Page 10 of Call Me Yours (Lodestar Ranch #4)

CHLOE

Dad

No need to come over Monday. Your mom is feeling much better this week, and you deserve a real day off.

Chloe

Thanks, but I have a list of things that need to get done around the house before the weather turns.

Dad

The gutters, windows, and attic? Don’t worry about it. It’s all done.

This week hit hard . Jaxson must have stepped up, and thank god for that because I would never have survived without the extra help.

As it was, by the time Friday rolled around, I was a mere husk of a human, my feet and back aching from my morning shifts at Jo’s, my shoulders drooping from the weight of other people’s emotions, my brain fuzzy with bone-deep exhaustion.

Too tired to eat, I crawled into bed sideways, still fully clothed, my sneakers hanging off the edge of the mattress.

It was pitch-black when I awoke. I stretched my arm out, seeking the nightstand, but found only more bed. For a moment I lay there, utterly discombobulated, before I remembered I was sideways. I shifted, located the nightstand and my phone, and hit the button. 2:57.

Jesus Christ. I had slept for eleven hours.

If I got up now, I might crash at noon, but I had an afternoon shift at Jo’s tomorrow and a small mountain of paperwork. I didn’t have time for naps. Should I try to go back to sleep for another two? My stomach growled, letting me know that wasn’t an option.

Boxed mac and cheese. That was what I wanted. The kind with the day-glow orange powder that clumped together if you didn’t add milk. I never added milk. Those damp, tangy clumps of over-processed cheese were the food equivalent of thick, fuzzy socks.

My stomach growled again, an insistent reminder that I hadn’t eaten since the handful of pistachios I’d gobbled down between clients yesterday afternoon. I rolled out of bed.

After a cursory shower, I slipped on my fluffy robe and wool socks instead of getting dressed. I wasn’t ready to admit the new day had truly begun. Three a.m. was a gray area between yesterday and tomorrow. It was gremlin time. Nothing counted during gremlin time.

I padded into the kitchen, put a pot of water on the stove, and grabbed the blue box of mac and cheese from the pantry.

While I waited for the water to boil, I leaned against the counter and scrolled dog accounts on social media.

I couldn’t have a dog—Miriam, the woman who owned the Craftsman bungalow I had rented for the last three years, was very protective of her hardwood floors—and I wasn’t sure I even wanted a dog, but I found their goofy, simple feelings soothing.

I kept right on scrolling with one hand while I used my other to dump the macaroni into the boiling water.

Ten minutes later, I drained the pot and stirred in the powdered cheese, leaving it clumpy.

I grabbed a fork and the pot and sat cross-legged on the floor.

No point in getting extra dishes dirty when I was the one who would have to wash them.

I had just switched from dogs to llamas when Steven’s text bounced on the top of my screen.

Steven

I’m sorry.

I swallowed the food in my mouth and left the fork there, the tines clamped between my lips, while I typed back.

Chloe

For being a jerk a week ago? I might have cared more if it hadn’t taken you so long to apologize.

His reply was immediate.

Steven

I might have apologized sooner if I cared less.

My head tilted and my brows pinched as a bloom of sympathy unfurled in my chest. I knew that feeling. It was so easy to let the words roll off my tongue when they meant little, when they followed an accidental shoulder bump or a moment of forgetfulness. But sometimes…

Sometimes when it mattered most, when I cared the most, fear clogged my throat until I couldn’t push the words past it. Fear that the words would be wrong. Fear that they wouldn’t be enough . Fear because once they hadn’t been enough, and nothing I could say would ever change that.

I knew that feeling so damn well. It knocked me sideways a bit that Steven might, too.

And then he took it one step further.

Steven

I thought about it every day.

My lips parted on a surprised huff and the fork fell in my lap with a harmless thump.

Chloe

Are you drunk?

Steven

I’m not drunk. I’m fucking tired. I haven’t slept through 3 am in months.

Chloe

Your guilty conscience is not my problem.

I hit send before I thought it through, but I meant it.

I wasn’t the only thing keeping him awake, and as far as I knew, he had never once apologized to James for his role in her accident—although, to be fair, apologizing to James might be physically impossible considering that if Steven came within speaking distance of her, Adam would put him six feet under in a heartbeat.

But I didn’t want to be fair.

Steven didn’t deserve fair.

I shoveled a forkful of macaroni and cheese into my mouth and chewed with my eyes glued to my phone screen. It took a second before the waving dots appeared. Go ahead and say something ugly. Prove me right about you.

Steven

So what is your problem? I mean, why are you up?

Concern for my mental health? That wasn’t what I expected. My eyes narrowed. I licked cheese goop from the fork tines and then typed back. “I took a nap and now I’m paying for it.”

Steven

No good nap goes unpunished. My mom says that.

So what do you do when you can’t sleep? I’m looking for ideas.

Chloe

It depends. If I’m anxious, I look at animal videos. Eventually that turns to doom scrolling, which obviously doesn’t help with the anxiety. Sometimes I read a chapter or two. Hannah puts a romance book aside for me every week. She’s great at choosing things I’ll like.

But I’m not anxious now. I’m just hungry because I slept through dinner. So I made myself food.

Steven

Sounds like a better use of time than how I usually spend 3 a.m.

Chloe

What do you do?

Steven

Argue with you. ;)

Mostly in my head, but sometimes you’re awake and argue back.

Chloe

Yeah? And how does that work out for you?

Steven

Not great, thanks for asking. I never win, even when you’re sleeping.

Good night, Chloe.

Chloe

Good night, Steven.

I put my phone down, finished the last of the mac and cheese and dropped the bowl in the sink so it could be tomorrow’s problem, and headed back to my bed, where a book was waiting for me on the nightstand, full of dragons and war and good sex and women who could do anything, even if it hurt.

I rolled into bed, grabbing the book as I went. But I didn’t open it right away. I held it to my chest and stared unseeingly at the ceiling, that text he sent me playing over in my mind. I never win, even when you’re asleep.

I had said terrible things to him that day at the library. True things, but terrible all the same. I wasn’t sorry, and I wasn’t going to take them back now or try to soften the blow.

But I wondered, lying there, if the cruelest words in his head weren’t mine at all.