“The article?” I interrupted again. “Are you serious?” I shook my head in disgust. “That is for, like, my other job. It’s not a personal struggle.”
He tapped his third finger. “You called me to apologize for the stupid way your caveman acted yesterday during the hike and after lunch.”
I saw red at the insult against Phoenix and exploded on Marcus. “Are you out of your goddamn mind? First of all, don’t call Phoenix a caveman. He’s amazing and intelligent and a far better person than you’ll ever be.” Marcus abruptly stood tall, his spine ramrod straight. “Second of all, Ineverflirted with you. The thought of doing so literally never crossed my mind. Third…” What the hell was my third point again? I was becoming flustered, heads were turning, and I didn’t want to make any more of a scene. I lowered my voice. “Third, just…get the hell away from me, please.”
“With pleasure,” Marcus sneered and stomped off.
I opened the car door, slid into the seat, and then sat there, breathing slowly for several minutes to calm my heart rate. That was a giant disaster. And yet, I was proud of myself for putting Marcus in his place. I was capable of standing up for myself and taking care of things. I had a lot to learn and experience yet in life, but I needed to give myself more credit for my accomplishments. I had a nice apartment and contributed to all of the expenses by half. I was making things work with the part-time job so that I could support myself until my writing career kicked off. I was doing the whole adult thing. If Phoenix was willing to give me another chance, I really thought we could make things work. At least, I hoped.
Thinking about my next steps jacked my pulse back up again. Should I go back to the mountain house? Would Phoenix just laugh and slam the door inmyface? I deserved it. Lord knew I deserved it. I pulled out my phone, staring at it and tapping my fingers against the back of the cover. I decided to take a chance and call Phoenix.
“Ugh!” I exclaimed a minute and several failed call attempts later. It kept going straight to voicemail. I didn’t want to text him for something like this. I needed to hear his voice. I tapped on Brooklynn’s name, my next best bet.
“Hello,” a deep voice said.
I pulled the phone away from my ear to confirm, and yeah, I had definitely called Brooklynn.
“Um, hi? Is, uh, Brooklynn there?”
“Sorry, Jonas. It’s James. Brooklynn had to go help Amberly with some sort of diaper emergency, and asked me to watch her phone until she returned. Said she didn’t want to take it into the hazard zone.”
My nose wrinkled up. That sounded messy. Poor Maddie. “Oh, okay. Um, is Phoenix around by chance? I tried to call him, but he didn’t answer.”
“No, he left,” James replied. There was muffled talking next, like he had pressed the phone against his chest and was speaking to someone in the room with him.
“He left? What do you mean he left? Back to New York?” I asked, panic squeezing my vocal cords and making my words come out all breathy and choppy.
James finally returned to the phone. “Sorry, man, but I gotta go. Maddie came down with some sort of stomach bug, and Amberly needs a third set of hands.”
The call disconnected. I brought the phone down and stared at it. With Phoenix gone back to New York, there was nothing for me to do but drive home. I didn’t want to go back to the mountain house and try to act cheerful for the rest of this two-week vacation. I didn’t have it in me. I buckled up, pressed the ignition button, and headed for the highway.
Nobody would ever measure up to Phoenix in my eyes. I was destined to be alone forever, and it was my own fault.
12
Phoenix
Several long hours later, I touched down in RDU. Since I just had my small duffel bag, I didn’t have to waste any time in baggage claim. I ordered an Uber and was off to Brooklynn and Jonas’s apartment in no time. When the driver approached the apartment complex, he gave me a look of suspicion because I wasn’t sure which building I needed. I’d only been here the one time, and it had been dark when we’d arrived.
A quick text to and a reply from Brooklynn cleared things up, and then I was jogging toward the stairwell that would lead up to their apartment. When I got to their floor, I walked to the door and pressed my ear to it. It sounded empty. I used Brooklynn’s key and quietly let myself in. The place smelled familiar. Like family and very much like Jonas. It sent a wave of excitement and longing through me.
I gave my pits a quick sniff test. “Jesus, Phoenix,” I spoke aloud to the empty room. “Let’s not scare him away before we even get a chance to talk to him.”
I headed for the hallway to find the bathroom, duffel bag in tow. After a two-minute shower, I changed into one of the few clean outfits I had and brushed my teeth. As I was throwing all my shit back into the bag, the front door unlocked and opened.
“H-hello?” Jonas called out from the front room. I’d left the bathroom fan on to help with the steam. It was probably what he’d heard and likely had him spooked.Oops. When I rounded the hallway and headed for him, drying my hair off with a towel, I heard, “Stop! Don’t come any closer or I’ll…I’ll shoot.” I froze in place and slowly lowered the towel. It slipped from my fingers and dropped to the floor.
Jonas stood before me, holding up what must have been the closest thing to him—a spray bottle of laundry stain remover. He lowered his arms and let the bottle clank down to the floor. It landed beside the partially empty laundry basket near his feet. “What the hell, Phoenix!” He did not look pleasantly surprised. He looked like he was five seconds from passing out. Brooklynn had better be prepared to shell over five hundred dollars because it seemed she’d been overly confident in how this would play out. Jonas pressed a hand against his chest and was breathing hard. “You scared the shit out of me. How the hell did you get here before me?”
I took a few steps toward him. “I flew.”
He set the rest of his things down beside the basket and toed off his shoes, but didn’t come closer. “And how did you get inside the apartment?”
“Brooklynn,” we said in unison.
“Of course,” he added.
“I’m sorry I scared you, Pickles. Thank you for not pretreating me to death. What a way to go.” I gave him a lopsided grin, going for cute, but it garnered me no smile in return. His brow dipped, like he was pondering or concentrating hard.
