Page 21 of If Not for My Baby
“That Clementine thing. Where you just want everyone to be happy.”
“But I do want you to be happy.”
“Damnit, Clementine.”
I hold the phone tighter against my ear. “I don’t— I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Just tell me the truth. Could you see us getting back together? Do you really want to be alone your whole life? I don’t know…Maybe we should stop talking for a little while.”
Silence as Mike breathes on the other end. Gathering patience, perhaps. I am giving one of my only two friends a mental hernia. But I have no idea how to answer him. I don’t want to be in a relationship with Mike. Not only for the unavoidable end, but also the beginning, and the…middle. I just don’t want to be with him like that. I liked our arrangement as it was. Though clearly, that’s over now.
But I also don’t want to lose him. He matters to me. He matters to my mom—
The vending machine and its bright colors mock me as I try to string the right words together. “I don’t have the answers for you. I wish I did…What I do know is I never should’ve tried to sext you. It was insensitive.”
Mike grunts on the other end of the line. It’s possible he’s kicked something, but I can’t tell. “It’s not like I told you how I felt.”
“I should have known.”
“Of course you didn’t. You assume everyone is as anti-feelings as you are. And I was the one to initiate that first time so…I just…I care about you so much. You know I do. I don’t want to be your booty call.”
Guilt heats my skin. I tuck my still-damp hair behind my ears. “I hear you. It won’t happen again.”
“When you get back we can talk more. About getting back together, or whatever else you might want. From me. From us. If anything.”
“Yeah,” I say, voice tightening.I hate this so much. I want this to be over.“For sure.”
“I’m gonna hit the hay. Good night, Clementine.”
“Night.” Now I’m the one sighing. “Sorry again.”
The line goes dead and I try to buy my useless water but the vending machine only takes cash, and I have none. I press my forehead into the fluorescent blue plastic. Unsatisfied, I audibly groan at all my incredible stupidity. How come it’s okay when Mike wants to fool around, but when I do I’m using him? Why am I so bad at human relationships? I feel like an alien.
“A lad bereft to be sexted. Now, that’s somethin’ you don’t witness every day.”
If I was red with embarrassment before, all that color has now drained from my face into a rosy pool on the floor.
I spin to face the voice I already know.
Halloran.
Eight
Halloran is shirtless. And barefoot.Just in those long gray sweats, clutching a leather-bound notebook in one hand.
“Sorry.” His face contorts into something between a frown and a grimace as if to say,You were going to realize I was here one way or another.“I’ll leave you—”
“Where’s your shirt?” I blurt out.
Halloran nods at my robe. “You might be missin’ some apparel yourself.”
I constrict the offending robe tighter across my middle, mortified.
“Jesus Christ,” he says, wincing and pushing a hand through his hair. “I’m kiddin’ ye. I couldn’t find a pen.” Then he holds the notebook out at me as if that explains anything at all.
“And eavesdropping,” I add, a little snippy. Probably because I’m so humiliated and I know he already doesn’t like me. And because it’s a good distraction from the clean lines ofhis lean, defined chest and the light dusting of brown curls that start beneath his belly button and lead down to—
“I really didn’t mean to, I swear it.” He looks genuinely guilt ridden.
