Page 104 of The Need to Know

It was a major faux pas, but I went to my call log that showed a red notification illustrating three missed calls, and hit the first banner for Ezekiel’s name and number.

There was a chance he wouldn’t answer. He had to get ready for BLVCKJVCK soon. But even if he did answer, what would I say? Why was I doing this? This was digging myself deeper⁠—

“Hello?” There was a hint of alarm in Ezekiel’s voice on his end of the phone as he picked up right away.

“Hey,” I breathed out, suddenly nervous and ashamed.

I heard him sigh in relief. “What were you, sleeping all day?”

This was Ezekiel, someone who I could be honest with. Chances were, he wouldn’t even care about my date. “Uh, no, I spent my morning with Paisley and she set me up on this date, and⁠—”

“You’re on a date?” he interrupted, his tone changing from relief to surprise.

“Yeah, I kinda snuck away to return your call.”

“So, you’re out right now with someone?”

I pushed a hand through my hair. “Yeah, he’s nice.”

“Oh.” His tone was empty now. “Well, don’t let me stop you from enjoying yourself.”

He was going to hang up and that should’ve been okay, but it wasn’t what I wanted.

I paused. “I mean, he’s nice but I…I don’t know.”

“How fast can you get here?” Ezekiel cut in, wanting to know.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m not repeating myself.”

I paused, pulling my phone away from my ear and staring at it, watching the time of our call tick by. There was no missing the edge in his voice. “I…I don’t know.”

“Figure it out.” He hung up and the call ended.

My mouth fell open and I stared down at my phone in disbelief.

Irritation took over and I almost threw my phone.

He could go fuck himself.

I started to stalk back out to the table, but then I caught myself. Ezekiel had never sounded like that before. Clipped and monotone. I was pissed as hell at the rude way he demanded I come over and hung up on me, but at the same time, I was aroused by the fact that he was upset. Alarms were going off and my heart was racing.

Gray was nice, promising even, but I did not want to play video games with him.

As much as I wanted to leave, a stubborn part of me refused to give in just yet. Instead, I took a calming breath and headed back out to the table where Gray was waiting.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

He was a handsome man. One with ambition and what seemed like a clear and honest heart. On paper, he was exactly what I was looking for.

It was just too bad I was stupidly caught up on someone else. Someone who made me feel desirable, sexy, smart, and capable.

“Everything’s great,” I said. And I wished it was.

We had nice conversation as I picked over my dinner. Gray was easy to talk to and seemed sincere enough, but there was no downplaying how distracted I was. How I was anticipating the moment the date was over.

“We’ll have to do this again sometime. I had a nice night, Nastasia,” Gray was saying as he helped me from my chair after paying the check.