Page 49 of The Suitcase Swap

No.

She wasn’t even going to go there. Mike had offered – practically begged, if memory served. Sophie decided that until she learned otherwise, she would take the offer at face value: a thing freely given.

With that thought firmly in mind, she shuffled to the bathroom, took the last dose of the pain relief she’d brought with her from London, and dragged herself back to bed.

Mike didn’t hear from Sophie the next morning, which was fine. Absolutely fine. It was her prerogative whether or not she wanted to talk to him. He could reach out first. It wasn’t like he was a teenager any more, trying not to seem too keen by calling someone too soon. She was used to him messaging her by now, anyway, so he would text her at lunch. If she needed a little time to get to grips with what had happened, he could give her space.

He just wished he knew how she felt about everything. Mike knew howhefelt about it. The mental film had been playing on a constant loop in his head. The blissed-out look on her face. The satisfying feeling of her in his lap,in his arms. The way she’d dozed against him, snoring lightly once or twice. He’d held her until his legs had gone to sleep.

Then he’d held her a little more.

Once he’d tucked her into bed, he’d pressed his lips to her forehead, closed his eyes and breathed her in. She’d smelled a little like him, and he’d liked that, too.

Then he’d let himself out of her flat, caught a cab and gone back to his place. He’d opened his front door with shaking hands, barely keeping it together at that point. As soon as he was inside, the door locked behind him, he went into the bathroom and proceeded to have what might have been the shortest wank in his entire life history. And that included his teenage years, which was saying something.

So no, he wasn’t even a bit conflicted about what had happened the afternoon before. Far from it. In fact, he was more than a little obsessed. He wanted to do it again. Hopefully in more ways and with fewer clothes.

And he was really, really hoping she felt the same way and wasn’t deleting his contact info from her phone for the way he’d handled, well, everything. So he decided to text her after lunch and take it from there.

Except he got swamped at work. He’d had to play a bit of catch-up from the day before, and it was almost teatime by the time he took a break. No messages from Sophie. Right. Well, it was possible she’d had a busy morning or was waiting for him to make the next move. It took him a few minutes to figure out what to say. Finally, he settled on something simple:Thinking about you a lot today. Hope you’re well.

He sent it. Waited. No dots appeared. Well, she was hardly tethered to her phone. And while he was tempted to stare at it like some sort of lovesick adolescent, that would only drive him mad, and besides, he had more work to do.

He tucked his phone into his pocket and got back to it.

She didn’t text all afternoon. His phone was maddeningly silent for the entire evening. By bedtime, he was feeling frustrated and concerned, his gut sinking as he stared at his blank screen. Maybe he’d overstepped? Maybe she hadn’t really liked it. Maybe afterwards she’d been ashamed or embarrassed or unhappy or . . . something. Something that wasn’thappy.

He blew out a long breath. Or maybe she was completely fine but hadn’t been as blown away by it as he had. He ran a hand over his face, tired of his brain chasing itself in circles. He decided the decent thing to do was text her goodnight. Two texts wasn’t veering into stalker territory.

Are we okay? Are you okay?

Nothing. Just a blank, mocking screen. He resolutely set it down, showered and brushed his teeth. Climbed into his cold, empty bed and plugged his phone into his charger. No response. Finally, he texted hergoodnight, put his phone on do not disturb, and went to sleep.

In the morning, his phone was still silent, except for a message from Rahul sharing some photos of Stella and Archie. An hour later, Amaya sent him a photo of his plant, Barney – she’d written his name on the pot. She’d also added a small plastic dinosaur, standing it in the dirt. He was pretty sure it was a brontosaurus.

But no message from Sophie.

He copied the photo of Barney, dropped it into their chat and addedgood morningunder the photo. Once it was sent, he went about his morning routine, diving quickly into work. He surfaced around two o’clock for lunch. No texts.

Was he getting ghosted? It wouldn’t be the first time in his life that had happened, though he’d been lucky that he’d only had to deal with it once when he was seventeen and Margo Flanagan had ditched him for her ex-boyfriend, deciding there was no reason to tell Mike any of this first.

But that . . . didn’t seem like Sophie. Rather than grassing on Lee to his boss, she’d helped get him safely back to his flat. She’d got on a plane, something she was terrified of, just to be there for her kids in their time of need.

She’d forgiven him when he’d been an absolute fucking muppet.

What shehadn’tdone was ignore him. So this . . . this felt off.

Something was wrong. Maybe her phone was broken? Maybe something had happened to her kids? But he just couldn’t see her ghosting him.

By the evening, he was decidedly uneasy.

By the following morning, he was checking his phone every two minutes.

And by nightfall, he couldn’t shake the frantic, uneasy feeling seeping into his bones. He’d been going back and forth with himself all day – he was probably overreacting. It had only been, what, forty-eight hours? She was a grown woman with things to do and didn’t owe him anything. She hadn’t promised him anything. It wasn’t like they were dating. But all of those perfectly logical, rational statements felt like the thinnest tissue paper, tearing under the relentless feeling thatsomething was wrong.That Sophie wouldanswer her fucking phone, even just to tell him to leave her alone.

He could text Tom. Mike had his number in his phone, but at this point Mike wouldn’t feel better until he saw Sophie with his own eyes. He didn’t bother getting out of his suit, just grabbed his jacket and headed to her flat. If he was overreacting, they could have a good laugh over it, or she could tell him to lose her number. He’d deal with it if those were the outcomes, but at least then he’d know she was okay.

It was raining – of course it was raining – and despite catching a Lyft by the time he got to her flat, his hair was flat against his skull and his jacket soaked through. When hegot to her door, he knocked quietly at first, then a little more firmly. No one answered. Had she gone? Was she at her son’s flat? He could check – he knew which flat they were in, after all. Or he could knock on her neighbour’s door, see if he’d heard from Sophie.

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