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Before meeting Gage, I had been perfectly content with my life. How had only a few days changed it all? They hadn’t even been a good few days. They had been painful, confusing, and frustrating. Yet here I was, still missing this guy who had gone out of his way to make sure I knew he hated me.
I grabbed the bag of potato chips from the pantry and poured them over my rocky road ice cream, then went to watchGossip Girl. I was on season three, and I freaking loved ice cream with potato chips. All things I would never have known if Gage hadn’t told me.
I glanced at my phone lying on the coffee table. It had taken me four full days of checking my text messages constantly to accept he wasn’t sending any more. I’d asked him why he was doing it, and he had said he couldn’t seem to stop. That was it. Nothing more. He stopped. Out of sight, out of mind for him. Wished I could do that as easily.
As if I had summoned my phone to do something, it rang. I stared at it, confused, because that was rare, then reached over to pick it up. Gage’s name lit up the screen. I glanced at the time. It was after nine. For one brief second, I considered not accepting it.
“Hello?” I said, realizing this was stupid.
“Hey.” His deep voice came over the line.
Dang, that was a powerful jolt.
I waited since he was the one who had called me.
“How’s your week been?” he asked me.
I frowned, looking down at my ice cream. Had he called to see how I was doing?
“Uh, good. Regular routine,” I replied. “How are you and the new and improved nurse?”
He chuckled. “I wouldn’t go that far. She’s a hard-ass.”
I was smiling. Dang it, why was I smiling?
“She can take care of you better.”
He sighed. “Yeah, I wouldn’t say that either.”
His tone made goose bumps break out all over my arms and legs.
“The view isn’t appealing anymore,” he added.
Yes, I was grinning like a fool. I put my bowl on the coffee table and wrapped an arm around my legs, pulling them up to my chest.
“I seem to recall your former view not appealing to you either. In fact, it made you angry.”
He let out a soft laugh. “I tend to get angry when I feel like I can’t control something.”
I didn’t work there now. Questions were allowed.
“Gage, you verbally admitted to hating me,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, I did,” he replied. “But then you weren’t you … or the you I hated.”
This was a setup for questions. “How am I different? For you, that is? I still have no idea what I did or what we were.”
He was quiet for a minute. “What do you think we were?”
I chewed on my bottom lip, thinking about it. Then decided to go with the less likely theory. “Well, I wondered if maybe, since I was younger and you are hot, I had some sort offatal attractionthing. Like a crazy stalker who ruined your life.”
The laugh that resonated over the line made my chest feel warm. He had a great laugh. I was sure this meant that I hadn’t been a crazed stalker.
“No, but damn if I wasn’t slightly tempted just now to make you believe that.”
I laughed this time. “That would have been cruel.”
“I’m surprised that was what you came up with,” he said.
