Page 98 of Objection to Love

There. That wasn’t too terrible.

But maybe she should have said something about how sorry she was. Or that she wanted to take him out the next day. Or…

The door to the bathroom opened, and Natalie walked out in one of the hotel bath towels. “I realized I have no pajamas so I guess I’m sleeping in this.” She stopped a couple feet from Em. “Everything okay?”

No. It wasn’t. But Em wasn’t sure she wanted to unpack the whole of it. It was taking all her mental and emotional energy just to exist at that moment. So she nodded, grabbed her own essentials bag, and slipped into the bathroom.

Em left the hotel earlier than even she was used to. She hadn’t been able to sleep past four AM, so it was her best option to just get on the road. Quickly, she scrawled out a note for Natalie and ran for her car in the same clothes she’d worn the day before, and slept in—hoping no one would see her. That was one good thing about how early she was leaving: she could get home and shower before banging down Garrett’s door.

The drive was too long. After so much time stuck in her head, she was considering skipping the shower, just running a brush through her hair, and groveling to Garrett before she lost the nerve. Or fell apart. She’d thought her stomach was a mess when she’d broken up with him, but clearly, she hadn’t known the meaning of the word. Mess was what she was now. In a constant state of nail-biting, hair-pulling anxiety while simultaneously pushing her car to go ten—fifteen—twenty miles over the speed limit so she could get to him faster.

Which was how she ended up taking a curb and nearly knocking over a mailbox as she turned onto their street. If looks could kill, the old man watering his grass in the early morning sunlight would have Em’s head on a platter. With an apple in her mouth.

She offered an apologetic wave and slowed her speed for the last five houses until her own. And Garrett’s.

Except when she pulled into the driveway… Garrett’s truck wasn’t at the house next to hers.

Curious but unwilling to investigate when she still looked like she might have survived a night in the mountains snuggled up beside a bear, she went inside, brushed her teeth and grabbed a hairbrush, then went back to her front window while pulling it through her messy strands. She and that window were becoming mighty good friends this past week.

Still, no truck was parked outside. Em bit her lip. No part of her plan included a backup for Garrett not being there. She’d just assumed he would be. Should she call again?

No. He hadn’t even answered her text yet.

She trudged back to her room like a dejected toddler. Maybe this was a sign she needed to full-on shower before seeing him. It probably wouldn’t hurt her cause.

Twenty minutes of hot water later, Em again paced to her windows. No truck.

Okay. So she was supposed to wear makeup for this apology. Got it.

But another fifteen minutes later, there was still no truck. She glanced at the clock in the kitchen. It was only 8:17. If he’d gone somewhere the night before—like hismother’shouse, because of course that was the only place he’d go. Not an ex-girlfriend’s or something catastrophic like her mind was not-so-subtly trying to suggest—he probably wouldn’t be home for a couple of hours. Maybe he wasn’t even awake yet. Maybethatwas why he wasn’t answering her text.

She stifled a yawn as she stood in the middle of the living room.

Maybe fate wanted her to have a nap. Em couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken one of those. It probably wouldn’t work, especially since it wasn’t even nine in the morning. Her body hadn’t had time to get tired yet.

She was, apparently, wrong—that was happening to her increasingly often. Within a couple of minutes of her head hitting her pillow, she was asleep.

Some time later, Em woke with a start. Her mind whirled to catch up with her situation, and it was several confused seconds before she remembered why she’d been asleep fully clothed at… she looked at the clock—11:32 AM.

11:32!

Em jumped from the bed, sending throw pillows tumbling to the ground, and ran to her front room’s window. In the seconds it took her to make it across the house, her heart pounded dangerously at the certainty she would see Garrett’s truck and then—

No truck.

Her forehead fell onto the glass pane. Everything had seemed so clear the night before. When she’d realized she loved him and had been searching for happiness and fulfillment in all the wrong ways, she wassureshe would come home, find Garrett and fix everything.

Why then was nothing working out right? Was she wrong?

No. Nope. Talking to her boss and Natalie… Plus seeing Jackson and April together after such a harrowing ordeal had shifted something in Em. And that shift had her viewing things in a way she never had before.

If only a certain man’struckwould freaking come into view right about now.

Em stepped back from the window before her entire face became imprinted on the glass, and ideas started forming. One more phone call. One more. Sure, he hadn’t answered her text, but it wasn’t like she could just give up and leave it at that.

Why then, were her hands shaking as she picked her phone up? And why did she wait a full twenty seconds before she threw caution to the wind and clicked the call button beside his name?

The second it started ringing, Em’s heart took back up its stampeding death threat. The stampede increased during the second and third ring but started to calm by the fourth.

---