Page 69 of The Catch

“Yes. You know that I do.”

Dani shrugged. “Then you have to give a little of yourself too. Do the thing you wished Micah had done for you. I’m not saying you have to move in with him, but you’ve got to do something.”

Cat swirled her wine around in her glass. Any indignation she’d been claiming was replaced by a sinking feeling of remorse as she pictured Josh’s face when he walked out the door. He looked defeated, finally, by her constant challenge. All she wanted was to forfeit this win and just be on his side for good.

“I know you’re right,” she said quietly. “I just hope I still have that chance.”

“I know you do,” Dani promised, giving her a confident smile. “And you do too. This one is different.”

She looked down at her phone again, hoping that despite the fact that she’d it in her hand all night, she’d somehow missed a call or text from Josh. Instead of the blinking light she hoped to find, all she saw was a drained battery indicator taunting her from the corner of her screen. “Can I use your charger?” she asked Dani, hopping down from her stool and heading in the direction of the outlet where she knew it would be.

“You can try, but I don’t think it will fit. I got a new phone; work finally switched us all over to iPhones.”

Cat fiddled with the cord, trying her hardest to will the tiny end to fit into the wider port on her work-issued Droid. “Damn it,” she cursed. The waning block of energy displayed on her phone was a perfect metaphor for her current stamina for continuing the day. “I should go.” She moved to the stool to retrieve her coat.

“Uh-uh,” Dani said. “I’m not letting you drive across town with no cellphone after a bottle of wine. Sleep here. We’ll order a movie and hang out like our dorm days.”

“We couldn’t afford to order movies in college,” Cat said. “We had to steal your boyfriend’s Netflix password.”

“Well, we’ve finally made it, Cat. Come on. We’ll even spring for HD.”

The ride to Cat’s was shorter and lonelier at this time of night. Josh made it to the city limit in record time, and his blood began to pump faster as he flipped his signal switch to get off the highway and head downtown.

He wasn’t sure exactly what he was going to say when he got there. He would apologize for leaving, he knew that much, but the rest of the conversation still sat in a lump in his throat. He wanted to forget about what she’d said, chalk it up to a weak moment, but he wasn’t convinced Cat experienced weakness. He’d never seen it, and he’d certainly never heard that tone of voice from her before. She was angry, and even though he was more hurt, he was angry too. The combination unnerved him, and that’s why he figured he shouldn’t try to have this conversation over the phone. It was too easy to say things you didn’t mean when you didn’t have to look into the other person’s eyes. He only wanted to hear the truth from her right now, whatever it might be.

Josh glanced down at the clock again, hoping that showing up unannounced wouldn’t piss her off, but when he finally turned into the parking lot of her building, bad manners became the least of his worries. Cat’s assigned parking spot was empty. She wasn’t even there.

He pulled his Jeep over to the side, scanning the other spaces. Maybe she’d just parked somewhere else, he thought, trying to soothe his emerging panic by making up a reason.She wanted the extra steps. Someone had parked in her spot inadvertently.But when he didn’t see her little Jetta anywhere in the parking lot, his stomach sank.

He’d convinced himself, with Dylan’s help, that Cat was just as upset about their argument as he was, and she was likely home stewing over it the same as him. She wasn’t a big partier. At this hour on a Saturday night, when he wasn’t there, he truly expected her to be home, whether she was upset or not.

She was probably still at Emma’s. That was his attempt at hopefulness. The game had been over for hours, but they could still be together. Giving up on his previous aversion to handling this over the phone, he picked up his cell from the dash and dialed her number before he’d even fully made the decision. Her voicemail chimed in immediately, though, and he hung up, tossing the phone back at the passenger seat with the full force of his disappointment. It bounced to a lonely spot on the floor.

A headache was knocking on his temples, and he pressed his fingers into them. It was still early by most people’s standards. He pulled his car into his usual spot and turned off the engine, the winter air rushing the cabin as soon as the heat stopped blowing.

He would wait.

Twenty-six

Sometimes, the longer you sitwith a version of events, the more the edges blur between what you’ve imagined and what you actually know. Josh knew by the latest hour to tick by on his dashboard clock that Cat wasn’t sleeping at home. The rest was left to his imagination, and it wasn’t treating him kindly.

He held his fingers against his lips to warm them, blowing out an exasperated breath that materialized before him. Leaving now somehow felt like another retreat, but he’d been there all night, and he was ready to end this exercise in futility. Leaning over the center console, he reached around in the dark for his phone and found it still sitting on the floor where he’d thrown it. Did he have any more of his pride to put on the line? He knew he didn’t, but something in him couldn’t leave until he’d at least tried.

“Hey, Cat,” he rasped when her voicemail picked up. His voice was raw from cold and lack of sleep, and he cleared his throat of any weakness before he continued. “Um. It’s about one a.m. I’ve been here more than a few hours now, and I guess you aren’t coming home tonight.” He paused, crushing his eyes shut as he ran through all of the various reasons for her to be out all night, trying to pick the one he wanted to believe in when he chose his next words.

“I was hoping to see you… so we could talk about everything, but your phone is off, and you’re not here. Look, Cat, I’m sorry I left. I shouldn’t have. Just… call me tomorrow, please. Let me know you’re safe. I love you.”

He started his Jeep, still stuck between staying and going, being scared and being angry. Maybe he should bear the cold and wait it out a few more hours, make sure she was safe. Maybe he should go inside and sit by her door until she walked back in, so he could see for himself where she’d been. He was adamant that he wanted to see the truth in her eyes when they spoke again, but now her absence had him wondering if whatever she had to say might be too much up close. He knew the face of a woman who had changed her mind; he’d already seen it once in his life. He didn’t need to see it on her.

Maybe he shouldn’t have come at all.

It was barely dawn when Cat pushed through the door of her condo. It was the time of year when she had to put the heat on when she woke up to take the chill out of the early morning air, and the house was frigid and dreary in its greeting. Or maybe it was just Josh’s marked absence that suddenly had her feeling like she was walking into a void instead of her own home. The irony of that wasn’t lost on her.

She was desperate for some coffee after a long, sleepless night, but first things first. She dug her phone out of her purse and connected it to the white cord sticking out of the wall near her laptop. Josh probably wouldn’t be up yet, but she wanted a fully charged battery when he finally called. A night of teary contemplation, staring at the ceiling from Dani’s couch, had convinced her that he would call like he said he would, and she would fix this.

She started her coffee machine and opened her fridge to look for her breakfast options while her phone powered on. She was pulling out some Greek yogurt and fruit when the familiar double beep of a voicemail sounded from the table.

Maybe hewasup already. Maybe he was feeling the same about their night apart, and they could deal with this right then and there.

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