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Then voicemail.

Of course.

I don’t wait to hear his recorded greeting. I can’t stomach the sound of his voice reduced to something automated and distant when what I need is him standing in front of me.

I open our messages instead.

My thumb hovers over the keyboard for a long moment, three different versions of the truth rising and dying before I let myself commit to any of them.

Finally, I type something simple. Something that doesn’t ask for anything he isn’t ready to give.

I’m outside the Armani Grand. I won’t come up unless you want me to. But I’m here.

The message sits there delivered, and I wait.

Thirty seconds becomes a minute. A minute becomes three. The hotel keeps swallowing people through its golden doors while my phone stays dark in my hand.

Nothing.

I type again, thumb hovering for only a second before I hit send.

Can you stop fucking ignoring me?

Still nothing. My jaw tightens. I know exactly what will get under his skin. He hates it when I treat him like a child. I shouldn’t push it, but I don’t have the patience for his games right now.

Stop acting like a child.

The reply comes almost instantly.

Call me a fucking child one more time, and I swear I’ll blow your head off.

A breath leaves me, something close to relief, though relief is too gentle a word for it. It’s closer to finding a pulse after spending a week convinced there might not be one.

Then stop ignoring me.

I’ve been trying to reach you for a week.

A week? Funny.

You ignored every single one of my messages last week. What makes you think I give a fuck about yours now?

Did you finally discover that being ignored is unpleasant?

I know I handled that badly.

“Badly” is a generous way of describing ghosting someone after fucking them in your bed, Tristan

You’re right.

That’s it?

No. It isn’t.

But I don’t want to explain this through messages.

Convenient.

I want to make it up to you.