Page 74 of Here's to Now

Gunner shrugs and continues into the bathroom. Yeah, I suppose something like that wouldn’t really bother a fourteen-year-old boy.

I jog down the stairs and swipe my phone off the table just as whoever was calling goes to voicemail. A text comes through just as I’m pulling up my missed calls list.

Hales: Ignore my voicemail, please. It’s embarrassing.

Yeah, not going to happen. I switch the screen back over to my inbox and listen to whatever has Haley so embarrassed.

“Hey, so, it’s me. Haley. Hales. Nikki. Whatever. I know you can’t come over tonight, so what if I came to you? Oh my God. Does that make me sound desperate? Horny? This isnota booty call. I just wanted some company. I’m lonely. Rae’s busy tonight, off gallivanting with your handsome friend. He’s dreamy, huh? Those eyes…wow! How’d you get such cute friends? Never mind. You’re stupidly attractive so of course you’d have equally good-looking friends. Okay, so I’m rambling. I’m going to—”

The voicemail cuts off there. I assume instead of hitting erase and starting over, she sent it on accident, because there’s no way someone would send that on purpose—except maybe Rae. She’d leave that bad boy in a heartbeat.

Me: Dreamy, huh? Am I dreamy too?

Hales: I told you not to listen!

Me: You can’t tell someone not to do something like that and expect them to listen. Hell, you practically begged me to listen to the message.

Hales: No means no, Polly!

I smile at her nickname for me. She repeats what is said just as much as I do so I’m not sure why she thinks she can get away with calling me that, but it’s cute, so I let her.

Instead of texting back, I decide to call, needing to hear her voice right now.

“You’re a horrible man, Gaige Addams. Mean. Cruel. Callous.”

“Those are some strong words you’re using, Miss Kamden. Are you sure you mean them?”

She huffs dramatically. “No.”

“That’s what I thought.” I can hear her shuffling around on the other end of the line. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to get comfortable so I can watch something on Netflix, only nothing sounds good. At all. I’mbored,” she complains.

“Then go do something.”

“There’s nothing to do. I have no friends.”

“What about Cailee? I’m sure you girls could find some mischief to get into.” She mutters indistinctly. “What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“Hales…” I press, taking a seat on the couch, trying to rest before I’m back on puke duty.

“Fine.” She sighs. “We’re sort of…not talking.”

I sit forward, startled by her words. “What? Since when?”

“Okay, don’t think I’m being dumb, because I’m not. This is serious and this happens all the time.”

“Okay…”

“Since Cailee had baby Chloe she’s…changed.”

I chuckle. “That’s usually what happens.”

“I know that, jerk. What I mean is, she treats me differently, like I’m less…like I’m still a child—never mind that I own a business, let alonea business that employs her.I’m still less becauseIdon’t have my own child. I just take care of other people’s kids.”

Do people really do that? I’ve never noticed. Then again, I’m a man. Unfair as it is, I have privileges women don’t. I guess this is one of them.

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