Arden’s laugh was like a songbird. “How drunk are you?”
“Nearly to the point of reciting poetry and tomorrow, pretending like it never happened.”
“That wouldn’t be too far off-base for you. Have you been writing?”
How could he know that?
“Have you spoken to Franco?”
He hummed, and I suddenly missed all the little noises he made. “I may have made some inquiries,” he admitted.
Did he also know about the month I’d hardly left my apartment, when Franco and Liam staged an intervention, and I’d thrown my books at their heads and snarled at them to leave me alone? Those were the same ones Arden had left on my nightstand as an ever-present reminder of his absence. But I needn’t ask questions I didn’t want answered. Wasn’t that one of our rules?
“I started a new project.”
“That’s wonderful. A mystery?”
“A romantic thriller.”
“Two of my favorite things.”
Romance and thrills, that about summed him up.
“I hope it’s going well,” Arden prompted.
“Yes, very well.”
I miss you, I wanted to say andcome back to me.But I’d determined already that I wouldn’t be the one to fold. Arden knew how I felt, had always known. He could come back to me at any time.
“I’m glad I caught you,” I said as a compromise, my voice too rough to be mistaken as indifferent. “I’ve missed the sound of your voice.”
“Yours as well. Listen, Michael… I’m…” He ended it with a long sigh. Was it wistful? A little bit.
“Me too.” If it was an apology, then I owed him one as well. And if it was something else, whatever bridge he felt he couldn’t cross, I wanted him to know that I’d be waiting. We sat there for a moment, simply sharing breath as we had so many times while making love.
“It’s late,” I said at last. “I’d better let you go.”
“I’m glad you called,” he said, and it was a relief to hear it. “Keep up with your writing. I can’t wait to read it.”
“Thank you. Take care.”
I signed off with a lump in my throat. The thought of Arden becoming just another one of my fans was altogether too depressing to contemplate.
I began callinghim once a week, around the same time, very late on Sunday night as though I couldn’t begin the next week in good conscience without doing so. It’d be incredibly inconvenient for anyone with a banker’s hours, but this, at least, had never been one of our obstacles.
“Are you still working on your memoir?” I asked him during one of our regular check-ins.
“In fits and spurts. I’m afraid it’s lacking in organization.”
I smiled at his willingness to admit his own shortcomings. “You’re a beginner still. That sort of thing comes with time and practice.”
“I don’t know how you keep the plots of your novels straight. I can hardly understand what I’ve written, and I was there.”
“It helps if I’ve outlined them ahead of time.”
“Did you know how theCold Lakeseries would end when you set out to write the first one?”
“I had an idea of what I wanted in the last showdown between Nathan and the White Pine Strangler. And I knew I wanted it to be personal.”
