Page 25 of Fire

“Answer me!”

She flinched— felt the slight jerk of her body—and hated herself for it.

He saw it, too, his expression going from anger to anguish in a blink. He retreated the step he’d taken. Then that damn blank look that she was growing to hate coated his face as he said, “Perhaps it’s smart to be afraid.” He turned, hesitated just a fraction of a second, and opened the door.

Throat finally unstuck, she desperately shouted his name.

Back still to her, she could hear the flatness of his tone as he paused long enough to say, “You were right. This wasn’t a good idea.”

She watched the door fall shut, the soft click sounding loud in the now silence of the room and felt as though it had just slammed closed on a relationship that’d barely had a chance to start.

Chapter 7

Gwen trudged up the stairs to her apartment, tired to the bone. No, that wasn’t entirely accurate. While she was tired after a long week at work, depression was what made her mind and body languid.

It had been four days since she’d last seen or talked to Blake. It seemed silly—after having him in her life only a short while—that he would leave such a big hole in it. But he had.

Slipping her key in the door, Allie was on her before she fully got it open. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. You’re not going to believe what I have to tell you!” Barely able to contain her body, she wiggled around and danced in place, making it difficult for Gwen to even walk through the door.

A smile tugged at her lips for the first time all day. Allie’s state of excitement was contagious. “Well let me in, and you can tell me all about it.” She eased past Allie, kicked off her heels, and hung up her purse.

“You know that reading I had last week?”

“The one for the sitcom?” Gwen asked, pulling her blouse from the waistband of her skirt.

“Yes. Well, they called back today, and I got the part!” She did a jump-spin-clap maneuver followed by a fist pump.

Gwen laughed. “Congratulations. That’s huge.” She pulled Allie in for a hug.

“Go change. We are going out to celebrate.”

Gwen’s happy bubble burst. As ecstatic as she was for her best friend, going out was the last thing she wanted to do. “Let’s celebrate here. We can order Chinese, and I think there’s a bottle of champagne somewhere in one of the cupboards.”

“Gwen, you don’t understand.” Latching on to her upper arms, Allie gave her a jiggle. “It’s a recurring role. I sighed a ten-episode contract. We need to CEL-E-BRATE.”

“Okay. Okay. I get it. A night on the town it is. Let me just hit the shower to wake myself up.”

Allie close on her heels, Gwen unbuttoned her blouse on the way to her bedroom, tossing it on the bed as she made her way to the closet. “Tell me where we’re going so I know what to wear.”

“Well, I was hopingsomeone, who had a special somethin’-somethin’ going on with the owner, could get us into Fire.”

Feeling her heart sink, Gwen turned to Allie who was sitting on the end of the bed with a big smile plastered on her face. “That, um, won’t be possible.”

“What! Why?”

“Because we’re not seeing each other anymore.”

Her mouth fell open before she slammed it closed. “But you were crazy about him.”

“Or just plain crazy,” Gwen mumbled.

“What happened?”

“He came to my work Tuesday, and we had a fight. I haven’t heard from him since.”

“And you didn’t tell me?” Hurt shined from her eyes.

Gwen sighed, suddenly feeling even more exhausted—if that were possible. “I didn’t want to talk about it.”

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