Page 71 of Leashed

His phone lay on the coffee table facedown, the intermittent buzzing of notifications making his fingers twitch in spite of his determination to ignore the messages he didn’t need to read.

And those he didn’t want to read.

Flipping through the channels, he settled on the most violent, antihappy movie he could find and got comfortable until the draw of the unknown brought his phone to his hand.

He shot off the standard Merry Christmas back to every name he didn’t recognize, adding in a Happy New Year to the few he did. Alex got an extra “suck it” and Ryan’s travel update was treated to a joyous “whatever.”

Nothing new had come in from Sage.

He hadn’t expected it.

Her last message sat there, unanswered.

He typed and deleted a few times, finally hitting send and powering off his phone so he could wallow in sober peace.

---