Page 138 of Goodbye Note

My phone rang a minute later.

I picked it up. “Hello?”

“I miss you,” Arik’s voice was thick with sleep.

“Stardust.” I dropped my voice, not wanting to do this in the SUV with the other guys. “I miss you too. Why are you awake?”

“I was mad I missed your calls and then didn’t get to call you back before your flight.”

“Still, you need sleep.”

“I’d stay up all night just to hear your voice.”

I smiled, all of the warmth he provided flooding back into my chest, filling the tiny cracks that had formed over the last week. “You shouldn’t do that.”

“You can’t stop me.”

“It’s not good for your mental health not to sleep.” But I wouldn’t really fight him. It felt too good to hear him.

“It’s not good for my mental health to miss you.”

I laughed. “Speaking of which, how’s the new psychiatrist we found?”

“Better than the last. I’m still feeling him out.” He yawned, and I hated I wasn’t there.

“Good, but if he does anything you don’t like, we can find another, so don’t put up with it.”

“I know. Thank you.”

“How are things with your parents?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I haven’t been back to Chicago. So they keep calling but I don’t have time to deal with it. They’ve either thrown out my stuff or not. When I have a free couple of days, I’ll have to fly back there.”

“Let me know if you need help with it. We can pay people or find someone to go get your stuff. I’d go myself, but I don’t want to end up in jail.”

Arik snickered, and the sound felt so good. It gave me hope this could work. We loved each other enough. “We don’t want that. Think about the headlines when I show up to bail you out.”

I sputtered a laugh. “Do not bring that up to our managers.”

We both laughed.

“Varian, we are pulling up to the hotel.”

I looked out the window. “I have to walk in, and there is a crowd. Go sleep, please.”

“I will. I promise.”

I felt good until later that afternoon when I checked his journal. Then I felt like shit. How could I be there for him when he was going through something, and I was not only in a different time zone but a whole other continent?

Winter ends.

Ice breaks off the lake.

I met you in the spring thaw.

Just in time for you to make me forget it all.

Love in the sweet summer heat.

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