Page 50 of Here's to Now

I tighten the last lug nut on the car we’re currently working on at Jacked Up and wipe the sweat from my forehead. The shop is blazing hot and my now ever-present underlying anger does nothing but play into the heat. My pocket begins to blare a standard ringtone. I dig out my phone and check the screen.Unknown.An odd, heavy sensation settles in my gut. I’m not going to like this phone call one bit.

Sighing, I answer. “Hello?”

The caller is quiet on the other end. There’s not a single cell in my body that isn’t screaming at me to hang up, to move on.

I don’t. I can’t.

“I don’t have the patience for this today.”

“Can we talk?”

My senses are on high alert, the hairs on the back of my neck bristling in a flash. Her voice sounds scratchy; she’s either been crying or she drank a gallon of sand.

“What’s wrong?” I demand.

“I’ve…had a bad day.”

“Do you need me to come over?”

She makes an indecipherable noise; I’m not certain if it’s good or bad. “No. Yes.” She pauses. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

She sniffles. “No. Can you come by tonight?”

I hesitate for a brief moment, my head screaming for me to put an end to this weird game I’ve been tangled up in.

“Of course,” I say, against my better judgment. “I don’t deliver tonight. Is nine thirty good?”

My brows furrow when she starts crying again. “We don’t have to wait,” she says, referring to when wedidwait—wait for Rae to be gone, for her to be in bed, for it to be just us…but we haven’t been us in a long time. “Come whenever.”

“I’ll be there.”

Then she hangs up. No goodbye, no thank you, nokiss my ass. Nothing.

How, after six motherfucking months, can she pick up the phone and call me like nothing’s changed? How can she just expect me to drop everything and run to her? HOW!

I have to fight hard to not throw my phone in annoyance. I run my hands through my hair, not caring how dirty and greasy they are from working all day.

“Aghhhhh!” The scream rips through me before I can hold it back.

“Dude. What the fuck?” Hudson asks as he comes striding out of his office.

“How in the hell do you do this shit?”

“Um, what shit?”

“Relationships! Women! I don’t understand them.”

By some miracle he doesn’t question the relationship part. Instead, he snorts, saying, “Aren’t you a certified woman whisperer or something?”

Glaring at him, I say, “Apparently not.”

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Hudson shakes his head, his eyes full of laughter. “There’s your first problem. Womenloveto talk about it. That’s their favorite thing—especially when all you want to do is go to bed and she insists onworking through itat two in the morning.”

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