by T Gephart
Or wish him goodnight.
Or check in on him this morning.
All of the things I hadn’t done.
“The boyfriend?” my dad asked, the raised eyebrow hinting there wasn’t much that got past him.
“Yeah. I was supposed to call him. I’m a bad girlfriend.” More like the worst.
“I’m sure he’ll understand, go ahead and make your call.” Dad waved me off as I walked out of the dining room into the study.
“Shit,” I mumbled to myself when I saw the time.
It was almost dinnertime, and I hadn’t spoken to him since I left the studio yesterday. I hadn’t forgotten about him. He had been in my thoughts the entire time. But I’d been so focused on what I was doing that I kept putting off sending a message, rationalizing that I wanted the time to say something important. In the end, I hadn’t said anything at all . . . and that was even worse.
I was a terrible person.
My fingers hit his name on my contacts with my heart beating quickly in my chest. Would he even want to hear from me? Would he accept the call?
“Hello?” a male voice answered, the noise in the background making it difficult to hear. “Hello?”
“Hi, is Josh there?” I pulled the phone away from my ear making sure I’d dialed the right number. Even with the background noise I could tell it wasn’t Josh. “Dallas, is that you?”
“What?” mystery man screamed through the phone, it was definitely not Dallas either. “I can barely hear you.”
“I WANT TO SPEAK TO JOSH.” I pulled the phone away and yelled into my cell. “IS HE THERE?” I was positive the people in the next neighborhood heard me so I hoped whomever I was talking to was able to catch at the very least his name.
“Oh, Josh.” Thank you, Jesus, he had heard. “He’s taking a piss.”
Well at least he wouldn’t be gone long. It was obvious they—Josh and this guy—were in some bar. And that was totally fine, I was glad he was out with friends and hadn’t been waiting around for my call. Okay, so maybe a little part of me was hoping he’d been waiting, but that was the total irrational part that needed to shut the fuck up. I had left for the weekend, remember. Me. So he had every reason to be out. Having a good time.
“Hey. You still there?”
Shit.
“Can you let him know Eve called?” I figured I should answer the guy rather than continue my internal debate.
“Steve?” he hollered into the phone. “Hey my name is Steve too, what a coincidence. You don’t sound like a Steve though.”
“NO, EVE,” I shouted back, not knowing who Steve was but at least I had the name of the mystery voice.
“Yeah, I heard you the first time, Steve. I’ll let him know you called, bye.”
He hung up before I’d had a chance to correct him.
Damn it.
Did I call back? How many Steve’s did Josh know? Would he put two and two together or check his recent call register and see it was me? Of course he would, I told myself. There was no reason at all to be worried.
Other than it was barely dinnertime and he was already at a bar.
Where there were probably women.
Who were probably eyeing him with intent.
No.
There was no reason to worry.
I wandered back into the dining room and found my dad and George had wrapped up. George assured me he would get his assistant on it first thing tomorrow when business opened and waved goodbye as he hopped into his Lexus. It made sense, there was little else we could accomplished on a Sunday evening anyway.
Mom insisted I take a break and had dinner at the table like a civilized person, so I put off the rest of my irrational thinking for a couple of hours while I enjoyed a lovely meal with my parents.
Muriel—the cook who had worked for my family for years—had prepared a beautiful dinner, which we enjoyed with a glass of wine. That one glass turned into two, and maybe I was self-medicating a little with the Pinot Noir. The small buzz it gave me eased some of the tension.
Even though Josh still hadn’t called me, everything was fine.
Fine.
He would call.
And if he didn’t, I would risk looking indecisive and needy and call him again . . . even though I told him I needed time to work shit out. Because I was an idiot and shut him out, and he was the one thing in my life that wasn’t a mess.
“Are you going to be working much longer?” Mom asked, me and my third glass of wine headed to the living room.
“I’m going to do some sketching and then I’m going to go to bed. It’s been a long day and I could use an early night. Go watch television with Dad, I’ll be fine.” I gave her a reassuring smile.
She gave me a hug goodnight. “Please sleep in a bed tonight, Eve. Finding your body sprawled out on the carpet like a crime scene scared me half to death this morning.”
“I’m sorry.” I laughed, the wine working its way through my system. I was not even close to being drunk but I was definitely on the happy side of the street. “I promise I’ll go to bed.”
Both her and my dad disappeared upstairs and I again took residence on the floor, wine in one hand and sketchpad in the other.
I wanted to work on my surprise. My something special for Josh to show him how much I cared about him. How instrumental he’d been in my change. How much he’d shown me in such a short time.
I wanted to tell him . . . that I was falling in love with him.
Maybe it was the wine talking, maybe it was fatigue, or maybe I’d stripped myself so bare that now I finally saw things for exactly what they were.
I. Loved. Him.
And I wasn’t only going to tell him. I was going to show him.
The best way I knew how.
“Shit.”
It felt like my soul had been tossed back into my body as I woke up with a start.
At least this time I had been smart enough to do it in a bed. I was still wearing my clothes though. Hey, one out of two wasn’t bad; thankfully I wasn’t passed out on the floor like yesterday. Small victories.
