Page 53 of Broken Warrior
ME:Calling her now.
POPE: Good. Remember the plan.
ME: I will.
POPE: Call if you need me.
I closeout our thread and consider for a minute just texting Tate. Rejection won’t hurt so bad if it comes courtesy of words on a screen, right?
Fuck it.
I pull up Tate in my contacts, press call, and hold my breath.
One ring.
Normal. It’s not like she’s waiting by the phone for me to call.
Two rings.
She’s not used to having a phone still, so she’s probably not accustomed to checking it frequently.
Three rings.
Tate might be sleeping. If she worked last night she’s probably catching a nap with James.
Four rings.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
I sigh and get ready to hang up when I hear, “Fin, hi!”
My smile is immediate.
Just her voice, that sweet, melodic voice is enough to have my heart pounding.
“Hey.” The tension in my shoulders releases as I pace next to my bike.
“Hey, hi.”
She sounds out of breath. “I didn’t catch you at a bad time, did I?” Please don’t say,Yes actually, I was in the middle of banging my new boyfriend so I need to get back to that.
“No.” Tate giggles then clears her throat. “No, not at all.”
“Are you sure? I can call you back...”
“I was just getting James out of the bath. I let him have ice cream after his nap and he made a huge mess of it so we bumped bath time up and...” she sighs. “I’m not busy. And I’d really like to talk to you.”
I grin. “Ok.”
“How are you?”
I can hear Tate moving around, the tub draining, probably cleaning up the bathroom. “I’m good. Better now. How are you?”
“I’m good, we’re good. Busy I guess.”
Fuck, this is kind of awkward. Does this mean we’re not going to work? Is this some sort of sign that what we had wasn’t real?
Tate sighs again. “This is a little weird, right?”
