AllFreeNovel
Share Us
DREW
Nine hours later, the phone still taunted me. Sadie hadn’t stopped by, and she wasn’t home yet.
Back. She wasn’t back yet.
This place wasn’t her home.
I sat with an untouched tumbler of scotch resting on my right knee, some program I wasn’t watching on the TV, and her phone sitting on the coffee table. When it became obvious she either hadn’t realized she’d forgotten her phone, or didn’t care, I tried to convince myself I should go about my usual routine of getting hammered for the day. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I had the annoying need to be on full alert in case something happened and she needed me.
How would you know if she needed you? She doesn’t have her phone, dumbass.
That thought had mocked me more than once this evening, but the swirling need in my gut knew no logic.
The constant texts and calls from someone named Aileen had me wondering if there was some kind of emergency back home. Every time her phone lit up, I told myself this time I’d answer it. Instead, I sat there. Unmoving. A sick part of me didn’t want her to know about whatever was going on in her world outside this town. If someone was calling her this many times, it had to be something that was going to take her away even sooner.
So yeah, turned out I was even more of a bastard than I thought.
The screen lit up again. Aileen. I set the scotch down on the coffee table, shook my shoulders and arms out and snatched up the phone, hitting the accept button before I could chicken out.
“Sadie’s phone,” I answered.
Silence greeted me.
“Hello?” My voice came out gruffer than I intended.
Throat clearing filled the speaker before a woman spoke. “Hello. May I speak to Sadie, please?”
“She forgot her phone today. Is everything all right?”
Is everything all right? What the fuck is wrong with you, man?
The woman let out a long-suffering sigh and muffled a tiny snivel. “Sorry, who are you?” she asked.
This had been a terrible idea. In my mind, I extracted all the information I craved about Sadie from this woman without having to give any out. But the truth was that I had no idea who this woman was or whether Sadie even wanted her to know what she was doing or where she was.
Fucking hell, I was a dumbass.
“She’s on a work assignment and renting a room from my place. She forgot her phone here this morning.” Hopefully, that was a small enough morsel to satisfy her without blowing anything up for Sadie.
“So you’re the innkeeper? Is it a bed-and-breakfast?”
“Sure, let’s call it that.”
Heavy emphasis on the bed. Light on the breakfast.
A long silence filled the line. I’d have to give up something more to make this woman get to her point. “Look, Aileen, right?”
“Yes, how did you—”
“You’re listed in her contacts. I couldn’t help but notice you’ve been blowing up her phone all day. Is there some kind of emergency? We’re a small town so if I need to go track her down for you, I can.” A sliver of me wanted an excuse to go hunt her down like a Neanderthal. The rest of me wasn’t even close to being ready for a conversation with her.
“No, that’s not necessary. If it seems like she’s getting by okay today, then I don’t want to upset her. Maybe it’s good she took this assignment. Something to distract her. I knew today would be a difficult day for her. I needed to hear her voice to make sure she wasn’t sugarcoating things for my benefit in her texts. Trying to play it strong, you know?”
Now that she’d decided it was okay to talk to me, everything poured out of her in a nervous rush.
“Did she… Did she seem okay this morning?”
She seemed to be doing well enough to share coffee with a total stranger in my house. Until I shut her out.
