Page 100 of It Happened on a Sunday
I start to text again, only to stop when I realize thatshe’s finally typing something tome.
Sloane:Sorry I missed your call. I was in a meeting. But I’ve been wanting to text you all morning
Sloane:Yesterday was a surprising amount of fun, but I think we’ll both be better off if we don’t pursue this any further
Sloane:Your career and reputation don’t need the strain that comes with dating the Black Widow, and we both know my reputation can’t take much more, either. I think it’s best if we just go our separate ways from here
Sloane:Thanks for the laughs, though
She just dumped me in a text. In a fucking text. No conversation, nolet’s try to figure this out, nothing. Justthanks for the laughs.
Everything we were starting to build collapses around me. Mybreath gets caught in my chest, and my fingers start to tremble as they fly over the keys. I hit send before I can think better of it.
Thanks for the laughs, though.
Me:I call bullshit
Sloane:This will only end badly for your career. That’s the last thing I want
Me:Don’t you think that’s up to me to decide?
I watch those three little dots come and go for several seconds before they disappear for good, leaving me on read.
I get that she’s scared, that she wants to protect the both of us, just like I do. We’re just having a difference of opinion on how to go about it. She wants to blow everything up while I want to build on what we’ve already started. Not a wall to keep each other out but a fortress to protect us in times like these.
Maybe she doesn’t want that. Maybe shecan’twant it. But I’m not ready to give up until we at least have a conversation.
It’s obvious now isn’t the time for that, though, so I don’t send anything else. Instead, I go through the motions at the fundraiser. I give my speech, play flag football with the kids, smile when I have to, laugh when it’s expected. But underneath it all, I feel hollowed out.
I’ve almost finished doing my full circle around the outdoor pavilion, shaking more hands and signing more footballs than a guy dealing with a sleepless night and a severely pissed-off heart should have to—even for a good cause—when I look up to find Sloane’s head of security striding toward me.
For a second, I think I’m hallucinating. Then, when I decide it really is Marco, I think it means that she’s here. I break off in the middle of a sentence to scan the park for her. But the closer Marco gets, the more it registers that he’s not here to protect Sloane. He’s here in her stead.
“Excuse me,” I say to the B-list movie star I was just tryingto charm some money out of, then move to head off Marco. If Sloane’s not here, I want to know what he’s up to and what message he has for me.
But it turns out he’s not walking toward me at all. He’s heading to the donation table. I watch in consternation as he pulls out an envelope and hands it to Dolores, the current head of the Jackson-Wade Foundation.
The two of them speak for a couple of minutes, and as they do, her gaze keeps darting over to me. Just as it begins to dawn on me what’s actually happening here, Dolores rings the bell next to the table. The one she’s been ringing whenever someone drops her a check.
Then she grabs her microphone and announces to the entire park, “Ladies and gentlemen, thanks to the generosity of pop superstar Sloane Walker, we have now met and exceeded our fundraising goals. I am currently in possession of a three-million-dollar check to the Jackson-Wade Foundation from the Black Widow herself.”
The crowd erupts in applause, and she waits for them to quiet down before continuing. “Thank you, Sloane Walker! And thankyou, Mateo Sylvester, for bringing our foundation to this wonderful woman’s attention.”
It takes me a second to even process what just happened. When it finally sinks in, I force a smile and a wave for the crowd. Then I take off toward Marco, who is already steps away from the big black SUV he came in.
The same big black SUV he picked up Sloane in last night.
As Dolores gets the DJ to play a celebratory song, I take off running toward Marco and, hopefully, Sloane. But by the time I make it through the throngs of people flocking to congratulate me, he’s already pulled away from the curb.
I don’t know if Sloane was in the SUV or not, but either way, she didn’t want to see me.
And that? It hurts more than I want to admit.
The rest of the event drags. I make it through, though, then head back to the hotel. Shower. Change. Sit through a meeting on game strategy that I know backward and forward without hearing a word. She ran. And maybe she thought it was noble, cutting me loose before the fallout got worse. But the thing is, she didn’t even ask. She didn’t give me the chance to decide for myself. After the meeting, one of the guys wants to grab dinner at a nearby restaurant, but I beg off, citing other plans. Which leads to another whole round of ribbing about Sloane, most of which I ignore.
Some of which I can’t, and that just hurts even more.
By the time I’m free to go to my room, I know that’s exactly where I’mnotgoing. Instead, I head downstairs and grab a ride to her venue.
