Page 40 of Will Bark for Pizza
Lila: Do they have DoorDash there? I can send you coffee.
Lila: Please call me!!!
I wasn’t exactly a morning person. Lila knew me well.
Before I could save her the trouble and call her back, I noticed one other text message from a number I didn’t have saved. One with a Nebraska area code.
Unknown: I know u luv me kare bear :)
I tossed my phone as though it were on fire. Husker hopped off the bed as though we were under attack.
Dammit,Kira. Rein it in.
“Sorry, Bubbies.” I had to stop reacting this way, at least for his sake.
I rubbed both hands over my face and forced myself to breathe through my panic spike. Travis hadn’t bothered me in over two weeks. It was a record. I blocked his latest number, his email on three different email accounts, and even Venmo. He didn’t have most social media, on account of him being too damned paranoid. But it’d been almost two months since he changed his phone number. I was foolish enough to think he was through with phone number roulette.
I focused on deep breaths, and my racing heart slowed.
I reached for my phone and went through the motions that, at this point, were automatic. I didn’t respond to his text. I’d learned that nothing I said mattered. I could tell him I still loved him or tell him to go straight to hell, and it had the exact same impact—it created an opening. The words didn’t matter. Only the response.
I hadn’t responded since the night we broke up, almost a year ago.
That didn’t stop Travis from trying dozens of tactics to get a rise out of me. Anything from begging me to give him another chance, to telling me how horrible a person I was to hurt him.
I stopped reading most of them.
After this new number was blocked and the text deleted from my phone, I called Lila.
“Kira!” she shrieked, her excitement overpowering, reminding me I had yet to find coffee. I rarely drank anything other than iced, but today, I was willing to make an exception.
Husker hopped back on the bed, head tilted as though searching for his friend. Lila was one of his favorite people.
“Hey, Lila. What’s the big news?”
“You don’t know, do you?” She sounded giddy, like she was about to explode with barely contained excitement.
“Know what?”
“Oh, myeeeh!”
Husker tilted his head all the way to the side at the high-pitched squeal, staring straight at the phone I’d since put on speaker and dropped beside me.
“You hit the top ten.”
“What?”
“Top. Ten. In thewholestore.”
She paused, no doubt giving me time to let what she was saying soak in, but I could still hear a faint tapping noise. Something like a woodpecker on a sugar high. Or the patiently impatient tap of her perfectly manicured nails against her kitchen table.
The image it conjured pulled a reluctant smile as I dug my laptop out of its bag for the first time since I packed the car, and powered it on. I held my breath as I waited for everything to load, and the Wi-Fi to connect.
“Are you looking?” she asked.
“Yeah. It’s loading.”
I pulled up my browser and typed inForever Forbiddenin the search bar. It populated Diana Davenport, along with the book title.
