Patrick wiped his big hand over his face, obviously wishing this was over.
“You were a last-minute addition to the list that got lots of attention. Do you have a special someone who you hope will bid for you?”
Patrick rubbed his neck and chuckled nervously. “It’s hot in here.” He chuckled and did a fake cough before answering.
Cole glanced at me with a raised brow.
The reporter waited for his answer. “No. I’m uh, no. I’m single. No girlfriend,” he said, looking into the camera. He was pleading with Cole over the airwaves.
My eyes met Cole’s. He was breathing hard and looked like he wanted to either throw the nachos across the bar or break down. He stared at me as his eyes became glassy. My chest hurt for both of them.
I reached out to put my hand on his arm. He looked at me with so much hurt and pain in his eyes.
“What can I do?” I murmured.
He cleared his throat and put on his public persona. “You can let me stay in your guest room. I need a place to live for a while. I can’t do this anymore.”
I nodded, my heart breaking for them. This was gonna kill Patrick, but he needed to make a decision about his life. And Cole didn’t deserve this. “Anything you need.”
He took a deep breath and finished his beer. His phone rang with Patrick’s ringtone, but he powered it off. “We need to get drunk.”
“Yeah,” I laughed, humorlessly. “But we better eat before we do that. And we’ll drink at my apartment, not here.”
And that’s what we did.
We picked at our burgers and nachos, paid the bill, and went home. In what I’m sure was an act of solidarity with my best friend, I turned my phone off, too, and got shitfaced.
The last thing I remembered was the sound of my best friend crying on the sofa across from where I was stretched out before passing out.
CHAPTER32
MICHAEL
I satin my first-class seat, heading back to Portland, exhausted from the adrenaline drop after the longest, most excruciating thirty hours of my life.
Staring out the window of the plane into the darkness, I clutched my phone in my hand, as I replayed the last day and a half over and over in my mind.
Adam’s phone had gone straight to voicemail since we’d forgotten to empty it. So either he was ignoring my calls or his phone was off.
For the first time in my life, I was unsure about how something was going to work out. And it made my stomach bunch up in knots, worse than when we were any of our missions foe Uncle Sam. Knowing Adam… at least I thought I knew him, my gut told me he was going to think I’d chosen the job over him. If he gave me the chance to explain, we could salvage this. But if he didn’t, I don’t know what I’d do.
After stewing for almost six hours on a bumpy-ass flight, I rushed out of PDX to the waiting car I’d ordered. I slid into the back and tapped the seat to let the driver know I was ready.
I was tempted to call my mom to ask for advice on how to apologize, but it was late, and I didn’t need to hear that I’d handled this the wrong way. I had to hope that all the months of me telling him I wasn’t leaving had finally sunk in, and he’d actually believed it.
Three hours later, I got off the elevator and used my key to unlock the door to his apartment. The apartment was dark except for the one light we always left on in the kitchen.
“Adam! Where are you, baby? I’m back.”
I dropped my bags on the sofa on the way to the bedroom. Hoping to find him in the shower, I finished untying my tie, but left it around my neck.
“Adam?” I called out, walking into the dark bedroom we’d shared since he moved in. I didn’t have to look any further to know he wasn’t here. His bags were still sitting against the wall where he’d left them unzipped yesterday. That gave me some relief that he’d come back here eventually, even though I wanted to hunt him down.
I’d stopped texting earlier tonight because it had become obvious that he wasn’t going to reply. I’d just have to wait.
The exhaustion kicked in quickly since I hadn’t slept in over 36 hours. That, coupled with the emotional letdown of him not being here, just about took me to my knees. I sat down and stretched out my hand across the soft cotton duvet. Reaching for his pillow, I hugged it to my chest to breathe in his scent.
Before I came along, the bed would have been unmade and a tangle of sheets piled up in the middle or on the floor. Not anymore. So many things had changed in the short time we’d been together. The bed didn’t even appear to have been slept in last night.
