Page 57 of Broken Hearts
“What?” I fight my eyes to keep them open.
“At the bar, you guessed my favorite color was blue, but it’s green.”
“Mine is blue.”
“I wonder what the third question was.”
“I don’t know.”
“I wanna know you,” he says quietly. “All the things.”
I’m smiling when I fall asleep. It doesn’t take long. Exhaustion pulls me under and I can’t remember ever being so content. I’m woken by a phone ringing. My first instinct is something is wrong with Elias, but this time it’s Rhett’s phone ringing.
I nudge him. “Your phone’s ringing.”
“Hmmm?”
I nudge him again.
Without opening his eyes, he feels around for his phone and then brings it to his ear. “Hello?”
A feminine voice replies, zapping me from my happy, sleepy place. His eyes open and he sits up. He brings the phone away to look at the screen, then jams it back to his ear. “What the hell, Carrie? It’s three o’clock in the morning.”
I roll onto my back while he continues to talk toCarrieon the other end. My brain buzzes with possibilities—none of them good. Thirteen missed calls last night and now this? I’ve zoned out, stewing in awful thoughts, until his deep voice, still thick with sleep, mutters a string of curses.
“I’m so sorry. I was half asleep and I didn’t realize who it was.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, it was nothing.”
I wait for him to say more, but like this morning, he doesn’t seem to want to talk about it. He pulls me into his arms with a heavy sigh, and neither of us speaks again.
I don’t sleep well the rest of the night. When it’s finally light outside, I creep from the bed and get dressed, then request an Uber.
“You’re leaving?” He sits up and runs a hand through his bed head.
“Yeah. I have practice this morning.”
He glances at the window to the early morning sky and then raises a brow.
Pulling on my shirt, I kneel on the end of the bed.
“I didn’t sleep,” I admit. “What’s going on with the phone calls?”
He sits up. “It’s my ex, Carrie. She won’t stop calling.”
I have a thousand questions. “Why? What does she want?”
“I’m not even sure anymore. It’s been almost a month since we broke up and she’s blowing up my phone at the most inopportune times.”
“Oh.” I don’t know why I assumed he’d been single longer, but knowing he was with someone just a month ago—someone who cares so much for him she still calls in the middle of the night—makes me uneasy.
“It’s over,” he says. “And I’m sorry that I answered. I wasn’t thinking.” His arms circle my waist. “Don’t leave.”
“I really do need to practice.”
He bobs his head slowly. “Okay. Hang later?”
