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He was also very clean; he’d leave the middle of a quick conversation, making me promise to stay right there, while he showered if he hadn’t yet after school or during the summers when he worked construction for Danny’s father’s company. He always wore a crisp white tee and ball shorts, track pants, or jeans, except on Sundays, when he wore dress pants and a button-down. His sneakers were always clean, too, like oddly so. In one of our many conversations, Bianca told me her trick to keep them clean—peroxide and baking soda. I’ve used the tip ever since, especially with Nora, my little puddle jumper.
I glance down and read the next message.
Kal:
Can’t answer your goddamn messages or phone?!
“Whitley!” Kal yells my name, and I turn to watch as he storms toward me, I hadn’t even noticed his car parked in the lot. “You can’t answer your phone? Tell me you’re stuck here?”
I put on a smile even though I’m far from happy. “It was a busy night. Real busy, exhausting as a matter a fact.”
“No time to check your phone?”
“The only time I take it out of my bag is during breaks. I spent my break helping in peds.” That’s not one hundred percent true, but on days like today, I don’t even bother putting my phone in my scrubs pocket.
“What if it was an emergency? What if …” He pauses, and I wait for what comes next, hoping it’s something redeeming, like what if something happened to Nora. “What if I needed you?”
It doesn’t happen.
“Then, you’d call here and have me paged, just like my family would.”
When he steps toward me, I smell alcohol and it makes me uncomfortable. “Where’s your phone?”
“Somewhere in my bag. Why?”
He shakes his head. “I want to delete the message I sent. I was deeply concerned, and it doesn’t represent me in a way I want to be represented.”
Represent? “It’s fine. I won’t read it.”
He steps closer, wetting his lips and forcing a smile I assume he thinks is sultry. It’s not.
He narrows his eyes when I lean back, then grips the roof of my SUV, caging me in. “You gonna give your fiancé a kiss?”
I kiss him quick on the cheek. “I really need to get home.”
When I turn, he presses against me, wraps an arm around my waist, and pulls me into him. “Come home with me tonight.”
“You know I can’t.”
With a hand on the base of my throat, lips against my skin, his voice shakes as he asks, “This about John fucking Pau?—”
I pull his hand away from my neck and turn. “This is about me having a ten-hour shift turn to twelve and you coming here and accusing me of—” I stop when he steps back with my bag in his hand. “What are you doing?”
He begins rummaging through it, sputtering, “Deleting my texts. I wasn’t bullshitting you, Whitley.”
The way he says my name is with disdain—nothing I have heard before from him.
“Give me my bag.” I reach for the strap and pull it. Kal pulls harder. “Let go of my freaking bag!”
“Jesus Christ.” He grabs my hand and squeezes, causing my nails to sink into my palm. “Let go of the fucking bag!”
“Everything okay, Whit?” comes a female voice.
Laurie.
“All good, thanks.” Embarrassed, I let go, causing him to jerk it, and then the contents dump all over the parking lot.
I quickly bend down to gather my belongings and reach for my phone at the same time that he steps on the screen, catching the tip of my ring and forefinger.
