Page 103 of Flirting with 40

But I can’t be—this can’t be—or else we would already be. I’m old enough to know I can’t wish something into existence.

“Thanks. I—I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it. You were doing it without me all along. You just needed a little encouragement, is all.”

“I’ve been meaning to call. I wanted to hear your voice.” It isn’t what I meant to say, but it’s the truth. His voice. Him. That’s all I’ve been looking forward to all day and here we are and I’m stumbling over my words.

“I miss you, Blakely.” His voice is a deep rumble and has me catching my breath.

“Things have been crazy. It’s just been . . . I don’t know.”

“I’ve felt the same way. This real-life thing is . . .”

“Yeah. I know. It kind of gets in the way,” I say, thinking of the breakup excuse he gave me that I’ve yet to use.

I guess I’m still holding out hope.

So, what now? I want to ask. Why are we both saying we miss each other but neither of us is asking the question? Are we trying to feel each other out? Is that why we’re being so cautious? Or is his hesitancy because he’s being the Slade that Prisha warned me about? A man who doesn’t realize he’s easy to fall for? A man who now realizes I actually have tumbled head over heels for him and is now trying to let me down slowly so my feelings aren’t hurt?

Slade isn’t the type to mince words, so the fact that he is now tells me all I need to know. This—us—is too much for him, too real, when all he’s used to is casual dating, so now he’s trying to figure out how to move on. Exactly like Prisha said would happen.

Christ. This is why marriage was easier. You just knew to expect disappointment and disregard. You didn’t have to wonder and read into the silence.

“Heather is better to you now?” he asks, shifting the conversation away from our train wreck of a topic and toward something less treacherous.

“I still don’t trust her as far as I can throw her, but baby steps.” I laugh softly. “And you? Are you back to work? How’s Ivy doing?”

“I’m not officially back yet,” he says, his lack of answer about Ivy has me reading between the lines. “The person who oversees the program took pity on me and is letting me do some data analysis entry on a study he’s doing, but as for seeing patients, I’m still suspended.”

“I’m sorry. I was hoping you would have been back in the swing of things by now.” And, of course, my head goes there. To the place that overthinks how he hasn’t been exhausted from working twenty-four-hour shifts and discredits the excuses I made for why he hasn’t called me—that he’s been too busy getting back into the swing of things—now hold no weight.

“Me too. But I’ve been working nonstop trying to gain some favor by doing this. The good news is Ivy is slowly showing more signs of coming to: eyes fluttering open for minutes at a time, reaching for a drink before falling back under, that kind of thing. So fingers crossed she’ll wake up soon and will have weathered the storm without any long-term damage—physically, of course—and then we can all put this behind us.”

I think that, for him, it is going to be an empty win simply because getting confirmation that the girl was abused might validate his actions, but it won’t make him feel any better.

“That’s good though, right?” I ask, desperate to keep talking to him. I’m alone in this tower of an office building but he makes me feel a little less so. “That she’s responding. That she’s having moments of consciousness.”

“Only time will tell,” he murmurs. “You haven’t broken up with me yet. Why?”

His question throws me and I chuckle a nervous laugh. “I couldn’t . . . I didn’t want to.”

“Why’s that?”

Do or die time, Blakely.

I take a deep breath and close my eyes. “I feel like there is so much unfinished business between us. The to-do list. The . . . and I . . .”

“Me too.”

“You too?” I ask. What does that mean? What is he saying? “So, what do we do about it?”

“Well, I did win the bet, so isn’t there the last of our unfinished business to tend to? Like you owing me dinner?” The smile in his voice eases the vise gripping my chest until I realize that there is more to tend to than just the bet—like the last task on that damn napkin.

It was in jest. He said it from the beginning. And yet here I am, a ridiculous female still thinking I want it to be true and hurt that it isn’t.

My smile is bittersweet, and when I speak, my voice doesn’t reflect any of the turmoil that is roiling around inside of me. “Are you assuming you won? That I’m satisfied, Slade?”

His chuckle rumbles through the line. “You did get the promotion.”