Page 73 of Playing with the Heartbreaker

I grimace. “No one my age listens to voicemail.”

“Leave her one anyway. Send her a text or five hundred. I don’t know. Do something. Make a move. Quit hiding and take a real risk. Tell her the whole, scary truth. You’re never going to get what you want if you’re too afraid to ask for it.”

“I don’t know how.” My vocal cords sound as wrung out as an overused sweat towel. “I tried the breakfast thing. But your text and her seeing us together blew up in my face. She won’t talk to me.”

No Strings Simpson.

A player and heartbreaker, just like her ex.

“You’re smart, Rhoads. Get creative.”

Creative.

That lights something up inside of me. A spark of an idea. For the first time since chipotle bacon, a bit of hope unfurls in me. “Candace, you’re a genius.”

“Obviously. Now quit wasting time and go get your girl.”

Thirty-Five

CHLOE

Instead of home, I go to Coffee Jungle. My keys jingle in my purse as I half-jog up to the door. It’s closed because it’s ten at night, so of course it is.

I stick my employee key in the lock and push the door open. Blissful silence and the lingering smell of dark roast greet me. I disarm the alarm so the police don’t show up and arrest me for breaking and entering. Maggie told me I can come here whenever I need to.

Well, now I definitely need to.

I flick on a side light, cross behind the counter, and I ring myself out a large black coffee and a chocolate chip muffin even though I’m not hungry. Sugar is a heartbroken girl’s best friend. I don’t have to, but I slide some money into the register, anyway. As the coffee brews, I try not to picture Candace in that leather jacket, effortlessly balancing an edgy and sweet look, like a cinnamon Pop-Tart.

I’ve always hated cinnamon Pop-Tarts.

I take my coffee and muffin up to the Tree House and settle into a beanbag chair. Closing my eyes, I sip the coffee, letting the caffeine replace my fading adrenaline, and take a large bite of muffin. I’m not going to sleep anyway, so I might as well enjoy it.

Out of habit, I pull out my phone. Thirteen missed calls from Rhoads. Eighteen text messages. Hmm. I don’t listen to the voicemails or read the messages because I’m not a masochist.

Whatever he has to say, I’m no longer in the mood to hear it.

I consider calling Anita or Charlotte. Anita’s probably asleep, even though she has the latest curfew of all of us, and Charlotte’s got some student council bonding thing. Char might answer, but I don’t want to have this conversation when so many other people are around her.

So I put my phone back in my purse, leaning my head against the squishy chair.

My eyes close again, and this time I see Rhoads’s face clear as day as I bumped into him at Peggy’s. That look of surprise. Like he literally had no clue why I was acting insane.

Tears slip out of the corners of my eyes again, slowly at first and then faster. They stream down like water on a windshield, which makes me think of the car wash, which makes me think of Rhoads, which makes me cry harder. Hiccups squeak in between my sobs, all my emotions from the first day of school to now flooding like a broken dam.

I’ve been so stupid.

“Chloe, is that you?” a male voice calls.

Dang. Not who I need right now.

I thought I locked the front door, but footsteps make their way up the stairs, so I guess I hallucinated that part. Good thing it’s not a robber or a kidnapper.

I wipe my face with my hands, not that it can mask that I’ve been crying.

A knock sounds on the door. “Chloe?” The door swings open. “Hey.”

“Hi.”