Page 91 of Screwed
She’d expect to wake up with him in the morning. But he knew he had to leave.
Unable to stop himself, he bent down and pressed his lips to her hair, breathing in her scent, filling his lungs with it as if trying to hold it there forever. “Goodbye, darlin’,” he whispered, his throat thick.
His heart cracked wide open, jagged and bloody, as he jogged down the stairs. He turned out lights, made sure the front door was locked, and let himself out the kitchen door into the garage. With aching, wrenching regret, he backed out of her garage and drove home. Alone.
…
He got Callie’s text the next morning. He was already at the office with a huge coffee from Starbucks to keep him going after the sleepless night he’d had, tossing and turning and thinking about Callie, dreaming about her when he did get to sleep, stomach-knotting dreams where she was jumping off a cliff and he was trying to get to her and couldn’t.
Hey, where’d you go last night?
Home. You were asleep.
Her reply took ten minutes to come through.
Sorry. Didn’t mean to conk out on you on the couch.
Great. She thought he was annoyed about her crashing.
No worries. You were obviously tired.
He sent the message, paused, then typed again.
Too tired for some action.
Fuck, he was an asshole. He would have happily spent the night in her bed, snuggling her sleepy body and not having sex.
Again, her response was slow.
I guess I was tired. Sorry again.
No worries.
He tossed his phone onto his desk and scrubbed his hands over his face. Self-loathing rose up his throat, nearly choking him. But they couldn’t be together—this was how things had to be. Once again he needed to put her out of his head and focus on business.
He managed to do that for the morning, mostly, blocking out everything but work…although Callie was always there in the back of his mind. At noon he headed out to meet one of his football buddies, Eric, for lunch.
They caught up on professional and personal news, Cash resisting the impulse to say, “Hey, guess who I’m sleeping with?” Instead he asked, “Have you seen Tyler lately?”
“No, but we’re getting together next weekend. A bunch of us are going out to some beach house a friend of his has…it’s apparently pretty amazing. You should come with us. We’re gonna go golfing and party a little. If you come, that’ll make eight of us, perfect for two foursomes.”
“Yeah.” Cash paused. “Sure, that sounds like fun.” Getting away from Callie—and away from temptation—would probably be a good thing.Yeah, run away, you asshole.
Chapter Twenty
Callie hadn’t seen Cash in almost two weeks, not since that Monday night she’d fallen asleep on her couch after he’d brought over Chinese food. He’d responded to her texts with terse messages but hadn’t initiated contact with her at all.
She tried to tell herself it didn’t matter, but the truth was, she was dying inside. Everything ached. She hadn’t been sleeping. Hadn’t been eating much. She jumped at every little sound, cried at dog food commercials, and had bitten her lips raw. She missed him.
She tried to focus on Caked. They were open and doing nicely, but it hurt that Cash hadn’t stopped by to see the shop, or even texted a congratulations message. His silence and withdrawal had pulled her down into this heavy darkness, despite how well things were going at the bakery.
Ginnie had started her job with her and was proving invaluable dealing with customers. She’d apparently worked a number of different summer jobs, last year in a flower shop that did a lot of weddings, so she had a handle on the whole bridezilla thing. She was a big help, but having Cash’s sister there every day was also a bitter reminder that he…wasn’t.
They weren’t open long hours, only noon to six Tuesday to Friday, and ten to five on Saturdays, but Callie got there early every morning to do her baking. It should have been fun deciding what kind of macarons she’d make that day or what new cookie creation she’d come up with, but with every day she didn’t hear from Cash, she had to battle the blade twisting in her chest and the overwhelming, paralyzing feeling that without him none of this mattered.
Ithadto matter. This was what she’d wanted, what she’d worked so hard for. She had to get a grip on her emotions. If she let her feelings for Cash interfere with her business, she’d lose everything. So she kept going. She posted on social media, cheerful photos of the daily specials. And some days there’d been people outside the door at noon waiting for them to open, which was very cool.
But every night, physically tired and emotionally drained, she collapsed on her couch at home, and her thoughts returned to Cash. What had gone wrong? Should she press him to talk about what was going on? Or just let things die, which appeared to be what he wanted? She was confused and bewildered. Had he been that annoyed that she’d fallen asleep and they didn’t have sex?
