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TATE

I’d like to say work got less chaotic, but it didn’t.

I’m set to leave in two days from now. My bags are already packed.

I chose to live out of a suitcase; I’m that ready to fucking leave.

A fuck of a lot longer than I wanted to, but securing other contracts was worth it, not just because I was bored out of my mind while dealing with the Plants, helping other companies out is a nice quality, too.

“Hey,” I answer the phone on what’s probably the last ring before it goes to voicemail. I’d let it go except that could prolong the process of getting the fuck out of this damn state.

“Well, hello to you, too. Did I catch you at a bad time?” Em tiptoes around me on the phone, making me realize I answered the phone in an annoyed way, even if it’s not geared towards the woman on the other end of the line.

“No, been on the phone all day. Thought it was work.” I walk towards the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the busy and hectic street where people are walking, some with phones to their ears, others panning around taking pictures and videos.

“Oh, I can let you go.” Yep, I’m fucking up a lot these days, except with work, it seems.

“Nah, I’m okay. Everything okay?” I ask.

“Well, I have an idea, one you might be up for.” Her tone changes to one of lightness.

“Feel like leaving Tennessee and meeting me in North Carolina?” Em asks through the other end of the line.

Usually, we’d FaceTime, but she’s heading home, and I’m getting ready to meet one last client for dinner tonight, so this works better.

“Why the hell are you going there and not to Tennessee where I am?” I ask her, not in the nicest tone either. I’m annoyed, and there are only two things that can make shit better. Well, besides telling the Plants to take their shit and shove it up their asses.

“Because I’m going to North Carolina for a week. It was only supposed to be for three or four days, but Nat needed overtime. We hired a couple of rehires that weren’t digging going away to college, so now I can get some rest and relaxation while I do some scouting.”

“And you couldn’t do that here in Tennessee?” I’m ticked. This woman has some type of hold on me, more than I was prepared for.

“You know what? If you’re going to take that tone of voice with me, maybe we should hang up now.

I get that you haven’t been back home in a long time, that I’ve had to work, so dropping what I was doing to come back out wasn’t possible, but the way you keep biting my head off, it’s uncalled for.

” She breathes out a puff of air. I know Em is about to come at me again.

“And for your information, if you’d have given me half the attention that I’ve given you lately, you would remember that I told you I’m looking in Outer Banks for Beach Babe.

Though your head has been so far up your ass, I’m not sure I’d want to be in the same state as you, let alone the same room.

” She hangs up on me. No one has ever done that, not in business and certainly not a woman.

My day just went from bad to worse. I stare at my phone.

The call is disconnected, still lit up, and I do the one thing that’s a necessary evil: I go to my call log, press her name, and bring the phone back to my ear.

It rings once before I’m sent to voicemail.

I don’t bother leaving one. Instead, I go to the fridge, grab a beer, pop the top, and drink the whole thing in one long pull.

The need to pick up my phone that I placed on the counter is pressing in, knowing I should call Emily, suck up my pride, and right my wrong, but that’s not what I do.

I grab another beer from the fridge and call someone else instead.

It seems I’ve got plans to make, and the best way to apologize is face to face.

I start with emailing Amy and Mason, letting them know I’ll be out of touch for at least the next few days, and that the contracts just need to go through the legal parameters.

Then I call someone I’d least expect to ask for advice—my mother.

I already know the ear chewing I’m going to get the second I tell her what went down.

I’m just not sure which I’ll get first—the talk about not knowing I was seeing Em or the fact that I fucked up and now need to get my shit together and us rock fucking solid.