Page 71 of Sigma
The other has Cicely’s father. He gives me a kill-stare and doesn’t wave. He didn’t wave when I left yesterday, either.
I roll my window, hoping to clear the air. “Sir…”
“Got nothin’ to say to you,” he replies, gesturing for me to drive on.
“I–”
He cuts me off. “Go to her. She’s been frettin’ since you left.”
Yeah, I’m feeling it.
I move along, catching her strengthening scent. I’ve had a sense of her emotions for the last few miles of my drive back and it doesn’t feel good. In fact, now it feels like something’s off.
I open the door to the Airstream and she’s sitting on the couch. She drops her phone and tries to level me with daggers from her gaze, but immediately, her expression drops and she dissolves into tears, covering her face with her hands.
I set down my phone, wallet, keys, and the muzzle along with the flower bouquet, the box of chocolates, and the bottle of bourbon and rush to her.
“Hey…” I squat in front of her.
She shoves me with both hands, and I nearly lose my balance.
“Twenty-seven hours!” she chokes out.
“Twenty-”
“Why didn’t you phone me?” She shoves me again, harder, and I land on my ass before she puts her hand to her chest and begins hyperventilating.
I scoop her up, sit down where she was sitting, and cradle her close.
She’s pissed off and she’s hurting. The crushing pain coming from her hurts so much.
“Do you feel better?” she asks, brokenly.
“A little, yeah.”
“Glad one of us does!”
“Cicely…”
“You’re lucky you brought me booze, flowers, and chocolate or you’d have a black eye right now.”
“Babe…” Interesting that she listed the booze first.
She pushes off my lap, stomps to the table and opens the bottle of whisky before taking a swig.
A woman built for me. Absolutely.
I explain, “I let it out at the edge of a national forest and when I woke up man again, I had to hike eight hours in the nude to get back to where my truck was. And it was cold and raining and–”
“And yet when you got back to the truck and your phone, you didn’t pick it up to tell me you were on your way home. You asked for my number; did you put it in your phone?”
“I did.”
“That means you could’ve called me how many hours ago?”
“Three.”
“That also means you didn’t concern yourself until you got here with how I’m doing.”
