Page 25 of Careless Whisper (Modern Vintage Romances #11)

Reggie

I missed Elias. How could I miss a man who hadn’t been in my life?

But I missed him. I missed seeing him in the hospital by chance , I missed seeing him when I hunted him down on purpose like a freaking stalker, and I missed the year we’d been together all those years ago, and I missed making love with him.

I had forgotten how good it was between us (okay so I’d made myself forget) until what happened in the on-call room and now…

I was remembering everything —the good, the bad, and the ugly.

When he sided with Maren that first time, I was crushed, but I had a purpose. I was going to make it and show them all.

I thought I had made it…but I hadn’t. And now, I had nothing to show for all my hard work.

I was holed up in my grandmother’s brownstone doing absolutely nothing .

I stopped counting the days. Seven had turned into ten. Then twelve. Then, two weeks blurred together in a fog of silence and the kind of restlessness that made even reading a chore.

I was merely… existing , making my family worry about me.

My parents had suggested that I come to Mexico, and I’d told them I didn’t feel like traveling.

Then they’d said they’d come over, and I began to cry, blubbering that I wanted to be left alone—so they’d had no choice but to leave me alone because I was behaving like a toddler who’d lost her favorite toy.

I missed having a job I loved. Elias had ruined my life, again, and this time, I didn’t know how to get back up. I didn’t seem to have the energy for it. I had shut down.

Luther had been calling every day—twice a day. I didn’t pick up. Not because I was angry but because I didn’t know what to say.

But when he called again one morning a month since I’d come to New York, my grandmother raised a very judgmental eyebrow over the rim of her glasses, and picked up my phone.

“Hello, this is Faye Lancaster answering Reggie Sanchez’s phone.”

After a long moment, she smiled. “Hello, Luther. I’ve heard so much about you. Yes, yes, she’s here.” Pause. “Of course, she’s going to talk to you.” She held the phone to me, the subtext clear, talk to your fucking friend, girlfriend .

“Hello,” I whispered, tentatively, the phone on speaker mode.

“Jesus, Sanchez,” Luther barked as soon as I picked up. “Are you alive?”

“Yes,” I muttered, curling deeper into the couch.

“You don’t sound like it.”

“But I am,” I mumbled.

“She is alive but I’ve seen better looking corpses,” my grandmother said loudly.

I glared at her. She shrugged a shoulder with a “ what are you going to do about it” look. I was going to do fuck all.

“Luther…ah…thanks for calling. I’ll talk to you later, okay and?—”

“I wasn’t going to push, but you should know some shit’s gone down here.”

I rubbed my temple. “I really don’t want to know.”

“Tough,” he snapped. “Kirk Agar, that weasel withdrew his complaint. Officially . And Dr. Loring is under review. Mrs. D and Dr. Cabrera are on everyone’s ass. We’ve all talked to Mrs. D, and an HR dude no one knows. We think he’s an investigator.”

I barely processed what he was blabbing about. I didn’t give a shit what was happening at work. I did not care!

“Okay. ”

“You sound majorly excited about this,” he muttered sardonically.

I suppressed a whimper, putting the phone next to me as I slumped onto the couch, my trusted cashmere throw around me.

“Yeah. Elias”—he paused, and I felt my stomach tighten at the mention of his name—“he got it all started.”

“I don’t want to talk about… him .”

Liar!

“Too bad,” he replied flatly. “He’s fighting for you. We all are, Reggie.”

Why are you all fighting for me when I barely have the energy to open my eyes?

“I miss you, Reggie,” Luther added quietly.

I felt an arm on my shoulder, and a tear rolled down my cheek. Grandpa wiped it and kissed my forehead. He picked up the phone, took it off speaker, and put it to his ear.

“Luther, hi. This is Stephen Lancaster. I’m Reggie’s grandfather,” he said as he disappeared into the bowels of the house.

I was surrounded by family—which was nice because that took the pressure off me to do anything for myself.

Even Uncle Jason had started coming home every night, and considering his busy social life, that told me how much he worried about me.

“Don’t you have women waiting to do stuff with you?” I whined when he insisted we watch The Scorpion King because it was so bad that it was good.

At forty-two, Uncle Jason was fifteen years younger than my mother and a sought-after bachelor in New York.

G’Mum had Mama when she was just nineteen.

It had been the first time she and Grandpa had sex, which, according to my grandfather, meant he had superior sperm, though G’Mum said it was more that his condom-wearing skills had been bad.

She didn’t have Jason until she was nearly thirty-four years old because she wanted to finish her master’s degree in English before having children again.

“My niece is more important than a piece of ass,” Uncle Jason mocked.

“ Ugh ! Piece of ass, Uncle Jason? That’s so misogynistic.”

“Damn, I hope Mum didn’t hear that. She’ll kick my arse ,” he said, looking around the media room to make sure G’Mum had indeed not heard him.

For two months, I languished, ignoring everyone’s advice on how to pull myself out of my depression before G’Mum decided my time was up.

The truth was that the time off was healing. I was feeling better and had already started to feel fidgety about sitting on a couch all day, deciding what was better, reading a romance novel or watching a romance on television.

I was eating breakfast—warm oatmeal with blueberries, my favorite—when G’Mum gave me the eye while she was arranging flowers with a kind of theatrical focus that meant she was holding in commentary. When I didn’t offer encouragement, she delivered it anyway.

“You’ve got that look,” she mused. “The brooding one. Very Wuthering Heights . Quite romantic. Also, very annoying.”

“I’m not the one with the look,” I muttered. “You’re the one with the look.”

“Darling, I love you dearly.” G’Mum snipped the stem of a rose and popped it into the large Waterford vase. “But I don’t think sulking in cashmere is the way for you to process losing your job.”

“I quit my job; they didn’t fire me,” I corrected her. “And I need the cashmere because you keep the brownstone at freezing temperature.”

She waved me off with a manicured hand. “I have decided”—she went on like I hadn’t spoken—“you’re coming with us to Boston. We’ve got a gala to attend this weekend. Charity, tuxedos, schmoozing with insufferable rich people—your favorite.”

I groaned. “Hard pass.”

“You need makeup, good lingerie, heels, and a very full glass of champagne,” she insisted .

I shoved oatmeal inside my mouth and shook my head vehemently as I chewed.

“Besides…” She shot me a look, mischief dancing in her eyes. “I’ve arranged a little special entertainment .”

“What does that mean?” I narrowed my eyes when she only beamed at me. “Please tell me whatever you’re doing is legal.”

“Of course it is,” she snapped haughtily. “I checked with Roy.”

I rolled my eyes. She was doing something that she needed to clear with the family lawyer— God help us all !

“Now, take a shower and…you know what, we’re going to get our hair done today.”

“By our, you mean mine, don’t you?” I said sullenly.

“You’re such a smart girl.” She tweaked my cheeks like I was a child, and I growled for effect.

“ And we’re going to go shopping,” she sang, already walking away, flowers in one hand, mischief in the other.

I leaned back on the dining chair and looked at the cashmere throw on my lap.

I clutched it in my free hand.

It’s time to let your security blanket go, Reggie .

I set the throw aside, sighing melodramatically like a heroine from a Victorian film.

My reprieve from regular programming was over—I needed to get back to my life, whatever shape it was in, and figure out my future.