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“What else am I supposed to think?” I shot back. “Zane made it pretty fucking clear. Hunter’s the one that found her. He’s the one who called the ambulance. That should have been me. I should have been there for her.”
“Since when have you trusted anything that comes out of Zane’s mouth?” He sat back in his high-top seat, the leather crunching under his weight. “You clearly love her. It’s obvious. You have to keep trying.”
“After that?” I scoffed. “I don’t want her if that’s what she’s been up to.”
“This could all be just one big coincidence. You have to consider that, man. There’s no way she was seeing him.”
My irritation, my anger, my hurt was getting the better of me. I knew that what he said was true. I owed it to her to hear her out, to talk to her and ask what had happened, but she’d made no effort to communicate with me since the accident. She had shut me out entirely.
I needed time to think. I needed to decide if it was even worth the potential heartbreak of hearing what she had to say. Sometimes, especially in my life, things were better left unsaid.
————
For the entirety of the last hour of work, I stared at my clock. I listened to it tick, the tiny vibrations as the handles inched closer to five o’clock.
Five minutes before, I stood.
The light in Ray’s office was on. She’d pulled the blinds down two weeks ago and hadn’t touched them since but I could see the tiny bit of light through the slats. That didn’t necessarily mean she was in there, she could have forgotten to turn the light off, but I had the confidence and I felt prepared. I hoped to God she was in there.
I stepped over to Ray’s office and stood outside the door, my hand hesitating on the handle. Turn it. Do it.
But it opened before I got the chance to.
“Jesus,” Ray gasped, stumbling back a step. “You scared the shit out of me.”
Don’t chicken out now. “We need to talk,” I said.
Her eyes narrowed. “Would this be a personal conversation or professional?”
“Considering you’re on the clock for another four minutes, it’s professional.” I took a step through the open door, forcing her back, and shut it behind me. She clutched her bag between her fingers as she leaned back against her desk. “Were you leaving?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
She bit her lip as she looked anywhere other than at me. “I didn’t want to see you.”
I sighed and crossed my arms over my chest, the back of my suit pulling uncomfortably. “At least you’re honest… sometimes.”
“For fucks sake, Wade, just say what you need to say or I’m going home.” Her knuckles went white around the straps of her bag.
I’d known what I wanted to say when I’d gotten up from my chair. I’d practiced it over and over in my mind all day, figured out the exact ways I wanted to phrase it, the ways I wanted to push her buttons. However, all of it eluded me in that moment.
“Why did you leave me?”
Her brows furrowed. “What?”
“That night. Why did you leave? I woke up and you were gone. Why?”
The air in the room shifted. “I… I needed some space. I wanted to go for a drive to clear my head. I realized what was happening and I didn’t want to breathe the same air as you while I sorted myself out.”
“Are you fucking Hunter?” I asked, the words leaving my lips before I could stop them. Confusion flickered across her face as she finally dragged her gaze back to me. “Tell me, Raylene. I need the truth.”
“I’m not fucking Hunter,” she said, the words oozing with disdain.
“That’s not what Zane said,” I scoffed. “He said you drove out there. That’s why you crashed by his ranch. He said you called him ‘baby’ when you came to after the wreck.” Her face paled. I took a step toward her, that same anger flaring again, backed by every drop of anguish and pain I’d felt for nearly a month. “Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying!” she snapped. “Zane is the one lying to you. Since when do you trust his word over mine?”
