Page 150 of Stay With Me

“Are you still there?” he asked.

“Yeeaahhh.” She yawned. “You know what I did?”

“What?”

“I waited.”

His brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I waited…in my car.”

“When? Tonight?”

“Nooo.” She yawned again. “That day.I didn’t want to leave.”

“Oh.” He smiled. “I know. I watched your car.”

She paused for an extended moment, then spoke again through more tears and a pinched voice. “I didn’t want to leave. I thought I was crazy, but I didn’t want to leave.”

He swallowed again and rubbed his eyes. “It’s okay that you left. You were angry. You had every right to be.”

“Nooo.” She sniffled and her breath hitched. “I should’ve stayed.”

He shook his head. “It’s okay, Sammie.”

“It’snotokay, Nick!”

“Why not?”

She sobbed a couple of times and then sucked in her breath. “I can’t talk to you like this. You’re my bosss.”

He shook his head frantically. “I’m not your boss right now, Sammie. I’m just Nick. Please talk to me.”

“You’re sstilll my bosss,” she hissed. “I can’t ssaay something like thiss to you.”

He opted not to press the issue, especially since she was obviously upset and he couldn’t do anything to help her. Nevertheless, his mind reeled at what she seemed to want to say to him. Especially since she’d prefaced it with the confession that she hadn’t wanted to leave.

And maybe he was drunk and stupid right then, but it gave him hope. In vino veritas,as they say. She was only telling him all these things because her inhibitions had been lowered to the point of brutal honesty.

So he opted to hang on to that glimmer of hope and dropped the issue.

“Okay, Sammie,” he relented. “But if you ever want to tell me anything, I’m all ears.”

“I know,” she muttered through a yawn.

“Sleep well, sweetheart.” Probably shouldn’t have called her that, but he did anyway.

“You too.”

He hung up and dropped his head backward again, staring at the ceiling of the cab.

“I think,” he said to the ceiling—because he had to say it to someone,or something, rather. “She loves me too.”

* * *

The following day, Nick got a call from Sammie at around three in the afternoon.

“Hey,” he answered, pleasantly surprised to hear from her on both of their day off.