I open my phone to her contact.
More fucking emptiness.
How is it possible that a heart so fucking full a few weeks ago can be so fucking hollow now?
But it's not only Jade, it's Cooper too.
Radio fucking silence.
She made me promise, and I've tried. I have. But every text says delivered, not read. Every game request to him unanswered. Every phone call ignored.
I even tried to book an appointment with Em. It was canceled.
I grab the box off the front porch and open it on my way back up the stairs. It's my new headset and microphone. Kyler convinced me to start a podcast, and this was the last piece of equipment I'd been waiting for.
What the fuck my podcast is going to be about is anyone's guess, but I've redone my closet into a mini studio, and I've got nothing but time to figure it out.
I get it all hooked up to my laptop and then lean back in my chair, staring at the egg carton walls. Not real egg cartons, but the gray soundproofing crap.
Why the fuck did I listen to Kyler?
This is a terrible fucking idea.
Who the hell wants to listen to me blab? And about what?
Baseball?
How my sister won't talk to me? How Christmas fucking sucked?
How I'm a fucking forty-one-year-old man who lives with his parents? Be like me, kids.
I'd never been in love before Jade, and now I'm in love with a woman who won't talk to me or return my calls. And not because of something I did, but because of something we did. But what we did was amazing. We were magic together. We were art.
And the only thing separating me from her…is Addie.
I tap record.
"Welcome to Mumbling with Mateo."
No.
"The Mitt Mumbles."
Ugh, no.
"It's time for Motormouth Mateo."
Oh hell no.
"Hashing it Out with Hayes."
Hmm…
"Welcome to Hashing it Out with Hayes."
That could work.
Chapter forty
