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I smile. “Thank you.”
“Okay. Well.” She glances down at her bare feet and then back at me. “Um, see you in here, I guess,” she mutters awkwardly, and it’s so fucking cute it nearly makes me laugh.
I wave in response, tucking the phone back to my ear and turning around. Caroline is now losing her mind, and if I didn’t know that she’d call back relentlessly as a result, I’d have already hung up the phone.
Still, if I were a smarter man, I probably would have done it anyway.
But when my ex-fiancée calls, unfortunately, I haven’t quite figured out how not to answer.
Brooke
Refreshed and relaxed from my shower, I step outside of the bathroom, expecting to find Chase waiting for his turn. Surprisingly, he’s not.
Habit makes me search my surroundings a few times before believing they’re truly empty.
But one peek out the window shows him at the picnic table on the far side of the campsite, so rather than making him wait for me to get lotioned and trussed up and dressed and all the woman things, I go ahead and throw on my robe, and then I jog back out of the bedroom to open the door, pop my head out, and let him know it’s his turn.
“Chase?” I call to his back, noticing only when he turns around to face me that he’s holding his phone to his ear. “Oh my gosh! I’m sorry! I didn’t know you were on a call.”
“It’s okay. No big deal at all,” Chase replies with his phone tucked to his chest as he talks to me.
I glance down at my bare feet and try to smile through the embarrassment—I mean, I did just complete the most relaxing activity known to humanity—and get to the point so he can get back to his conversation. “I just wanted to let you know that the shower’s free if you want to use it.”
“Thank you.” He smiles, and I turn, trying not to stay in his business too long.
Unfortunately, gallant as I may be, I can’t turn off my ears fast enough to miss what he says next.
“No, Caroline,” I hear Chase say softly.
Caroline? Caroline! There’s a Caroline who Chase talks softly to on the phone, and I am a raging idiot. Holy, holy shit.
I slink back into the motor home, pulling the door shut behind me. My heart races and my vision tunnels as I think of all the sexy things I’ve written about this man and me.
Tongues on cocks and cocks on tongues and some of the best penetration the imagination can conjure.
Endless scenes of fellatio and moments of intimacy that make my chest get red.
A whole fucking book of it, along with the completely deluded fantasy that at the end of it all, we move on with our lives together—as husband and wife.
And the whole time, he’s not even been available.
Good Christmas, I wrote a whole romance book about another woman’s man!
I’m hell-bound in a motherpucking handbasket, that’s for sure.
And I…I don’t know how to make peace with that. I don’t even know how to make chaos with that. I’m so over my head, I don’t even know where to start.
Panicking slightly—boy, that’s an understatement—I rush to the back of the bus, into the bedroom where my phone is sitting on the built-in nightstand. I don’t know what I intend to do with it other than summon a witch and a broomstick to fly me away somewhere, but when I unlock the screen with frantic fingers, I find myself going straight to the text thread with my sister.
Benji jumps up on the bed to crowd me into sitting down before I turn this place into a crime scene. I perch on the soft surface of the bed like a cockatoo—as close as I can get to sitting with all this adrenaline running through my body—and type like a maniac.
Me: I need to be talked off the ledge, and I need it now. My toes are among the crumbling rocks at the edge. Quite frankly, I may need to be sedated.
An answering FaceTime call rings on the screen, and I drop the phone like a hot potato. Is she nuts?! I can’t be on video right now! I can hardly even stand to be on Earth!
I pick up the phone and smash at the screen with my fingers.
Me: DO NOT CALL ME. I CANNOT SPEAK RIGHT NOW.
Sam: What? Why? Are you trying to scare me? Because it’s WORKING!
Me: I can’t tell you that. I can hardly even tell me THAT. So just do it. Talk me down. Type me down. Whatever. Just pitch me whatever mental health shit you can come up with until something sticks.
Sam: Okay, well…without context, this is going to be a little tough.
Me: SAM!
Sam: Okay, okay. Back away from the edge, Brooke. Back away slowly.
