“So give her a moment to cool off and work through her feelings, then try again.”
Nick lifted his good palm. “I have no idea where to start trying again.”
“Try picking up the phone,” James suggested. “Then go from there.”
* * *
Nick waited until Sunday to pick up the phone. And, as he anticipated, Sammie didn’t answer. So he decided to leave well enough alone until about four hours later when he received a text message from her.
Was there something you needed?
He hastily punched out a reply.Just wanted to check on you.
I’m fine.
He hesitated for a minute or two before responding, not wanting to bombard her with his desperation to talk to her.
Do you mind talking to me for a sec?
Another minute later, his phone rang.
“Hey,” he answered.
Her voice was brisk. “Is something wrong? Are your parents unavailable?”
“No, I … uh,” he began cautiously. “I’m worried about you. Wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“I’m fine.”
“I was just concerned because you left upset and there was that storm, and then I didn’t hear from you again so I wanted to—”
“You not hearing from me had nothing to do with the storm,” she retorted.
“I get that. That’s totally understandable,” he agreed, then paused. “How are you otherwise?”
“Just perusing the Internet for ajob,”she sputtered with a tone that made him feel like her lack of work was his fault. “There’s literally nothing. Needless to say, I’m a bit stressed.On top of everything else.”
“I’m really sorry about your job, Sammie-uh … Samantha.” Step one was giving her space. Step two was calling her. He decided step three had to be nixing the nickname to prove it was her he wanted, not the dream.
She huffed. “Well, thanks. Next time I’ll know better than to miss so much work for guys who decide to play me like a fiddle.”
He bit his lip and rolled his eyes, knowing blowing up at her was the last thing he needed to do. But did she say—
“I thought they fired you because you were late.”
“That was the technicality that allowed them to fire me,” she hissed. “They started plotting to fire me as soon as I started taking Thursday afternoons off.”
He slapped a palm over his forehead.
As a business owner, that made a lot more sense than shit-canning someone for one late arrival. So this was his fault too. On top of everything else. Now he knew she had every right to hate his guts.
“Oh no, are you serious?”
“Well, I’m not the type to lie,Nick. So yes it’s the truth. I didn’t want to tell you that on Friday because I didn’t want to make you feel bad, but yes. They no longer believed I was serious about my job because I missed a bunch of work to hang out with a randomnon-significant other.”
He inhaled and exhaled quietly. “I’m sorry, Samantha.”
“Well, it’s whatever,” she brushed off in a flippant tone. “But as you can probably deduce,I have a lot to do right now. So if there’s nothing you need me to do for you, I need to get going.”
