Which means I have exactly forty-five seconds.
Forty-five seconds to get my head together and stay focused on the reality of our situations. Thirty-nine seconds to remind myself why I can’t get all girly on him now and need to concentrate on the issues with myactualheart, not my metaphorical heart. Twenty-two seconds to become a full-blown adult who knows how to get shit done.
Fifteen seconds.
Ten.
Five.
And . . .
I turn my head. Look around. Clear my throat. “Um, hello?”
Nothing. Strange.
I continue to wait, chewing my lip and allowing my mind to wander. I toy with the ring on my middle finger, the one I’d made sure to slip on after my bath. Then I continue to wait as I return to the bathroom to check my hair, adjust my top. And I flick through the channels as I wait some more. It’s not until over an hour later as I lie restless on my bed that I finally get it.
He’s not coming.
Chapter 33
Tilting my head, I squint and shift the phone. “So . . . is this what I think it is?”
“Well that depends.” Jamie peeks over my shoulder, her jasmine scented perfume saturating my room. It’s Saturday, and she arrived from LA over an hour ago, insisting through a thick, clogged voice that she is not coming down with anything and that she is here to have a crazy weekend of fun with her bestie. Apparently that involves staring at weird pictures. “Are you thinking it’s the udder of a cow?” she asks.
“Yup.”
“Then yes!”
“And are you, um, milking it?”
“Ew. Don’t remind me.” She sniffles, her nose pink from all of the sneezing she’s been doing, and reaches over to pluck her cell phone from my hands. She cringes as she inspects the picture on the screen one last time. “I swear, the things I do for that man.”
“Oh god,” I groan. “Please don’t tell me this is some kinky thing Daniel’s into.”
“What?” Her jaw drops dramatically, and she shoves my shoulder as I chuckle. “Not even. Well, kind of. The kinkiest thing we’ve ever done, though, involved a butt plug, a ladder, and one of those furry—”
“Nope.” The palm of my hand shoots up between us. “Stop right there. I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but can we get back to the cow udders, please?”
“Oh, right. I drove past quite a few farms to get here and,” she shrugs, wandering toward the fireplace and picking up one of my framed photographs, “well, Daniel’s always had this fantasy about cowgirls. I tried to tell him awhile back that real cowgirls aren’t like they are in those porn videos—”
“Didn’t need to know that—”
“But he wasn’t having it. So anyway, this is just me making good on his fantasy.” She turns back to me and winks.
I snort and shake my head as she lets out another little sneeze. “Ugh,” she moans. “Be right back.” She disappears into the bathroom.
After fixing the family photos she unwittingly rearranged, I step back and glance down at my mood ring, twisting it around my finger. He never came that night, or the next night either. Not when I made sure to be here at our usual time, just in case, and not when I tried calling out his name. All that answered was silence and an empty room.
A part of me worries. After all, I’m not the only one whose body is trying to acclimate. What if something happened to him? What if he’s stuck somewhere? Or what if something went wrong and he wound up in some other girl’s room somewhere across the globe? What if he’s lost control of things again and can no longer come at will? Or what if his heart decided not to beat for me after all, and without a beating heart, he’s unable to cross back over? The possibilities are endless, and my pulse rate picks up just thinking about them.
Another part of me, though, the part that’s nestled deep down in my core, knows that this is intentional. For whatever reason, he’s choosing not to see me anymore. Choosing to stay away.
I press my fingers to my chest, searching for that beat again, as I have been doing every morning when I wake up. The rhythm is still there, pounding gently beneath my touch, but it’s even fainter now than it was a few days ago. Fear sneaks its way to the forefront of my mind, and I try to block it out. But it’s stronger than me. I’m scared, and without him I have no one to talk to about it. No one to lean on. No one to turn to. It’s a lonely place to be.
The bathroom door clicks open with Jamie stepping out, a tissue pressed firmly to her button nose, and I try to smile. I know I’m lucky to at least have friends here with me, even if I can’t talk to them about these things. “Got any tape?” she murmurs, clearly annoyed. Her voice sounds even more nasally now that she’s got her nose all plugged up. “I gotta stop the stupid leaking somehow if we’re going out.”
“Jamie . . .” My brows knit together. “You sure you want to be out and about when you’re feeling like this?”