Josh hadn’t called, or at least he hadn’t before I’d tiptoed up the stairs and fallen into a coma.
I had just finished Josh’s surprise and could no longer see straight and figured I’d just close my eyes for a few seconds before pulling up my big girl panties and calling him back.
Spoiler alert: It had been longer than a few seconds.
My hand grabbed aimlessly for my phone in the dark, and came up empty. It wasn’t beside me or on the nightstand.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I hit the lamp beside me, blinding myself momentarily as I dropped to my knees and searched the carpet and underneath the bed.
No phone.
Shit. SHIT. SHIT.
I must have left it downstairs. My sleepy wine-induced state wasn’t known for its stellar decision making skills, my feet quickly exiting the bedroom and scuttling down the stairs as quietly as I could.
It was morning, barely, but the sun hadn’t come up yet and my parents were still fast asleep.
“Fuck.”
I swallowed the scream as I stubbed my toe on the coffee table, my little pinkie throbbing as I grabbed my stupid, freaking phone—yes, I was blaming the phone—off the coffee table and checked it.
Well.
Shit.
Josh had called around ten thirty. Not late by anyone’s definition, but after the long day and few glasses of wine, I was one bedtime away from a retiree in Boca.
He’d also sent a message.
Hey, sorry I missed your call. Took me a while to work out who “Steve” was considering Steve was the one delivering the message. Is everything okay? Call me. J x
And then again just before midnight.
I guess it wasn’t urgent. Glad to hear you made it to your parents’ house safely. Ok, bye.
No.
No.
No.
God, I was an asshole. He was probably thinking I was
playing games or trying to mind fuck him. Ugh! I was so mad at myself.
It was three a.m. and he would most likely be sleeping.
I shouldn’t call.
But what did “bye” mean? Bye as in, see you later or bye as in, you selfish bitch I hope you rot in hell.
No. It was just a bye. It was nothing.
Unless.
Crap, it was not nothing.
Screw it. I couldn’t help myself, dialing his number anyway because there was no way I was going to text.
What would the message say anyway? I’m sorry for being a dumbass? Yeah, thanks but no.
My pulse raced wildly as I waited for the call to connect, only having to wait a minute before disappointment set in.
Voicemail.
And I didn’t know if I had enough of my mom’s optimism to believe it wasn’t personal.
Could he be punishing me for what he might figure was me blowing him off?
He had every right to be angry, but my lack of communication hadn’t been intentional. And then when I did get my shit together and call him, I didn’t even follow up with a text. Because I was a moron. That wine had a lot to answer for.
So of course when he tried to contact me and I hadn’t responded, assumptions were probably made. Ones where he decided I was an evil bitch who was wasting his time.
No, I was acting paranoid.
I dialed again, hoping he’d been in the bathroom, in the shower, getting a glass of water, sleeping—any other scenario where he wasn’t avoiding my call.
Voicemail.
Shit.
The smart thing to do would be go back to bed, wait until a more reasonable hour and then try again. Be rational considering I had missed his calls initially, so maybe his phone had been forgotten in his living room like mine had.
A problem considering I was currently not feeling rational nor smart.
Which was probably why I decided that getting into my car and driving back to Queens was a good idea.
I would miss morning traffic, I told myself. And I’d always planned to go back today, so what did it matter if I left a few hours earlier. And at least I wouldn’t be in the car, stuck in traffic when businesses opened, in case I needed to make calls or something. Yes. I wasn’t being ridiculous at all. Any single one of those reasons would be valid, all put together and I was appalled I wasn’t already in my car.
With my mind made up, I raced back up the stairs and threw myself in the shower. I probably set the land speed record for getting dressed, ready and repacked, but I had a mission and unfortunately the clock was working against me.
Quickly I scribbled a note telling my parents I had decided to go, citing all my reasons I’d previously mentioned—traffic, needing to make calls, etc. etc.—and left it on the kitchen counter. I’d signed it with lots of hugs and kisses and I knew it was going to cost me another weekend back home to make up for it. This time—assuming he was still my boyfriend—I would bring Josh, so they could see how wonderful he was.
It was only once I was in the car and leaving my parents’ driveway that I felt I was able to breathe again. In a couple of hours I would be at Josh’s apartment and I would tell him everything. About buying the hotel and my exhibit and that I was in love with him and needed him in my life. And he would tell me how much he loved me too, because what other possibility could there be?
Of course there were other possibilities, and I probably imagined every last one of them as I crossed back into New York and headed to Queens. My mind, it seemed, had no shortage of them as I tried to drown out my thoughts with loud music.
Uncomfortable heat prickled my neck the closer I got to where he lived. The last time I had visited a boyfriend unannounced, he’d had company and it hadn’t worked out so great. And the surprise had definitely been on me.
Problem was this time I felt a hell of a lot more for Josh than I’d ever felt for Oliver. So chances were, if history decided to repeat itself, I would not be adding the other woman to my circle of friends. Oh please don’t let him have picked up some random girl at the bar. Even just the thought of walking in and finding him with someone else made me want to throw up.
