Page 103 of Accidental Blind Date
“Can I talk to her? Please?” I do my best not to sound annoyed but honestly, after running around like a headless chicken for the last two hours, I am a bit annoyed.
There’s a pause, some muffled talking, and then–
“She doesn’t really feel like talking right now.”
“Listen, I know I was late, but I tried to get ahold of her. If she checked her phone at all, she’d see that. I’ve had a day from hell. First the lawsuit, which I’m sure she told you about, then taking Dennis to Poppy so she could sleep. Then traffic and–”
“It’s not about Dennis. Or you being late, Dax,” Joni says, her tone patronizingly mellow.
“Then what is it? What could have possibly pissed her off enough that she ran to you and won’t speak to me?”
More muffled debate. Like she’s holding the phone at arm’s length while they not so quietly mouth the conversation to each other. I wipe my hand down my face, doing my best to be patient.
“Libby ran into someone at the pub. While she was waiting for you.”
“Okay? Someone she knows?”
“Someone she thought she knew.”
“Damnit, Joni, I’m worried about her and you’re giving me nothing here. Just tell me what the hell is going on, please!”
Another beat of silence and I swear to God if they start whispering again, I’m going to hang up.
“It was Jax,” Joni says.
“Who’s Jax?” I ask, my blood still about ten degrees hotter than it should be from all the up and down.
“From the dating app,” she says.
And it hits me. It hits me like a fucking freight train.
“What’s he saying?” Libby’s voice, clearly distressed, comes through the phone, soft and worried.
A single word involuntarily escapes my lips, more air than voice. “Fuck…”
Chapter 37
Libby
Decline.
Literally the only physical effort I have made in the last 12 hours is pressing that button on my phone. Time after time, sending Dax to voicemail. The alerts are silenced and the notifications turned off. Joni knows what I am going through and Summer and Tom were told I am deathly ill– the norovirus or something equally awful– and know not to call.
It’s so bad– said virus– that they have been instructed to get ahold of Kai if anything is dire at the shop. Honestly, I wish I did have the norovirus. Or hay fever. Anything would be better than feeling the way I am feeling right now.
As I lay in bed, the moon shifting to the sun, the minutes crawling by like hours, I hug a pillow in my arms in an attempt to dull the pain radiating through my chest. But with every passing second, I can’t quiet my brain, and the words echo like a bombs going off in the Grand Canyon.
Jax isn’t Dax.
Dax isn’t Jax.
Dax lied.
While part of me is dying to ask a multitude of questions (i.e., Who are you really? Are you even Daxton Hemingway? How didyou know I was waiting for a date? How do you happen to look like him?), I also don’t want to give him the satisfaction of giving an explanation.
Because what the fuck?
But also…ew.
