Aubrey did her best to will rain into existence.Heavyrain. The kind she could hide away from and build a fire against, even in July.
At the bowling alley, she parked and went inside. Renee, the manager, raised an eyebrow at Aubrey’s khakis and Henderson Lanes polo.
“What’re you doing here? I already gave your shift to Angelique. I thought you were going out of town.”
“Yeah, I am.” Aubrey flashed a lopsided smile. “But if my dad calls here looking for me today, I’m working too hard to come to the phone. All right?”
Renee snorted and snapped her bubble gum. She might be the manager, but she was only twenty and could thus be counted on. “So it’s like that?”
“Yeah. It’s definitely like that. And... one more thing. Can I use the phone?”
“Go for it.” Renee pointed to the office behind the counter.
“Thanks.” Aubrey shut herself inside the cramped room and dialed the number for the steel mill. She’d memorized it the day Nick had started work, but hadn’t had cause to use it yet.
A foreman answered, then issued a gruff harrumph when she asked for Nick. “Is this important?”
“Very.”
“Fine,” he said. “But it’ll be a minute. And don’t make a habit of calling here when he’s working.”
“Right. I understand. Thank you.”
Another grunt. Staticky silence swished on the line for what Aubrey gauged as half a lifetime. Then came rustling, and a breathless “Hello?”
“Hey.” She smiled into the receiver. God, just the timbre of his voice could soothe her like nothing else. “It’s me.”
“Hey.” His tone softened. “Are you okay? What happened yesterday?”
“Nothing good. My dad’s not happy with me. Mostly because he doesn’t think I should be deferring.”
“You told him?” Nick groaned. “On top of everything else?”
“I kind of had to. And now he’s taking me on vacation for a week to ‘consider my future.’ He thinks he’s going to change my mind.”
Nick sucked in a breath.
“Don’t worry,” she rushed out. “He won’t. All this week will do is convince him how serious I am. The point is, he and my mom are leaving this morning, but I bought myself another day. I was hoping you could come over later. We’d have the house to ourselves.”
Silence.
Bubbles fizzed in her stomach. “I thought... maybe it could be tonight.”
More silence, unrolling before her like an endless white carpet. She squeezed the receiver so hard her palm ached. “Nick? Are you there?”
“Yeah.” His voice dropped an octave. “I’m here. But... are you sure?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
“Okay. Then... me, too. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Oh, thank god. She dropped into a hard, hurried whisper. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. So fucking much.”
She clicked off without saying more, wanting those words resounding in her ears instead of a goodbye. Before leaving the office, she smoothed down her polo, but Renee still gave her a quizzical look when she emerged.
“What isupwith you, girl?”