No.
Josh wasn’t like that. Even though we hadn’t been together long, I knew he had more integrity than that. He wouldn’t cheat on me.
Yeah, but you didn’t think the last guy would either, so your track record isn’t exactly great, is it?
See! My mind was a complete asshole, but I wouldn’t allow it to sabotage me when I had no reason to even suspect it. I was just thinking too much.
Overthinking.
Too many thoughts.
Fuck.
When I finally arrived at his apartment building, I had argued both sides of the would-he-cheat-on-me argument so effectively I wasn’t sure who had won. Either way, I promised myself I wouldn’t fall apart. It would be okay, I promised myself. It would be okay.
I took it as a good sign that I found a parking spot out front, putting the car in park and taking a couple of deep breaths.
Slowly—which was ridiculous considering I’d been cursing every minute till I got to his place—I exited the car and pressed his buzzer and waited.
And waited.
No answer.
Shit.
Well, at least I hadn’t caught him screwing someone else. Unless that had been his reason for not answering the door.
No.
He wasn’t Oliver.
He wouldn’t.
I tried his cell again while I took the short walk to the tattoo shop. Maybe he’d decided to go in early to do some work—unlikely, but I was hopeful. Or maybe after his big night drinking he’d decided to crash at the shop—even less likely considering how close he lived he could literally crawl home. It didn’t matter about his early-days stories about sleeping in his chair, if I could almost sprint the distance in heels, he could get himself home.
Voicemail.
No matter how many times I dialed the number, it was always the same result and to top it off, the shop was dark.
No lights and no sign of movement.
This wasn’t good.
Where the hell was he?
I was just about to give up—and possibly lodge a missing person’s report, that wasn’t overacting surely—when I saw something had been lodged just underneath the door. A receipt from a gas station had been folded and shoved in the small space but once I pulled it out, I was able to see it was actually a note.
Josh,
Was in town, stopped by.
Here until Friday.
Give me a call.
~ T
A phone number was scribbled underneath.
I had no idea who T was and what business they had with Josh. But it obviously wasn’t of a professional nature. Last time I checked, people didn’t book appointments by shoving notes under a fucking door. So I could only assume it was personal. Obviously someone he hadn’t seen in a while because they’d “stopped by” his shop rather than calling him on the phone.
Maybe an ex-girlfriend?
Great.
I was back to worst-case scenario again.
Checking to see no one was watching—I probably looked like I was about to rob the joint—I stuffed the note into my purse and casually—and as quick as I could—walked back to my car.
I was riding high on adrenaline and irrationality and I wouldn’t be swayed. I was going to call T and find out who the hell they were and what they wanted. Because of course I had that right.
Besides, I told myself, shaking off any guilt. If I would have been with Josh I would have seen the note anyway. Probably—I rationalized—returning the call for him if it was business related, which I could safely assume considering the note had been left at his place of business. It’s not like I’d yanked it from his front door at home. So technically I was just doing my job. Yes. That was exactly what I was doing.
Trying not to attract any sort of attention or suspicion—well, no more than I pro
bably already had if anyone had been watching—I made it back to my car and locked the door.
And with my ignition back on, I left Queens and headed back to Manhattan. I was still no closer to finding out where Josh was, but I wasn’t going to sit outside of his apartment and wait for him to come home, like a stalker. All right, not perpetuating the stalker stereotype more than I already had.
Besides, I had something else I needed to take care of. I needed to make a call and find out what I was dealing with.
Yep, I had taken insanity to a new level because whoever T was, was going to have to speak to me first.
Josh
“WE WILL NEVER TALK ABOUT THIS AGAIN.” Dallas loaded himself into my car, slamming the door behind him. “Never. To the fucking grave.”
Unlike the last time Dallas and I had gone out drinking, we hadn’t ended up at the emergency room.
In fact, on Saturday night I’d called time early and decided to go home. At that point I was still hopeful Eve would call and we could talk. I assumed she’d arrived at her parents’ house—of course I didn’t know for sure because she hadn’t sent me a text—but still had no idea where things stood with us.
And here’s a hint, I wasn’t much fun to be around. You know those dudes who sit at the bar peeling the label off their beer, embodying every shitty country song ever written? Multiply that by ten and you were somewhere in the vicinity of my mood.
But I didn’t call her.
Even though every instinct I had was to pick up that phone and tell her to come back. Why? Because I was a pussy, trying to be the nice guy and give her fucking space. She didn’t need space. She needed to hear what I had going on in my head, that I was crazy about her and going absolutely insane without her.
She wanted until Monday. Two whole fucking days I was supposed to sit on my hands and pretend like it was all-good. I did that before when I tried to fool myself into believing I wasn’t attracted to her, now it was like asking for the impossible. But I fucking did it anyway. Because her fucking happiness was more important than my own.
S-U-C-K-E-R.
Fuck, I just needed to know if we had a chance.
But it was her call, so until such time as advised—because I’d clearly lost my balls at some point—we were on radio silence.