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She sighed. “Then you need to call him, Aves.”
“He doesn’t want to talk to me.” The words were broken, spoken through my snot-covered lips and the lump in my throatthat just wouldn’t go away. “I don’t think he even wants me at all anymore.”
Her lips pursed together as she reached forward, sliding my phone across the coffee table toward me. “You won’t know if you don’t try.”
I stared at it for longer than it took for her to sigh, pick herself up, and settle in next to me on the sofa. She pulled me into her, and only once I’d settled enough to calm my breathing and relax slightly into her side-on embrace, she grabbed my phone and slid it into my hands.
I wanted to throw it across the room. But I didn’t.
Me: Can we please talk?
Chapter 32
Adrian
Ididn’t know what to say to her. It felt like hours passed as I stared at her message, watching as the little dots bounced at the bottom of the screen over and over before disappearing time and time again as I sat in my empty office.
I wanted to reply.
But every time I went to move my thumbs, it was as if my brain wasn’t quite connected right to my hands, and everything just…stopped. I couldn’t think of the right words to say, couldn’t come up with a good enough answer that I would be happy with.
Days had passed since she’d been in the hospital, and I knew that although her anxiety the last few weeks had likely stemmed from the worry of telling me about the pregnancy, it was almost certainly still there for reasons obvious to both of us, now—I was uncomfortable with our situation. She was likely still anxious, and I wanted to fix it, but I found myself…stuck.
Until my phone started ringing, and a different Riley name popped up on my screen.
Funnily enough, my thumbs worked again. “Hey, David…”
“My office. Immediately.”
Click.
I pulled the phone from my ear, checking if the call was still connected.
It was gone.
What…the fuck?
My heart rate kicked up as my hands grew sweaty, and horror hit me like a freight train. Does he know? How could he know? Did Ava tell him?
Is that why she texted me?
It felt as though an arrow had pierced me straight through the gut, bleeding me dry as I pushed myself up on unsteady legs. My chair moved behind me, slamming into the bookshelves behind my desk, knocking over a framed photo of Lucas and a strange glass bowl of clear pebbles someone had placed in here long enough ago that I’d never thought to ask about it.
I didn’t bother packing away my laptop or the paperwork that was strewn across my desk. I shoved my phone into my pocket and grabbed my jacket, slipping from my private office so quickly I couldn’t even remember making the decision to do it.
Michael stood in the hallway with a binder clutched to his chest. “Adrian?”
“Emergency,” I said. “Hold down the fort.”
His brows came together as I passed, but the subtle nod was enough to give me the tiniest glimmer of calm. “All right. Good luck with…?”
“Don’t fuckin’ ask, please.”
————
Every second of the walk to the car, every second I sat in traffic, and every second spent in that goddamn elevator on the way up to David’s floor felt like torture. I’d texted him three times on theway over, trying to get an answer out of him regarding what this was about.
He didn’t reply.
