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My chest aches. I rub it as I stare at the ceiling. Someone clearly didn’t get the memo about leaving stucco ceilings in the past.
I pull up her contact in my phone. My thumb hovers over the call button.
What the hell did I fuck up? What did I do to turn her away after things had been going so well? Why aren’t I enough for her, when I know I would treat her better than anyone else in the whole goddamn world?
I stab the button. The phone rings once. Twice. Three times.
“Sebastian?”
Hearing my name from her lips is a balm on my soul. I sit up, putting the ice pack back on my finger. “Hey. You busy?”
“I’m just at the lab.”
“Do you get overtime?”
She snorts. I’ve never been inside the lab where she works, but I can picture her sitting in a desk chair in leggings and an oversized t-shirt, her blue light glasses perched on her nose. Her hair is probably twisted into a messy bun, and I’d be willing to bet that she’s wearing the gold hoops she’s been favoring lately. I rub Dad’s medallion.
“No,” she says. “But I was in a meeting for half the afternoon, so I’m trying to make up the time now. How was the game?”
“We won. And I got two hits. A single and a double.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah. Messed up my finger, but it’s not too bad.”
“Which one?”
“Just the pinky.”
“At least it’s not one of the important ones,” she says, a teasing note in her voice.
I grin, even though she can’t see it. “You’re a dirty girl sometimes, di Angelo.”
“You like it.”
“I do.” I settle against the pillows, stretching out my legs. “Although I guess you’re too busy for fun right now?”
“What, you miss me that much?”
“Yeah. You’re all I’ve been able to think about since the moment I left the field.”
“Oh,” she says.
I swallow, pushing past the awkwardness. Maybe this isn’t the best way to bring up her unfinished promise to me, but I can’t stop thinking about how she helped me in the aftermath of that nightmare.
“I know I’ve left it alone,” I say. “And I can keep being patient if you need that. But you promised me something, and you haven’t kept up your end of the bargain.”
She’s silent for a long moment. I know she didn’t hang up on me because I can hear her quiet breathing. Even though she’s down in the Hudson Valley and I’m all the way up in Albany, it feels like there’s a golden string between us, shining in the dark. I wonder if it only glows for me, or if she can feel it too.
I can’t be the only one. Whatever makes her hold back so much, it’s not for lack of feeling. If she would just let me in, I’d know how to help her.
“I can’t,” she says. “Not like this. Not over the phone.”
“Whatever it is,” I start, “I won’t judge you.”
Another silence.
“It’s not like that,” she says eventually.
