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He was quiet for too long so she called his name.
“Carter…”
Across the street from her house, he released a sigh, removing his eyes from a door he had stared at a million times in the past couple months from where he was standing in a dark alley. Carter had lied when he’d said Brooks left the phone. He had been the one, but he also didn’t want McKenna getting her hopes up. He was selfish and just needed to hear her voice. To see her face, even if the smile he found there was because of another man.
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m as okay as I can be.” She paused, then asked the question that had plagued her for the past couple of months. “Was it you? Those three men?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I saw it on the news. Three men were killed. Each one the same way. Executed in their homes. The first one a few days after you left here.”
“You know I’m not telling you that.”
“Then tell me I don’t have to worry about you and that you’re okay.”
“You don’t like me, Kenni. Why would you care whether or not I’m okay?”
“Carter…”
He smiled and glanced at her house again. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
“Am I going to see you again?”
“Not unless he fucks up.”
She rolled her eyes and smiled. “Then can I call you?”
“No, this line will be disconnected by the time you wake up in the morning.”
“Oh…”
“I just needed to hear your voice, McKenna. Now that I have, I’m good. I gotta go.”
“Yeah, me too,” she said quietly. “And Carter…”
“Yeah.” He felt what was coming and as much as he wasn’t going to like it, he would agree.
“No more checking to see if I’m okay or needing to hear my voice. Not if you truly want me to be okay.”
“You got that.”
She closed her eyes and clutched the phone tighter. “Be safe, Carter Reed.”
“Be happy, McKenna Smith.”
The line went silent and she closed the phone and dropped it in the trash. After taking a few minutes to get herself together, she turned off the water flowing in the sink, changed her clothes, and joined Tevin in the living room.
Outside her home across the street, Carter dropped his phone on the ground and smashed it several times with the heel of his boot and walked away from the life that was never meant to be his in the first place.
Time & Place…
