Page 115 of Flirting with 40

I need to keep my head straight.

Then why do I keep looking at my phone every chance I get, hoping she’s called or texted?

It’s the exhaustion.

It has to be.

CHAPTER FIFTY

Blakely

“You doing all right?”

I look up to see Gemma standing with her shoulder leaning against the doorjamb. “Yeah. Sure. Why?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. Just checking.” She moves into my office and perches her ass on the edge of one of my chairs. “Tom said he’s been texting with Slade. He asked maybe if we could all go out for drinks, but Slade said you’ve been so busy he’s not sure if you’d be able to go.”

The pang that hits me is real and raw, and I nod to buy time to find my words to respond. “He’s right. I’ve just been trying to catch up to speed on everything,” I lie.

Don’t say too much.

Don’t look her in the eye.

She’ll see right through you.

“You sure everything is okay with you two? You know I’m here if you need to talk.”

I plaster a smile on my lips and look up to meet her eyes and away from today’s daily text Slade left me. The one asking if we could talk.

“Yes. Of course. I’m fine. We’re fine.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Slade

I stare at the ceiling of my bedroom.

My body and mind tired but thoughts running wild with the one thing I can’t stop thinking about even through the exhaustion.

Blakely.

My goddamn heart jumps out of my chest every time I so much as think her name.

It all begins and ends with the heart.

The irony.

She’ll come around. She’ll pick up the phone. She’ll . . . I don’t know what.

She has to.

This broken heart shit is for the birds.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Blakely

“You’re shitting me,” Kelsie says as she looks into my living room where I’m sitting on my newly plumped and fluffed pillows.