“Guys,” June spoke up, interrupting their private argument that wasn’t so private but becoming public by all the glances in the bar.“Stop arguing, please.Sue, I appreciate you trying to cheer me up, but let’s face it; Casey’s right.A guy stops talking to you for that long can only mean one thing.”He’d ghosted her.
“No,” Sue shook her head vehemently and placed a hand over hers on the table, “I don’t believe Rob would be like that.Not after everything you’ve told us about him.”
June hadn’t thought him capable either, but the evidence was staring her in the face.She couldn’t make excuses for it anymore.“Regardless, it doesn’t change the fact that I haven’t heard from him since then.”She didn’t want to talk about their lovemaking.She couldn’t even call it that anymore.A memory she used to think of as perfect was now ugly and terrible.It felt cheap and meaningless.
“Men suck,” Casey said before taking a drink of her beer.
June wholeheartedly agreed.“I’ll drink to that.”
Chapter 28
June was leaving the office late after another grueling day when her phone rang.She looked at her caller ID.It was her brother.She didn’t really want to talk to him right now, but if she ignored him for too long, he would start blowing up her phone or just come out and check on her.
“Hey, Liam.”She smiled, trying to sound upbeat instead of tired and heartbroken.Her brother was trained to listen for tells like that, and she didn’t want to have that talk with her brother right now.
“June bug, you okay?”Leave it to a Delta to hear the lie in her voice.She should have known she couldn’t pull the wool over his eyes.
“I’m fine,” she insisted, using her go-to response.
“No, you’re not,” he called her out.“You were happy as could be when I talked to you almost two weeks ago.Now you sound like someone ran over your dog.”
“I don’t have a dog.”
“It’s an expression, and you’re deflecting,” he said deadpan.
“I wonder where I learned that from,” she mumbled.
“What happened, June?Something at work?”
“No, work is good.Busy but manageable.”Barely, but she was at the tail end of things.A few more days and she would be back to her normal schedule.
“Rosa?Your house?You have to give me something.I can’t fix it if you don’t tell me.”
“It’s my problem, Liam, not yours.”
“I can listen.Maybe give advice.”
“You can’t help me with this.”Her brother was the last person she wanted dating advice from.“Please let it go.”
“Not in my nature.Talk to me.”
Her brother wasn’t going to let this go.“Rob,” she couldn’t call him her boyfriend, “ghosted me.”
“Your new boyfriend?What do you mean ghosted you?When did this happen?”He asked in rapid-fire questioning, getting just as worked up as she had been a week ago.Now she’d had time to process it and come to terms with Rob using her and then disappearing.She hadn’t even seen any of his friends come to the clinic.Everyone was avoiding her.
“After I last talked to you.I thought he was busy at work or something, but I haven’t heard from him in two weeks.”She wasn’t about to tell her brother they’d had sex.“I’ve called him and texted, but I haven’t heard back.”June choked back a sob.She had cried enough over the past two weeks.She still couldn’t believe that he would do something like that.
“What’s his last name?”Liam questioned evenly, but June detected his anger in his undertone.He was trying to keep cool for her.
“Liam, stop.You’re not going to track him down.”She might be upset with Rob, but she wasn’t going to unleash her brother on him.Only terrorists and the lowest scum of the world deserved that.Rob was close to that but not quite.
“Watch me.You know I have connections.”
It wasn’t an idle threat.If she gave him Rob’s last name, Liam could track him down and put him in a hospital.She didn’t want that, even if he had hurt and humiliated her.“I know, but he’s not worth it.”
“I’m sorry, June bug,” Liam said, sounding dejected as if he were the one ghosted and not her.
“Yeah, me too.”The first time she had put her heart out there, and it had gotten ripped apart and stomped on.
