Page 42 of Level Me Up

“Everything alright?” I ask.

With a shake of her head, she glances up, finally making eye contact, “Yeah. I’m fine. I’m glad you came over tonight.” She walks over to the couch and plops down where I suspect she will be for at least another two hours.

Well, that was odd. I mutter a good night and head down the hall.

Morgan’s door is left slightly open. I quietly push it wider and step inside. The room is pitch-black, except for the soft red glow of her phone charger next to the bed. I place my bag near the door and strip out of my clothes, which leaves me in only my socks and boxers. Morgan makes fun of me, but I've slept in my socks since I was a little kid. I lived in those footie pajamas until it was no longer cool if others found out.

She is hunkered down under her covers, right in the middle of the bed. I’m a little surprised she isn’t still awake and reading. I lift the covers and slide in next to her. There's just something about being so close to her. She's warm and soft, and as I spoon behind her, she starts to stir.

"Shhh. It's just me," I whisper and squeeze her tight.

She makes a small sleepy noise that my body mistakes for a sexy little moan instead. I don't know if it's possible for my body to not be turned on by this woman. She must be more awake now because she turns over and faces me. Her sweet, sleepy smile I adore is missing from her lips as she says, "I wasn’t sleeping. What are you doing here?" Her voice is low and hoarse.

"I couldn't wait until tomorrow. I wanted to surprise you. I missed you," I say because I did, a lot more than I expected to.

She jerks her face away from me, “Really? I had no idea,” she says a tad sardonically.

“What? Of course, I did.” I reply. I’m confused.

I study her face, and I can tell she’s trying to figure out how she wants to proceed.

“Morgan?” Dang, these women are acting strange tonight.

She gives a little shake of her head and looks at me sheepishly, “Nothing, I’m fine. I’m just tired.”

She hugs me with all the strength she has and nuzzles her face into my neck. I'm a little surprised by the embrace, but even more surprised when I feel wetness on my skin. Is she crying?

"Hey, hey, babe, what's wrong?" I soothe. She shakes her head into my neck. I want to push her back a bit so I can see her face and find out what's wrong, but she’s holding on to me for dear life. What I suspect are tears seem to stop as quickly as they started. When she leans back, her eyes are glossy, but there are no signs of tears.

"Talk to me, Morgan," I urge in a calm and gentle tone, even though I'm starting to freak out.

"I missed you," she whispers.

"I missed you, too, but what else is going on?"

She contemplates my question, then lets out a shaky breath.

"It was just hard with you being gone and not being able to see you. I thought it would be alright because we would text and you’d call me when you had a chance. But you didn’t, you barely contacted me at all. You never called when you said you would, and I was lucky if I got a text hours later.”

Whoa, whoa, I texted her and called her. I open my mouth to defend myself; then I snap my mouth shut when I realize that the only time I talked to her on the phone was right after we landed Thursday night.

“Hell, I had to find out from Ruby that you guys won! And then in a desperate plea for your attention, I sent you a sexy selfie.” Her voice is starting to rise, “I actually thought phone sex would be the key. But no, you just sent me a stupid reply thirty minutes later and then nothing. NOTHING!” she spits. She sucks in a breath, seemingly trying to regain her composer. “See if I ever try to have phone sex with you again, Dex Roberts.”

I blink. All I can do is stare at her. The seconds drag on while I try to make sense of everything she just said.

“Phone sex?” is what tumbles out of my mouth.

“Don’t be dense,” she huffs. She pushes herself up into a sitting position.

My mind is on complete overdrive right now. I’m trying to focus on the most important thing she said to address first, but my mind is stuck on the phone sex part. I push it away and see she’s now leaning against the wall hugging her knees to her chest.

“Babe, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to forget about texting and calling you, I was just in the zone and focused on the tournament. I’m not used to having to check in with someone.”

Her lip quivers. That didn’t come out right.

“Shit,” I mutter. I sit up and move toward her so we are knees-to-knees. “I said that wrong. I just get in the zone, and all I think about is the game. I normally don’t have anyone counting on me outside of the team, and so I wasn’t thinking about how that would affect you. I’m truly, so, so sorry Morgan.”

She just looks at me, biting her bottom lip, contemplating my fate.

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