anxiety that had taken up residence in my gut.
There were no annoying breakfast announcements.
No threats to sexually harass me if I didn’t get my ass downstairs.
No stupid gifs or flirty emojis.
Just… nothing.
I got ready for my day, shooting dark looks at my bouquet of lilies the whole time.
Things had been weird after he told me about his background… He’d seemed off when he left.
Was he not interested in me anymore?
Was I ok with that?
I couldn’t ignore the bleating, panicked voice firing off in my head, screamingno.I wasn’t okay with that.
Was he really over me? That quickly? Or was it something worse?
I knew he had been going to‘work.’What if something happened to him?
What if he got hurt!? I should have fucking kissed him goodbye…
Before I could even think about what I was doing, I tapped out a quick message.
Ryan:
Morning
I stared at the screen, waiting anxiously for him to open my message, but he didn’t. My heart was pounding in my chest. Biting my lip, I hovered in my room, fingers poised over the keyboard. Should I double text? Did that make me desperate?
After another minute went by and he still hadn’t read my message, I decided to say fuck it and fire off another one.
Ryan:
Are you and Naomi still coming by? My face looks like it got run over by a car…
Another few minutes passed, and still… nothing. I glanced at the time. I guess it was still early. Naomi had said she was coming by at ten am. Maybe they just weren’t awake yet?
I ignored the nagging voice in my head that told me early mornings had never stopped Cal from barging into my house without an invitation before.
He’s fine. Nothing happened. You’re overreacting. He’ll be here soon.
I went downstairs to find my mother making breakfast, and my heart sank.
Some part of me had been hoping that Cal would have been here and maybe just too busy flipping pancakes to notice I had texted him, but he wasn’t.
“Morning, dear,” my mother greeted me with a smile. “Coffee’s on.”
