Page 71 of This

I sigh, dropping my head back. A chance to see her sounds like the exact sword I want to throw myself on.

“She’ll bolt out the door the second she realizes I’m here,” I say.

He tips his head for a new angle. “Or she won’t.”

A lovely thought, but I know Bennett. I’ve chased her down the street before when she saw me unexpectedly. And I won’t bother pretending I wouldn’t again.

“Hey,” Aria says from the doorway. “The container marked with anSis sugar, right?”

Steve’s mouth curves upward as he twists to see her. “No, babe. That’s the salt. The sugar is above the stove.”

She hesitates, her eyes darting back and forth before she gives a sweet smile. “I’m sure it will be fine.”

Once she disappears, Steve shakes his head. “We’d better start drinking. There’s a sports bar down the street. We’ll get drunk enough to choke down your cake, and you can tell me how to convince Aria to be more aggressive with her 401(k).”

My fucking soul mate.

It’s late when Little Steviestarts pawing at the door. Having properly rung in my birthday eve, I walk a zigzag on my way to let him in. The behemoth of a tabby shows his appreciation by jumping onto the dresser rather than the bed. If Bennett were here, she’d roll her eyes and kick him out, but I like cats. Their dander just hates me.

I crash back onto the mattress and resume staring at my phone. Her name is on the screen. It has been the last several minutes while I lie here, thinking about how shitty I am for letting her walk into an ambush.

I’m drunk enough, I decide to warn her. Now. At three a.m. And fuck texting. I’m ruining my chances at seeing her. I should at least get to hear her voice while I do it.

“Dane?” She answers with a sexy rasp, and fuck, I’ve missed my name out of her mouth.

“Hey.” I sound drunk, so I sit up to clear my head.

“What happened?” she asks, slightly alarmed. “Keaton?”

Shit.I should have realized she’d think something was wrong if I called in the middle of the night.

“No, everyone’s fine. I just…” I rest my head on the headboard and close my eyes. “Fuck, baby. You have no idea how much I needed to hear your voice.”

She’s quiet, each second pulsing between us. I think I’ve lost her when the phone rustles and she takes an audible breath.

“It’s almost your birthday.”

I smile like she just admitted to missing me too. Because the fact she hasn’t hung up yet is all the proof I need to know she does. “You remember our plan?”

“Anywhere but nowhere we’ve been,” she says, repeating the words I told her.

We were on the back patio at Maggie’s. Bennett was on my lap in one of the rickety rocking chairs, fireflies blinking in the field of flowers between us and the riverbank. After bickering over who would buy the tickets, she nuzzled into my neck and said we weren’t moving from that spot until then. I was perfectly happy to oblige until she grazed her teeth over my earlobe.

I checked tickets earlier. We would have gone to New Orleans. Then, to torture myself further, I searched hotels and restaurants.

Bennett falls silent again, a familiar one I’ve experienced over and over. She’ll be on her side, facing the empty mattress where I should be, her mind busy. I keep my eyes closed, pretending she’s here.

“Stop fidgeting.”

She laughs, and I swear, my fucking heart squeezes in my chest. “What makes you think I am?”

“You always fidget when you’re trying to avoid thinking about something.”

When she doesn’t answer right away, I know I called it.

“What am I trying to not think about?” she whispers the question like she does when she’s afraid of the answer.

If I wanted to spare us both, I would throw out a wild response and hear her laugh again. But I’m drunk, and that void in my life she filled when I hadn’t known it even existed feels vast, the absence of her louder than ever.

---