Page 102 of Between Passion and Revenge: Part Two
I pull my phone out and hand it to her, and her eyebrows go up as if she expected me to deny her.
She presses the side button, illuminating the screen.
“What’s the passcode?” she asks, starting to hand the phone back to me.
“It’s zero-one-zero-nine,” I say, waiting for her to connect the dots that her birthday—January 9th—is the passcode to my phone.
She pauses, staring at the phone screen for a few seconds before typing in the numbers without acknowledging them.
She navigates to the call screen and dials a phone number by heart. I turn away to give her some privacy….
…and come face-to-face with Riale.
“Is there a point to you being on my plane?” I grind out and Riale rolls his eyes.
“What’s it gonna take for you to get past this?” he asks, giving back just as much attitude as I give him.
I shrug. “A time machine?”
A muscle jumps in his cheek, and I kinda want to punch it. Lucky for Riale, I feel Shae standing behind me, and I turn to face her.
“I got through, but they had to run off,” she says, biting her lip while handing the phone over. “Yenn had ice cream for them.”
I hum, surprised jet lag doesn’t have them passed out already.
“Hey,” Shae says with a bright tone, looking past me. “I know you.”
She smiles, and it’s like the sun coming out. I haven’t seen her give a real smile since I came back into her life, and I realize I’ve been starving for it.
Shae reaches past me to shake Riale’s hand, and I intercept the move.
“You can’t be nice to him and hate on me,” I tell her, looking directly in her eyes. She seems confused.
“Wanna know why I never got a phone call from you? It’s because of that guy,” I say, finally turning to Riale. He doesn’t look embarrassed or pissed off. Instead, he looks flat, maybe a little annoyed.
“Ah,” Shae says, swallowing and pulling her hand back. “I see.”
Riale huffs.
“We ain’t got time for this bullshit, Storm. Shit’s going down, and we need your ass focused over there,” Riale says, turning to exit the plane. Awkward silence stretches between me and Shae.
“Why?” she asks, breaking the moment. I face her.
“Why what?” I reply.
“Why was he the reason I never heard from you?”
My lips twitch. Why, indeed.
“He intercepted the calls,” I say, and her eyebrows go up.
“Why did he do that? And why is he still around? That seems like a fucked thing to do.”
I hesitate, weighing whether to tell her the truth.
“He did it…because I asked him to make sure you were safe, but to keep me away from you.”
She looks even more confused.
