“Us.”
My smile wavered. “O-oh?”
“Erin, I think we—”
His phone buzzed. It was always face down these days. There was no chance of glimpsing the name on the screen before he grabbed it off the table.
A quick flick of his eyes over his phone ended with a frown. “I need to take this.”
I caught only his rushed “Hey” and the hint of his cologne before he slipped out of his chair to disappear somewhere in the crowded restaurant. He didn’t want an audience for his conversation—just like the hurried, whispered calls he took in our laundry room.
I loosened my death grip on the napkin twisting in my hands and forced in a deep breath.Think. None of this awkwardness meant Jeremy was having an affair. Patients called sometimes. Other doctors, too. People relied on him. They neededhim. This was the sacrifice of being a doctor’s wife—or so he’d told me.
I snapped open my clutch. Mindless scrolling on my phone would keep my eyes away from my husband’s hiding spot in the dimly lit corner by the door.
There were no messages from the babysitter. The playgroup teacher had sent a reminder to bring cupcakes to Matilda’s next session, though. And the only response I had for my parents’ latest update, as they “spent my inheritance” on another trip around Europe, was an eye roll.
I paused on the trail of messages and photos between my best friend, Lila, and me. There would never be anything new, but I still checked every day.
“Miss you,” I whispered.
Callan’s name usually hovered somewhere near the top, too.
His contact photo always dragged a smile out of me. Disheveled layers of burnt copper hair in desperate need of a trim and blue eyes dominated the shot. Most of the scarring on the left side of his face was hidden behind an apple he was about to bite. It was a rare candid moment captured on my phone. Callan hated photos.
Callan
RIGRATIE
I bit back a grin. “Cal, you make this way too easy.” My fingers flew over the screen to solve tonight’s round of Unscramble.
Erin
Irrigate. You’ll have to change your theme if you ever want to beat me at this game.
I can’t help being a simple farm boy at heart.
Boy? In your dreams, dude. You’re already on the wrong side of thirty.
So are you, city girl. Come on. Quit stalling. Hit me with tonight’s word.
My gaze drifted across the restaurant. Jeremy still stood huddled in the corner with his phone pressed to his ear.
Miserable, confused, unsteady—I could have sent any of those words to Callan. But my marriage wasn’t his problem. Years ago, we’d had all the time in the world to talk over the barbed wire fence separating his family’s farm from my parents’ failed dreams of owning a vineyard. We’d been close once, but life had moved on. Our nightly game of Unscramble was our way of keeping in touch with an ocean between us.
Erin
YEALTIR
Callan
Bloody hell, Ez. Give me a clue.
I snickered. The word I’d chosen was “reality.” Time for some teasing…
The type of shows you secretly love.
A man watches one episode of Castaway Island, and he never hears the end of it!
