Page 75 of Blocked Score

“Whoa, hold on,” I stop her. I realize my breaths have grown shallow and fast, my heart going crazy in my chest. “Butyousent that message.”

Something flashes on Scarlett’s face. Before she even says anything, I have a sensation that feels like the dome of the sky caving in and falling on my head.

Then come the words that make me feel not only like the sky’s falling, but that the ground is flipping upside down.

“What message?”

Emotion ricochets through my body. “The text. You sent me the text. First you said you wanted to meet at a different place. In the Loop. Then you said we shouldn’t meet at all. That …”

My sputtering speech falters, because Scarlett’s slowly shaking her head, eyes wide.

“Lane. I didn’t have my phone that day. I lost it. I couldn’t have sent you anything.”

“But I … it’s on my phone …”

“Show me.”

My brain is in such a fucking state as we get out of the pool that my dick doesn’t even react to Scarlett being dripping wet and in her underwear right next to me. I take my phone out of my jacket that’s lying on the bench and find our old text thread. I could never bring myself to delete it.

I show her our last exchange of messages …

Or what I thought was our last exchange of messages.

Fuck, what the hell happened that day?

Scarlett’s jaw drops as she reads them.

“Lane … I never sent this.”

“Then … how?”

A blaze of realization flares in Scarlett’s eyes. “Caleb.”

Her ex.

“How?” I’m like a broken record, but this time the question pulls more harshly from my throat, and I can feel darker emotions start to rise over my shock.

Scarlett shakes her head in disbelief, glancing away, looking like she’s putting pieces of a puzzle together in her head.

“He was there. I remember thinking I caught a glimpse of him at a distance a couple times, but I dismissed it, I thought it couldn’t be possible.” Her eyes snap back to mine, and it feels like a key sliding into a lock. “But it must have been him. He must have been watching me, watching us, for who knowshow long. He must have snuck into Demi’s house and stolen my phone and sent that message. It’s crazy, but there’s no other explanation. I knew he was desperate to get me back, but I never thought …”

The last year and a half were a lie. How things ended in Chicago was a lie.

She didn’t want to break up.

Scarlett told me stories about her piece of shit ex while we were together that summer. I already wanted to strangle him, but now, knowing what he’s stolen from us, I want to twist his head off his shoulders.

And I might just do that. Eventually. But even though anger washes over me, it dissolves quicker than I would have thought possible.

Because this changes everything, and suddenly, all I can think about is the new reality that’s in front of me. In front of us.

So I step forward, eating up the distance between me and Scarlett. There’s been way too much of it for the last year and a half. From now on, I want as little fucking distance between us as possible.

I cup her face in my hands, and I do the thing I’ve been dying to do for nineteen long months: I kiss her.

37

LANE

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